2 KINGS 24
Read 2 Kings 23:31-24:17
After the faithful obedience of Josiah, we now see a series of kings who did evil in the eyes of the Lord and who accelerated the end of the Kingdom of Judah in a headlong rush. Josiah’s son Jehoahaz was king for three months before being taken captive by the Egyptians and held as security for payments of cash. Another son of Josiah, Eliakim, took over as king but was a puppet of the Egyptians. The pharaoh made Eliakim change his name to Jehoiakim and continued to press for money so that Jehoiakim had to tax his subjects heavily to make the payments.
Relief came from the east when Babylon, the new and rising power started to flex its muscles. Babylon freed Judah from the oppression of the Egyptians and Judah became a colony of Babylon. Then King Jehoiakim thought it would be a good idea to rebel against Babylon and that did not help. Egypt had been rendered useless by the Babylonian advances (v7) and all the other local nations took advantage of Judah’s lack of a protector to attack Judah (v2). The end was coming and coming quickly.
The next reign, that of Jehoiachin, was very brief, three months again. It was so short because the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar came to Jerusalem and laid siege to it. King Jehoiachin immediately surrendered and, along with the aristocracy and the government officials, was taken prisoner. What happened then was that Nebuchadnezzar raided the treasury and took all the valuables away and back to Babylon. He also took people: the army, craftsman and artisans – all those he thought would be useful members of society. All that were left, the writer tells us, were the poorest people; those that Nebuchadnezzar thought would not contribute to Babylonian society.
And so the second of the two kingdoms of God’s people came to end. Well, almost, there is still one chapter to go, but that is Nebuchadnezzar’s mopping up exercise. The king had been taken away, the wealth of the country had been taken away and the bulk of the population had been taken away. A chapter in the relationship between God and his people had come to an end. Despite all that God had done for his people, despite the constant reminders that they received from the prophets, they had continually turned their backs on him and worshipped foreign gods and idols. The Lord is patient and kind and slow to anger, but way back in the time of Solomon he had warned that judgement waited for those who continued in their sin: ‘If you or your sons turn away from me and do not observe the commands and decrees I have given you and go off to serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel (this was before the kingdom was divided into two so the name ‘Israel’ applies to the whole of God’s people) from the land I have given them (1 Kings 9:6-7). God keeps his promises.