Strange how the people must be taken far away to discover what He had given them back at home.
“Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king” (2 Ki 23:36), and was dead by age 36. During that time, he was enthroned and renamed by Pharaoh Necho of Egypt, becoming his chief fund-raiser in the land. Then for three years, the Babylonians took over his vassalage, until he rebelled. Thereupon he was harassed by “raiding bands of Chaldeans, bands of Syrians, bands of Moabites, and bands of the people of Ammon” (24:2). Yet in spite of all this international intrigue, he still managed to find time to do “evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done” (23:37). During this period, the power of Egypt receded, and Babylon gained effective control “from the Brook of Egypt to the River Euphrates” (24:7), the land historically promised to Israel. “So Jehoiakim rested with his fathers. Then Jehoiachin his son reigned in his place” (v 6). Ironically, Jehoiakim means “Jehovah raises up,” and Jehoiachin means “Jehovah establishes.” But if such kings only lead their people into unblushing wickedness, God can also lay them low and disenfranchise them. And that’s exactly what happened. Eighteen-year-old Jehoiachin immediately “did evil in the sight of the Lord” (v 9), and soon Nebuchadnezzar with his army came knocking. Jehoiachin didn’t think the true God was accessible, and the local gods for some reason weren’t available, so he decided to throw in the towel. “Then Jehoiachin…his mother, his servants, his princes, and his officers went out to the king of Babylon; and the king of Babylon, in the eighth year of his reign, took him prisoner” (v 12). Soon the Babylonians had stripped the kingdom of all it was worth, of both manpower and matériel, and thus began 70 years of captivity, just as God had promised.