Lesson 9 – The Southern Kingdom Crumbles

Read the Bible Background

  • Material skipped – none

o  We are continuing the wider historical story.

  • Preparing to read the story

Make a time line of the events mentioned in the first three paragraphs.

 

  • Reading  & Interpreting the story

Read 2 Kings 23:28-25:30.
Different perspectives offer different interpretations of historical events. Compare the biblical explanation in 2 Kings 24:1-4 with the following explanation of the conflict between King Jehoiakim and King Nebuchadnezzar.

Jehoiakim's rebellion is to be understood in connection with Nebuchadrezzar's (sic) difficulties in Egypt and his subsequent defeat there. It may be assumed that Jehoiakim paid his first tribute to Nebuchadrezzar in the early winter of 603 B.C., and that his third payment became due in early winter of 601 B.C. But in Kislev (November/December) of that year Nebuchadrezzar had marched at the head of his troops to Egypt. The Babylonian Chronicles describes how the Egyptians mustered a strong army and defeated the Babylonians and their king, who 'turned and went back to Babylon'.... At this moment of humiliation for Babylon, Jehoiakim withheld his tribute. Unquestionably, Jehoiakim saw in Egypt the hope of salvation for Judah, and it is known from an Aramaic letter from Saqqera (Memphis) that a ruler from Gaza, Ekron and Ashkelon thought likewise and approached Egypt for help against Babylon. – (Jones, I and. 2 Kings, p. 633-634.)

Discuss: What are the differences in the two accounts?
Why is the same event understood so differently?
What is the agenda of the biblical narrator?

Review the record of King Manasseh in 2 Kings 21:1-16.
What was so horrendous about Manasseh that even Josiah's reform could not atone?

 

  • Finding out what happened next

 

After King Jehoiakim, King Jehoiachin also "did what was evil in the sight of the lord" (2 Kings 24:9a). Find out what happened during his reign by reading 2 Kings 24:10-17.

King Zedekiah followed the same pattern of evil. Read 2 Kings 24:18—25:12 to hear about the collapse of Jerusalem.

 

  • Hearing Jeremiah’s account

Read aloud Jeremiah 27:1-15 and review para­graphs 4-6 of the "Bible Background."
Reflect upon Jeremiah's ministry during this turbulent time with questions such as:

• What does Jeremiah's yoke mean in verses 2,8,11-12? (See also Leviticus 26:13.) Why does he wear it?

• What is the lord saying by sending the word to kings of many countries (verses 3-11)?

• Walter Brueggemann notes that the language in verse 5 about "great power" and "out­stretched arm" draws on Exodus language (To Build, To Plant. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1991, p. 15). Why does Jeremiah use this language as he talks about creation ?
Consider who God saved during the Exodus and who Jeremiah says that God will now save.

 

 

  • Making the story your own

 

This session's story raises issues related to two major contemporary beliefs about God and how to be God's people: "God is on our side" and "God does not want us to be involved in politics."

 

How do you understand God's action in national and international events?
On the statements that follow, mark your theologi­cal position. What would make someone have a different opinion?

 

God judges nations and blesses or destroys them accordingly.

Yes ___  No ___  Uncertain___

God uses unbelieving peoples (i.e., the "Babylonian's" of our world) to punish believing people.

Yes ___  No ___  Uncertain ___

 

God is behind every national and international event.

Yes ___  No ___  Uncertain ___

 

God has been/is angry with the United States/ Canada.

Yes ___  No ___  Uncertain ___

 

Submitting to political power may be an act of faith in God.

Yes ___  No ___  Uncertain ___

 

 

Memory verse: Jeremiah 10:10

“The Lord is the true God; he is the living God and the everlasting King. At his wrath the earth quakes, and the nations cannot endure his indignation.”

 

Bible Background (taken from Journey through the Bible Book 2, Christian Board of Publications, 1995, p. 33)

xKing Josiah died in battle against Babylonia in the year 609 B.C.E. Josiah's body was brought back from the battlefield near Megiddo, and his second eldest son Jehoahaz was declared king. The people passed over his eldest son, Eliakim, who later took the name Jehoiakim. But the Egyptian authorities intervened, removed Jehoahaz from the throne, and took him to Egypt where he disappeared from history. Now Jehoiakim was king, a man clearly not trusted by the faithful religious leadership. He was to lead the kingdom in the face of competing political forces: the new and powerful empire of Babylonia, soon to be led by King Nebuchadnezzar, and the kingdom of Egypt and its allied peoples.

2The prophet Jeremiah came on the scene dur­ing those days, calling on the people to hold fast to the God who had brought their ancestors out of Egypt, led them in the wilderness, brought them into this good land, and placed demands on them to be a righteous and faithful community under the rule of the one God, Yahweh. Jeremiah worried greatly about the people's dependence upon the temple in Jerusalem as a sure and unmistakable sign that God would never let Jerusalem and Judah be destroyed by the enemies who surrounded the little community. Jeremiah knew the danger of the people's making something magical out of the Jerusalem temple.

3Events grew more and more dangerous as the Babylonians captured more territory in western Asia and forced Jehoiakim to make more conces­sions to their demands. Eventually Jehoiakim and the leaders of other small states in the west joined Egypt in outright rebellion against the Babylonians, and King Nebuchadnezzar moved his armies to crush them. In 598/97, the city of Jerusalem was saved from destruction only by submission. The Babylonians took most of the treasure of Jerusalem with them to Babylon, along with thousands of the leading citizens of Judah. Jehoiakim died just be­fore the Babylonians won the victory, but his son Jehoiachin was taken captive to Babylon after hav­ing ruled in Judah for only a few months. A younger brother of King Jehoiakim, Zedekiah, was put on the throne by the Babylonians, but he was able to do very little.

4Jeremiah called on the people to learn to live under the rule of Babylonia. He pled with them not to join with Egypt and others in trying to throw out

the forces of Babylonia. No, the way of faithfulness for God's people, Jeremiah claimed, was to practice righteousness, live by the terms of God's covenant, and manage to live without full control of their political lives for a time. Jeremiah offered the same advice to the Jewish community that had been taken captive into Babylonia: They were to build houses, plant vineyards, arrange marriages for their sons and daughters, and settle in for a long period of exile. Indeed, they were to pray for the welfare of the land of Babylonia, for their own welfare was tied to its welfare. (See Jeremiah 29.)

5This was bold advice. It got Jeremiah into great trouble, had the people viewing him as a traitor, and brought the threat of death to him over and again. But those who knew how faithful a man of God Jeremiah was would always intervene at the last moment and save him from death. Finally, the armies of Babylonia came back and besieged the city of Jerusalem. After months of terrible suffering and deprivation (described graphically in the book of Lamentations), the city fell, the temple was destroyed, much of the city was burned to the ground, and the survivors were rounded up and ordered to go into Babylonia.

6What was to happen to Jeremiah? He was given the choice by the Babylonians of going to Babylonia as a free person or of staying with those who were left in the land to give leadership on behalf of the Babylonians. Jeremiah immediately chose to stay in the land with the survivors. And it was as the people were lining up to go into Babylonian exile that Jeremiah promised them that God loved and cared for them still and would bring them back from exile.

7But how were the people to live without a temple, without the sacrificial system that was so important to them, and without the sense of free­dom and independence that was theirs so long as they had their own political state and their own king? That was the new challenge that came to those who remained in Judah and also to those who went away into Babylonian exile. The first exiles, those from North Israel who had been settled throughout the land of Assyria after the fall of Samaria, disappeared from history; the scattering was too great for any sense of peoplehood to re­main. But the exiles from Judah and Jerusalem had a better opportunity. Many of those who went into exile in 598/7 settled in Babylon. They kept in touch with their fellow Israelites back in Judah and Jerusalem, and they survived. They trusted in God's plan to bring themback one day to their homeland. The new exiles who found their way to Babylon in 587/6 heeded Jeremiah's advice too, and they also survived. Jeremiah had shown them how to do so.

 

  Back to lesson    

 

 Scripture

2 Kings 23:28-25:30

28 Now the rest of the acts of Josiah, and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah? 

In his days Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt went up to the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates. King Josiah went to meet him; but when Pharaoh Neco met him at Megiddo, he killed him. 

His servants carried him dead in a chariot from Megiddo, brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own tomb. The people of the land took Jehoahaz son of Josiah, anointed him, and made him king in place of his father. 

Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to reign; he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. 

32 He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, just as his ancestors had done. 

33 Pharaoh Neco confined him at Riblah in the land of Hamath, so that he might not reign in Jerusalem, and imposed tribute on the land of one hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. 

34 Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim son of Josiah king in place of his father Josiah, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. But he took Jehoahaz away; he came to Egypt, and died there. 

35 Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh, but he taxed the land in order to meet Pharaoh's demand for money. He exacted the silver and the gold from the people of the land, from all according to their assessment, to give it to Pharaoh Neco. 

36 Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he began to reign; he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Zebidah daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah. 

37 He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, just as all his ancestors had done.  

 

 

                                                                  CHAPTER 24                                                                

 

 

1 In his days King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came up; Jehoiakim became his servant for three years; then he turned and rebelled against him. 

2 The LORD sent against him bands of the Chaldeans, bands of the Arameans, bands of the Moabites, and bands of the Ammonites; he sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the LORD that he spoke by his servants the prophets. 

3 Surely this came upon Judah at the command of the LORD, to remove them out of his sight, for the sins of Manasseh, for all that he had committed, and also for the innocent blood that he had shed; for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the LORD was not willing to pardon. 

5 Now the rest of the deeds of Jehoiakim, and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah? 

6 So Jehoiakim slept with his ancestors; then his son Jehoiachin succeeded him. 

7 The king of Egypt did not come again out of his land, for the king of Babylon had taken over all that belonged to the king of Egypt from the Wadi of Egypt to the River Euphrates. 

8 Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign; he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Nehushta daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem. 

9 He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, just as his father had done. 

10 At that time the servants of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came up to Jerusalem, and the city was besieged. 

11 King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came to the city, while his servants were besieging it; 

12 King Jehoiachin of Judah gave himself up to the king of Babylon, himself, his mother, his servants, his officers, and his palace officials. The king of Babylon took him prisoner in the eighth year of his reign. 

13 He carried off all the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king's house; he cut in pieces all the vessels of gold in the temple of the LORD, which King Solomon of Israel had made, all this as the LORD had foretold. 

14 He carried away all Jerusalem, all the officials, all the warriors, ten thousand captives, all the artisans and the smiths; no one remained, except the poorest people of the land. 

15 He carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon; the king's mother, the king's wives, his officials, and the elite of the land, he took into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon. 

16 The king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon all the men of valor, seven thousand, the artisans and the smiths, one thousand, all of them strong and fit for war. 

17 The king of Babylon made Mattaniah, Jehoiachin's uncle, king in his place, and changed his name to Zedekiah. 

18 Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign; he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. 

19 He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, just as Jehoiakim had done. 

20 Indeed, Jerusalem and Judah so angered the LORD that he expelled them from his presence. Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. 

 

 

                                                                  CHAPTER 25                                                                 

 

 

1 And in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came with all his army against Jerusalem, and laid siege to it; they built siegeworks against it all around. 

2 So the city was besieged until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.

 

3 On the ninth day of the fourth month the famine became so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land. 

4 Then a breach was made in the city wall; the king with all the soldiers fled by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, by the king's garden, though the Chaldeans were all around the city.  They went in the direction of the Arabah. 

5 But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho; all his army was scattered, deserting him. 

6 Then they captured the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah, who passed sentence on him. 

7 They slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, then put out the eyes of Zedekiah; they bound him in fetters and took him to Babylon. 

8 In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month--which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon--Nebuzaradan, the captain of the bodyguard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. 

9 He burned the house of the LORD, the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; every great house he burned down. 

10 All the army of the Chaldeans who were with the captain of the guard broke down the walls around Jerusalem. 

11 Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried into exile the rest of the people who were left in the city and the deserters who had defected to the king of Babylon--all the rest of the population. 

12 But the captain of the guard left some of the poorest people of the land to be vinedressers and tillers of the soil. 

13 The bronze pillars that were in the house of the LORD, as well as the stands and the bronze sea that were in the house of the LORD, the Chaldeans broke in pieces, and carried the bronze to Babylon. 

14 They took away the pots, the shovels, the snuffers, the dishes for incense, and all the bronze vessels used in the temple service, as well as the firepans and the basins. What was made of gold the captain of the guard took away for the gold, and what was made of silver, for the silver. 

16 As for the two pillars, the one sea, and the stands, which Solomon had made for the house of the LORD, the bronze of all these vessels was beyond weighing. 

17 The height of the one pillar was eighteen cubits, and on it was a bronze capital; the height of the capital was three cubits;  latticework and pomegranates, all of bronze, were on the capital all around. The second pillar had the same, with the latticework. 

18 The captain of the guard took the chief priest Seraiah, the second priest Zephaniah, and the three guardians of the threshold; from the city he took an officer who had been in command of the soldiers, and five men of the king's council who were found in the city; the secretary who was the commander of the army who mustered the people of the land; and sixty men of the people of the land who were found in the city. 

20 Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took them, and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah. 

21 The king of Babylon struck them down and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah went into exile out of its land. 

22 He appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam son of Shaphan as governor over the people who remained in the land of Judah, whom King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had left. 

23 Now when all the captains of the forces and their men heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah as governor, they came with their men to Gedaliah at Mizpah, namely, Ishmael son of Nethaniah, Johanan son of Kareah, Seraiah son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, and Jaazaniah son of the Maacathite. 

24 Gedaliah swore to them and their men, saying, "Do not be afraid because of the Chaldean officials; live in the land, serve the king of Babylon, and it shall be well with you." 

25 But in the seventh month, Ishmael son of Nethaniah son of Elishama, of the royal family, came with ten men; they struck down Gedaliah so that he died, along with the Judeans and Chaldeans who were with him at Mizpah. 

26 Then all the people, high and low and the captains of the forces set out and went to Egypt; for they were afraid of the Chaldeans. 

27 In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, King Evil-merodach of Babylon, in the year that he began to reign, released King Jehoiachin of Judah from prison; he spoke kindly to him, and gave him a seat above the other seats of the kings who were with him in Babylon. 

29 So Jehoiachin put aside his prison clothes. Every day of his life he dined regularly in the king's presence. 

30 For his allowance, a regular allowance was given him by the king, a portion every day, as long as he lived. 

 

Return to lesson

 

Jeremiah 27

                                                           

1 In the beginning of the reign of King Zedekiah son of Josiah of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the LORD. 

2 Thus the LORD said to me: Make yourself a yoke of straps and bars, and put them on your neck. 

3 Send word to the king of Edom, the king of Moab, the king of the Ammonites, the king of Tyre, and the king of Sidon by the hand of the envoys who have come to Jerusalem to King Zedekiah of Judah. 

4 Give them this charge for their masters: Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: This is what you shall say to your masters: 

5 It is I who by my great power and my outstretched arm have made the earth, with the people and animals that are on the earth, and I give it to whomever I please. 

6 Now I have given all these lands into the hand of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, my servant, and I have given him even the wild animals of the field to serve him. 

7 All the nations shall serve him and his son and his grandson, until the time of his own land comes; then many nations and great kings shall make him their slave. 

8 But if any nation or kingdom will not serve this king, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, and put its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, then I will punish that nation with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence, says the LORD, until I have completed its destruction by his hand. 

9 You, therefore, must not listen to your prophets, your diviners, your dreamers, your soothsayers, or your sorcerers, who are saying to you, 'You shall not serve the king of Babylon.' 

10 For they are prophesying a lie to you, with the result that you will be removed far from your land; I will drive you out, and you will perish. 

11 But any nation that will bring its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him, I will leave on its own land, says the LORD, to till it and live there. 

12 I spoke to King Zedekiah of Judah in the same way: Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, and live. 

13 Why should you and your people die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence, as the LORD has spoken concerning any nation that will not serve the king of Babylon? 

14 Do not listen to the words of the prophets who are telling you not to serve the king of Babylon, for they are prophesying a lie to you. 

15 I have not sent them, says the LORD, but they are prophesying falsely in my name, with the result that I will drive you out and you will perish, you and the prophets who are prophesying to you. 

16 Then I spoke to the priests and to all this people, saying, Thus says the LORD: Do not listen to the words of your prophets who are prophesying to you, saying, "The vessels of the Lord's house will soon be brought back from Babylon," for they are prophesying a lie to you. 

17 Do not listen to them; serve the king of Babylon and live. Why should this city become a desolation? 

18 If indeed they are prophets, and if the word of the LORD is with them, then let them intercede with the LORD of hosts, that the vessels left in the house of the LORD, in the house of the king of Judah, and in Jerusalem may not go to Babylon. 

19 For thus says the LORD of hosts concerning the pillars, the sea, the stands, and the rest of the vessels that are left in this city, which King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon did not take away when he took into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon King Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim of Judah, and all the nobles of Judah and Jerusalem--  thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning the vessels left in the house of the LORD, in the house of the king of Judah, and in Jerusalem: 

22 They shall be carried to Babylon, and there they shall stay, until the day when I give attention to them, says the LORD. Then I will bring them up and restore them to this place. 

 

Back to lesson

 

 

 

 

 

 

BIBLICAL TIME SCALE

BCE

 

1300

 

 

Exodus from Egypt, Moses

 

 

 

Conquest of Canaan, Joshua

1200

 

 

Invasion of the Philistines

 

 

 

 

 

 

1100

Deborah

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Samuel

1000

Saul founds monarchy  1020-1000

 

David rules united kingdom 1000-961 (965)

 

Solomon rules united kingdom  961-922 (965-931)- first Temple

 

 

 

Division of kingdom

900

Asa king of Judah 913

 

 

 

Ahab king of Israel,  869 Elijah

 

Elisha

 

Jehu's revolution 842

800

Jehoash king of Judah  801

 

 

 

Jeroboam II king of Israel 786 , Azariah (Uzziah) of Judah 783

 

Amos, Hosea

 

 

700

Isaiah (1), Micah

 

Hezekiah king of Judah 715   Assyrians take Samaria  721

 

Manasseh king of Judah 687

 

Zephaniah

 

Josiah's reform,  641  Nahum

600

Jeremiah

 

Ezekiel, Babylonians sack Jerusalem 587

 

Exile in Babylon

 

Isaiah (2), Cyrus begins Persian Empire

 

Haggai & Zechariah

500

2nd Temple built

 

 

 

 

 

Nehemiah rebuilds Jerusalem

 

 

400

The Pentateuch accepted as Scripture (or 550?)

 

 

 

 

 

Alexander conquers East

 

 

300

Egypt rules Palestine

 

 

 

 

 

The Prophets accepted as Scripture

 

 

200

 

 

Syria rules Palestine

 

Maccabees

 

Hasmonean rulers

 

 

100

 

 

 

 

Romans conquer Palestine

 

Herod the Great

 

3rd Temple built

C.E.

Birth of Jesus

 

Jesus' ministry

 

Paul's ministry

 

Roman's destroy Jerusalem

 

Gospels written

100

The Writings close the OT Canon

 

Last NT books written, Clement

 

 

 

 

 

 

200

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

300

 

 

Nicene Creed 325

 

(back to Lesson)