Jeremiah 52:28-30 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

This is the people whom Nebuchadnezzar carried away captive “These verses are not inserted in 2 Kings 25. Nor are they to be found here, according to the Roman and Alexandrian editions of the LXX.; but in the Complutensian they are, and in two MSS. collated by Dr. Grabe; also in Theodotion's version in the Hexapla. All the other ancient versions acknowledge them; and they are not omitted in any of the collated Hebrew MSS.; so that there is no doubt of their being genuine. But are we to conclude from them, that the whole number of the Jews, whom Nebuchadnezzar, in all his expeditions, carried into captivity, was no more than four thousand six hundred? This cannot be true, for he carried away more than twice that number at one time; which is expressly said to have been in the eighth year of his reign, 2 Kings 24:12-16. Before that time he had carried off a number of captives from Jerusalem in the first year of his reign, among whom were Daniel and his companions, Daniel 1:3-6. And of these Berosus, the Chaldean historian, speaks, as cited by Josephus, Ant., lib. 10. cap. 11. These are confessedly not taken notice of here. And as the taking and burning of Jerusalem are in this very chapter said to have been in the fourth and fifth months of the 19th year of Nebuchadnezzar, those who were carried into captivity, at the date of those events, cannot possibly be the same with those that are said to be carried away either in the 18th or 23d year of that prince. Nor indeed is it credible, that the number carried away at the time the city was taken, and the whole country reduced, could be so few as eight hundred and thirty-two. Here then we have three deportations, and those the most considerable ones, in the 1st, the 8th, and 19th years of Nebuchadnezzar, sufficiently distinguished from those in his 7th, 18th, and 23d years. So that it seems most reasonable to conclude, with Archbishop Usher, that by the latter three the historian meant to point out deportations of a lesser kind, not elsewhere noticed in direct terms in Scripture.” Blaney.