Day #232

Sermon - Audio
2 Kings 24-25 & 2 Chronicles 36 - Audio
2 Kings 24-25 & 2 Chronicles 36 - Reading

Daily Insights - Please Comment

2 Kings 24-25; 2 Chronicles 36

2 Kings 24-25: While 2 Chronicles 36 gives us a staccato narrative with quick, small picture that lead to the downfall of Judah, 2 Kings gives more information that reflects deeply both the fallenness of Judah and the pain of the beginning of the exile.

• 2 Kings 24.17: The book of Kings does not record the repentance of Manasseh so his sins continue to be the reason for the fast disintegration of Judah.
• 2 Kings 25 ends with a note of hope. The restoration of the king of Judah which points to the hope of the restoration of the nation (Kings is written during the exile). 2 Chronicles, which is written after the exile, ends with the announcement of return.

2 Chronicles 36 This last chapter of 2 Chronicles describes the rapid decline of Judah. The time period is from 609 BC to 586 BC or 23 years.

• 36.1: Josiah’s son Jehoahaz (his name means “Possession of the LORD) takes over the throne. It will be a short and, as Jeremiah revealed, godless reign.
• 36.2: Pharaoh Neco makes Judah into a puppet state after his defeat of Josiah. He makes the nation pay tribute.
• 36.4: To show his power he replaces Jehoahaz with his brother Eliakim (which means “Resurrection of God) and renames him, Jehoiakim. Such renaming shows power over another.
• 36.5-7: Nebuchadnezzar defeats Neco at Carchemish in 605 BC. This defeat means that Judah is no longer under Egyptian control. It also means that another nation (Babylon) will now demand that Judah be its vassal.
• 36.8: This is the first of three attacks on Judah/Jerusalem. It is in this first attack that Daniel and his friends are taken captive.
• 36.9: Jehoiachin succeeds his father after Jehoiakim’s death (notice that neither his death nor his burial is mentioned in Chronicles). Jehoiachin’s name means “strength of the LORD”.
• 36.10: Jehoiachin is taken into captivity in 598. He will die in Babylon, but he will spend his last years at the king’s table.
• 36.11-13: Zedekiah (the justice of the LORD) breaks an oath made in the name of God. It is a denial of the importance and glory of God.
• 36.15: God’s grace flows, but the people will not accept it. Instead they abuse the prophets who are sent to bring them back to God and so back to life.
• 36.16: The Chronicler wants the people to understand that it is God who brought about the exile. It was not a powerful king or the geo-political happening, but God who punished them as covenant breakers. Such a word from the Chronicler was actually a word of hope. If God were the one who punished, then it would also be God who saves and restores.
• 36.19: The destruction of the temple was a punishment that fit the crime. Over and over the people abuse God’s house, close it down, bring in idols. God basically gives them what they want, the complete destruction of his house.
• 36.21: For the land to enjoy its Sabbaths means at least three things: that it will enjoy regain all the weekly Sabbaths that had been missed because of the people breaking the Sabbath, that it will enjoy the Sabbath Year that was supposed to come once every 7 years where the land lay fallow, and that it would have rest from the idolatry and injustice of the people.