“’Tis grace has brought me safe thus far And grace will lead me home.” —John Newton
Imagine the view from heaven as the Books of the Kings conclude. Jerusalem is a ruin. The holy vessels lie at Shinar, in the house of Nebuchadnezzar’s god. No sweet savor arises to Your nostrils from the Great Altar now. “The poor of the land” (2 Ki 25:12), left to till the soil, barely eke out a living. The rest of Your people are either in faraway Egypt or captives in Babylon. The king of Judah’s royal line, Jehoiachin, is approaching the last few days of his thirty-seventh year in a Babylonian prison. Nebuchadnezzar has gone into eternity to answer to his Supreme Ruler, and his son Evil-Merodach has ascended the throne. His name means Merodach’s (or Marduk’s) man. Marduk was the “patron deity of the city of Babylon who eventually rose to become the king of the gods.” This king of Babylon ruled from 562 BC until his murder in 560 BC, just two years later. But that was long enough to display grace to a man who had shown little of it to anyone else. He “released Jehoiachin king of Judah from prison…spoke kindly to him, and gave him a more prominent seat than those of the kings who were with him in Babylon. So Jehoiachin changed from his prison garments, and he ate bread regularly before the king…And…there was a regular ration given him by the king, a portion for each day, all the days of his life” (vv 27-30). I want to tell you that I too was released and my prison garb exchanged for royal robes, a place was given to me at the king’s table, and a royal portion is served to me every day of my life! A scoundrel, every blessing is so undeserved! Yes, there’s no king like our King. “The King of love my shepherd is, whose goodness faileth never…Good Shepherd, may I sing Thy praise within Thy house forever” (H.W. Baker).