Jeremiah 52:28

THREE DEPORTATIONS OF JEWS TO BABYLON

"This is the people whom Nebuchadrezzar carried away captive: in the seventh year, three thousand Jews and three and twenty; in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar he carried away captive from Jerusalem eight hundred thirty and two persons; in the three and twentieth year of Nebuchadrezzar Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive of the Jews seven hundred forty and five persons: all the persons were four thousand and six hundred."

Green dated the three deportations mentioned here as having happened in 597 B.C., 587 B.C., and 582 B.C.[7] Cawley and Millard dated them in "597 B.C., 586 B.C., and in 581 B.C."[8]

The astounding thing about these numbers is that some 40,000 or more returned to Judah after the seventy year exile ended; and according to Josephus they left many times that number in Babylon. Were all those Jews, some seventy years later, descended from the relatively small number recorded here? Cawley and Millard, as well as other scholars, suppose that, "Only men who were heads of families"[9] were counted in this enumeration.

Besides that, many of the Jews scattered throughout Palestine by the military action would have, after the war, found their way to Babylon, where they could again be united with their people. Remember that Jerusalem had been effectively wiped out as a suitable place to live. There can hardly be any doubt that, "The total number of the exiles was far higher"[10] than the totals given here.

There is also another explanation of the low numbers of exiles mentioned here, an explanation sanctioned both by Keil and by Dummelow. It concerns the term "seventh" year of Nebuchadrezzar. Robinson and Dummelow both believed that this word is "seventeenth," not "seventh," requiring the understanding that those deportations on the seventeenth and eighteenth years in succession actually refer to the single deportation dated in 587/586 B.C. For technical reasons for this understanding of "seventh," see comments of those scholars.[11] Of course, Hyatt and other liberal scholars would like to keep the number at "seventh" because it poses a "contradiction" with "the ten thousand" deportees mentioned in 2 Kings 24:14.[12]

It never fails to amaze us that radical critics will receive any kind of an "emendation" that favors their purpose; they nevertheless refuse to receive any "emendation" that would relieve an apparent contradiction. Feinberg commented on this.[13]

In view of these things, we favor the emendation that would totally relieve all of the apparent contradictions relative to the number of Jewish exiles. The only objection to this change is that it would speak of a deportation a year before Jerusalem fell; but that is very likely to have happened to all of those people who heeded Jeremiah and defected tothe Babylonian forces prior to the fall of the city. In any case, Keil has very ably defended this emendation.[14] He explained the necessity for changing "seventh" to seventeenth, saying, "It settles all the difficulties and enables us to account for the small number sent to Babylon after the fall of Jerusalem."[15]