Jeremiah 21:2

Zedekiah asked Jeremiah to inquire of the Lord whether He would give Judah deliverance from Nebuchadnezzar as He had delivered His people in the past. King Hezekiah had sent a similar group to Isaiah inquiring about the approaching Assyrian army (2 Kings 19:2; Isaiah 37:2). Nebuchadnezzar, sometimes referred to as Nebuchadrezzar (the spelling nearer to the Babylonian form of his name), ruled Babylon from 605 to 562 B.C. He succeeded his father, Nabopolassar, the first king of the Neo-Babylonian empire, who ruled from 626 to 605 B.C. This is the first reference to Nebuchadnezzar in Jeremiah.

Zedekiah may have been hoping for a miraculous deliverance such as Jehoshaphat experienced from the Moabites, Ammonites, and Meunites (2 Chronicles 20). Hezekiah had also experienced supernatural deliverance when Sennacherib besieged Jerusalem (2 Kings 19; Isaiah 37).