Month: June 2024

Week 23  2 Chronicles 36

Here are the key facts about the very last king of Judah:
Zedekiah was 21 years old when he became king
He reigned for eleven years
The chronicler adds a couple of other details. First is that Zedekiah had taken an oath of loyalty in God’s name to not rebel against Babylon. So then he rebelled. The second thing is that Zedekiah was a hard and stubborn man, refusing to turn to the Lord.
Finally – like the other three kings – Zedekiah did what was evil in the sight of the Lord his God.
2 Kings adds a couple of details about the siege of Jerusalem. But it’s really Jeremiah who spends more time in his book talking about what was going on in Jerusalem during Zedekiah’s reign (in fact Jeremiah 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 37 38 39 all talk about those years) (35 & 36 are about Jehoiakim).
Even though a lot of the content of those 10 chapters in Jeremiah are about Jeremiah and his prophecies one interesting thing I found out about Zedekiah is that even though he publicly rejected Jeremiah’s advice (in fact Jeremiah was locked in prison for spreading anti-state propaganda) the king secretly visited him a couple of times sniffing-around for some advice & input (the Babylonian army was at the city gates and maybe Zedekiah hoped the Lord would bail him out). But in the end Zedekiah didn’t listen to Jeremiah. The last king of Judah was a hard and stubborn man  after all. All the way into exile.

Note: quotes from 2 Chronicles 36:13 12 (NLT)

Week 23  2 Chronicles 36

Key facts about Judah’s second last king:
Jehoiachin was 18 years old when he became king
He reigned for three months and ten days (the 2 Kings version rounds it down to three months)
At that point Nebuchadnezzar brought Jehoiachin to Babylon. The Bible I’m reading says that Jehoiachin was ‘summoned’ to Babylon. But when I turn back to the Kings version of the story it looks like it was something stronger than a ‘summons’. 2 Kings says three things. 1) the Babylonian army had Jerusalem under siege. 2) Jehoiachin surrendered to the Babylonians. And 3) Jehoiachin was taken prisoner.)
Then one final thing: Jehoiachin did what was evil in the Lord’s sight.
I had hoped that Jeremiah would give me some extra information (like with Jehoiakim) – but he dropped-the-ball on me. At least at first. I checked a word book and found that Jehoiachin’s name showed up in the last chapter of Jeremiah. So how did things turn out for Jehoiachin?
He was a prisoner in Babylon for 37-years
Then he was released from prison
And he was given a living allowance that covered his expenses for the rest of his life.
So in the end things turned around a little bit for Jehoiachin.
As a teen-aged king Jehoiachin did what was evil in the Lord’s sight and I wondered if he had a change of heart there in Babylonian exile.
But I didn’t find anything to say he did.

Note: quote from 2 Chronicles 36:9 2 Kings 24:12 (NLT). And see Jeremiah 52:31-34

Week 23  2 Chronicles 36

The snippet-account of Jehoiakim is in 2 Chronicles 36:5-8 (4 verses).
The other short version is in 2 Kings 23:36-24:5 (7 verses).
The passages don’t give me much to go on but the key facts about the third last king are:
Jehoiakim was 25 years old when he became king
He reigned for eleven years
During his reign Judah was taken over by Babylon and Jehoiakim was exiled to Babylon
He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight.
It’s pretty meager information to go on. That’s why Jeremiah’s prophecies add some useful data. For instance Jeremiah told Jehoiakim you are full of selfish greed and dishonesty. You murder the innocent, oppress the poor, and reign ruthlessly.
Jeremiah also told the story of a prophet named Uriah who forecast doom against Judah. Jehoiakim didn’t like what he heard and tracked down Uriah and killed him.
And on another occasion Jeremiah recorded all his prophecies and sent the scroll to Jehoiakim to read. The king’s reaction was to cut the scroll into little pieces and incinerate them.
I don’t know if there’s any way to fairly compare Jehoahaz & Jehoiakim. They both did evil in the sight of the Lord. The big difference is that Jehoiakim had about forty-times more time to do his evil than Three-Month Jehoahaz. Does that make Jehoiakim qualitatively worse? Not necessarily. About all I can say now is that Jehoiakim got more chances to practice his evil. And he took them.

Note: quote from 2 Kings 23:37 & Jeremiah 22:17 (NLT). And see Jeremiah stories in 26:20-23 & 36:1-26.

Week 23  2 Chronicles 36

In 2023 I looked at the kings of Judah and ranked them according to their character qualities: Top-to-Bottom. Best-to-Worst. I posted my final list – one-to-fifteen – on May 31 2023.
I admitted last year that I was cheating on my King List by making Josiah  the last king. The fact is that there were four more kings after Josiah but I didn’t count them was because they were basically puppets controlled by foreign countries.
The four kings not on my 2023 list were: Jehoahaz Jehoiakim Jehoiachin & Zedekiah. I decided to take a look at them this year.
The stories of all four are in 2 Chronicles 36. Short accounts – averaging about 5.5 verses each. Luckily I remember from last year to double-check the Kings versions of the stories. They’re in 2 Kings 23-25.
Key facts about the Jehoahaz the fourth last king:
He was 23 years old when he became king
He reigned for three months
He was deposed & exiled by the king of Egypt (he died in an Egyptian prison)
He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight.
One thing I’d completely forgotten about was that Jeremiah prophesied during the exact time of these last four kings. In fact Jeremiah’s long career went from the thirteenth year of King Josiah’s reign in Judah…until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah’s reign.
I figured Jeremiah might add some details. But in the end he didn’t have much to say about Jehoahaz.

Note: quotes from 2 Kings 23:32 & Jeremiah 1:2-3 (NLT)

 

Week 23  Proverbs 5

The last couple of days I’ve been thinking about what Solomon calls The Way. I have a picture of a fork in the road – a kind of on-ramp – where I get to choose: Do I choose the Way-of-Life? Or the Way-of-Death?
So anyway in chapter five Solomon talks about a woman who’s trying to sexually seduce a young guy and what Solomon says about her makes me rethink my fork in the road picture:
a) she gives no thought to the way of life
b) her paths are crooked
c) but she knows it not.
The woman isn’t concerned about the Way-of-Life. She’s already on the Way-of-Death . I get that. But the surprising thing is that she doesn’t even know it.
If the woman was on a crooked path and could not care less – that I understand. But the thing is: she knows it not – doesn’t seem to have any conception of her predicament. I’d think that if she had stood at an intersection and thought and decided to go the Way-of-Death then she’d at least recall the decision. But it looks like she didn’t.
Which makes me wonder: was there no fork in the road? Maybe the woman was on the Way-of-Death from the very beginning. Maybe she didn’t need to turn her back on The Way. Maybe it was turned to start with. Which makes even locating the Way-of-Life an uphill climb.

Note: quote from Proverbs 5:6 NLT.