On the seventh day ... — An error for the tenth day (Jeremiah 52:12), one numeral letter having been mistaken for another. The Syriac and Arabic read ninth (perhaps, because, as Thenius suggests, the memorial fasts began on the evening of the ninth day).
According to Josephus the second Temple also was burnt on the tenth of the fifth month (Bell. Jud. vi. 4.8).
The nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar. — This agrees with Jeremiah 32:1, according to which the tenth of Zedekiah was the eighteenth of Nebuchadnezzar.
Nebuzaradan. — A Hebrew transcript of the Babylonian name Nabû-zir-iddina, “Nebo gave seed.”
Captain of the guard. — Strictly, chief of executioners. (See Genesis 37:36.) This means commander of the Royal Bodyguard, the “Praetorians” of the time; a corps of picked warriors, answering to the “Cherethites and Pelethites,” and the “Carians and Runners” among the Hebrews (2 Kings 11:4). Nebuzaradan is not mentioned among the other generals in Jeremiah 39:3. On this ground, and because his coming is expressly-mentioned here, and because a month elapsed between the taking of the city (2 Kings 25:4) and its destruction (2 Kings 25:9-10), Thenius infers that the city of David and the Temple did not at once fall into the hands of the Chaldeans; but were so well defended under the lead of some soldier like Ishmael (2 Kings 25:23), that Nebuchadnezzar was compelled to despatch a specially distinguished commander to bring the matter to a conclusion. 2 Kings 25:18-21 certainly appear to favour this view.
A servant. — In Jeremiah 52, “who stood before the king;” probably the original phrase. (Comp. 2 Kings 3:14; 2 Kings 5:16).