Footnote
b In Jeremiah 52:28 we read: “These are the people whom Nebuchadrezzar took into exile: in the seventh year, three thousand and twenty-three Jews.” This “seventh year” may mean the seventh year after the year of his victory over Pharaoh Nechoh at Carchemish in 625 B.C.E., for after his victory at that place Nebuchadnezzar had all Palestine at his mercy. Telling what followed this, 2 Kings 24:7 says: “Never again did the king of Egypt come out from his land, for the king of Babylon had taken all that happened to belong to the king of Egypt from the torrent valley of Egypt up to the river Euphrates.”
Hence, with a special threat to Jerusalem and Judah, the reign of Nebuchadnezzar as king of Babylon might be counted as starting in 624 B.C.E., or the year after his victory over Pharaoh Nechoh at Carchemish. From this standpoint the “seventh year” mentioned in Jeremiah 52:28 would be 618-617 B.C.E., which was also the eleventh year of Jerusalem’s king Jehoiakim. But, from when Nebuchadnezzar actually began to reign in Babylon, 618-617 B.C.E. would be the “eighth year” of his reign. (2 Kings 24:12) So, then, it was actually in the eighth year of his reign in Babylon that he took into exile the above-mentioned 3,023 Jews, evidently not counting in their wives and families, numbering thousands.—2 Ki. 24:14-16.
Parallel with the above, the “eighteenth year” of Nebuchadnezzar spoken of in Jeremiah 52:29 would be the “eighteenth year” of his domination over Palestine, but the “nineteenth year” of his entire reign in Babylon, as mentioned in 2 Kings 25:8.