Tenth day. That is, Aug. 17 or 18, 586 B.C. Two events are mentioned for this date: (1) Nebuzar-adan came into Jerusalem, and (2) he burned the Temple and many other buildings. According to 2 Kings 25:8, the parallel account, he arrived on the 7th of the month (Aug. 14 or 15, 586 B.C.). It is possible to harmonize these dates by assuming that the captain entered the city on the 7th and burned the Temple on the 10th. The possibility of a scribal error is less likely than the correctness of both dates. There would have had to be a considerable interval for removing the treasures from the city before the destruction. Another possibility is that the conflagration lasted for three days (see Vol. II, p. 98).
Nineteenth year. The change in dating introduced here, from a reckoning in terms of Zedekiah’s reign to one according to Nebuchadnezzar’s, is a tacit admission that the rulership had passed from the Judean to the Babylonian king. Modern scholars depend upon similar changes in the date lines of ancient tablets and other documents for much of their information regarding the approximate dates on which new Mesopotamian kings began their reigns (see Vol. Ill pp. 86-87).
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