2 Kings 24:1–25:30

24:3–4 Second Kings is clearly concerned to ensure that its readers understand exactly what is happening here and why, and another editorial note is added on the reasons for the exile: “Surely this came upon Judah at the command of the Lord, to remove them out of his sight,” which seems to be an allusion to the fact that God is too holy to look on sin. Once more, Manasseh serves as the representative of all of his evil forebears, as God’s actions are portrayed as a response to the “sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done, and also for the innocent blood that he had shed. For he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the Lord would not pardon.” It is highly unusual for God to be described in these terms, but this unwillingness to forgive is to be understood in terms of this moment in history, as temporal judgment is meted out on his disobedient people.

24:5–7 Jehoiakim has no further role to play in the narrative, and, having delivered Judah first into the hands of Egypt and then to Babylon, he hands over to his offspring a kingdom in thrall to Nebuchadnezzar and on the edge of oblivion, “and Jehoiachin his son reigned in his place.” Verse 7 confirms that Egypt will play no significant part in events from here on out, for the “king of Babylon had taken all that belonged to the king of Egypt from the Brook of Egypt to the river Euphrates,” that is, the entire extent of the Solomonic empire (cf. 1 Kings 4:21, 24). Under God, it is Babylon who will dictate the future of God’s people from here on.

24:8–9 Jehoiachin manages to match his uncle Jehoahaz, as “he reigned three months in Jerusalem.”³ His mother’s name (Nehushta) sounds suspiciously like the name of the bronze snake destroyed by Hezekiah (Nehushtan; 2 Kings 18:4). Jehoiachin’s rule is dismissed in the usual fashion, for “he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father had done.” As Jehoahaz gives way to Jehoiakim, and Jehoiachin takes over and hands on to Zedekiah, the young king Nebuchadnezzar overcomes the Egyptians at the battle of Carchemish and quickly becomes the most powerful ruler in the ancient Near East. He casts an increasingly long shadow over God’s people in Judah. Eventually, as we shall see, Zedekiah presses for freedom from the might of the Babylonians, with disastrous consequences.

24:10–13 No reason is given for what the Babylonians do next, other than the uncertainty surrounding regime change, but “at that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up to Jerusalem, and the city was besieged.” It is clear that the final denouement is approaching. A string of verbs makes clear that the Babylonians are in complete control (the only thing Jehoiachin does is surrender!). After his forces are in place, “Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon” himself “came to the city . . . and Jehoiachin the king of Judah gave himself up to the king of Babylon, himself and his mother and his servants and his officials and his palace officials.” After all of the machinations, the final, abject capitulation of Jehoiachin is something of an anticlimax,⁴ and the “king of Babylon took him prisoner in the eighth year of his reign.” Judah, in its current form, is finished.

Furthermore, Nebuchadnezzar “carried off all the treasures of the house of the Lord and the treasures of the king’s house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold in the temple of the Lord, which Solomon king of Israel had made, as the Lord had foretold.” The wealth that flowed into the kingdom under Solomon has gradually leached away. The generally godly Hezekiah’s stupidity has now come home to roost (2 Kings 20:17). This is the final time that explicit reference is made to the fulfillment of the word of Yahweh.

24:14–17 Not only does Nebuchadnezzar plunder the riches of Judah, but he also deports “all Jerusalem and all the officials and all the mighty men of valor, 10,000 captives, and all the craftsmen and the smiths.” Under Solomon, the wisest of men flocked to Jerusalem (1 Kings 10:23–25). Now the flow has reversed, as the Babylonian “brain drain” begins. The heartbreaking narrative of how God’s people are torn up and carried away to exile—the verb for “exile” is used five times in this short section—dominates the narrative. The text describes a very deliberate reversal, an undoing, of all that Solomon put in place so carefully in 1 Kings 7.

The strategy is simple: by denuding this conquered nation of its brightest and best, Nebuchadnezzar both enhances Babylonian society and ensures that the most able Jewish leaders are thoroughly “Babylonized.” Unlike the Assyrians, the Babylonians do not practice “two-way deportation”: “none remained, except the poorest people of the land.” This goes some way to explaining the experience of those who will return from exile in due course.

The fact that not only Jehoiachin but also his entire household is “carried away . . . to Babylon” (including, incidentally, “the king’s wives”—Solomon’s example seems to have haunted every succeeding generation) makes it obvious that this is the point of no return. In addition, “the king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon all the men of valor, 7,000,” dooming any future insurrection to failure, as well as, for added insurance, “the craftsmen and the metal workers, 1,000, all of them strong and fit for war.” Having removed the legitimate (if weak!) king, Nebuchadnezzar does the sensible thing and appoints a puppet king, in this case “Mattaniah, Jehoiachin’s uncle.” As Pharaoh Neco had before him, Nebuchadnezzar changes the king’s name—this time to Zedekiah (which, somewhat ironically, means “the righteousness of Yahweh”), ensuring that no one is under any doubt about who is now in charge in the city of God.

24:18–20 Nebuchadnezzar’s appointee “Zedekiah . . . reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah” (making him the full brother of Jehoahaz, another son of Josiah, and uncle of Jehoiachin). His record is no different than his predecessor’s: “And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that Jehoiakim had done.” We have now reached the very end of the story of Judah in the land, “for because of the anger of the Lord it came to the point in Jerusalem and Judah that he cast them out from his presence.” The trigger for this is the rank stupidity of Zedekiah, who, despite all of the recent experiences of Judah, “rebelled against the king of Babylon.” He may have tried to enlist the Egyptians once more to fight the Babylonians, but the text is silent on this. The point is simply that he would not submit to the God-appointed discipline of the Babylonians.

25:8–10 Almost a month after the failed escape attempt, “Nebuzaradan, the captain of the bodyguard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem” to bring the campaign to a conclusion. The nuance of the job description here may well be that of a “hatchet man.”⁵ According to verse 9, “he burned the house of the Lord and the king’s house and all the houses of Jerusalem; every great house he burned down.” After the city is burned, “all the army of the Chaldeans, who were with the captain of the guard, broke down the walls around Jerusalem.” Effectively the city is no more.

25:11–12 The remaining inhabitants of Jerusalem, along with the “deserters who had deserted to the king of Babylon, together with the rest of the multitude” (presumably the rest of the populace trapped inside Jerusalem during the siege), are transported to Babylon under Nebuzaradan’s instructions. The only people left are “some of the poorest of the land to be vinedressers and plowmen,” in order to prevent the land from becoming an unusable wasteland.

25:13–17 Before the city is burned, Nebuzaradan gives the order for it to be stripped bare. First, the bronze stripped from the temple is listed: “the pillars of bronze . . . the stands and the bronze sea . . . the Chaldeans broke in pieces and carried to Babylon.” In addition, they “took away the pots and the shovels and the snuffers and the dishes for incense and all the vessels of bronze.” Anything made of gold or silver is added to the haul. But it is the bronze that makes up the lion’s share of the booty, for, “as for the two pillars, the one sea, and the stands . . . , the bronze of all these vessels was beyond weight,” given the dimensions and detail of the pillars (each is “eighteen cubits” tall with a “capital of bronze,” which in turn is “three cubits,” decorated with a bronze “latticework and pomegranates”).

25:18–21 Nebuzaradan’s final recorded action is designed to break any ensuing stubborn resistance once and for all. He seizes “Seraiah the chief priest and Zephaniah the second priest and the three keepers of the threshold,” along with a selection of the remaining city officials (“an officer who had been in command of the men of war,” but for some reason had not been part of the royal breakout, as well as “five men of the king’s council” and the “secretary of the commander of the army, who mustered the people of the land”), as well as “sixty men of the people of the land, who were found in the city.” These sixty seem to be representative of the remaining population. Nebuzaradan drags them to Nebuchadnezzar “at Riblah,” where they are executed. There is no coming back from this. The section ends with the simple statement that “Judah was taken into exile out of its land,” the same phrase that marked the demise of Israel in 2 Kings 17:23.

25:22–26 Nebuchadnezzar’s strategy is to leave behind a governor to ensure that any remaining inhabitants are compliant and submissive to the departing Babylonians, and so he “appointed Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan.” Gedaliah’s pedigree is excellent: his father served Josiah (2 Kings 22:12), as did his grandfather, and he is a close associate of Jeremiah (see Jer. 40:7–41:18). However, the remaining Judean soldiers (“all the captains and their men”) find out about this appointment, and “Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and Seraiah the son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, and Jaazaniah the son of the Maacathite” come to the new governor, who urges them not to “be afraid because of the Chaldean officials,” but to “live in the land and serve the king of Babylon, and it shall be well with you.”

Unfortunately, “in the seventh month, Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, son of Elishama, of the royal family,” who clearly has royal pretensions and a thirst for power, even in a shattered kingdom, “came with ten men and struck down Gedaliah and put him to death along with the Jews and the Chaldeans who were with him at Mizpah.” This pointless act of rebellion rules out a peaceful future at Jerusalem, and “all the people, both small and great, and the captains of the forces arose and went to Egypt, for they were afraid of the Chaldeans.” This is the group that Jeremiah accompanies to Egypt, as the land is left essentially unoccupied. Fleeing to Egypt is construed as a rejection of the founding of the nation so many years before (cf. 1 Kings 6:1; 8:9, 16, 21, 51, 53; 9:9; 2 Kings 17:7, 36; 21:15).

25:27–30 Right at the end of the book, we suddenly jump forward thirty-seven years to Babylon, where we unexpectedly encounter “Jehoiachin king of Judah” once again. We are also back on “Judah time” (“in the thirty-seventh year of the exile”). When “Evil-merodach began to reign” in Babylon, he “graciously freed Jehoiachin king of Judah from prison.” The repetition of the phrase “king of Judah” underlines the fact that, despite the prolonged period in Babylon, the Davidic line has been preserved, and there is still hope, however slight. We also discover that Evil-merodach “spoke kindly to” Jehoiachin and “gave him a seat above the seats of the kings who were with him in Babylon.” The only explanation for this is that God is not finished with his people, nor with the dynasty of David. This long narrative draws to a close with the king dressed in his royal clothes, eating “regularly at the king’s table,” even enjoying an allowance from the royal coffers. God, it seems, is still in control, and his sovereign plan to set the ultimate Davidic king on the throne of his people is still intact, the dream of 2 Samuel 7:15–16 still alive.

The entire history of Israel and Judah has been controlled by, and shaped by, the word of the Lord. These books are often depicted as making up part of the Deuteronomistic history, the history of God’s people as viewed through the lens of Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy 31:16–18 we read this:

The Lord said to Moses, “Behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers. Then this people will rise and whore after the foreign gods among them in the land that they are entering, and they will forsake me and break my covenant that I have made with them. Then my anger will be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them and hide my face from them, and they will be devoured. And many evils and troubles will come upon them, so that they will say in that day, ‘Have not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us?’ And I will surely hide my face in that day because of all the evil that they have done, because they have turned to other gods.”

And everything indeed would happen according to this word of the Lord. And now, as Jehoiachin sits at the table of Nebuchadnezzar, we are reminded once again of that fact.