2 Kings 24:8-20

2 Kings 24:8–20 (NIV)✞: Jehoiachin King of Judah, Zedekiah King of Judah

Passage

In the last passage we read about Judah being raided by the Babylonians (and a few other nations) under the rule of Jehoiakim; they were no longer bothered by the Egyptians but the Babylonians were still a threat. We ended with Jehoiakim’s son Jehoiachin becoming king.

In this passage we see that Jehoiachin’s reign—during which, probably to nobody’s surprise, he does evil in the eyes of the LORD (v. 9✞)—is a short one: only three months before the Babylonians put Jerusalem under siege, Jehoiachin and his officials surrender, and he is carried off into captivity.

We may recall from 20:12–21 that God had prophesied to Hezekiah that the Babylonians would carry off all of Judah’s treasures; verse 13✞ makes a point of calling out the fact that that prophecy is now being fulfilled. In fact, the Babylonians carry off all of Judah’s treasures, all of Judah’s officials, all of Judah’s fighting men – basically, anyone or anything the Babylonians feel might be useful, leaving only “the poorest people of the land” left (v. 14✞).

Well… there are some officials who are left. They leave Jehoiachin’s uncle Mattaniah behind, making him “king,” though they rename him to Zedekiah. (I put “king” in quotes because Judah is now just a vassal state under the Babylonians; Zedekiah is more like a governor, under the rule of the Babylonians, rather than a full king. Given the fact that they’ll later appoint someone they actually call a governor, it seems like they’re letting Zedekiah and/or the people of Judah save face for some reason.)

Zedekiah reigns a bit longer than his nephew, eleven years, so he must have been obedient to the Babylonians – though, just like his nephew he does evil in the eyes of the LORD (v. 19✞). His obedience doesn’t last forever, however; verse 20✞ tells us that he eventually rebels against the Babylonians. We’ll see in the next chapter how that plays out…

Thoughts

We’ve seen a number of times in the book of Kings that there’s a difference between a “faithful king” and a “good king” – i.e. a king who is obedient to God and/or a king who is good at being a king. We’ve seen faithful kings who’ve nevertheless been bad at their jobs, unfaithful kings who were good at their jobs, and I think any other combination as well.

Jehoiachin and Zedekiah are definitely unfaithful kings, but are they good or bad at their jobs? As usual, the author(s) of Kings aren’t really interested in answering that question—it’s not what this book is about—so we’re left wondering whether Zedekiah’s rebellion against Babylon is a good idea that’s thwarted by God or simply a bad idea.

Were I to guess, however, I think that Zedekiah suffers from a sort of religious split personality that many leaders of Judah/Israel suffered from, believing two opposing things at once:

1. The LORD? Who’s the LORD? Just one more deity among many – if He even exists!
2. But also: We are the LORD’s people – He would never abandon us!

And although it sounds weird to believe those two things when I state it this way, I don’t think it’s actually all that weird at all. The people of Zedekiah’s day were culturally Jewish¹, regardless of what religious beliefs they held. I’m guessing it was baked into Zedekiah’s belief system that the nation he led belonged to God, and that God would never abandon His people (even if he’d forgotten or was ignoring all that God required of His people), and that very well might have played into his decision to rebel against Babylon.

The irony being that that was sort of true—God never did abandon His people, He was still their God even when they were in captivity—but God had also promised, right from the very beginning, that His people would go into captivity if they weren’t obedient to Him, and had made some pretty specific prophecies in recent years that that was about to happen. So if Zedekiah was relying on God to save His people from the Babylonians his “faith” was misplaced.

And, as I say, I don’t know if this was something Zedekiah believed or not. Maybe he’d forgotten about God altogether. Then again, the prophet Jeremiah was prophesying at this time, so Zedekiah likely didn’t have the luxury of forgetting about God – he had one of His prophets constantly reminding him! So the idea that he might have been relying on God to save His people at the same time he was ignoring everything God demanded of him isn’t so far fetched; I seem to recall that a major theme of the book of Jeremiah is one of him warning the people of Judah that they’re going to be conquered and them calling Jeremiah a blasphemer for ever suggesting God would abandon His people like that.

But then that leaves us with a couple of hard verses:

¹⁹ He did evil in the eyes of the LORD, just as Jehoiakim had done. ²⁰ It was because of the LORD’s anger that all this happened to Jerusalem and Judah, and in the end he thrust them from his presence.

2 Kings 24:19–20 (NIV)✞, emphasis added

Was Zedekiah doing evil because of his sin, or because God was angry with Judah? As is so often the case in the Bible, the answer is yes.

Zedekiah was a sinful man, and was responsible for the sins he committed, and, at the same time, Zedekiah was an unfaithful king because God was angry with Judah and it was time to send them into exile. I know I’ve written about this dichotomy before—how God is in control, and we are also responsible for our actions—but in this instance I don’t have any useful thoughts to add. It’s not something I’m claiming to fully understand, but it’s also something that we see time and time and time again in the Scriptures, so we can’t simply ignore the idea.

Footnotes

• I don’t know if the terms “Jew” or “Jewish” were being used in this time, but the point isn’t the terminology being used, it’s the way the culture operated. ↩