📖 Biblical Definition
The Fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC was the Babylonian conquest of the city under Nebuchadnezzar after a two-and-a-half-year siege. The city walls were breached; Solomon’s temple was burned (2 Kings 25:8-9); the royal palace was destroyed; Zedekiah was captured fleeing toward Jericho, his sons were slaughtered before his eyes, and his eyes were then put out (25:7); and the third and final deportation to Babylon was carried out. It was the defining catastrophe of the Old Testament — prophesied for centuries by Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and others, and fulfilling the covenant curses of Deuteronomy 28. The book of Lamentations is the funeral-dirge for the fallen city: "How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!" (Lamentations 1:1).
📜 Webster 1828 Definition
586 BC: Babylon destroys Jerusalem and Solomon's temple.
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The 586 BC Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem under Nebuchadnezzar (the third campaign, after 605 and 597). City walls breached after a 30-month siege; Solomon's temple burned; royal palace destroyed; treasures carried to Babylon; Zedekiah captured at Jericho, watched his sons killed, was blinded, and led in chains to Babylon. The third and final deportation. The defining catastrophe of OT history, prophesied for centuries by Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and others. Lamentations is the funeral-dirge for the fallen city; Psalm 137 ("by the rivers of Babylon") is the exiles' cry.
📖 Key Scripture
2 Kings 25:8-9 — "And in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, which is the nineteenth year of king Nebuchadnezzar... came Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, unto Jerusalem: And he burnt the house of the LORD, and the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem."
Lamentations 1:1 — "How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!"
Psalm 137:1 — "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion."
⚠️ Modern Corruption
Often glossed; the theological weight of the temple's destruction shapes virtually all subsequent OT theology.
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586 BC isn't just a date; it is the death of a covenant-administration. Solomon's temple, the visible center of YHWH's dwelling among His people, was burned. The Davidic king was blinded and dragged off in chains. Half the OT was either anticipating this or recovering from it.
Recover the weight: read Lamentations slowly. Sit with the dirge. Then read the post-exilic books with the destruction in living memory. Ezra and Nehemiah's rebuilding is meaningful only against the rubble of 586.
🔗 Greek & Hebrew Roots
Historical event.
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['Hebrew', 'H3389', 'Yerushalayim', 'Jerusalem']
['Hebrew', 'H5019', 'Nebuchadnezzar', 'Nebuchadnezzar']
Usage
"586 BC: temple burned, city fallen."
"Lamentations is its funeral-dirge."
"Half the OT shaped by it."