The story of Jehoiachin and Zedekiah
The Kings of Judah • Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 750 viewsNotes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
Scripture Reading
Scripture Reading
Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. In the spring of the year King Nebuchadnezzar sent and brought him to Babylon, with the precious vessels of the house of the Lord, and made his brother Zedekiah king over Judah and Jerusalem.
Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord his God. He did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke from the mouth of the Lord. He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God. He stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the Lord, the God of Israel. All the officers of the priests and the people likewise were exceedingly unfaithful, following all the abominations of the nations. And they polluted the house of the Lord that he had made holy in Jerusalem.
The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord rose against his people, until there was no remedy.
Today’s is the final piece of the sermon series on the Kings of Judah. We’ve taken a deep dive through each of the kings, the events that happened during their reigns, and their handing down of the throne from father to son, father to son. And when they let go of God, God held on tighter than before. And in this manner the 464 years of the Kings period saw a clumsy tumbling down of God’s covenant through the generations.
But now the kingdom is about to be destroyed, and the axe is already swinging for the last two surviving branches of Davidic lineage.
Jehoiachin & Zedekiah
The axe is the nation of Babylon, and the two branches are Jehoiachin, son of Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah his uncle.
And what we have here are two kings who are faced with an impossible choice. It’s like one of those situations where plan A is bad, but so is plan B. And you’re on a timer. The enemy at the gates, and your people are looking to you for leadership. And they live or die upon your word.
Jehoiachin reigns for a mere 3 months and 10 days before deciding to surrender to Babylon, while Zedekiah holds on tight, refuses to surrender, calls for Egyptian aid, and defends the city with everything he’s got, and in so doing plunges the nation into dire straits for 30 months as they fight battles both military and agricultural. From the boiling of children to the extraction and consumption of placentas, it was truly ‘Old Testament.’ Thanks to the last kings of Judah, the once holy nation of Israel now found itself vandalized beyond recognition.
So as we conclude this series, let us reflect on the decisions of these two kings, and what we can take away from their stories. But before that, let’s have a quick look at the timeline of this period.
Timeline
Timeline
1st deportation: 605 BC (Jehoiakim)
2nd deportation: 597 BC (Jehoiachin)
3rd deportation: 586 BC (Zedekiah)
Let’s have a closer look at what happens in the 2nd deportation.
And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to the city while his servants were besieging it, 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. The king of Babylon took him prisoner in the eighth year of his reign and 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.
Now what should jump out at us whenever we read the historical books, such as Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, is the author’s comment. The author usually just tells the story, so you know it's important when there’s an extra comment. So the key phrase here in this passage is the last bit that says that the Lord had foretold of the decimation of the golden vessels in the temple. And where did the Lord foretell of this? Right after Hezekiah showed off all his riches to the Babylonian envoys.
Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord.
One OT scholar commented, ‘The generally godly Hezekiah’s stupidity has now come home to roost.’
Jehoiachin waves the white flag and surrenders to Babylon, and ends up imprisoned. Nebuchadnezzar then appoints Zedekiah his uncle to be the next king of Judah, and enters into covenant with him. The Bible says that Nebuchadnezzar made him ‘swear by God.’
He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God. He stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the Lord, the God of Israel.
How does Zedekiah break the covenant with Nebuchadnezzar? He rebels against Nebuchadnezzar, stiffens his neck and hardens his heart against the Lord. And in his stiff-necked obstinacy, he sends messengers to Egypt asking for their help against Babylon. The Egyptian army arrives, the Babylonian army leaves, the Egyptian army leaves, the Babylonian army arrives. I think that’s what many of us do when we try to deal with spiritual problems using physical solutions. When we feel like life isn’t meaningful, or when we feel unsatisfied and discontent, we must turn to God. We don’t want to drink saltwater just to quench our thirst for a moment. But that is exactly what Zedekiah does.
And why does he do it? We saw last week that there were false prophets contradicting the prophet Jeremiah’s Word from the Lord. Jeremiah promised life to whoever surrendered to Babylon, but these false prophets promised that the city of Jerusalem would prevail. Now, who do you think was right? That’s too easy because we’re talking in retrospect.
But put yourself in Zedekiah’s shoes for a moment. As the king, you are entirely responsible for the lives of your people. And if you open the city gates with a white flag in your hand, who knows what might happen? You can’t risk it. And besides, there are so many prophets in your royal court who tell you that you will succeed. You’ve heard the stories of how God delivered your predecessor King Hezekiah from the Assyrian army, of how the angel of the Lord struck down 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in one night. So why not have a little faith? But Jeremiah, this thorn in your side, says that the city will fall. Why should you give regard for the words of a pessimist?
Spiritual discernment
Spiritual discernment
The issue here is one of spiritual discernment, and it’s a real issue for the church today. Many people like to quote Jeremiah’s words during this period, and the most popular verse is undoubtedly Jer. 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Most prosperity preachers and overly triumphalistic Christians shout this from the mountain tops. They memorize the verse, but not what comes before. Let’s read both verses together.
“For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
So what are these plans for welfare and not evil? It’s to send them to Babylonian exile for 70 years before restoring them back to Jerusalem. God’s plan wasn’t for Zedekiah to successfully defend the city, and God’s plan is not for us to live as the kings and queens of this earth. But Zedekiah was human, and as a fellow human being he too preferred prophecies that ticked his fancy. He was ill equipped to discern the true Word of God from the words of the false prophets.
What distinguished Jeremiah from the other false prophets? Jeremiah prophesied according to the covenant of God. Jeremiah’s prophecy stated two things:
That the inhabitants of Judah would be in exile.
That they would be in exile for 70 years.
And both these conditions matched the covenantal stipulations or conditions which God gave to the Israelites at Mt. Sinai. If you commit idolatry, if you intermarry with the foreigners, if you don’t keep the sabbath year, so on and on, then the land’s going to spit you out.
(for the people of the land, who were before you, did all of these abominations, so that the land became unclean), lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you.
And further on God gives the command of the sabbath year, whereby the Israelites must let the land rest after every six years. On the sabbath year, the seventh year, you had to leave the land alone.
The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord. For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits, but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land.
Do you think the Israelites kept this command? We could speculate that 70 x 7 = 490 years since the last Sabbath year they kept, which, if we add it to the year which Jerusalem fell in 586 BC, would be around prophet Samuel’s time in 1076 BC. But we need to focus on the fact that King Zedekiah should have seen this coming. When Jeremiah prophesied the 70-year exile to King Zedekiah, he should have taken out his abacus and done the math, because, unlike the false prophets, Jeremiah’s prophecy ran parallel with God’s covenant. If he was even familiar with the book of Leviticus, which was discovered along with the other first five books of the Pentateuch during his father’s time, he would have seen this coming.
But the land shall be abandoned by them and enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them, and they shall make amends for their iniquity, because they spurned my rules and their soul abhorred my statutes.
But Zedekiah either doesn’t recognize or doesn’t acknowledge God’s covenant. Either way, the key point is that spiritual discernment starts with knowing God’s covenant. In order to know what God says, we need to know what God has said, because God doesn’t contradict Himself, nor can He lie.
So after 30 months of seige and famine, there was no deliverance. The city of Jerusalem falls. Zedekiah is captured, his sons slain before his eyes, his own eyes are put out, and he is dragged off to Babylon where he dies. Jerusalem lies desolate and in ruins, the temple is destroyed.
And what about Jehoiachin? He surrendered about 11 years prior to the fall of Jerusalem, and he’s still in prison when the city falls. But he outlives Zedekiah. Let’s have a read.
And in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, Evil-merodach king of Babylon, in the year that he began to reign, graciously freed Jehoiachin king of Judah from prison. And he spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat above the seats of the kings who were with him in Babylon. So Jehoiachin put off his prison garments. And every day of his life he dined regularly at the king’s table, and for his allowance, a regular allowance was given him by the king, according to his daily needs, as long as he lived.
There’s something that the author here is trying to emphasize via repetition: that Jehoiachin is the king of Judah, that line of kings has been preserved, and that the covenant between God and David has still got a pulse, no matter how faint it may be. Jehoiachin’s 37 years in Babylonian prison has now come to an end, and he puts off his prison garments, and now dines at the king’s table, at a seat above the seats of the other kings. He even gets allowance for spending! That’s the last passage in the book of kings. And what all this tells us is that God is in control, He is faithful to the covenant, and He knows what He’s doing, even when we can’t understand. It’s all about the covenant and covenant faithfulness, and God demands us this morning to do the same.
Some of us might feel like Jehoiachin right now. We might feel the chains of this world, of sin, weighing us down. We might feel helpless or even hopeless, wondering if God will really stick to the promise. But as God moved the heart of the new Babylonian king to free Jehoiachin, God can and will make impossible things happen to restore us. His promise is our hope. And if we but trust in His Word, then we will be like Jehoiachin. We will put off the old man who was imprisoned to sin, and put on our royal robes, the image of the true King Jesus Christ.
to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Zedekiah forsook God’s Word and was omitted from the genealogy. But Jehoiachin surrendered himself to God’s Word by surrendering to Babylon. And in so doing he became a bearer of the covenant and grandfather to Jesus.
and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.
And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel,
Jechoniah here is Jehoiachin. Before he took on the name Jehoiachin, he was known as Coniah or Jeconiah.
Zedekiah the son of Josiah, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made king in the land of Judah, reigned instead of Coniah the son of Jehoiakim.
And it is through Jeconiah’s bloodline that Jesus Christ the Messiah would be born.
Something about the kings of Judah hit me yesterday. The kings functioned as a figurehead for the people, not only in terms of economy and battle, but also in terms of spirituality. If a king worshiped idols, the people would follow. If a king worshiped God, the people would follow. And God blessed or cursed the nation depending on the king’s own righteousness. Wartime or peacetime always had something to do with the king’s own morality. And so I reckon that with Christ as our King, the benefits of the righteousness of Christ become ours. Moreover, as spiritual leaders, the kings shouldered a huge responsibility toward their people, in the same way a pastor shoulders the responsibility for the flock. So we must pray for our spiritual leaders all the more, since we’ve already seen how the kings of Judah fell into corruption and depravity. So let us pray fervently for our pastor and all our church elders and leaders, that God will hold tightly onto them and grant them to grace to trust more and more in God’s Word.
Let us pray.