In his days Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim was his servant three years; then he turned and rebelled against him.
Jehoiakim began his reign paying tribute to Egypt. Then Babylon's king arrived, Judah changed masters, and commentators read this moment as the start of a far longer era of Gentile rule.
Jehoiakim did not choose his new master. A stronger empire pushed the older one aside, and Judah passed from one hand to another.
Pharaoh could not keep his hold over Judah. Judah did not break that hold either. Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon pushed Pharaoh aside and took his place, making Jehoiakim his servant. For three years Jehoiakim stayed under Nebuchadnezzar, then rebelled. He did not rebel out of faith in the living God. He rebelled because he would not bow to the consequences God's government brought on his sin.
Three years as Babylon's vassal — a king paying tribute to a greater king — ended in revolt. One writer sees a man who could not wait, and follows what that haste cost him.
Jehoiakim had changed masters. He could not wait to rebel against Nebuchadnezzar. Part of his land became prey for all his neighbors. Then Nebuchadnezzar came up against him, bound him with bronze chains, and took him away to Babylon. Jeremiah tells us what the Lord had said about him: none of his descendants would sit on the throne of David, and his dead body would be thrown out to the heat of the day and the frost of the night.
The punishment that came was not bad luck. Another writer names who stood behind it.
Jehoiakim became a vassal of Nebuchadnezzar. Three years later he rebelled. Punishment came quickly. It came at the LORD's command.
Jehoiakim was not acting in ignorance. God's word came to him again and again, and the way he treated the messengers shows what he thought of it.
Jehoiakim first paid tribute to Pharaoh. Then he paid tribute to Nebuchadnezzar, whose reign began in the fourth year of Jehoiakim. Jeremiah and other prophets poured the Lord's warnings out on him, and he paid no attention. He killed Urijah, a prophet who prophesied against Jerusalem and against Judah, but who had no faith when he faced the king's murderous plans and fled to Egypt. Jeremiah ran the same risks, but this man of God trusted the word of the Lord… In his unbelief the king cut up the scroll of Jeremiah's prophecy with a knife and threw it into the fire. Then he tried to seize the prophet and his faithful companion Baruch. We are told that the LORD hid them.
More trouble followed his revolt. One writer weighs what it should have done to the king.
All this trouble at once should have humbled Jehoiakim's heart before God. But we read of no change in the man's character.
Nebuchadnezzar did not only take tribute. He took captives, and one of them was Daniel.
Daniel was one of the Jews whom Nebuchadnezzar carried away captive to Babylon at the first siege of Jerusalem, in 605 BC. This fulfilled Isaiah's prophecy to king Hezekiah, spoken about 100 years before Daniel's time. That prophecy said the descendants of Judah's king would become servants of the king of Babylon. Daniel was one of these nobles and members of the royal family of Judah who were to serve at the Babylonian court after deep training. He was probably no more than 15 to 20 years old when he was taken captive.
Jesus later spoke of "the times of the Gentiles" (Luke 21:24). Writers date that long stretch of history from precisely this point in Jehoiakim's reign.
Much of God's purpose for the earth is bound up with Jerusalem's future, and with the future of the land of Canaan. The throne once set up at Jerusalem will be given back to her in a coming day. Meanwhile sovereign power over her is in Gentile hands. This state of things started in the days of Nebuchadnezzar with the captivity in Babylon. It dates from the fourth year of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, when power over men, animals, and birds passed into Nebuchadnezzar's hands as the head of gold.
- Displaced. Jehoiakim did not choose Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar pushed Egypt aside and took Pharaoh's place as his master.
- Warned. Jeremiah poured out God's warnings on this king for years. He answered by killing one prophet and burning another's scroll.
- Rebelled. He rebelled after three years because he would not accept the consequences of his own sin. It was not faith in God.
- Repaid. The punishment that followed was no accident. It came at the LORD's command, and still the man did not change.
- Replaced. Daniel went to Babylon with the first captives. From then on sovereign power over Jerusalem lay in Gentile hands, and it stays there until the throne returns to Jerusalem.
And Jehovah sent against him the bands of the Chaldeans, and the bands of the Syrians, and the bands of the Moabites, and the bands of the children of Ammon, and sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of Jehovah, which he spoke through his servants the prophets.
Jehoiakim had just thrown off Nebuchadnezzar's rule (v. 1). The answer came not as one great army, but as raiding parties from four different peoples. And the verse says the Lord Himself sent them, exactly as He had warned through His prophets.
The raiders wrecked what they pleased. But they were serving a purpose none of them had in mind.
Again and again these nations invaded His land and destroyed life and property without restraint. Yet they were His instruments for correcting His stubborn and stiff-necked people. Doing the will of God was far from the thought of any one of them. God takes into account not only what men do, but their purpose in doing it.
The Chaldeans are named first. They had been out of Israel's story for a very long time.
The Chaldeans appear early on: Ur of the Chaldees in Genesis 11:28, 31 and Genesis 15:7, and the Chaldeans who raided Job's camels (Job 1:17). After that we do not read of them for some fifteen hundred years, until God sent them to punish Judah (2 Kings 24:2). By then we cannot tell them apart from the Babylonians.
Two of the other bands were old enemies. They shared a family line and a goal.
The Ammonites troubled Israel with mixed success until the days of Jehoiakim (2 Kings 24:2). Lot was the father of both Moab and Ammon, so it is no surprise that the Moabites often joined the Ammonites in attacking Israel. Hatred of God's people united them in one shared desire: to cut Israel off from being a nation.
Jehoiakim's revolt was not courage. It was refusal to accept where his own conduct had landed him.
For three years Jehoiakim stayed under Nebuchadnezzar, then rebelled (v.1). He did not do it out of faith in the living God. He did it because he would not bow to the consequences God had brought on him for his sin.
The pressure came from four directions at once, and it was meant to bend him.
All this trouble at once should have humbled Jehoiakim's heart before God, but we read of no change in the man's character.
Babylon's king was occupied elsewhere, so the blow fell through other hands.
And though Nebuchadnezzar could not immediately punish him, his punishment came from another quarter. "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 spoke..."
The harassment was not a single raid but a running condition of his reign, and the land itself paid for it.
Nebuchadnezzar was busy elsewhere, so he did not march against Jehoiakim himself. Instead, at the urging of the king of Babylon, enemy bands of Chaldeans, Syrians, Moabites and Ammonites harassed Jehoiakim until the end of his reign.
The words "according to the word of the LORD" point back to warnings already spoken and ignored. They also carry a second edge. The nation God uses is not safe from His own justice.
God had kept warning them, and each warning was more solemn than the last. He had encouraged them with kindness too. They refused it all. So, because of their settled and deliberate idolatry, God announced the punishment they deserved at the hand of the king of Babylon. After their seventy years in captivity, the one who punished them must face the LORD's judgment in turn. Had the instrument of divine judgment lifted itself up in pride? Then God would surely judge it without mercy.
The judgment settled an account older than Jehoiakim, and its timing turned on the kings themselves.
This judgment was not only for the sins of Jehoiakim, but for the sins of earlier generations too. Verse 3 says it came on Judah at the command of the LORD, to remove them out of His sight, for the sins of Manasseh, which the LORD would not pardon. Josiah's devotion had delayed the divine judgment (2 Kings 22:15–20), but the ungodliness of his sons brought it on fast.
- Warned — the raids were no surprise. They came "according to the word of the LORD," after years of patient warnings the people had refused.
- Delayed — Josiah's devotion had held the judgment back. His sons' ungodliness brought it down fast, and old sins were counted in too.
- Refused — Jehoiakim's revolt was not faith. He would not accept where his own sin had placed him.
- Sent — the four bands raided for their own reasons. Yet God used them to correct a stubborn people, and none of them knew it.
- Judged — the rod is never safe in its own pride. God would call the very power He used against Judah to account.
Verily, at the commandment of Jehovah it came to pass against Judah, that they should be removed out of his sight, for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done;
On the surface, Judah's collapse under Jehoiakim looks like ordinary politics — raiding bands, a rebel king, a rising Babylon. Verse 3 looks behind all of that. It traces the fall to a decision of the Lord, and it names a king who had been dead for decades as the reason.
Verse 2 lists raiding parties from four surrounding nations. One writer points to God as the one who sent them, and to sins older than Jehoiakim's own:
God's judgment on the godless Jehoiakim was not carried out by the king of Babylon alone. Scripture says that "the LORD sent against him bands of the Chaldeans and bands of the Syrians and bands of the Moabites and bands of the Ammonites" (2 Kings 24:2). This divine judgment was not only for the sins of Jehoiakim, but for the sins of earlier generations. Josiah's godliness had delayed this judgment (2 Kings 22:15–20), but the ungodliness of his sons brought it on quickly.
Verses 3 and 4 together give two grounds: what Manasseh did, and the innocent blood he shed. One commentator names both causes. He also shows that the sentence had been put on hold, and could have stayed that way:
From the time of Manasseh this decree had gone out from the Lord, and it could not be reversed. During Josiah's reign it was put on hold. It would have stayed on hold under the kings who followed him, if they had been willing to listen (Jer. 25:1–11). Two things caused this final judgment: idolatry, and innocent blood. Jehoiakim, like Manasseh, shed all the innocent blood he could in Jerusalem — the city that has killed the prophets and stoned those who were sent to it.
Manasseh humbled himself, and God heard him. Yet the judgment still fell. Writers answer this by separating personal forgiveness from God's government:
God heard and answered Manasseh's prayer when he humbled himself. Yet the righteous government of God fell upon the guilty nation he had led astray.
Another writer shows how far this reached. Judah shared in the provocation, so Judah shared in the consequences:
Repentance, and a humble walk with God afterwards, will not always turn aside the governmental consequences of a person's wrongdoing. God's Word states plainly, to His glory, that king David deeply repented of his sin in the matter of Uriah the Hittite. Yet David still had to suffer in his own family for that cruel use of absolute power. Manasseh may have found mercy and forgiveness for his wickedness. But Judah shared in his provocations, so Judah must suffer the consequences from the hand of God.
Judah's removal from God's sight sounds like one nation's misfortune. One writer weighs it as far more — Judah went the way Israel had already gone, and what was lost reached far past Jerusalem:
God had placed the family of David on His own throne at Jerusalem and made them responsible there. That family was unfaithful, and the sin of Manasseh made their rule unbearable to the Lord. Judah was removed out of His sight, as Israel had been. So what was left of the place where God ruled directly by a law He had given? Nothing. His glory left Jerusalem and the earth, for it had filled the temple of Jerusalem. So this judgment was far weightier and far more important. It removed the government of God from the earth, and entrusted power to the head of the Gentiles.
Manasseh's name still stands over a judgment that fell long after he died. His story leaves a warning:
Manasseh forsook his wicked way, he did indeed "return to the LORD," and the Lord had mercy upon him. Then Manasseh served the Lord; but sadly, he could not undo all the evil he had done (see 2 Kings 24:3–4). How sorry he must have been as he thought of his past life. Dear reader, I urge you, take warning. If Manasseh had sought the Lord when he was a boy, how much good he might have done before he became a man. We can never make up for lost time.
- Spoken — God passed sentence on Judah back in Manasseh's day. Verse 3 shows that sentence carried out, not started.
- Delayed — Josiah's faithfulness held it back. It would have stayed on hold if his sons had listened.
- Doubled — Two causes are named: idolatry, and innocent blood filling Jerusalem. Jehoiakim added his own share of the blood.
- Forgiven — God forgave Manasseh himself. The nation he led astray still met God's government. As with David, pardon and consequence are not the same thing.
- Costly — More than a city fell. God's government left the earth, and power passed to the Gentiles. One life's sin leaves a trail it cannot later undo.
and also [because of] the innocent blood that he had shed; for he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and Jehovah would not pardon.
Judah's last kings ruled under a sentence already passed. This verse gives the reason: Manasseh had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the Lord would not pardon it. So how could God forgive Manasseh himself, and still refuse to forgive his crime?
Two charges lie behind the fall of Judah, and the sentence goes back to Manasseh's reign:
From the time of Manasseh this irrevocable decree had gone out from the Lord. It was suspended during Josiah's reign. It would have stayed suspended under his successors too, if they had been willing to listen. There were two causes for this final judgment: idolatry, and innocent blood. And Jehoiakim, like Manasseh, had shed innocent blood in Jerusalem as far as his power allowed. This is the city that has killed the prophets and stoned those who were sent to it.
Manasseh's guilt was not idolatry alone. One writer draws a rule from it:
Added to Manasseh's guilt was his cruelty in shedding much innocent blood. So violence went along with his corruption. Usually, when someone becomes corrupt in his attitude toward God, he becomes violent toward others.
Jehoiakim carried the same guilt. One writer follows Jeremiah's words against him:
"But your eyes and your heart are set only on your own greed, and on shedding innocent blood, and on oppression, and on violence, to do it. Therefore this is what the Lord says about Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah: They shall not mourn for him... He shall be buried with the burial of a donkey, dragged and thrown out beyond the gates of Jerusalem." For the innocent blood he shed, the Lord would not pardon.
One writer compares Manasseh's case to David's. God pardoned the sin, yet His government still took its course:
Although God was so merciful, the evil of Manasseh brought the government of God upon the nation... When king David sinned, the Lord pardoned his sin, but the government of God on his house took its course. So it was with Manasseh. God heard and answered his prayer when he humbled himself. Even so, the righteous government of God fell upon the guilty nation he had led astray.
At the personal level the door stays open, even for the worst sinner:
In one sense his sin could not be pardoned, and Jerusalem was destroyed because of it. Yet personally, even a sinner like Manasseh may receive a free and full pardon from the God of Israel. Manasseh prayed for pardon in the prison in Babylon. God valued that prayer so highly that He had it recorded. It encourages other repentant sinners to come back to the same God, who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and of great kindness.
Manasseh was long dead when the judgment fell, yet Scripture still names his sins as the reason. One writer explains the principle behind that:
God, in His goodness, has always renewed His testimony. In His patience He sent His prophets, rising up early, as it says, to send them until there was no remedy... So all the righteous blood, from Abel to Zechariah, came upon that generation. They filled up the measure of their fathers' sin by rejecting God's last witness. Here we see sin inherited, and the people held responsible, as to the government of God, for the sins of their fathers. Morally, their sins were all the earlier sins piled together. God had borne with those sins patiently. They despised His patience and used it as an excuse to plunge deeper into evil.
An older law stands behind this: blood defiles the land, and only blood can clear it. One writer applies it to Israel's guilt:
Deuteronomy 21 gives another rule to keep blood from defiling the land. It declares, as elsewhere, that life belongs to God. When someone violates His rights, He will not overlook it. We cannot fail to see that the blood of Christ is, above all, what Israel is guilty of here. The blood of Jesus is the only atonement for the sin that shed it... There is nothing but the blood of the heifer that never bore the yoke that can wipe away sin. That is how the guilt of innocent blood will be taken away from the people.
- Two charges. Idolatry alone did not end Judah. Innocent blood was added, and together the two made the sentence final.
- Blood follows idols. Corruption toward God turns into violence toward people. Manasseh shed innocent blood, and Jehoiakim did the same as far as his power reached.
- Patience despised. God sent prophet after prophet until there was no remedy. The long delay was mercy. Treating it as permission only filled up the measure of sin.
- Pardon and government. God forgave Manasseh when he humbled himself. Yet the nation he led astray still bore the judgment. As with David, God pardons the sinner while His government runs its course.
- One blood that cleanses. Land stained by blood is cleared only by blood. The blood of Christ is the one atonement for the innocent blood shed.
And 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?
The last word on Jehoiakim points to another book — a royal record that held more about his reign. That raises two questions. Why does Scripture tell so little about this king? And if the Bible's record is this short, who keeps the full account?
This is not the only place where Kings sends the reader to an outside record. One writer explains where the author of Kings got his material.
In several places the writer points to books that contain more about the life of the king in question — books he may have based his account on. He refers, for example, to the book of the acts of Solomon, then several times to the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel and to the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah... The author of the books of Kings was able to use these "references" under the guidance of the Holy Spirit while writing his God-inspired work.
These were state records, and that is one clear difference between Kings and Chronicles.
In Kings the material plainly comes from state records every time: "the book of the acts of Solomon"; "the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah"; "the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Israel," and so on. Chronicles draws more on the writings of individual men, or selections from them — "Samuel the seer," "Nathan the prophet," "Gad the seer."
Gaps like this are normal in Scripture. One writer points to the gap in the record of King Josiah's reign.
Thirteen years of silence on the part of the Holy Spirit! Nothing is recorded of Josiah from the eighteenth year of his reign until his thirty-first and last year! Men's biographical works are not written this way, but it is the usual way of the Holy Spirit. He brings many interesting characters before us, but in no single case do we have a full life-story.
Kings says almost nothing about what Jehoiakim was like. The prophets say a great deal. One writer lists three charges against him.
The prophets record a great deal about Jehoiakim. Three sins in particular are charged against him. (1) Oppression of the people... The people were already suffering, and as if that were not enough, Jehoiakim forced them to build palaces for himself without wages. Evil as the people were, the Lord was angry at this cruel tyranny... The Lord loves to see a shepherd leading the flock, but Jehoiakim was a wolf, ravaging the sheep. (2) Jehoiakim not only oppressed the people; he also persecuted to death those who spoke out against his deeds. He chased the faithful prophet Urijah into Egypt, brought him back with an armed force, and put him to death... (3) On top of all this, Jehoiakim wickedly threw Jeremiah's manuscript containing the words of God into the fire.
Kings closes the account of other kings the same way. One writer answers the question by pointing past any earthly archive.
Yes, and they are written in God's books above, along with the wicked acts recorded here. Those books are not merely books of "the chronicles of the kings of Israel." They record the deeds and doings of every man's life, whether good or evil. Solemn facts for us all!
Scripture does record one of his acts: he burned the scroll of God's words that Jeremiah had written. One writer draws out the irony.
The foolish king had no idea what would follow. The judgment of God that Jeremiah had announced was carried out to the letter. Centuries later, the very words Jeremiah had written would still be read by millions. And his own wicked, foolish act would be written down and read too. It stands there to teach the people of God, and to warn anyone who, like him, would dare to tamper with the written word of God.
This verse closes Jehoiakim's file. One writer notes what he lost, and what began in his reign.
His name, like that of his brother, is left out of the royal genealogy of Matthew 1... During his reign (when Nebuchadnezzar took the kingdom) "the times of the Gentiles" began. And until they are "fulfilled," Jerusalem "shall be trodden under foot," even as it is this day.
- Written in a state book. The book named here was a state record. The writer of Kings used such records under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
- Written selectively. No Bible life-story is complete. Silence about a reign is the Spirit's normal method, not a missing page.
- Written by the prophets. The prophets fill in what Kings leaves out: oppression, unpaid labour, a murdered prophet, a king who acted like a wolf.
- Written above. The verse asks where the rest of his deeds are written. The highest answer is not an archive: God's books record every life, good or evil.
- Written despite him. Jehoiakim burned God's scroll. Millions now read the words he destroyed, and his own act stands as a warning.