Transcript of 2nd Kings 24 - 25. The Fall of Jerusalem

hi i'm john stevenson we're going to be looking at the fall of jerusalem second kings chapters 24 and 25. we've already talked about how assyria came to an end the assyrian empire with a coalition of babylon and the medes the scythians weren't part of the coalition but they jumped in there anyway and these three kingdoms brought nineveh to a close uh nineveh fell in the year 612 bc and then after that um nebuchadnezzar continues on a few years later to karkhamish where he is met by the pharaoh nico from egypt uh and they fight this epic battle at karkhamish nico and there there had been a former pharaoh by that name so he we call him nico ii he was a pharaoh of the 26th dynasty known as the saiyite dynasty uh he had inherited an alliance with assyria because it had been the assyrians that would put his people on the throne and so he comes to the throne and marches to karkamish in order to um to fight against actually to join again to join with the assyrians or what's left of the assyrians

and to fight against nebuchadnezzar but he's intercepted by josiah at megiddo and that is where josiah is killed so at megiddo you have nico coming up to megiddo and he calls for josiah to let him pass unmolested he actually claims that he's been sent by yahweh i don't know if that part was true or not but that's his claim and josiah nevertheless goes to meet him at megiddo is it a battle is it uh just an unofficial meeting we don't know but josiah is killed at megiddo and that that's going to set up sort of a a a way of talking about things that happen at megiddo a place of great battles that creates a place of great loss and even the book of revelation makes reference to a battle at har megiddo we say armageddon but just means mount megiddo so josiah has died and then the israelites take his son his oldest son jehoa has and he they install him on the throne after his father's death chapter 23 of of second kings verse beginning halfway through verse 30 then the people of the land took

jehoiah has the son of josiah and anointed him and made him king in place of his father joas was 23 years old when he became king and he reigned three months in jerusalem and his mother's name was hamutal the daughter of jeremiah of libna that's not the same jeremiah of the book of jeremiah that's just different person by the same name verse 32 he did evil in the sight of the lord according to all that his fathers had done and pharaoh nico imprisoned him at ribla in the land of hameth that he might not reign in jerusalem so notice they make him king he's not going to last this king very long at all veronica deposes him and he imposed on the land a fine of 100 talents of silver and a talent of gold fironico made eliakim the son of josiah this is the second son of josiah's king in place of josiah his father and changed his name and from now on we'll just refer to him as jehoiakim but he took jehoiah has away and brought him to egypt and he died there so jehoiakim gave the silver and gold to pharaoh he's

sort of i don't know if it's really a bribe or extortion but he's having to pay the pharaoh off he goes on to say but he taxed the land in order to give the money at the command of pharaoh he exacted the silver and gold from the people of the land each according to his evaluation to give it to pharaoh nico and so we'd had jehoiaez who had been installed after his father's death but now he's deposed by feroniko and in his place in his place we're going to see jehoiakim now formerly eliakim but his name is now changed to joy jehoiakim he will be the new king of judah he's installed by pharaoh nico verse 36 jehoiakim was 25 years old when he became king and he reigned 11 years in jerusalem that's the total length of his reign and his mother's name was zabeeda the daughter of padaya of rumah he did evil in the sight of the lord that's going to be all of them all the all the kings who come after josiah it will be said of all them they did evil inside of the lord notice according to all that his fathers

had done now um josiah had not but if we go back to that's why it says his father's not his father's angular but if you go back to his grandfather and his great grandfather they had sort of set the tone for these last kings of judah now we come to chapter 24 this is where the rest was just introduction to get us to here chapter 24 verse one in his days nebuchadnezzar king of babylon came up and jehoiakim became his servant three for three years and then he turned and rebelled against him so now we have to talk about nebuchadnezzar his reigns going to be from 605 to 562 bc he will be the king of babylon babylon in his day if in fact you you might never have heard of babylon if it had not been for nebuchadnezzar the euphrates river went right through the middle of the city uh the city had been destroyed and rebuilt and destroyed and rebuilt and now nebuchadnezzar takes it and changes it into the most wonderful city in the world you can go today to the museum in berlin in germany and see

the ish target it's been it's been reconstructed and set up there here's a artist conception of the ishtar gate and the the temple of morduk in the background the hanging gardens of babylon on in the foreground supposedly according to tradition built as a as a gift to his wife a princess from from media and she missed the mountains of her homeland so he built uh out here on the plains of babylon on the plains of mesopotamia an artificial mountain and covered it with uh with trees and foliage to remind her of her dear beloved mountains back home we have found what is called the nebuchadnezzar commemoration stella this is speaking of the the ziggurat that he builds there he says i made it the wonder of the people of the world i raised this top to heaven made doors for the gates and covered it with with bitumen and bricks that bitumen is sort of like a a pitch that is that is uh meant to cover the stones and make them waterproof and when you read this you can't help but think it's almost as though he's

borrowing word for word from genesis chapter 11 in describing the tower of babel and remember that the word babel and babylon are the same place it's just two ways two different english ways actually in in the hebrew text they are written exactly the same but our english translators for some unknown reason have chosen to render that babel in uh genesis chapter 11 and then later on when you see exactly the same word they've they've chosen to refer to it as babylon but this is the same location the nebuchadnezzar chronicles so that we um they they give us a a running account of nebuchadnezzar's reign at least for the first 11 years of his reign now i remember in the book of daniel it actually has a a gap there and likewise the the chronicles they go so far and all of a sudden they stop you know i don't know if we're just missing parts of it i can't help but wonder did something happen nebuchadnezzar like is recorded in the book of daniel i don't know i can't i can't really speak to that

but nebuchadnezzar remember he meets the the egyptians at carcamish and this is the decisive battle to answer the question who's going to be the new world ruler and at karkhamish the egyptians are defeated they turn around and run all the way back down to egypt and they will never set foot out of egypt again and so nebuchadnezzar notice in verse 24 verse one we already read this in his days nebuchadnezzar king of babylon came up and joy and johan became a servant for three years and then he turned and rebelled against him and the lord sent against him bands of chaldeans bands of armands bands of moabites bands of ammonites so he sent them against judah to destroy it i think that's sort of a summary statement all these different peoples eventually come up one after the other almost like waves against the seashore according to the word of the lord which he had spoken through his servants the prophets now nebuchadnezzar as he comes up against jerusalem he brings about the first of what will

eventually be three deportations to babylon the first one beginning in 605 bc i'm not trying to be exact because this is the same year of the battle of karkamish so might have been a year or two later but he he gathers in this first deportation the sons of nobility uh who are taken as hostages they're not in chains or anything like that but they are royal hostages um like daniel and his three friends to be raised and trained in the court of babylon so that they will be in effect good babylonians but because they're jewish they'll be accepted by the jewish people he's training up future leaders in babylon verse 3 surely at the command of the lord it came upon judah to remove them from his sight because notice this is because of the sin of manasseh this actually goes as a multi-generation curse according to all that he had done but to be fair the these sons of josiah are also acting in an evil way so they're they're repeating some of the sins of their great-granddaddy verse 4 and also for the innocent blood which he

shed for he filled jerusalem with innocent blood and the lord would not forgive and so we have jehoiakim and he had been installed by pharaoh naka remember jehoiah has uh in jehoia has had been the people's choice he'd been removed by pharaoh nico jehoiakim installed by feroneko subjugated by nebuchadnezzar in 605 bc and then when he rebelled nebuchadnezzar came to take him out verse 6 so jehoiakim slept with his fathers actually nebuchadnezzar comes to to conquer jerusalem and by the time he takes the city jehoiakim had died presumably of natural causes we don't know how he died and jehoiae chen now those names sound alike but don't confuse the two jo hoy chen his son became king in his place it's going to be a very short reign the king of egypt did not come out of his land again that he'd actually promised he said look uh rebel and if you get in trouble i'll come and deliver you he didn't he didn't make good on his promise for the king of babylon had taken all that belonged to the kingdom

of egypt from the brook of egypt to the river euphrates so the king of egypt is powerless to do anything to to stop nebuchadnezzar and so we had jehoiakim as we said he dies and now jehoiachin he's also known as jaconiah and he's also known as kenai so three different names for the same person is he's installed by the jews after his father's death while nebuchadnezzar is still coming up against the city as we said a very short reign and he's 18 years old when he became ken and he reigned three months that's short in jerusalem and his mother's name was nahushta the daughter of el nathan of jerusalem he did evil in the sight of the lord according to all that his fathers had done again that's the the common description of all of these sons and and in this case the grandson of josiah now what's interesting is that jeremiah chapter 22 and verse 30 gives a prophecy about jehoiachin jaconiah or also known as kanaya remember all three of those names are the same person and jeremiah 22 30 says write this man

down childless a man who will not prosper in his days for no man of his descendants will prosper sitting on the throne of judah or ruling again in judah now when it says no man of his descendants literally the hebrew word there is zera means no man of his seed his physical descendants and what's interesting about jeconiah also known as uh jehoiachin also known as kanaya is that his name is in the genealogy of jesus you say well how can that be if jesus is the rightful king and this prophecy says that this man's going to be childless a man who will not prosper in his days no man of his descendants he is going to have children but they won't be kings and when we get to the time of jesus like i said we see him in the genealogy but it's the genealogy strictly speaking not of jesus but of joseph the adopted father of jesus which means that jesus had the legal right to the throne but if he had been the physical descendant the physical seed of joseph then according to this prophecy he would never sit on the throne

of david but he was not the physical seed of joseph and so jesus is alone in fact of all of that line has both the legal and prophetic right to sit upon the throne of david second kings 24 10 continues at that time the servants of nebuchadnezzar king of babylon went up to jerusalem and the city came under siege and nebuchadnezzar the king of babylon came to the city he's probably getting tired of coming back to the city while his servants were besieging it verse 12 jehoiachin the king of judah went out to the king of babylon he and his mother and his servants and his captains and his officials so the king of babylon took him captive in the eighth year of his reign so even though he beseeches the city he doesn't have to wait until the city falls and they break through he goes out and he surrenders verse 13 he carried out from there 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

just as the lord has said so the temple is still standing at this point but it is largely despoiled of all of its treasures verse 14 and then he led a way into exile all jerusalem and all the captains and all the mighty men of valor ten thousand captives and all the craftsmen and the smiths none remained except the poorest people of the land but the poorest people of land do remain there in jerusalem and in the land and so we'd seen the first deportation 605 bc now we see a second deportation the year is 597 bc and this time 10 000 men of valor craftsman smith's including the prophet ezekiel and so we're going to see in the book of ezekiel that he's not in jerusalem he's actually in mesopotamia where he's been taken in the second deportation verse 15 so he led jehoiachin away into exile to babylon also the king's mother and the king's wives and his officials and the leading men of the land he led away into exile from jerusalem to babylon all the men of valor seven thousand and the craftsmen and the smiths one 1000

all strong and fit for war and all these the king of babylon brought to into exile to babylon verse 17 then the king of babylon made his uncle uh methanaya king in his place and change his name to zedekiah so zedekiah is going to be the last king notice we've gone uh the three different sons of jose as well as his grandson and and now the jehoiachin has been removed but not killed he's still alive zedekiah now becomes the last king verse 18 zedekiah was 21 years old when he became king and he reigned 11 years in jerusalem and his mother's name was the daughter of jeremiah of libna he did evil in the sight of the lord according to all that jehoiakim had done for through the anger of the lord this came about in jerusalem and judah until he cast them out from his presence and you knew it was coming zedekiah rebelled against the king of babylon now he's warned by jeremiah don't do that turn to the lord trust in the lord don't don't make alliance alliances with egypt don't listen to other people

and he will not listen and he rebels against nebuchadnezzar second kings chapter 25 now verse one now we see the fall coming this is going to be the last time now in the ninth year of his reign on the tenth day of the tenth month nebuchadnezzar king of babylon came he and all his army this is the third time he's come against jerusalem camped against it and built a siege wall around it so the city was under siege until the 11th year so this is going to be a two-year siege culminating in on the 9th of uh the 9th of aub around august the 11th year of king zedekiah and we have from this period a series of letters uh notice they are written on broken pieces of potter you see a picture of them here from the city of location this is a city fort in the country of judah it's about 20 miles southwest of jerusalem excavated in the 1930s by james starkey seven levels to the city but at the gate of the city and you can see in the picture below the the gate and when i say gate there's a an act a whole section that comes out of

the city that's all part of that gate and in that gate we found these pieces of broken pottery with with writing on them you can read the writing you can actually visit the tell where the archaeological dig has taken place this is a not a very good photograph but you can actually see the gate down that's been excavated uh here's a closer section of that gate these these letters from the gate depict the the life in the city leading up to the point where it is going to be captured by nebuchadnezzar and in letter 6 here i'm reading it to you on the left read i pray you and you will see the words of thee and it's not clear but it seems to refer to the prophet there and not good to listen to uh to the hands to mate and the idea there is make them sink the hands of the country and the king and that corresponds to jeremiah chapter 38 and verse 4 where we read there i'm using the new king james version here because it's it's sometimes it's actually slightly more accurate therefore the princess said to

the king please let this man be put to death and notice was described here for thus he weakens the hands of the men at war who remain in the city in the hands of all the people by speaking such words them for this man does not seek the welfare of this people but their harm that's almost word for word from the lackeish letters where where this letter is actually giving a charge about the prophet was he talking about jeremiah can't say for sure because his name isn't in there but it sounds very much like it's almost quoting the words of jeremiah well verse 3 on the ninth day of the fourth month the ninth of ab the famine was so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of land and then the city was broken into and all the men of war fled by night they tried to get away and by way of the gate between the two walls beside the king's garden though the chaldeans were all around the city and they went by way of the arabah so they're you see lakeish southwest of jerusalem but now they break out of jerusalem

the zedekiah and some of his his his captain of his guard and they are trying to run down to jericho to escape verse 5 but the army of the chaldeans pursued the king and overtook him in the plains of jericho and all his army was scattered from him verse 6 but then they captured the king and brought him to the king of babylon at ribla and he passed sentence on him they slaughtered the sons of zedekiah before his eyes then put out the eyes of zedekiah the last thing he was able to see was his own sons being put to death and bound him with bronze fetters and brought him to babylon verse 8. now on the seventh day of the fifth month which was the 19th year of king nebuchadnezzar king of babylon zebu zaradan the captain of the guard a servant of the king of babylon came to jerusalem he burned the house of the lord this is the destruction of the temple the king's house and all the houses of jerusalem even every great house he burned with fire remember that the temple was made of wood it it had uh other insets into it it had

gold but it was a wooden structure and now it is completely destroyed so you have the temple built by solomon this was solomon's temple burned in the year 586 bc some books will say 587 that's okay i'm not going to quibble about the year the ark of the covenant from this time on you're not going to see the ark of the covenant it had been prophesied by jeremiah that it would be that it would be a loss it was present in josiah's day it's mentioned in second chronicles chapter 35 and verse 3 but jeremiah had told a given prophecy in jeremiah chapter 3 verse 16 that it would be gone it would not be seen again it would not be made again and you no longer have the ark of the covenant all sorts of of uh theories and even legends uh the book second maccabees actually uh records a legend about how jeremiah took it and hid it somewhere on the east side of the jordan uh but it was never recovered and even when the jewish people came back into the land and rebuilt their temple there was no more ark of the covenant

there chapter 25 verse 11 and then the rest of the people who were left in the city and the deserters who had deserted the king of babylon and the rest of the people uh nebu zaradan the captain of the guard carried away into exile but the captain of the guard left some of the poorest of the land there's always a remnant notice they're left to be vine dressers and plowmen the very poorest of the poor uh there's just a few of them that are left behind and so we already saw the first deportation the second deport deportation 597 bc with uh 10 000 men of valor the craftsman dismissed ezekiel now we see the third deportation 586 bc where the temple is destroyed and the general population uh almost everybody is taken away now and deported to babylon verse 22 now as for the people who were loved because there were a few that were left in the land of judah whom nebuchadnezzar king of babylon had left he appointed gedelia the son of ahikam the son of shafan over them so gedlai is going to be a local governor a very poor governor

not that he's doing poor wealth actually he's not going to do too well either but uh over the very poorest of the poor get liar swore to them and their men and said to them do not be afraid of the servants of the chaldeans live in the land serve the king of babylon and it will be well with you but verse 25 but it came about in the seventh month that ishmael the son of nephaniah the son of alishama of the royal family came with ten men and struck god elia down so that he died along with the jews and the chaldeans who were with him at mitzvah even now when there's nothing to rebel with even now there's a rebellion an assassination of the person that nebuchadnezzar had appointed to be the governor verse 26 then all the people the small great the captains of the forces arose and went to egypt where they were afraid of the chaldeans they were afraid that nebuchadnezzar might come back one more time and if he came back one more time there would be no one left and so they flee to egypt and what's interesting is

southern egypt there's a place at um what today is the aswan dam back then was the first of us a whole series of waterfalls uh but southern egypt is an there's an island there called the island of the elephants um in fact when you see a picture of it like that you can almost see these rocks they look a little bit like elephants coming up from the river and so that is given the island's name it's called elephantine and a series of papyri were found here some of which were written to jewish people not in the days of the babylonians but in the next age once the babylonian empire is fallen we'll see next the persians come on the scene and it's written to the persians and this is a jewish military commander under the persians and he's writing from elephantine there's actually a museum you can go there and see the museum and i've been to the one on the bottom that that is uh by a swan and in on this island they found these papyri he's writing asking for permission to rebuild a temple there at elephantine apparently

the jewish people had had built their own place of worship uh and they had been worshipping there and then somehow the place had been destroyed and don't recall what it was that destroyed it perhaps a riot or something like that the temple had been destroyed and they're asking permission to rebuild not a temple in jerusalem but down here at elephantine now chapter 25 verse 27 now it came about in the 37th year of the exile of jehoiachin king of judah in the 12th month on the 27th day of the month that eva moroda king of babylon you say well what happened to nebuchadnezzar by now he's died and this is his son evil moroda king of babylon in the year that he became king released jehoiachin king of judah from prison and he spoke kindly to him and set his throne above the throne of the kings who were with him in babylon that is he is he's not he's not going to be a king but he's given kingly honors sort of a king in exile verse 29 jehoiachin changed his prison clothes and had his meals and the king's

presence regularly all the days of his life and for his allowance a regular allowance was given him by the king a portion for each day all the days of his life and the book comes to a close on this note the jews are stolen to captivity uh they have not been allowed to go back into the land but the last king you say well i thought the last king was zedekiah i know well he was sort of illegitimate because jehoiachin had been the last gang and it surrendered and now he is treated kindly he is allowed to continue there in babylon and so the book closes with hope for the future hope because even though he's no longer king and his descendants will not begin they they're being treated kindly and the story is going to continue there will be a return now to read about that we're going to have to go to the book of ezra where we'll we will read about a return actually we'll read about eventually three returns just like we had three deportations we'll see three returns to the land and finally we'll see the promise of a spiritual

return a return of a spiritual remnant and the one who was not the seed of jehoiachin but is his adopted great great great great great grandson and i'm speaking of jesus the messiah