Bible Strands
Jeremiah 52:5
And the city was kept under siege until King Zedekiah’s eleventh year.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The narrator records the prolonged military blockade of Jerusalem during the final phase of King Zedekiah’s reign. The account follows Nebuchadnezzar’s initial encampment in Zedekiah’s ninth year and immediately precedes the severe famine described in the following verse.
The words — בַּמָּצוֹר (ba-māṣōr) literally means "in a state of siege" and denotes sustained military encirclement. The preposition עַד (ʿaḏ) "until" establishes the siege as a continuous condition extending through Zedekiah’s eleventh regnal year.
The thread — This chronological marker appears in 2 Kings 25:1-3, which mirrors the same eleventh-year timeline, and in Jeremiah 39:1-2, which identifies that same year as the moment the city’s defenses finally fail.
Why it lands — The text states that the siege continued without interruption through Zedekiah’s eleventh year before interpreting the duration as the mechanism of judgment. It requires the reader to acknowledge that historical endurance precedes the stated outcome of the narrative.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
So the city was besieged unto the eleventh year of king Zedekiah.