Charles Ellicott Commentary 2 Kings 25:8

"Now in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, which was the nineteenth year of king Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, unto Jerusalem." — 2 Kings 25:8 (ASV)

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 burned on the tenth of the fifth month (Bellum Judaicum 6.4.8).

The nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar. — This agrees with Jeremiah 32:1, according to which the tenth year of Zedekiah was the eighteenth of Nebuchadnezzar.

Nebuzaradan. — A Hebrew transcript of the Babylonian name Nabû-zir-iddina, meaning “Nebo gave seed.”

Captain of the guard. — Strictly, chief of executioners . This means commander of the Royal Bodyguard, the “Praetorians” of that time. This was a corps of picked warriors, corresponding 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 also because a month elapsed between the capture 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 immediately fall into the hands of the Chaldeans. He suggests rather that they were so well defended, under the leadership of some soldier like Ishmael (2 Kings 25:23), that Nebuchadnezzar was compelled to dispatch a specially distinguished commander to bring the matter to a conclusion. The account in 2 Kings 25:18–21 certainly appears to favor this view.

A servant. — In Jeremiah 52:0, who stood before the king; this was probably the original phrase. (Compare 2 Kings 3:14; 2 Kings 5:16).