1 and 2 Kings - Lesson 20

Dr. John Oswalt
1 & 2 Kings
th630-20
Destruction of Judah
Lesson Transcript

It's difficult not to be grieved by Josiah's death. He was only 39 when he died, and it's tempting to imagine perhaps, perhaps he would have been able had he lived longer to bring about a genuine national revival where the people would turn away from the sins of MENASA. On the other hand, it may well be that he had done all he could do given the sins of MENASA, given how deeply they had become impregnated into the thinking of the people, perhaps that was it. Again, it's interesting to speculate on why he did what he did.

The Assyrian Army has been thoroughly defeated in its homeland there on the upper Tigress River and is being driven westward by the Mito Babylonian army. The question is, will they at someplace be able to make a stand? And perhaps as the Hittites had done nearly a millennium before, reestablish themselves in a new area. The Egyptian Pharaoh is coming north to help the Assyrians. One wonders why the Assyrians had done such damage to Egypt and Egypt's interests across the years. Why in the world would an Egyptian Pharaoh want to help the Assyrians now? I think the answer is reasonably clear. He wants to keep a weak Assyria between him and the Mito Babylonians, and so he's coming north to help the remnants of the Assyrian army, and Josiah for some reason wants to stop them.

Why is his hatred of Assyria such that he doesn't want anything to occur that would mean the Assyrians might live a little longer, perhaps. Perhaps. At any rate, he chose to take a stand at Megiddo. Remember Megiddo is that pass through the ridge that is running out to Mount Carmel. The international highway comes through that pass at Megiddo across the Jezreel Valley on up to [inaudible 00:02:56] on the shore of Sea of Galilee, and on out to Damascus, but unquestionably a choke point, a good place to try to block an army. Interestingly, the Book of Chronicles tells us that the Pharaoh spoke the word of God and said, I am serving God and you must get out of my way. Well, I can imagine the Pharaoh saying that. It's just a little surprising that the chronicler says this is from God. At any rate, Josiah didn't believe him and was killed.

So this ushers in a similar kind of upheaval to what we saw in Israel in the last years of Judah from the year 609 until 586, roughly 25 years, Judah goes through some upheavals that are not unlike those that happened in Israel. Not so much bloodletting, but a good deal of change. First of all, upon the news of Josiah's death, the people put a younger son of Josiah on the throne, not the older son. The older son's, a man named Jehoiakim. They do not put him on the throne. Rather they put a brother who is three years younger on the throne.

I think in the light of what happens next, we can understand why Jehoiakim was not chosen and why Jehoiahaz was. I think it's fairly clear that Jehoiakim must have been pro Egyptian and Jehoiahaz must have been anti-Egyptian. And so Jehoiahaz the younger brothers put on the throne. But unfortunately though the battle that was fought up in the north in 609 was not a success for the Assyrians and the Egyptians. It still left a vacuum in which the Egyptians could assert themselves and they did. So three months after coming to the throne, Jehoiahaz has is deposed, is taken to Egypt, and there he dies. And Jehoiakim, his older brother, is put on the throne clearly as an Egyptian vassal.

Jehoiahaz was on the throne long enough that the word could be said that indeed he did evil in the eyes of the Lord, not like his father. Again, as with Hezekiah and Manasseh, we wonder what happened. Where was the failure? Why was the faith not transmitted from father to son? We don't know the answer. Jehoiakim is a cynical politico. We know him best from his encounters with Jeremiah. As reported in the book of Jeremiah, he's a man who follows the political winds. 609, the Egyptians are in the saddle. I'm an Egyptian man, 605, the Babylonian general who had engineered the success over the Assyrians, man named [inaudible 00:07:11] dies and it is replaced by his son, a man whose name we know quite well, Nebuchadnezzar.

Nebuchadnezzar gives the Assyrian armies the Coda Gras. He wipes them out and then proceeds down through Canaan demanding that each of these small nations give allegiance to him. Jehoiakim changed his horses very quickly, used to be an Egyptian vassal. Now he's a Babylonian vassal. For how long? Nebuchadnezzar in 601 on the borders of Egypt suffered a defeat, one of the few defeats Nebuchadnezzar ever did suffer, and went back to Babylon to regroup.

So the political cynic Jehoiakim decides to rebel against the Babylonians betting that indeed they have suffered enough of a defeat to keep them away from him. The text seems to say that in the opening months of that revolt, Jerusalem is subject to raiders, Chaldean raiders. Chaldea remembers extreme southern Mesopotamia, south of the city of Babylon, groups probably from the defeated Babylonian army who've been left behind and are raiding. But in that battle between Egypt and Nebuchadnezzar, Egypt fought itself out and Nebuchadnezzar simply went home and regrouped. Very shortly, the Babylonian army is back besieging Jerusalem.

What happened next is not entirely clear. Kings and Chronicles differ a bit on this. Kings says he rested with his ancestors died, but nothing is said about his burial, which is unusual in these death summaries of the Kings. Chronicles, on the other hand, says they put him in chains to take him to Babylon, but it doesn't say they took him to Babylon. So how are we to understand what's going on here? Because it is his son, Jehoiakin, who surrenders to the Babylonians and is ultimately taken as captive to Babylon. What happened?

Here's a suggestion, Jehoiakim refuses to surrender to the Babylonian army and he is deposed by the people, and his son is put on the throne in his place. His son wisely immediately surrenders. But before Jehoiakim can be taken into captivity with Jehoiakin, he dies and is basically not even given a funeral celebration. That's a guess. We do not know. All we know is Jehoiakim started the revolt and Jehoiakin, who was 18 at the time, gave the surrender another word about Jehoiakim before we leave him behind.

Do you remember the story in Jeremiah? It's winter. The king is sitting in the palace with a charcoal brazier there for warmth. God directs Jeremiah, I want you to put what you have said on a scroll. This is an interesting insight into how prophetic books may have been produced that the prophet spoke the words and a disciple wrote them down. The disciple was Baruch. All of these words that Jeremiah had spoken across the years probably began sometime during the reign of Josiah. So perhaps 615, it's now 603, 12 years of preaching, and Jeremiah speaks them and they're written down on the scroll, and people in the temple hear about this and read it and are shocked and stunned. They say to the king, you need to hear this. So he commands the scroll be brought to him, the word of God, and as it is read ... and remember on the scroll you had columns. As a column is read, Jehoiakim takes his pocket knife, slices it off and throws it in the brazier.

It chills me every time I read that or think about it. The word of God. Josiah says, no, no, and tears his robes and weeps. Jehoiakim. Two approaches to the word of God. I hear it and I will conform to it, so help me God. I hear it and I don't care a fig for it. In 605 when Jehoiakim surrendered to Nebuchadnezzar and became his vassal, it is apparent that hostages were taken. The Babylonians took some hostages to guarantee keeping the covenant. One of those hostages was a man named Daniel and he had three friends whom we know by their Babylonian names, four young men, hostages who never surrendered their covenant to God, who served their Babylonian lords.

Again, a lovely example it seems to me of people who are not controlled by their sense of being victimized, who are not controlled by resentment. They served their Babylonian overlords faithfully, but they did not become Babylonians. So that's the first hostage taking in 605. In 598, the whole royal family is taken. Jehoiakin, his wives, his mother, his children all taken, and another set of hostages. One of these was a young priest in training named Ezekiel.

So these people, a significant crowd of them are taken into captivity. How shall we the people who remain in Jerusalem, how shall we think of these people? They are the bad figs who have been taken out of the barrel leaving us good figs so that we'll be in a fresh condition. No, says Jeremiah and Ezekiel. The good figs have been taken out into captivity and the bad figs are left. Well, another way of thinking about it was this is just a momentary setback. Very, very soon God is going to step in and God is going to do a great miracle like the Exodus, and he's going to bring all those people back. Jeremiah writes them a letter and says, don't you believe it? You're going to be here a long time. Ezekiel gets the very, very difficult task of saying to these people in Babylon, Jerusalem is going to fall. Don't expect that somehow Jerusalem will be saved and you will be restored. Jerusalem is going to fall. If there is hope, if there is hope for the people of God, it's in you and it's here.

Amazing. Well, typical pattern, the powerful empire shows up, demands an alliance, Jehoiakim. The vassal revolts, the empire comes back, demands surrender, Jehoiakin. They put on the throne their choice of king in this case, yet a third son of Josiah who is equally a loser, poor Josiah. Three sons to follow him, and none of them can come up to his standard of faith or even I think of leadership. Zedekiah is clearly a man who rules by pole. Now, I think we can understand why as a Babylonian appointee he would have a major public relations problem. People are going to be hating this man who is a lackey of the Babylonians, and so he's going to be tempted to try to keep the Babylonians happy while also proving to the people at home that he's really not a lackey. So he's got his ear to the ground. What are they thinking? You see it in his treatment of Jeremiah.

He wants to hear what Jeremiah has to say. He believes that Jeremiah is a real prophet, but he doesn't want anybody to know that he's listening to this renegade man of God who's clearly in the pay of the Babylonians. Every prediction that Jeremiah makes to him, he rejects. Jeremiah tells him, if you will remain in the city after the Babylonian attack, the last Babylonian attack begins, your life will be spared and it will be all right. He tries to escape and as a result, tragedy occurs. We'll say a word about that in a moment. Clearly you've got factions in the city, some who are saying this, others who are saying that, and Zedekiah is whips hawed between them. Should we revolt against Babylon? No. Okay, we won't. Yes, we should revolt against Babylon. Okay, we will, back and forth. Finally, the revolts gain enough strength and weight that they convince that's what he should do.

It's clear that these things were always a gambling risk. Maybe the Babylonians have concerns someplace else, and we can get away with this long enough to sort of establish ourselves, but if they don't, disaster lies ahead. That's exactly what Ezekiel is saying over there in Babylon. They are not going to escape. Jerusalem is going to fall. Now again, remember, that can't happen. Jerusalem is the city of God, the temple. That's God's house. That's where God lives. That can't happen.

If it happens, it means that all this stuff we've been saying about Yahweh, our particular Israelite idol, all those things are false. No, they can't be. Jerusalem can't fall, and Ezekiel and Jeremiah say, you don't understand at all, do you? God does not care about this city. Oh, yes, he cares. Yes, he cares, but he doesn't need it. God doesn't care about this temple. Yes, he cares, but he doesn't need it. The city goes, the temple goes. He's still God. They couldn't believe it.

So the day came and in chapter 25, we have the story. One of the things that we see in chapter five is a fairly lengthy list of the stuff they took from the temple, A list that has a kind of an eerie similarity to chapter seven of one kings in that lengthy description of the bronze items and the gold items. Now here they are all being taken to Babylon.

Yes, yes. God is pleased when that beautiful building symbolizes the beautiful heart condition of his people. But when his heart condition, when the people's heart condition is filthy, God doesn't care a fig about that bronze and gold and silver. Take them away, take them away. God wants to live in the human heart, and if the human heart is not a fit place to live, he doesn't care anything about a building. It's just a symbol and it's a worthless symbol because our hearts are not his.

Zedekiah. Is he going to stay and battle this thing out with his people faithful to the end? Oh, no, no. He's going to escape out the little door in the wall with some of his soldiers and the Babylonians are going to chase him down and they're going to take him up to Syria to Riblah where Nebuchadnezzar is, and he's going to watch his sons tortured to death and then they put out his eyes. The last thing imprinted on his optic nerve is the terrifying death of his sons. It didn't have to happen that way, but he didn't believe the prophet. He didn't believe the prophet. In some ways that sentence is the sentence for Israel. It didn't have to happen that way, but they didn't believe the prophets.

They didn't believe the word of God. So it's over. Well, not quite. These people have a death wish. The Babylonians appoint a military governor from Judah that was a concession. He's not a military governor from Babylon. He's a military governor from Judah, a man named [inaudible 00:25:19]. Excuse me, I should back up here when I said it's over. Yes, when they took the high priest and the other officers of the temple and the door guards who are the sort of the top echelon and kill them, then it's really over. But as I said, they appointed this military Governor [inaudible 00:25:47]. Now, Getalaya is a descendant of a family of faithful people. If you look at verse 22 of chapter 25, Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon appointed Getalaya, son of [inaudible 00:26:08], son of Shafan to be over the people he had left behind in Judah. If you look at the book of Jeremiah, you see Shafan and Ahikam and these are faithful men.

These are men who are supporting Jeremiah in the distress that he went through. They are protecting him as best they can. They are the ones who are troubled by the word that they hear in Jeremiah's scroll. So Getalaya is the best hope, the best hope for the survival of faith in this now decimated land where all the leadership, all the artisans have been taken away. And what happens? A gorilla group led by a member of the royal family kills him, and then they think, oh, well, the Babylonians might not be too happy with us for having done that, huh? Well, maybe we better go to Egypt. Exodus and Second Kings 25 and we've gone nowhere. Back to our slave lords.

Yes, I say these are people with a death wish. They want not only to kill their land, they want to kill themselves. They want to kill their history. They want to kill their faith. So it's over. Well, not quite. At the very end of the 25th chapter of Second Kings, we find this strange word in the 37th year of the exile of Jehoiachin, king of Judah. It's about 554. [inaudible 00:28:52] is the successor to Nebuchadnezzar, became king of Babylon. He released Jehoiachin king of Judah from prison. He did this on the 27th day of the 12th month. Again, we're trying to nail this down. This is not just not just pie in the sky. This is not fudge. This happened.

He spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat of honor higher than those of the other kings who were with him in Babylon. So Jehoiachin can put aside his prison clothes and for the rest of his life ate regularly at the king's table. Day by day, the King gave Jehoiachin a regular allowance as long as he lived. What's that about? There's no agreement among commentators on the significance of this passage. I think it's quite significant, and I want to hold my thoughts for just a moment. We've come to the end of our study of the books of Kings and what shall we say? Is it a history? Yes, but not a history. Is it theology? Yes, but it's not a theology book. It's not a systematic theology. What is it?

It is a revelation of the character and nature of I AM through his interaction with unique humans in unique time and space. God, the transcendent one, the one who is not this world and not any part of this world, has stepped into time and space. He has incarnated himself in human historical experience. Jesus incarnation is not an innovation. It is the culmination of what God has been doing from the beginning and seen particularly in these books. It is a story of persons who have a very tenuous hold on God, but a story of God's incredibly persistent hold on them.

It's a story of grace and mercy extended again and again to Ahab of all people. I think that's what the final paragraph is all about. You think it's over. It's never over with God. You think there's no hope. Oh, so long as life endures, there is hope. Oh, as I've said to you several times, yes, at the end of the day, your choice is final, but until the end of the day, there is hope. The line of David has come to an end. Zedekiah is blinded, taken in chains. That's the end of the story. No, the Davidic line has not come to an end. God has finally lost all faith in the Davidites. No, he hasn't.

How is God going to work this out? That's up to him. You try to figure it out on your own. Oh, well, Jehoiachin is going to have this child. Forget that. God is the creator. He loves doing things in new ways, but know this. He does not break his promises. This is a book which says God is true. He is utterly reliable. He will keep his word. He is entirely consistent. Predictable? No. Consistent? Yes, yes. This is a cause and effect world, but within the constraints of the causes and effects that he has built into his cosmos, within those constraints, he's infinitely creative and endlessly loving.

What does he want? He wants two things, just two simple as this absolute loyalty to him and dependence upon him. That's number one. Number two, self-denial in the interests of others, especially others who cannot repay us. Do these, stand back. Don't do these, I think of one of my favorite stories. Little boy is in the hospital with a broken leg. He jumped off the garage roof with his superman towel tied around his neck. His father says, what were you thinking? The little boy says, well, before I jumped off, I thought, this is going to be fun. Just after I jumped, I thought, this is going to hurt. Yes, don't do these things. It's going to hurt. That's the Book of Kings.

Isn't that part of the challenge for the faithful remnant in that day and also to today is to live in a faithful way even though we can't see when the deliverance will come?

Absolutely. Absolutely. It is what the book of Hebrews is all about. It is hang in there, hang in there. You are people of faith. You cannot see what lies ahead. You cannot guarantee what lies ahead. But here's a list of people who have walked where you walk who cannot see the future, but dare to believe in it. Absolutely. Here again is the power of scripture between us and these people is 2,500 years between us and these people is absolute cultural difference it seems. Yet, oh my, we're exactly where they are.

Will I believe when the world is falling down around me, and this is where everybody loves the hymn Great is Thy Faithfulness, but almost nobody knows where those words come from. They come from Lamentations three, and the guy has just said, you set me up as the target for your arrows. You filled my mouth with gravel and made me chew on it. Yet this I call to mind. Great is thy faithfulness new every morning. Now, that's what I call faith. I don't much care what you believe. When your stomach is full and you're holding the hands of all those you love, that's pretty easy. But it's when everything is falling down around you. God, I've been faithful. I haven't been like the rest of those pagans. I haven't worshiped Baal, but I'm going to go into exile. That's not fair. But God says, if you'll keep the faith, I'll keep you. Yeah, right on. Right on.