2 Chronicles 36

Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz son of Josiah and made him king in Jerusalem in place of his father.

1Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and made him king in his father’s stead in Jerusalem.

Note"The people of the land" is a fixed term in Judah for the free landholding citizens of the country, as distinct from the court and the officials in the capital. Several times in these books they act as a body to settle the succession. Their choice here follows the death of King Josiah, killed in battle against Egypt in the previous chapter.

2Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he ruled in Jerusalem for three months.

2Jehoahaz was twenty and three years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem.

3The king of Egypt removed him from the throne in Jerusalem. He also forced the land to pay a fine of a hundred talents of silver and one talent of gold.

3And the king of Egypt put him down at Jerusalem, and condemned the land in an hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.

NoteA talent was a weight of roughly seventy-five pounds (about thirty-four kilograms), so the sum is close to three and a half tons of silver and seventy-five pounds of gold. This was not a court fine but tribute imposed by a conqueror; Judah is being made a paying dependency of Egypt.

4The king of Egypt made Eliakim, the brother of Jehoahaz, king over Judah and Jerusalem, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. Necho took Eliakim's brother Jehoahaz away to Egypt.

4And the king of Egypt made Eliakim his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem, and turned his name to Jehoiakim. And Necho took Jehoahaz his brother, and carried him to Egypt.

NoteThe king of Egypt is Necho II. Giving a new name to the king he installed was an assertion of ownership: an overlord who could rename you controlled you. Both names are built on the same root, but "Eliakim" means roughly "God establishes" and "Jehoiakim" substitutes the personal name of Israel's God, so the change also declared under whose authority the new king ruled.

5Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he ruled in Jerusalem for eleven years. He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD his God.

5Jehoiakim was twenty and five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem: and he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD his God.

Note"Did what was evil in the sight of the LORD" is a set formula these books use when summing up a reign. It is a judgment on the king's religious policy, chiefly whether he tolerated or promoted the worship of other gods, rather than a comment on his personal character or his competence as a ruler.

6Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched against him and tied him up in chains to take him to Babylon.

6Against him came up Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and bound him in fetters, to carry him to Babylon.

7Nebuchadnezzar also took some of the objects from the house of the LORD to Babylon, and he put them in his own temple there.

7Nebuchadnezzar also carried of the vessels of the house of the LORD to Babylon, and put them in his temple at Babylon.

NoteThe "objects" are the equipment of the temple: basins, bowls, lamps, censers and other fittings of gold and bronze. Carrying a defeated nation's sacred objects home and depositing them in your own god's temple was standard practice for Mesopotamian kings; it displayed the victory as a victory of your god over theirs.

8The rest of what Jehoiakim did, the disgusting things he practiced, and what was found against him, are written in the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah. His son Jehoiachin became king in his place.

8Now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, and his abominations which he did, and that which was found in him, behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah: and Jehoiachin his son reigned in his stead.

NoteThe Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah is a source the writer is citing, now lost. It is not the biblical books of 1 and 2 Kings. "What was found against him" is deliberately vague in the Hebrew and has been read both as charges laid against Jehoiakim and as things discovered about him.

9Jehoiachin was eight years old when he became king, and he ruled in Jerusalem for three months and ten days. He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD.

9Jehoiachin was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem: and he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD.

NoteThe Hebrew text of Chronicles reads "eight," but the parallel account in 2 Kings 24:8, along with some manuscripts and the ancient Greek version, reads "eighteen." Eighteen fits the surrounding narrative better, since Jehoiachin is described elsewhere as already having wives. The discrepancy is in the manuscripts themselves and cannot be settled from the text alone.

10At the turn of the year, King Nebuchadnezzar sent for him and brought him to Babylon, along with the valuable objects from the house of the LORD. He made Zedekiah, Jehoiachin's brother, king over Judah and Jerusalem.

10And when the year was expired, king Nebuchadnezzar sent, and brought him to Babylon, with the goodly vessels of the house of the LORD, and made Zedekiah his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem.

Note"At the turn of the year" means the spring, when kings normally resumed campaigning after the winter rains. The King James calls Zedekiah Jehoiachin's "brother"; the Hebrew word covers any close male relative, and 2 Kings 24:17 identifies him as Jehoiachin's uncle, a younger son of Josiah.

11Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he ruled in Jerusalem for eleven years.

11Zedekiah was one and twenty years old when he began to reign, and reigned eleven years in Jerusalem.

12He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD his God. He would not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke the words the LORD gave him.

12And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD his God, and humbled not himself before Jeremiah the prophet speaking from the mouth of the LORD.

NoteJeremiah was a prophet active in Jerusalem through these decades, and the book bearing his name records his warnings that resistance to Babylon would destroy the city. "Humble himself before" a prophet means accepting the message as coming from God, not showing deference to the man.

13He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear loyalty by God. But Zedekiah made his neck stiff and his heart hard, and he would not turn back to the LORD, the God of Israel.

13And he also rebelled against king Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God: but he stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart from turning unto the LORD God of Israel.

NoteNebuchadnezzar had installed Zedekiah as a vassal and bound him by an oath sworn in the name of Zedekiah's own God. Breaking such an oath was both treaty-breaking and, in the terms of the day, an offense against the god invoked as witness.

14On top of that, all the leading priests and the people were more and more unfaithful. They copied all the disgusting practices of the other nations, and they made the house of the LORD unclean, the house he had set apart as holy in Jerusalem.

14Moreover all the chief of the priests, and the people, transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen; and polluted the house of the LORD which he had hallowed in Jerusalem.

Note"Abominations" is the standard word for the religious practices of neighboring peoples, images, shrines, and their attendant rites. To make the temple "unclean" is a ritual category, not a matter of dirt: it means the building had been used in ways that disqualified it from its set-apart purpose.

15The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to them through his messengers, over and over, starting early and never stopping, because he felt pity for his people and for the place where he lived among them.

15And the LORD God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling place:

Note"Rising up betimes" in the King James renders a Hebrew idiom, literally "rising early," used to mean doing something persistently and urgently. The "dwelling place" God is said to pity is the temple in Jerusalem.

16But they made fun of God's messengers, thought nothing of his words, and scoffed at his prophets, until the LORD's anger against his people rose so high that nothing could fix it.

16But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against his people, till there was no remedy.

17So he brought the king of the Chaldeans against them. That king killed their young men with the sword inside their holy place, and he showed no pity to young man or young woman, to the old, or to the frail. God handed them all over to him.

17Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man, or him that stooped for age: he gave them all into his hand.

NoteThe Chaldeans were a people of southern Babylonia; the dynasty Nebuchadnezzar belonged to came from among them, so the name is used as a synonym for the Babylonian empire. Killing men "in the house of their sanctuary" is pointed: the temple precinct was a place of asylum, and the slaughter shows the protection failed.

18He carried everything off to Babylon: all the objects of the house of God, large and small, the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king and his officials.

18And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king, and of his princes; all these he brought to Babylon.

19They burned down the house of God, tore down the wall of Jerusalem, burned all its palaces, and destroyed all its precious vessels.

19And they burnt the house of God, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof.

20Those who escaped being killed he carried away to Babylon, where they were servants to him and his sons until the kingdom of Persia came to power.

20And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon; where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia:

Note"Servants" here means subject population owing labor and tribute to the crown, not privately owned household slaves. "His sons" means the kings who succeeded Nebuchadnezzar on the Babylonian throne.

21This happened so that the word the LORD had spoken through Jeremiah would come true, and so the land would receive the rest years it was owed. For the whole time it lay empty, it rested, until seventy years were finished.

21To fulfil the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years.

NoteThe law of Leviticus 25 required that farmland be left unworked every seventh year, its "sabbath." The writer reads the empty land as finally taking, all at once, the rest years it had been denied. The seventy years is the figure Jeremiah gave for the length of Babylonian domination (Jeremiah 25:11; 29:10).

22In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, so that the word the LORD had spoken through Jeremiah would come true, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia. Cyrus sent out an announcement through his whole kingdom, and he also put it in writing. It said:

22Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying,

NoteCyrus of Persia captured Babylon in 539 BC; his first year as ruler over the former Babylonian empire was 538 BC. "Stirred up the spirit" is an idiom for prompting someone to act. Cyrus is known from his own inscriptions to have made a policy of returning displaced peoples and their gods to their home sanctuaries.

23"This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has told me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Is there anyone among you who belongs to his people? May the LORD his God be with him, and let him go up."

23Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth hath the LORD God of heaven given me; and he hath charged me to build him an house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? The LORD his God be with him, and let him go up.

Note"The God of heaven" was the usual title for the God of the Jews in official documents of the Persian period. "Go up" is the standard idiom for traveling to Jerusalem, which sits high in the hill country, whatever direction you come from. The book breaks off in mid-sentence here; the same proclamation is given in fuller form at the start of Ezra.