very striking, since it stands quite alone, and when connected with וגו וכאלּה does not appear to yield any appropriate sense, as the second pillar was like the first not merely with regard to the trellis-work, but in its form and size throughout. At the same time, it is possible that the historian intended to give especial prominence to the similarity of the two pillars with reference to this one point alone.
Verses 18-21
2Ki 25:18-21 (cf. Jer 52:24-27). The principal officers of the temple and city, and sixty men of the population of the land, who were taken at the destruction of Jerusalem, Nebuzaradan sent to his king at Riblah, where they were put to death. Seraiah, the high priest, is the grandfather or great-grandfather of Ezra the scribe (Ezr 7:1; 1Ch 6:14). Zephaniah, a priest of the second rank (משׁנה כּהן; in Jer. המּשׁנה כּהן: see at 2Ki 23:4), is probably the same person as the son of Maaseiah, who took a prominent place among the priests, according to Jer 21:1; Jer 29:25., and Jer 37:3. The “three keepers of the threshold” are probably the three superintendents of the Levites, whose duty it was to keep guard over the temple, and therefore were among the principal officers of the sanctuary.
Verses 19-21
From the city, i.e., from the civil authorities of the city, Nebuzaradan took a king’s chamberlain (סריס), who was commander of the men of war. Instead of פקיד הוּא אשׁר we find in Jer 52:25 /היה אשׁר, who had been commander, with an allusion to the fact that his official function had terminated when the city was conquered. “And five (according to Jeremiah seven) men of those who saw the king’s face,” i.e., who belonged to the king’s immediate circle, de intimis consiliariis regis, and “the scribe of the commander-in-chief, who raised the people of the land for military service,” or who enrolled them. Although הסּפר has the article, which is omitted in Jeremiah, the following words הצּבא שׂר are governed by it, or connected with it in the construct state (Ewald, §290 d.). הצּבא שׂר is the commander-in-chief of the whole of the military forces, and וגו המּצבּא a more precise definition of הסּפר, and not of הצּבא שׂר, which needed no such definition. “And sixty men of the land-population who were found in the city.” They were probably some of the prominent men of the rural districts, or they may have taken a leading part in the defence of the city, and therefore were executed in Riblah, and not merely deported with the rest of the people. - The account of the destruction of the kingdom of Judah closes with יהוּדה ויּגּל in 2Ki 25:21,
