2 Chronicles 36

Jehoahaz rules Israel

1 The people of the land took Jehoahaz, Josiah's son, and made him the next king in Jerusalem.
2 Jehoahaz was 23 years old when he became king, and he ruled for three months in Jerusalem.
3 The king of Egypt removed him from office in Jerusalem. The Egyptian king imposed a fine on the land totaling one hundred kikkars of silver and one kikkar of gold.
4 Then the king of Egypt made Jehoahaz's brother Eliakim king of Judah and Jerusalem, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. Neco took his brother Jehoahaz prisoner and carried him off to Egypt.

Jehoiakim rules Israel

5 Jehoiakim was 25 years old when he became king, and he ruled for eleven years in Jerusalem. He did what was evil in the LORD's eyes.
6 Babylon's King Nebuchadnezzar attacked him, bound him with bronze chains, and took him to Babylon.
7 Nebuchadnezzar also took some equipment from the LORD's temple to Babylon and placed them in his own temple there.
8 The rest of Jehoiakim's deeds, including his detestable practices and all that was charged against him, are written in the official records of Israel's and Judah's kings. His son Jehoiachin succeeded him as king.

Jehoiachin rules Israel

9 Jehoiachin was 18 years old when he became king, and he ruled for three months in Jerusalem. He did what was evil in the LORD's eyes.
10 In the springtime, King Nebuchadnezzar sent for him to be brought to Babylon, along with valuable equipment from the LORD's temple. Then he made Zedekiah his uncle the next king of Judah and Jerusalem.

Zedekiah rules Israel

11 Zedekiah was 21 years old when he became king, and he ruled for eleven years in Jerusalem.
12 He did what was evil in the LORD his God's eyes and didn't submit before the prophet Jeremiah, who spoke for the LORD.
13 Moreover, he rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, despite the solemn pledge Nebuchadnezzar had forced him to swear in God's name. He became stubborn and refused to turn back to the LORD, Israel's God.
14 All the leaders of the priests and the people also grew increasingly unfaithful, following all the detestable practices of the nations. They polluted the LORD's temple that God had dedicated in Jerusalem.
15 Time and time again, the LORD, the God of their ancestors, sent word to them through his messengers because he had compassion on his people and his dwelling.
16 But they made fun of God's messengers, treating God's words with contempt and ridiculing God's prophets to such an extent that there was no hope of warding off the LORD's rising anger against his people.

Jerusalem destroyed

17 So God brought the Babylonian king against them. The king killed their young men with the sword in their temple's sanctuary, and showed no pity for young men or for virgins, for the old or for the feeble. God handed all of them over to him.
18 Then the king hauled everything off to Babylon, every item from God's temple, both large and small, including the treasures of the LORD's temple and those of the king and his officials.
19 Next the Babylonians burned God's temple down, demolished the walls of Jerusalem, and set fire to all its palaces, destroying everything of value.
20 Finally, he exiled to Babylon anyone who survived the killing so that they could be his slaves and the slaves of his children until Persia came to power.
21 This is how the LORD's word spoken by Jeremiah was carried out. The land finally enjoyed its sabbath rest. For as long as it lay empty, it rested, until seventy years were completed.

Cyrus’ decree

22 In the first year of Persia's King Cyrus, to carry out the LORD's promise spoken through Jeremiah, the LORD moved Persia's King Cyrus to issue the following proclamation throughout his kingdom, along with a written decree:
23 This is what Persia's King Cyrus says: The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the earth's kingdoms and has instructed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Whoever among you belong to God's people, let them go up, and may the LORD their God be with them!

2 Chronicles 36 Commentary

Chapter 36

The destruction of Jerusalem. (1-21) The proclamation of Cyrus. (22,23)

Verses 1-21 The ruin of Judah and Jerusalem came on by degrees. The methods God takes to call back sinners by his word, by ministers, by conscience, by providences, are all instances of his compassion toward them, and his unwillingness that any should perish. See here what woful havoc sin makes, and, as we value the comfort and continuance of our earthly blessings, let us keep that worm from the root of them. They had many times ploughed and sowed their land in the seventh year, when it should have rested, and now it lay unploughed and unsown for ten times seven years. God will be no loser in his glory at last, by the disobedience of men. If they refused to let the land rest, God would make it rest. What place, O God, shall thy justice spare, if Jerusalem has perished? If that delight of thine were cut off for wickedness, let us not be high-minded, but fear.

Verses 22-23 God had promised the restoring of the captives, and the rebuilding of Jerusalem, at the end of seventy years; and that time to favour Zion, that set time, came at last. Though God's church be cast down, it is not cast off; though his people be corrected, they are not abandoned; though thrown into the furnace, they are not lost there, nor left there any longer than till the dross be separated. Though God contend long, he will not contend always. Before we close the books of the Chronicles, which contain a faithful register of events, think what desolation sin introduced into the world, nay, even into the church of God. Let us tremble at what is here recorded, while in the character of some few gracious souls, we discover that the Lord left not himself without witness. And when we have looked at this faithful portrait of man by nature, let us contrast with it that same nature, when recovered by Almighty grace, through the justifying and soul-adorning righteousness of Christ our Saviour.

Footnotes 3

Chapter Summary

INTRODUCTION TO 2 CHRONICLES 36

This chapter records the reigns of the four kings of Judah, and the captivity of the Jews, the short reign of Jehoahaz, deposed by the king of Egypt, and his brother Eliakim or Jehoiakim set up in his room, 2Ch 36:1-4, the reign of Jehoiakim, who was bound and carried away by Nebuchadnezzar, 2Ch 36:5-8, the reign of Jehoiachin his son, who also in a short time was taken and carried to Babylon by the same king, 2Ch 36:9,10, the reign of Zedekiah, who also rebelled against the king of Babylon, and he and his people were taken and carried captive by him for his sins, which are here mentioned, according to the prophecy of Jeremiah, and where the Jews continued until the reign of the kingdom of Persia, 2Ch 36:11-21 and the chapter is concluded with the proclamation of Cyrus king of Persia, and with which also the next book begins, 2Ch 36:22,23.

\\Josiah\\ Of whose reign, and of the three following, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah, and the account of them, from hence to the end of 2Ch 36:13, what needs explanation or reconciliation, \\See Gill on "2Ki 23:31"\\ \\See Gill on "2Ki 23:32"\\ \\See Gill on "2Ki 23:33"\\ \\See Gill on "2Ki 23:34"\\ \\See Gill on "2Ki 23:35"\\ \\See Gill on "2Ki 23:36"\\ \\See Gill on "2Ki 23:37"\\ \\See Gill on "2Ki 24:5"\\ \\See Gill on "2Ki 24:6"\\ \\See Gill on "2Ki 24:8"\\ \\See Gill on "2Ki 24:10"\\ \\See Gill on "2Ki 24:17"\\ \\See Gill on "2Ki 24:18"\\ 19953-950201-1301-2Ch36.2

2 Chronicles 36 Commentaries

Copyright © 2011 Common English Bible