2 Kings — Chapter 24
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1During Jehoiakim’s reign, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon invaded. So Jehoiakim became his vassal for three years, until he turned and rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar.
2And the LORD sent Chaldean, Aramean, Moabite, and Ammonite raiders against Jehoiakim in order to destroy Judah, according to the word that the LORD had spoken through His servants the prophets.
3Surely this happened to Judah at the LORD’s command, to remove them from His presence because of the sins of Manasseh and all that he had done,
4and also for the innocent blood he had shed. For he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the LORD was unwilling to forgive.
5As for the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, along with all his accomplishments, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?
6And Jehoiakim rested with his fathers, and his son Jehoiachin reigned in his place.
7Now the king of Egypt did not march out of his land again, because the king of Babylon had taken all his territory, from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates River.
8Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. His mother’s name was Nehushta daughter of Elnathan; she was from Jerusalem.
9And he did evil in the sight of the LORD, just as his father had done.
10At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched up to Jerusalem, and the city came under siege.
11And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to the city while his servants were besieging it.
12Jehoiachin king of Judah, his mother, his servants, his commanders, and his officials all surrendered to the king of Babylon. So in the eighth year of his reign, the king of Babylon took him captive.
13As the LORD had declared, Nebuchadnezzar also carried off all the treasures from the house of the LORD and the royal palace, and he cut into pieces all the gold articles that Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the LORD.
14He carried into exile all Jerusalem—all the commanders and mighty men of valor, all the craftsmen and metalsmiths—ten thousand captives in all. Only the poorest people of the land remained.
15Nebuchadnezzar carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, as well as the king’s mother, his wives, his officials, and the leading men of the land. He took them into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.
16The king of Babylon also brought into exile to Babylon all seven thousand men of valor and a thousand craftsmen and metalsmiths—all strong and fit for battle.
17Then the king of Babylon made Mattaniah, Jehoiachin’s uncle, king in his place and changed his name to Zedekiah.
18Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eleven years. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah; she was from Libnah.
19And Zedekiah did evil in the sight of the LORD, just as Jehoiakim had done.
20For because of the anger of the LORD, all this happened in Jerusalem and Judah, until He finally banished them from His presence. And Zedekiah also rebelled against the king of Babylon.
1In his days Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant three years: then he turned and rebelled against him.
2And the LORD sent against him bands of the Chaldees, and bands of the Syrians, and bands of the Moabites, and bands of the children of Ammon, and sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake by his servants the prophets.
3Surely at the commandment of the LORD came this upon Judah, to remove them out of his sight, for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he did;
4And also for the innocent blood that he shed: for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood; which the LORD would not pardon.
5Now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
6So Jehoiakim slept with his fathers: and Jehoiachin his son reigned in his stead.
7And the king of Egypt came not again any more out of his land: for the king of Babylon had taken from the river of Egypt unto the river Euphrates all that pertained to the king of Egypt.
8Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. And his mother’s name was Nehushta, the daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem.
9And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father had done.
10At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against Jerusalem, and the city was besieged.
11And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came against the city, and his servants did besiege it.
12And Jehoiachin the king of Judah went out to the king of Babylon, he, and his mother, and his servants, and his princes, and his officers: and the king of Babylon took him in the eighth year of his reign.
13And he carried out thence 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 of the LORD, as the LORD had said.
14And he carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valour, even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and smiths: none remained, save the poorest sort of the people of the land.
15And he carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, and the king’s mother, and the king’s wives, and his officers, and the mighty of the land, those carried he into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon.
16And all the men of might, even seven thousand, and craftsmen and smiths a thousand, all that were strong and apt for war, even them the king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon.
17And the king of Babylon made Mattaniah his father’s brother king in his stead, and changed his name to Zedekiah.
18Zedekiah was twenty and one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.
19And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that Jehoiakim had done.
20For through the anger of the LORD it came to pass in Jerusalem and Judah, until he had cast them out from his presence, that Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.
1In his days Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant three years: then he turned and rebelled against him.
2And Jehovah sent against him bands of the Chaldeans, and bands of the Syrians, and bands of the Moabites, and bands of the children of Ammon, and sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of Jehovah, which he spake by his servants the prophets.
3Surely at the commandment of Jehovah came this upon Judah, to remove them out of his sight, for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he did,
4and also for the innocent blood that he shed; for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood: and Jehovah would not pardon.
5Now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
6So Jehoiakim slept with his fathers; and Jehoiachin his son reigned in his stead.
7And the king of Egypt came not again any more out of his land; for the king of Babylon had taken, from the brook of Egypt unto the river Euphrates, all that pertained to the king of Egypt.
8Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign; and he reigned in Jerusalem three months: and his mother`s name was Nehushta the daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem.
9And he did that which was evil in the sight of Jehovah, according to all that his father had done.
10At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up to Jerusalem, and the city was besieged.
11And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came unto the city, while his servants were besieging it;
12and Jehoiachin the king of Judah went out to the king of Babylon, he, and his mother, and his servants, and his princes, and his officers: and the king of Babylon took him in the eighth year of his reign.
13And he carried out thence all the treasures of the house of Jehovah, 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 of Jehovah, as Jehovah had said.
14And he carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valor, even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and the smiths; none remained, save the poorest sort of the people of the land.
15And he carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon; and the king`s mother, and the king`s wives, and his officers, and the chief men of the land, carried he into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon.
16And all the men of might, even seven thousand, and the craftsmen and the smiths a thousand, all of them strong and apt for war, even them the king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon.
17And the king of Babylon made Mattaniah, [Jehoiachin`s] father`s brother, king is his stead, and changed his name to Zedekiah.
18Zedekiah was twenty and one years old when he began to reign; and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem: and his mother`s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.
19And he did that which was evil in the sight of Jehovah, according to all that Jehoiakim had done.
20For through the anger of Jehovah did it come to pass in Jerusalem and Judah, until he had cast them out from his presence. And Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.
1During Jehoiakim’s reign, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon attacked. Jehoiakim was his subject for three years, but then he rebelled against him.
2The Lord sent against him Babylonian, Syrian, Moabite, and Ammonite raiding bands; he sent them to destroy Judah, just as in the Lord’s message that he had announced through his servants the prophets.
3Just as the Lord had announced, he rejected Judah because of all the sins that Manasseh had committed.
4Because he killed innocent people and stained Jerusalem with their blood, the Lord was unwilling to forgive them.
5The rest of the events of Jehoiakim’s reign and all his accomplishments, are recorded in the scroll called the Annals of the Kings of Judah.
6He passed away and his son Jehoiachin replaced him as king.
7The king of Egypt did not march out from his land again, for the king of Babylon conquered all the territory that the king of Egypt had formerly controlled between the Stream of Egypt and the Euphrates River.
8Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother was Nehushta the daughter of Elnathan, from Jerusalem.
9He did evil in the sight of the Lord as his ancestors had done.
10At that time the generals of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon marched to Jerusalem and besieged the city.
11King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came to the city while his generals were besieging it.
12King Jehoiachin of Judah, along with his mother, his servants, his officials, and his eunuchs surrendered to the king of Babylon. The king of Babylon, in the eighth year of his reign, took Jehoiachin prisoner.
13Nebuchadnezzar took from there all the riches in the treasuries of the Lord’s temple and of the royal palace. He removed all the gold items that King Solomon of Israel had made for the Lord’s temple, just as the Lord had warned.
14He deported all the residents of Jerusalem, including all the officials and all the soldiers (10,000 people in all). This included all the craftsmen and those who worked with metal. No one was left except for the poorest among the people of the land.
15He deported Jehoiachin from Jerusalem to Babylon, along with the king’s mother and wives, his eunuchs, and the high-ranking officials of the land.
16The king of Babylon deported to Babylon all the soldiers (there were 7,000), as well as 1,000 craftsmen and metal workers. This included all the best warriors.
17The king of Babylon made Mattaniah, Jehoiachin’s uncle, king in Jehoiachin’s place. He renamed him Zedekiah.
18Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he ruled for eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah, from Libnah.
19He did evil in the sight of the Lord, as Jehoiakim had done.
20What follows is a record of what happened to Jerusalem and Judah because of the Lord’s anger; he finally threw them out of his presence. Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.
1In his days Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant three years. Then he turned and rebelled against him.
2Yahweh sent against him bands of the Chaldeans, and bands of the Syrians, and bands of the Moabites, and bands of the children of Ammon, and sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to Yahweh’s word, which he spoke by his servants the prophets.
3Surely at the commandment of Yahweh this came on Judah, to remove them out of his sight, for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he did,
4and also for the innocent blood that he shed; for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and Yahweh would not pardon.
5Now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, and all that he did, aren’t they written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
6So Jehoiakim slept with his fathers, and Jehoiachin his son reigned in his place.
7The king of Egypt didn’t come out of his land any more; for the king of Babylon had taken, from the brook of Egypt to the river Euphrates, all that belonged to the king of Egypt.
8Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. His mother’s name was Nehushta the daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem.
9He did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, according to all that his father had done.
10At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up to Jerusalem, and the city was besieged.
11Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to the city while his servants were besieging it,
12and Jehoiachin the king of Judah went out to the king of Babylon, he, and his mother, and his servants, and his princes, and his officers; and the king of Babylon captured him in the eighth year of his reign.
13He carried out from there all the treasures of Yahweh’s house, 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 Yahweh’s temple, as Yahweh had said.
14He carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valor, even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and the smiths. No one remained, except the poorest people of the land.
15He carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, with the king’s mother, the king’s wives, his officers, and the chief men of the land. He carried them into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon.
16All the men of might, even seven thousand, and the craftsmen and the smiths one thousand, all of them strong and fit for war, even them the king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon.
17The king of Babylon made Mattaniah, Jehoiachin’s father’s brother, king in his place, and changed his name to Zedekiah.
18Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.
19He did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, according to all that Jehoiakim had done.
20For through the anger of Yahweh, this happened in Jerusalem and Judah, until he had cast them out from his presence. Then Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.
Summary
Jehoiakim becomes a vassal of Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon but later rebels, bringing raiding bands of Chaldeans, Arameans, Moabites, and Ammonites against Judah as the LORD's judgment for the innocent blood Manasseh had shed (vv. 1-7). His son Jehoiachin reigns only three months before Nebuchadnezzar besieges Jerusalem and he surrenders (vv. 8-12). Nebuchadnezzar strips the temple and palace of their treasures and deports Jehoiachin, the royal family, the officials, the craftsmen and smiths, and some ten thousand leading citizens to Babylon, leaving only the poorest people in the land (vv. 13-16). He installs Jehoiachin's uncle Mattaniah as a puppet king under the new name Zedekiah, who also does evil and eventually rebels against Babylon (vv. 17-20).
Authorship & Background
Map & Geography
- Samaria — capital of the northern kingdom (Israel); falls to Assyria in 722 BC (ch.17). Jerusalem — capital of Judah; falls to Babylon in 586 BC (ch.25).
- Key locations: Jordan River (Elisha's miracles, chs.2, 5), Damascus (Syria/Aram), Nineveh (Assyrian capital), Babylon (where Judah is exiled).
- Sennacherib's invasion route threatens Jerusalem (chs.18-19). Exile destinations: Assyria (for Israel) and Babylon (for Judah).
Places on this map
- SamariaSebastia, West BankOmri bought a bare hill and built a capital on it, which gave the northern kingdom a fortress with no prior claim on it, the same calculation David made with Jerusalem. It commands the pass west toward the coastal plain. The name later spread to the whole region between Galilee and Judea. Wikipedia
- Assyrianorthern IraqThe upper Tigris heartland around Nineveh, Calah and Asshur. Its armies reached Israel by following the Fertile Crescent north-west and then south down the coast, so the threat always arrived from the north even though Assyria lay to the east. Wikipedia
- JerusalemJerusalemA hill town about 2,500 feet up in the central spine of Judah, roughly 35 miles inland from the Mediterranean and 15 miles west of the Jordan. It sits on no trade route and has no river, which is why it mattered as a fortress and a sanctuary rather than as a market. Wikipedia
- Babylonnear Hillah, IraqOn the Euphrates about 55 miles south of modern Baghdad. Judah's exiles were marched roughly 900 miles to get here, the long way round the Arabian desert, which is why the journey took months and the return was a genuine undertaking rather than a short trip home. Wikipedia
- Jordan RiverIsrael / Jordan borderRuns about 65 miles as the crow flies from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea, dropping from 700 to 1,400 feet below sea level. Narrow enough to wade at most fords, it was still the boundary that divided wilderness from inheritance. Wikipedia
- DamascusDamascus, SyriaAn oasis city where the Barada river runs out of the Anti-Lebanon into the desert, about 135 miles north-east of Jerusalem. It sat astride the caravan roads to Mesopotamia and Arabia, which made Aram rich and made it Israel's most persistent northern rival. Wikipedia
- NinevehMosul, IraqAssyria's last capital, on the east bank of the Tigris across from modern Mosul, about 500 miles north-east of Israel. Sennacherib walled in an enormous city here, which is the scale behind Jonah's three days' journey and its 120,000 who cannot tell right from left. Wikipedia
- AramSyriaThe Syrian interior north-east of Israel, a set of city-states rather than one kingdom, with Damascus the strongest. Aramaic, its language, became the everyday speech of the whole region including Judea. Wikipedia
Towns sit on their excavated or traditional site. Regions, rivers and seas are ringed rather than dotted, because for those a single point is only an anchor. Coastlines from Natural Earth.
Commentary
- Enduring Word (David Guzik): enduringword.com Guzik emphasizes the phrase "the LORD would not pardon" as one of the most sobering in Scripture. He notes that this does not contradict God's forgiving nature but demonstrates that corporate sin has corporate consequences that persist even when individuals repent. He also highlights how Babylon's deportation strategy systematically dismantled Judah's capacity for independence — removing precisely those people (leaders, warriors, craftsmen) needed to maintain a functioning state.
- Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (1871): blueletterbible.org A critical and explanatory commentary on the whole Bible, more concise than Matthew Henry and closer to the Hebrew and Greek, with attention to historical and geographical detail. Public domain.
- Matthew Henry's Exposition (1710): blueletterbible.org A devotional verse-by-verse commentary in the Puritan tradition, still among the most widely read three centuries on. Public domain.
Videos
Articles
- GotQuestions.org: gotquestions.org On the whole book: an overview of the book of 2 Kings -- who wrote it, when, why, and how it fits the rest of Scripture.
Links open on the publisher's own site. Nothing here is reproduced on this page.
Reflection
- God Uses Unexpected Instruments (v.2) — Nations Judah despised — Chaldeans, Syrians, Moabites, Ammonites — became the very tools God used to bring judgment. Could God be speaking to you through a circumstance or person you'd never have chosen to listen to?
- Some Sin Accumulates Past the Point of Pardon (v.4) — Individual repentance is always available, but the text is blunt that Judah's corporate guilt had reached a point the LORD would not pardon. Are you assuming a patience from God that ongoing, corporate sin may have already exhausted?
- What You Show Off, You Eventually Lose (v.13) — The very temple treasures Hezekiah once paraded before Babylon's envoys were now carried off by Babylon's army. What are you displaying that wisdom would tell you to quietly guard instead?
- God Is Present Even in Exile (v.14) — Among the ten thousand captives taken to Babylon was Ezekiel, who would receive some of Scripture's most dramatic visions of God's glory there, not in Jerusalem. If you're in a season of loss or displacement you never chose, could that be exactly where God meets you?
- Reckless Rebellion Without the Strength to Back It (v.20) — Zedekiah, a mere puppet king, rebelled against Babylon without the resources to survive the consequences. Before you take a stand, are you certain it's courage rather than pride driving you?