Against him came up Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and bound him with chains of brass to carry him to Babylon.
Jehoiakim's reign ends with Babylon's king at his gates and chains on him — the first of Babylon's blows on Judah. Two questions follow: why did God give him up, and what did that begin?
One incident shows the kind of king Jehoiakim was. He met Jeremiah's written warnings with a knife and a fire:
In the fifth year of his reign, Baruch, Jeremiah's assistant, read the message of God from a book to all the people. Eager informers reported it to the king, and he ordered the book brought and read before him. "It was the ninth month, and the king was sitting in the winter house, and there was a fire burning in the fire pot before him. As Jehudi read three or four columns, the king would cut them off with a knife and throw them into the fire in the fire pot, until the entire scroll was consumed in the fire." It was a daring act of irreverence. A Jew above all learned to treat every sacred writing with the deepest respect. But Jehoiakim was fast hardening himself past all feeling, and no twinge of conscience shows over his sacrilegious act.
The chains did not come without warning. One writer sets them beside the sentence Jeremiah had already spoken over this king:
Jehoiakim had changed masters. He could hardly wait to rebel against Nebuchadnezzar. His land had already become prey in part for all his neighbours. Then Nebuchadnezzar went up against him and bound him with chains of bronze to take him away to Babylon. We learn through Jeremiah what word the Lord had pronounced concerning him: "Therefore thus says the LORD concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah: He shall have none to sit on the throne of David, and his dead body shall be cast out to the heat by day and the frost by night."
The chains were meant to take him to Babylon. Commentators differ over whether the journey ever happened. One writer weighs the silence:
As to his end, Scripture gives no history. 2 Chronicles 36:6 states that Nebuchadnezzar "bound him in chains to take him to Babylon." It does not say he was taken there. He may have been released after promising to submit to his conqueror. But suppose he was carried to Babylon. Even that would not contradict 2 Kings 24:6 ("So Jehoiakim slept with his fathers"). He might easily have returned to Jerusalem, as other Jewish captives did later. Scripture gives no record of his death. That silence is no proof that Jeremiah's prophecies about his end were not fulfilled to the letter.
Another writer sees the chains as a humiliation that stopped short of removal, and the start of something far larger:
The king of Egypt took possession of the land and made Jehoiakim king in Jerusalem. Jehoiakim's wickedness was far from leading to any restoration on God's part. Then came one more powerful than the king of Egypt, a king through whom God would begin the rule of the Gentiles. He comes up against Jerusalem and binds Jehoiakim in chains, yet after all leaves him to end his reign and his life at Jerusalem. Three years later he carried away his son to Babylon.
Why does this early raid matter more than the invasions that followed?
This matter of the vessels is extremely important. There had been three deportations: one under king Jehoiakim, then under his son Jehoiachin, and finally under Zedekiah. The last of the three did by far the most damage. The temple was burnt, and huge numbers went into captivity. But the 70 years of captivity count from the first deportation, the one we would call minor. Why was this first one the important one in God's eyes? It is because of the vessels. Nebuchadnezzar had taken the vessels of the temple to Babylon, and even put them into the house of his idols. Such a thing had never happened before.
Nebuchadnezzar could have emptied the temple at once. One writer sees purpose in the fact that he did not:
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came against him and took Jehoiakim captive to Babylon. He also took some of the articles from the temple and put them in his own temple at Babylon. The Lord allowed this as a warning to Judah. Nebuchadnezzar might have taken all the treasures of the house, but he did not. If Judah had turned back to the Lord, this might have preserved them from the later damage.
- Cause — Jehoiakim cut up and burned the scroll of God's warnings and felt nothing. The chains came after.
- Word — Jeremiah had said none of his line would sit on David's throne and his dead body would be cast out. The chains begin the fulfilment.
- Chains — The verse says he was bound for Babylon. It never says he arrived, and commentators differ on what followed.
- Vessels — Babylon put the temple vessels among its idols. That had never happened before, and the seventy years count from it.
- Warning — Nebuchadnezzar took only part, leaving Judah room to turn back. They did not, and the heavier blows came later.
And Nebuchadnezzar carried [part] of the vessels of the house of Jehovah to Babylon, and put them in his temple at Babylon.
Judah's last kings fell one after another. Here Babylon strips the temple of part of its sacred furniture and sets it in the house of Nebuchadnezzar's god — so how could God allow that, and what did this raid begin?
This raid was the opening move in a long collapse. One writer fills in the date and the detail:
In the third or fourth year of Jehoiakim, king of Judah — the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon — this same Nebuchadnezzar came up against Jerusalem and laid siege to it (Dan. 1:1). He took Jehoiakim captive and bound him with bronze chains to carry him away to Babylon. At this time he carried away part of the vessels of the house of the Lord, to decorate the temple of his god. He also carried away to Babylon a number of young people from either the royal family or the nobility.
Nebuchadnezzar was not just the stronger king here. Another writer shows both who acted and why:
The Lord had given Jehoiakim into Nebuchadnezzar's hand. He had so fully abandoned His house in Jerusalem that He allowed the sacred vessels of the temple — already profaned by the sins of the kings of Judah — to be carried into the land of Shinar, to the house of Nebuchadnezzar's god. So God removed His lampstand at Jerusalem for the time. He removed it in judgment, because it had stopped giving out God's light to guide and bless a world in moral darkness.
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One writer points to what else changed hands:
The ruin of Israel brought with it the transfer of the government of the earth — that is, of kingly power — from the king of Judah to the king of Babylon.
By damage, this was the mildest of the three invasions. Yet the seventy years count from here, and one writer explains why:
There had been three deportations: one in the days of king Jehoiakim, then of his son Jehoiachin, and finally of Zedekiah. The last of the three did the most damage. The temple was burnt, and very large numbers went into captivity. But the 70 years of captivity count from the first deportation, the one we would call relatively unimportant. Why was this first one the important one in God's eyes? It's because of the vessels. Nebuchadnezzar took the vessels of the Temple to Babylon, and even put them into the house of his idols. Such a thing had never happened before. True, some kings had taken silver from the treasury, and even from the doors of the temple, to buy off the king of Assyria. But no one had ever touched the holy vessels.
Losing them cost Israel more than treasure:
Without vessels, it was impossible to bring sacrifices as prescribed. No vessels, no worship! This is the tragedy.
None of this came without warning. Long before, a king had shown his treasures to visitors from Babylon:
About a hundred years before Jehoiakim came to the throne, the good king Hezekiah unwisely showed the treasures of his house to the ambassadors of Babylon. Isaiah the prophet came to him and said, "Hear the word of the LORD. Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and all that your fathers have stored up, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the LORD." That prophecy was now close to its fulfilment.
God's patience with Babylon had a limit:
God allowed Nebuchadnezzar to destroy the temple, after the glory had departed, and to take its holy vessels into Babylon. But in His own time God brought Nebuchadnezzar low. Later the godless Belshazzar challenged the God of Israel: he used the holy vessels to praise the gods of his own making. So God stepped in to defend the honour of His Name, and He overthrew Babylon and its godless ruler. God was long-suffering. He let the holy vessels stay in Nebuchadnezzar's temple, but He would not tolerate their use in the worship of other gods.
Captivity never changed what the vessels were:
The holy vessels were holy still in God's eyes, however polluted they had been by the sins of His kings and priests, for they had been used in the house where He had put His name for ever.
The vessels did not stay in Babylon. But their return was not a full recovery:
The holy vessels were counted and restored, as far as was fitting, for Jehovah's house in Jerusalem. The ark, the centre, the highest in value, the nearest to the glory, was not there. Alas! the glory itself had withdrawn.
- Given, not grabbed. Nebuchadnezzar did not simply win a war. The Lord gave Jehoiakim and the temple vessels into his hand.
- Vessels, not damage. The seventy years count from this smaller raid, because here a pagan king touched the holy vessels for the first time.
- No vessels, no worship. Israel could not bring the prescribed sacrifices without them. That was the tragedy.
- Holy still. The vessels stayed holy in God's eyes. He acted when Belshazzar used them to praise gods of his own making.
- Counted back. The vessels came back to Jerusalem, counted one by one. The ark did not, and the glory itself had withdrawn.