Chapter Thirty-Six

(see 2 Kgs 23:30)

1–3. The 17th king of Judah, Jehoahaz, his three-month reign, and his deposition by the pharaoh. 4–6. The eleven-year impious reign of the 18th king of Judah, Jehoiakim, and his deportation to Babylon. 9–10. The three-month reign of the 19th king, Jehoiachin. 11–20. The eleven-year impious reign of the last, 20th king of Judah, Zedekiah, his rebellion against Nebuchadnezzar; the plundering and burning of the Temple and Jerusalem and the deportation of the Judeans to Babylon. 21–23. The seventy-year captivity of the Judeans and the decree of Cyrus for their return home. (The Prayer of Manasseh).

2 Chronicles 36:1. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz son of Josiah, and made him king in place of his father in Jerusalem. 2 Chronicles 36:2. Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king; and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. [The name of his mother was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord according to all that his ancestors had done. And Pharaoh Necho bound him in Debir, in the land of Hamath, so that he should not reign in Jerusalem.] 2 Chronicles 36:3. And the king of Egypt deposed him in Jerusalem [and brought him to Egypt], and laid on the land a tribute of one hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. Jehoahaz had another and probably his original name, Shallum, Heb. Shallum (Jer 22:11). His appointment as king, bypassing his older brother Jehoiakim (cf. verse 5), is explained, probably, by the fact that the people considered Jehoahaz in some respect more worthy than the firstborn of Josiah, which, however, proved completely unjustified (see Jer 22:11-17). And yet, perhaps it was precisely this violation by the Judean people of the order of succession “that gave Pharaoh Necho a plausible pretext to intervene again in the affairs of Judah” (Prof. Gulyaev, “Historical Books of the Sacred Scripture of the Old Testament,” p. 586). On his return journey from the territories of Assyria (see Josephus, “Jewish Antiquities,” book X, 5, 2), Necho demanded Jehoahaz to come to him in Syria, in the city of Riblah ((2 Kgs 23:31-33); see “The Interpretive Bible,” vol. II, p. 574) where, as can be inferred from the allegorical portrayal of Jehoahaz by the prophet Ezekiel (Ezek 19:3-4)—under the image of a young lion satiated with the blood of sacrifices, wounded, caught, and carried off to Egypt—Jehoahaz did not voluntarily give himself into the hands of the Egyptian pharaoh, not without struggle, but rather after a desperate but fruitless attempt at armed resistance to the Egyptian army. The words of verse 2, “the name of his mother... in Jerusalem,” placed in brackets in the Russian Synodal translation, do not appear in the Hebrew Bible and in some editions of the LXX translation (for example, in the Complutensian Bible) and constitute, probably, an insertion by the Greek translators, taken from (2 Kgs 23:31-33). Libnah is the same as Livnah (2 Kgs 19:8); see “The Interpretive Bible,” vol. II, pp. 549, 574. Debir is the same as Riblah (2 Kgs 23:33); Onomasticon, p. 274; “The Interpretive Bible,” vol. II, p. 574. Having deposed King Jehoahaz of Judah, the pharaoh laid a heavy tribute on Judah (verse 3); according to the LXX: καὶ ἀπέθανέν ἐκεῖ (verse 4), Slavonic and Russian text, Jehoahaz died in Egypt.

2 Chronicles 36:4. And the king of Egypt made Eliakim, his brother, king over Judah and Jerusalem, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. But Necho took his brother Jehoahaz and brought him to Egypt. [And he gave silver and gold to the pharaoh; then the land began to give silver according to the pharaoh’s word, and each one, according to his power, demanded silver and gold from the people of the land as a tribute to Pharaoh Necho.] 2 Chronicles 36:5. Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king; and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem [; the name of his mother was Zebidah daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah]. And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord his God [according to all that his ancestors had done. In his days came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to the land, and he served him three years and broke faith with him. And the Lord sent against them Chaldeans and bands of the Syrians, bands of the Moabites, and the Ammonites and Samaritans, and he stopped them according to this word, according to the word of the Lord by the mouths of His servants the prophets. Yet the anger of the Lord was against Judah, so as to remove it from His sight, because of all the sins of Manasseh, which he had committed, and because of the innocent blood which he shed and filled Jerusalem with innocent blood. And He would not consent to destroy them]. 2 Chronicles 36:6. Against him came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and bound him with fetters to take him to Babylon. 2 Chronicles 36:7. And some of the vessels of the house of the Lord Nebuchadnezzar carried to Babylon and put them in his temple in Babylon. 2 Chronicles 36:8. The rest of the deeds of Jehoiakim and the abominations which he committed and which were found in him, are written in the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah. [And Jehoiakim slept with his ancestors and was buried in Ganoza with his ancestors.] And his son Jehoiachin became king in his place. The book of Chronicles describes the reign of Jehoiakim here in considerably shorter form than is related in the parallel passage (2 Kgs 23:34-37); see “The Interpretive Bible,” vol. II, pp. 574–576. As a sign of complete vassalage of the Judean king to the Egyptian pharaoh, the latter changes (cf. Gen 41:45; Dan 1:7) the name of Eliakim to Jehoiakim. The tribute laid by the pharaoh on Judah (verse 3) was exacted with harshness and extortion, without distinguishing between rich and poor (the words placed in brackets in the Russian Synodal translation of verse 4 are found only in the LXX text and were probably transferred here from (2 Kgs 23:34); similarly in verse 5 there is an insertion from (2 Kgs 24:1-3)), in which agents of the Egyptian king, perhaps, were actively assisted by Jehoiakim himself, who announced his unfortunate and miserable reign especially through violence and oppression of the people (Jer 22:13-19). In the second half of his reign, probably in the 8th year of it (cf. Josephus, “Jewish Antiquities,” book X, 6, 1; see “The Interpretive Bible,” vol. II, p. 575), Jehoiakim had to exchange Egyptian vassalage for Babylonian: he submitted to the founder of the Neo-Chaldean kingdom Nebuchadnezzar (around 600 B.C.). An attempt by Jehoiakim, under the influence of the Egyptian faction, to free himself from the tribute to the Babylonian king, proved fatal for Jehoiakim: “Against him came Nebuchadnezzar... and bound him with fetters to take him to Babylon” (verse 6). This information from 2 Chronicles, in view of other kinds of testimonies (the book of 2 Kings and the book of the prophet Jeremiah) about Jehoiakim’s death and burial, namely the testimony (2 Kgs 24:6) (Jehoiakim slept with his ancestors, that is, in Jerusalem, but according to (Jer 22:19) Jehoiakim’s corpse was thrown outside the walls of Jerusalem and lay there for a long time like carrion)—is understood by commentators either so that Nebuchadnezzar, after taking Jehoiakim captive to Babylon, soon returned him to Jerusalem, where he died; or so that Nebuchadnezzar merely gave orders to bring Jehoiakim as a prisoner to Babylon, but later cancelled this order and commanded Jehoiakim to be killed in Jerusalem, and his corpse was thrown outside the city. The latter would be simpler and more acceptable, but in favor of the former speaks the fact that according to other biblical data (Jer 25:1; 2 Kgs 24:1; Dan 1:1), the Babylonian king attacked Jerusalem twice during Jehoiakim’s reign: the first time shortly after the battle of Carchemish (Jer 46:2), not earlier than the 4th and not later than the 8th year of Jehoiakim’s reign: this period is the date of the so-called first deportation of the Judeans to Babylon (Dan 1:1-4), and with it the beginning of the seventy-year captivity of the Judeans in Babylon (Jer 25:11-12). Thus, “the book of Kings speaks of the first invasion of Nebuchadnezzar into Judah, after which Jehoiakim remained on the throne, although he paid tribute to Babylon, as well as the subsequent robberies by bands of Syrians, Moabites, and Ammonites against the weakened Judeans. The books of Chronicles, not having these reports, contain a brief notice of another invasion of Nebuchadnezzar, as a result of which Jerusalem was plundered and Jehoiakim was taken captive” (Prof. Olesnitsky, “The State Chronicle of the Kings of Judah,” p. 430). At this “second deportation,” 3,023 men of Judah were taken captive (Jer 52:28), and at the first—some vessels of the Jerusalem Temple (verse 7), which were placed in the sanctuary of one of the Babylonian gods (cf. Dan 1:2) and were kept there until the return of the Judeans from captivity under Cyrus (Ezra 1:7). Jehoiakim was the last of the Judean kings who died in his native country, and also was the last king whose reign was described in the chronicle of the kings of Judah, which recorded the deeds of the kings from Rehoboam (1 Kgs 14:29) to Jehoiakim. By the “abominations of Jehoiakim which he did and which were found in him” (verse 8), Hebrew commentators understood special marks or carvings in honor of idols on Jehoiakim’s body, supposedly discovered on his corpse lying unburied. But it is much more correct to see here a general idea about the idolatry and moral depravity of Jehoiakim (see Calmet ad locum, Migne, “Patrologia Cursus Completus. Series Graeca,” vol. XI, col. 1452–1453). In the “chronicle of the kings” there could have been contained and a report—preserved only in the LXX translation and in the Slavonic and Russian texts—of Jehoiakim’s burial in a certain Ganoza (textus receptus: ἐν γανοζαῆ; codices: 55, 60, 64, 119, 243, Alexandrian: ἐν γανοζάν; Aldine: ἐν γανοζανὶ). It is possible that these Greek expressions are a transcription of the Hebrew be-gan-Uzza—“in the garden of Uzza” (2 Kgs 21:18), that is, probably in the garden of King Ozias-Azarias, where were buried: 1) the king Ozias himself (2 Chr 26:23); 2) Manasseh (2 Kgs 21:18; 2 Chr 33:20) and Jehoiakim—all impious kings, deprived of the honor of burial in the royal tombs.

2 Chronicles 36:9. Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king; and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem, and he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. 2 Chronicles 36:10. In the spring of the year King Nebuchadnezzar sent and brought him to Babylon, together with the precious vessels of the house of the Lord, and made Zedekiah his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem. “The reign of Jehoiachin in the books of Chronicles instead of a chronicle has only a general formula which ordinarily begins chronicle reports, and in the LXX translation is not expanded. Evidently, the state chronicle was discontinued and the note was made by a private person” (Prof. Olesnitsky, “The State Chronicle of the Kings of Judah,” p. 431). In comparison with (2 Kgs 24:8-16), the report of 2 Chronicles on the three-month reign of Jehoiakim’s son Jehoiachin is extremely abbreviated. In the accepted Masoretic text and the accepted LXX text, verse 9 shows Jehoiachin’s age at his accession as 8 years. But in Hebrew codex 525 by Kennicott and Greek codices: 19, 44, 64, 71, 74, 106, 108, 120, 121, 134, 158, 55, 60, 119, 243 by Holmes, in the Aldine and Complutensian Bibles is the date: 18 years, which is much more probable, in agreement with the testimony (2 Kgs 24:8), that is more probable. Despite Jehoiachin’s declared loyalty toward the Babylonian king (Josephus, “Jewish Antiquities,” book X, 7, 1), the latter, with the opening of the season for military campaigns ((verse 10); cf. (2 Sam 11:1)), hastened to make a new invasion of Jerusalem, deposed Jehoiachin, capturing him prisoner along with a very significant number of Hebrews from the rich and educated classes and many treasures ((Jer 29:1-2); see “The Interpretive Bible,” vol. II, p. 577). As the successor to Jehoiachin, the last (20th) king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar appointed Zedekiah (formerly called Mattaniah (2 Kgs 24:17)), the son of Josiah, consequently, not the brother of Jehoiachin (as in the Hebrew text, verse 11, and in the Russian translation), but his uncle (LXX, Vulgate, Slavonic). The complete dependence of this last king of Judah on the Babylonian king is evident from the very fact of the change of his name by the latter (2 Kgs 24:17); cf. (2 Chr 36:4) and commentary to the latter passage; besides, Nebuchadnezzar took an oath from Zedekiah of loyalty in the name of Jehovah (Ezek 17:13).

2 Chronicles 36:11. Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king; and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem, 2 Chronicles 36:12. and he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord his God. He did not humble himself before the prophet Jeremiah, who spoke from the mouth of the Lord, 2 Chronicles 36:13. and he also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God; he stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the Lord God of Israel. Among the events of Zedekiah’s eleven-year impious reign, besides his disobedience to the prophet Jeremiah (verse 12), is noted, evidently, as one of Zedekiah’s crimes—his breach of oath toward Nebuchadnezzar (verse 13), from whom he openly rebelled, contrary to the will of God through the prophet Jeremiah. “The remark of the books of Chronicles concerning Zedekiah has no character of chronicle reports and consists of an account having the nature of prophetic speech. Two mentions of the name of the prophet Jeremiah in this account (verses 12 and 21) may serve as indicators that it was either written by Jeremiah himself or compiled on the basis of his prophetic speeches, which it resembles” (Prof. Olesnitsky, “The State Chronicle of the Kings of Judah,” p. 431).

2 Chronicles 36:14. Moreover, all the leaders of the priests and the people likewise transgressed greatly following all the abominations of the nations; and they polluted the house of the Lord which He had made holy in Jerusalem. 2 Chronicles 36:15. The Lord, the God of their ancestors, sent persistently to them by His messengers, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place; 2 Chronicles 36:16. but they mocked the messengers of God and despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord rose against His people, so that there was no remedy. Here is given a general indication of the internal causes of the ruin of the kingdom of Judah (cf. (2 Kgs 17:7-23), where in a similar manner the internal causes of the decay and ruin of the northern, ten-tribe kingdom are indicated). Concerning the activity of the prophets in the Judean kingdom and the attitude of the people toward them, cf. prophetic portrayals, for example (Jer 25:4; Ezek 33:32; Dan 9:10).

2 Chronicles 36:17. And He brought upon them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or young woman, old man or aged, but He gave all of them into his hand. 2 Chronicles 36:18. And all the vessels of the house of God, large and small, the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king and his officials, all these he brought to Babylon. 2 Chronicles 36:19. And they burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, burned all its palaces with fire, and destroyed all its precious vessels. 2 Chronicles 36:20. And those who escaped from the sword he deported to Babylon, and they became slaves to him and to his sons until the rule of the king of Persia, Concerning the plundering and destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem, the deportation of the Judeans to Babylon—in more detail in (2 Kgs 25:9-17), “The Interpretive Bible,” vol. II, pp. 580–581. In Babylon the Judeans were slaves of Nebuchadnezzar “and his sons” (verse 20), that is, his successors on the throne of the Neo-Chaldean kingdom: Evil-merodach (561–559 B.C.), Labashi-marduk (552 B.C.), Nabonidus (552–539 B.C.), and Darius the Mede (539–537 B.C.), until the kingdom passed to Cyrus the Persian (537 B.C.)—altogether, according to the biblical reckoning, 70 years (verse 21; (Jer 25:11-12; Zech 1:12); see Josephus, “Jewish Antiquities,” book X, 11, 2).

2 Chronicles 36:21. until the fulfillment of the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, the land rested and enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years. From a biblical-theocratic perspective, the seventy-year Babylonian captivity is a strictly appropriate punishment of the people of God for their violation of the foundations of theocracy, in particular, for their neglect of the theocratic law concerning the Sabbath year ((Lev 25:1-7); “The Interpretive Bible,” vol. I, pp. 489–491): the land of Palestine, abandoned now by the Judeans, received that rest which it had been deprived of as a result of the wickedness and greed of its inhabitants (cf. Lev 26:34-35). “From the reign of Saul,” says Blessed Theodoret (question 37 on Leviticus), “to the captivity is counted four hundred ninety years; the seventh part of this is seventy. Therefore, what is said (Lev 26:34-35) means that the land will remain unsown and untilled, because you will live in a foreign land for breaking, along with other laws, the commandment concerning the Sabbath.” See “The Interpretive Bible,” vol. I, p. 500.

2 Chronicles 36:22. In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord stirred up the spirit of King Cyrus of Persia so that he sent a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, both by word of mouth and in writing, saying: 2 Chronicles 36:23. “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and He has charged me to build Him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you, of all His people, may the Lord his God be with him, and let him go up. These concluding verses of 2 Chronicles are read word-for-word at the beginning of the book of Ezra (Ezra 1:1-3); there, the present location of these verses (Prof. Olesnitsky, “The State Chronicle of the Kings of Judah,” p. 431). But the information contained here about the time of return from the Babylonian captivity (the 1st year of the reign of Cyrus the Persian, see Josephus, “Jewish Antiquities,” vol. XI, 1, 1) is important for a correct understanding of the books of Chronicles in two respects. First, here is given a precise indication of the end of the captivity: the 1st year of Cyrus’s reign, 537 or 536 B.C., consequently, the possibility is given of a precise determination of the beginning of captivity 607–606 B.C., that is, according to the accepted chronology—the 4th year of Jehoiakim’s reign, when the first deportation of a party of Judeans to Babylon took place ((Jer 25:1) and further) or the first year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign. Thus, the boundaries of the seventy-year (verse 21) captivity of the Judeans are precisely marked out and the supposition of some commentators is eliminated, according to which the beginning of the 70-year captivity should be counted from the final destruction of Jerusalem in 589 B.C., and its end recognized in the decree of Darius Hystaspes in 520 B.C. for the restoration of the Jerusalem Temple (Ezra 4:24). Second, according to the remark of Blessed Theodoret, “the end of the book (2 Chronicles) shows that the sacred historian collected (σνγή γαγε) this (content of 2 Chronicles) from many prophetic books a long time later, inasmuch as it mentions here the king of the Persians Cyrus and the return of the captives (of Judeans)” (“Quaestiones in II Paralipomenon. Patrology Graeca,” vol. LXXX, col. 855, 858). As for Cyrus’s profession in his manifesto (verse 23) of “Jehovah, the God of heaven,” it is not without significance the report of Josephus (“Jewish Antiquities,” book XI, 1, 1) that “Cyrus learned this upon reading a book in which the prophet Isaiah left his predictions two hundred ten years before,” that is, those passages of the prophetic book of Isaiah (Isa 44:28) in which the future liberator of the Judeans from captivity is named by name (Heb. Koresch, LXX: Κύρος, Persian Kurus (Kuru), Babylonian Kuras); the Judeans themselves could have contributed to this acquaintance of Cyrus with the Bible (Cleric). There can, of course, be no question of a Hebrew proselytism of Cyrus (cf. the remark on the alleged proselytism of Hiram of Tyre, to (1 Kgs 5:7), “The Interpretive Bible,” vol. II, p. 385). Concerning the non-canonical Prayer of Manasseh, placed in the Slavonic-Russian Bible immediately after (2 Chr 36), see the commentary to (2 Chr 33:19). * * * However, in codex 168 by Kennicott and in codices 31, 940 by Rossi it reads: “the son of his brother, ben-achiv” An extremely thorough and extraordinarily interesting in its originality investigation into the origin and sources of the books of Chronicles is given in the much-cited talented work of Prof. A. A. Olesnitsky, “The State Chronicle of the Kings of Judah” or the Forgotten Books (παραλεπομενα). Proceedings of the Kiev Theological Academy, 1879, nos. 8 and 12. However, the author’s main thesis about the greater antiquity of the books of Chronicles compared to 2 and 3 Kings stands alone in the scientific world and is only a hypothesis, though quite useful for comparative study and explanation of the books of Chronicles on the one hand and the books of Kings on the other. The full force of persuasiveness is possessed, in any case, by such a conclusion of Prof. Olesnitsky, for example: “The information of the books of Chronicles about the kings of Judah (except the last ones) is distinguished by a chronicle choice of material and in all respects greater, than the information of the books of Kings, documentary character, becoming in many cases a bare collection of documents and lists and breathing the freshness of information taken directly from the treasury of the kings of the people of God.” Op. cit., p. 481.