It's been a very long time coming, but I'm at the end of Kings and Chronicles.
On my long journey through the Old Testament chronologically, II Kings and II Chronicles has been interspersed. Now that Judah is being carted off to Babylon, we come to the end of these two books.
II Kings 24
Jehoiakim
This chapter starts with the first of three distinct waves of captives sent from Jerusalem to Babylon. The Babylonian king was Nebuchadnezzar. Jehoiakim was the vassal king of Judah for three years. The Ryrie Study Bible footnote specifies that this was the Battle of Carchemish in 605 BC.
We also know this is the wave that takes Daniel and his three friends from the furnace story. And even though we know Daniel is made a eunuch and becomes a servant for the rest of his life, we learn about God's many blessings for him and we learn that he would have been slain, not taken captive, if he'd been able to stay in Judah until a later wave.
Jehoiakim couldn't even be a vassal king well and rebelled. The Lord let the Chaldeans and local rival tribes come against him.
Verses 3-4 make it clear that God allowed this defeat because of the sin that started with Manasseh and for the innocent blood shed by all of the corrupt leaders.
Verses 5-6 wrap up the life of Jehoiakim in the usual manner, including his son as his successor, Jehoiachin. Verse 7 also concludes the role of Egypt in the events of this age, as Babylon took everything they had ruled over from "the brook of Egypt to the river Euphrates."
Jehoiachin
Verse 9 starts the reign of Jehoiachin.
- He was 18 when he became king. It's always hard to imagine kings being this age when our current batch of young adult still get their parents insurance through age 26 and many refuse to even get a car or move out of their parents' homes.
- He reigned three months.
- He did evil in the sight of the Lord.
Nebuchadnezzar sent another invasion and Jerusalem was back under siege, 597 BC. Nebuchadnezzar came, himself, to Jerusalem. Jehoiachin decided to come out from the besieged city and meet Nebuchadnezzar. He brought his mother, captains, servants, and officials for some reason. Then Nebuchadnezzar took Jehoiachin captive and carried him off.
At this point Nebuchadnezzar carried off all of the treasures from the king's house. (Jehoiakim had been a hoarder who used his time as a vassal to amass his own wealth at the cost of his people.) Nebuchadnezzar also cut up all of the gold vessels from Solomon's reign (as the Lord had foretold.) Also carried off in this wave were the captains, mighty men, craftsmen and smiths. Only the poorest were left. With Jehoiachin, he also carried off into Babylon his mother, wives, officials, and leaders.
Zedekiah
Starting in verse 17, Nebuchadnezzar appointed Josiah's third son (Jehoiachin's uncle) as the new vassal king of Judah.
- Zedekiah' original name was Mattaniah.
- He was 21 when he became king.
- He reigned 11 years.
- And, of course, he did did evil in the sight of the Lord. (As we read about in Jeremiah)
Verse 25 tells us that this was the end of God's patience with them and He cast Judah and Jerusalem out of His presence. And Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.
II Kings 25
In response to Zedekiah's rebellion, Nebuchadnezzar came against Jerusalem with a siege. This was in the ninth year of his reign. (I assume the "he" is Zedekiah.) The Ryrie footnote reads that the final siege started in January of 588 BC and lasted a year and a half. (Which explains why they completely ran out of food.)
The siege ended when the wall was breached and the men fled out the king's garden and down the Jordan. Zedekiah was captured in Jericho and all of his men fled from him to try and escape. His weak leadership paying dividends to the end. He was tried before the king, his sons were slaughtered, his eyes gouged out, and he was taken bound to Babylon. Then, as noted in Jeremiah, Nebuchadnezzar had Jerusalem burned: the Temple, the king's palace, and every great house. Then the army pulled down the walls of the city.
One interesting note in the Ryrie footnotes about this passage is that Jeremiah had warned Zedekiah that Zedekiah would see Nebuchadnezzar; but Ezekiel, seemingly, gave a contradictory prophesy that Zedekiah would not see Babylon. Yet both came true. God is the original storyteller. He's never going to be boring and predictable. It's so very important that we always assume He's correct and good and that our ways are not His ways and His thoughts are not His thoughts.
Verse 11 starts the third and final deportation to Babylon, to include military deserters, and the rest of the people who had failed to leave the city, as Jeremiah had proclaimed would happen. And, as noted in Jeremiah, the poorest were left in the fields and vineyards with plowmen. I wrote at length about why this is, in my opinion. God had been railing against Judah's leadership for their horrible treatment toward the poor, so it makes sense He would command the Babylonians to care for the poor. Today, though, I saw something additional.
But the captain of the guard left some of the poorest of the land to be vinedressers and plowmen. II Kings 25:12
Think about this brief description of who was left behind...those who work the land. That makes sense because they would have to feed themselves and the city-dwellers proved they couldn't feed themselves during the siege. But also God left people behind doing the most basic thing they were assigned to do since the garden of Eden- manage the land. If you've read many of my posts you know that I have a bit of an obsession related to land, earth, or dirt in the Bible. I did a deep-dive Bible study on the Kinsman Redeemer and how the land has been alive since the earliest days, when it cried out for Able. How fitting that at the end of this era of the Promise Land failure one thing remained from God. The poor were protected and they worked the land. There is something deeply profound about that. When Jesus returns, He will open the scroll and we'll see that He redeemed the whole Earth when He redeemed us. Amen!
Starting in verse 13 we get a catalogue of what was destroyed, broken, and stolen from the Chaldeans to be hauled off to Babylon with the captives.
- bronze pillars and stands (from Solomon's time)
- the bronze sea
- pots, shovels, snuffers, spoons, and other temple service implements
- fire pan and basin (gold and silver)
The text goes into great detail about the materials that were lost- the massive, heavy bronze, gold, and silver. This struck me as crass. What was taken was sacred and precious because God lovingly coached Solomon through the building and God collected the resources over time. What happened was sacrilege. And I sort of looked for a sign that God was outraged by the loss of so many scared elements. But that's the whole point of the Bible isn't it. The them we see from Day One. God creates, provide, protects, and reaches out in material and spiritual acts of love. He makes covenants and has relationships. And we always defile, destroy, abandon, and abuse the beautiful gifts from our heavenly Father. It's a simple concrete example of broken bronze and stolen gold and sliver. But how many time have I left the sacred gifts from God unprotected, defiled, neglected, and sometimes even foolishly despised. I ignore not only the gifts but the warnings and coaching meant to spare me the ultimate defeats that eventually came.
God help me.
Please help me to see rightly and choose order and offer up the proper worship, gratitude, and love.
I'm so, so, so sorry. Please forgive me.
I pray, not only, for the healing of my land; but the heart to manage it righteously for Your name's sake.
Amen.
Back to the text, starting in verse 18 we learn about additional people. Key leaders, such as the chief priests, temple officials, military, advisers, scribes, and others, were sentenced by the king to death.
Gedaliah
Gedaliah was among those Nebuchadnezzar left in Judah. He was appointed governor. The next few verses tell the same story as from Jeremiah when the governor brings together the remaining guerilla fighters left in the land and encourages them to choose to live peacefully under the Chaldeans. These men left and went to Egypt out of fear of the Chaldeans.
The return of Jehoiachin
II Kings ends with a follow-up on Jehoiachin, who we last saw carted off to Babylon. When Nebuchadnezzar died, the new king of Babylon tried to gain favor with the captive Jew population, so he released Jehoiachin from prison, spoke kindly to him, gave him a place of honor, and new clothes and food. He was given an allowance and seems to have lived out his days in comfort.
II Chronicles 36
This version starts back one generation with Joahaz, the son of Josiah. He started at 23 years old and reigned 3 months. Egypt had his deposed and taken to Egypt and placed his bother on the throne.
His brother was Eliakim, but his name was changed to who we know as Jehoiakim. Jehoiakim was 25 when he started and reigned 11 years. As we know, he did evil in the sight of the Lord.He ruled over the first defeat at the hands of the Babylonians and was carted off, along with some important Temple articles.
Then comes Jehoiachin. He reigned 3 months and also ended up being carried off to Babylon with valuable articles.
And finally, Zedekiah. 21 Years old when he started, reigned 11 years. He did evil, refused to humble himself before Jeremiah, and then rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar. Not a great portfolio of choices! He was stiff necked before the Lord.
Additionally, the officials unfaithful and defiled the house of the Lord. They ignore the Lord's compassion and prompting, mocking His messengers. Then came the wrath of God with no remedy. So Babylon slain the people and stole the valuable articles from them.
He swept them away into Babylon to give the land the 70 years of rest He had prescribed and they had ignore. Now they'd be waiting it out in Babylon.
II Chronicles ends with the defeat of the Babylonians at the hands of the Persians (Cyrus) and His decree, inspired by God, that he would build a house in Jerusalem and let the people go home.
God is so good.
Even the darkest hours in the story offer hope.
Amen.