2 Kings 24

While Jehoiakim was king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon invaded the land. Jehoiakim served him for three years. Then he turned against him and rebelled.

1In his days Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant three years: then he turned and rebelled against him.

Note"Became his servant" means Jehoiakim became a vassal: a defeated king was left on his throne but had to swear loyalty to the conqueror and send him a fixed payment (tribute) every year. Rebelling meant refusing to pay. Babylon was the empire based in what is now southern Iraq; Nebuchadnezzar ruled it from 605 to 562 BC, and this invasion came near the start of his reign.

2The LORD sent raiding parties of Babylonians, Arameans, Moabites, and Ammonites against Jehoiakim. He sent them against Judah to destroy it, just as he had said through his servants the prophets.

2And the LORD sent against him bands of the Chaldees, and bands of the Syrians, and bands of the Moabites, and bands of the children of Ammon, and sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake by his servants the prophets.

Note"Chaldees" is the older English name for the Chaldeans, the people of southern Babylonia, and by this period the word simply meant Babylonians. "Syrians" here translates a word meaning Arameans, the peoples of the region north-east of Israel around Damascus. Moab and Ammon were small kingdoms east of the Dead Sea and the Jordan, longstanding neighbors and rivals of Judah. These are described as raiding bands rather than a full imperial army.

3This came on Judah at the LORD's command, to remove them from his presence, because of the sins of Manasseh and everything he had done.

3Surely at the commandment of the LORD came this upon Judah, to remove them out of his sight, for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he did;

NoteManasseh was a king of Judah who had reigned for fifty-five years and died roughly half a century before these events (his reign is described in 2 Kings 21). The writer is saying the disaster falls on a later generation for what an earlier king did.

4It also came because of the innocent blood Manasseh had shed, for he had filled Jerusalem with the blood of innocent people, and the LORD was not willing to forgive it.

4And also for the innocent blood that he shed: for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood; which the LORD would not pardon.

Note"Innocent blood" is a legal phrase: the killing of people who had done nothing to deserve death, as opposed to lawful execution or death in war. In Israelite law such killing left a stain of guilt on the land itself, which had to be answered for.

5The rest of what Jehoiakim did, and everything he accomplished, is written in the book of the record of the kings of Judah.

5Now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?

NoteThis "book of the record" was a set of official royal annals kept by the court of Judah. It is a lost document, not the biblical books of Chronicles; the writer of Kings repeatedly points readers to it for the fuller record.

6Jehoiakim died, and his son Jehoiachin became king in his place.

6So Jehoiakim slept with his fathers: and Jehoiachin his son reigned in his stead.

Note"Slept with his fathers" is the standard formula in Kings for a king's death, usually implying he died without violence and was buried in the family tomb. Notably, the writer does not say where Jehoiakim was buried, though he normally records this.

7The king of Egypt did not march out from his own land again. The king of Babylon had taken all the land that had belonged to Egypt, from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates River.

7And the king of Egypt came not again any more out of his land: for the king of Babylon had taken from the river of Egypt unto the river Euphrates all that pertained to the king of Egypt.

NoteThe "river of Egypt" is not the Nile but the Brook of Egypt, a seasonal watercourse (usually identified with the Wadi el-Arish) that marked the traditional southern boundary of the land. The Euphrates, far to the north-east, marked the other extreme. The sentence means Egypt had lost control of everything between the two and could no longer intervene in the region.

8Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he ruled in Jerusalem for three months. His mother's name was Nehushta daughter of Elnathan, from Jerusalem.

8Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. And his mother’s name was Nehushta, the daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem.

NoteThe names of the mothers of the kings of Judah are recorded consistently in Kings because the queen mother held a recognized position at court, with rank and influence of her own; that is also why she is listed among the captives in verses 12 and 15.

9He did what the LORD said was evil, just as his father had done.

9And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father had done.

Note"Did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD" is the writer's fixed verdict formula on a king, applied throughout Kings. It refers chiefly to tolerating or promoting the worship of gods other than the LORD, and worship at unauthorised shrines, rather than to a particular crime.

10At that time the officers of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched up to Jerusalem, and the city was surrounded and cut off.

10At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against Jerusalem, and the city was besieged.

NoteTo besiege a city was to surround its walls with an army and cut off food, water and reinforcements until the defenders surrendered or starved. Ancient armies rarely stormed a walled city directly if they could wait it out.

11Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon himself came to the city while his officers were surrounding it.

11And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came against the city, and his servants did besiege it.

12Jehoiachin king of Judah went out and gave himself up to the king of Babylon, along with his mother, his household servants, his commanders, and his court officials. So the king of Babylon took him prisoner in the eighth year of his reign.

12And Jehoiachin the king of Judah went out to the king of Babylon, he, and his mother, and his servants, and his princes, and his officers: and the king of Babylon took him in the eighth year of his reign.

Note"Went out to the king of Babylon" is the language of formal surrender: leaving the protection of the walls and handing yourself over. "The eighth year of his reign" means Nebuchadnezzar's eighth year, not Jehoiachin's, Jehoiachin had only ruled three months. This dates the surrender to 597 BC.

13Nebuchadnezzar carried off all the treasures of the LORD's house and the treasures of the king's palace. He cut up all the gold objects that Solomon king of Israel had made for the LORD's temple, just as the LORD had said.

13And he carried out thence 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 which Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the LORD, as the LORD had said.

NoteThe gold objects were the fittings and utensils of the temple built by Solomon some four centuries earlier. Cutting them in pieces was not vandalism but standard practice: worked gold was broken up so it could be weighed and carried off as bullion.

14He carried off all Jerusalem into exile: all the officials, all the fighting men, and all the craftsmen and metalworkers, ten thousand captives in all. Only the poorest people of the land were left behind.

14And he carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valour, even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and smiths: none remained, save the poorest sort of the people of the land.

NoteDeporting the craftsmen and metalworkers was a deliberate military measure: they were the people who could make and repair weapons and fortifications. "The poorest sort of the people of the land" were the laborers with no property or standing, left behind to work the fields and vineyards so the land would keep producing. The figure of ten thousand here and the figures in verse 16 (seven thousand plus one thousand) do not obviously agree; the Hebrew does not explain how they relate, and the text leaves it unresolved.

15He took Jehoiachin away to Babylon, along with the king's mother, the king's wives, his court officials, and the leading men of the land. He carried them into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

15And he carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, and the king’s mother, and the king’s wives, and his officers, and the mighty of the land, those carried he into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon.

16The king of Babylon also brought to Babylon as captives seven thousand fighting men and a thousand craftsmen and metalworkers, all of them strong and fit for battle.

16And all the men of might, even seven thousand, and craftsmen and smiths a thousand, all that were strong and apt for war, even them the king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon.

17The king of Babylon made Mattaniah, the brother of Jehoiachin's father, king in his place, and he changed his name to Zedekiah.

17And the king of Babylon made Mattaniah his father’s brother king in his stead, and changed his name to Zedekiah.

NoteMattaniah was Jehoiachin's uncle, a son of the previous king Josiah, so Babylon put an older member of the royal family on the throne rather than an outsider. Changing a vassal king's name was an act of ownership, publicly marking who had made him king. Both names are ordinary Hebrew royal names: Mattaniah means roughly "gift of the LORD", Zedekiah "the LORD is my righteousness".

18Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he ruled in Jerusalem for eleven years. His mother's name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah, from Libnah.

18Zedekiah was twenty and one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.

NoteThis Jeremiah is not the prophet Jeremiah, who was active in Jerusalem at this same time; the name was common. Libnah was a town in the lowlands of Judah, to the west.

19He did what the LORD said was evil, just as Jehoiakim had done.

19And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that Jehoiakim had done.

20All of this happened in Jerusalem and Judah because of the LORD's anger, until he finally drove them out of his presence. And Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

20For through the anger of the LORD it came to pass in Jerusalem and Judah, until he had cast them out from his presence, that Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.