Week 25 Jeremiah
Jeremiah ends with a kind of Appendix 1 & Appendix 2.
Appendix 1 lists the number of people exiled in the three deportations to Babylon.
Deportation One: 3023 people
Deportation Two: 832 people
Deportation Three: 745 people.
Total: 4600 captives went into exile.
A pretty small number. When I think back to the census numbers that I read in Numbers and 1 Chronicles I realize that a nation of hundreds of thousands – maybe a couple of million – has shrunk to less than 5000.
Then I see Appendix 2. King Jehoiachin was the second last king of Judah. He had left Jerusalem in Deportation Two and spent decades in jail. He was the last surviving king in the bloodline of David but fortunately not the last surviving person. I check a couple of cross-references and see…
That Jehoiachin had a son named Shealtiel
That Shelatiel had a son named Zerubbabel (the Zerubbabel I was reading about last month in Ezra)
And those three –Jehoiachin-Shealtiel-Zerubbabel – are all cross-referenced over into Matthew’s gospel genealogy. Ten generations after Zerubbabel I see Joseph’s name – Joseph the husband of Mary the mother of the Lord.
So things are eventually going to work out okay. But at the end of the book of Jeremiah you realize that the Abraham-Judah-David line of descent seems to be cutting things pretty close. And so is the nation as a whole. There’s only a few left standing.
Enough…but not with a lot to spare.
Notes: Appendix 1: Jeremiah 52:28-30; Appendix 2: 52:31-34. Jehoiachin-Shealtiel: 1 Chronicles 3:17; Shealtiel-Zerubbabel Ezra 3:2; and Matthew 1:12 & 16.