In the ninth year of Zedekiah, &c. See notes on 2 Kings 25:1-4. And all the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat in the middle gate Or, the gate of the centre, as Blaney translates it, observing, “The city of Jerusalem stood upon two hills, Zion to the south, and Acra to the north, with a deep valley between them. The gate of the centre, as the term seems plainly to import, was a gate of communication in the middle of the valley between the two parts of the city, sometimes called the higher and the lower city. The Chaldeans entered the city on the north side by a breach in the walls, and immediately rushing forward, and posting themselves in this gate, in the very heart of the city, they became thereby masters at will of the whole. Zedekiah, with his troops, perceiving this, fled out of the opposite gate on the south side.” Even Nergal- sharezer, Samgar-nebo, &c. It was customary among the Chaldeans to give the names of their idols, as an additional title or mark of honour, to persons of distinction: see note on Isaiah 39:1. Nergal was the name of an idol worshipped by the Cuthites, 2 Kings 17:30. Nebo was a Babylonish deity, Isaiah 46:1.
Related Commentaries of Jeremiah 39:1
Jeremiah 39:1-3
1 In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, came Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon and all his army against Jerusalem, and they besieged it.
2 And in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, the ninth day of the month, the city was broken up.
3 And all the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat in the middle gate, even Nergalsharezer, Samgarnebo, Sarsechim, Rabsaris, Nergalsharezer, Rabmag, with all the residue of the princes of the king of Babylon.