2 Kings 24:10-20 - Frederick Brotherton Meyer's Commentary

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the Captivity Begins

2 Kings 24:10-20

Jehoiachin followed the evil path of his predecessors. Again Jerusalem was besieged and Deuteronomy 28:48 began to be fulfilled. The ill-advised revolt of the young king ended in bitter disappointment, as Jeremiah had foretold, Jeremiah 22:24-25; and the final tragedy came on apace, in spite of the insistence of the false prophets that the sacred vessels of the Temple should be returned from Babylon, Jeremiah 27:16. Finally, a sad procession issued from the gate of the doomed city, and the king, his nobles and officials, presented themselves before the enemy, sitting on the ground, clothed in black, their faces covered in their mantles, Jeremiah 13:18. They were at once deported to Babylon with thousands more. The treasures in the Temple and the palace were rifled; and a cry of agony and astonishment arose from Jeremiah and the whole land. See Jeremiah 22:24; Jeremiah 22:28; some add Psalms 42:1-11; Psalms 43:1-5.

Zedekiah, Josiah's youngest son, enticed into a league with neighboring nations against the conqueror, brought upon himself and his people a yet more disastrous overthrow. How foolish man's wisdom becomes when he departs from the living God! “A wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed,” James 1:6.

Related Commentaries of 2 Kings 24:10

2 Kings 24:10-20

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

11 And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came against the city, and his servants did besiege it.

12 And Jehoiachin the king of Judah went out to the king of Babylon, he, and his mother, and his servants, and his princes, and his officers:c and the king of Babylon took him in the eighth year of his reign.

13 And he carried out thence all the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king's house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the LORD, as the LORD had said.

14 And he carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valour, even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and smiths: none remained, save the poorest sort of the people of the land.

15 And he carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, and the king's mother, and the king's wives, and his officers,d and the mighty of the land, those carried he into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon.

16 And all the men of might, even seven thousand, and craftsmen and smiths a thousand, all that were strong and apt for war, even them the king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon.

17 And the king of Babylon made Mattaniah his father's brother king in his stead, and changed his name to Zedekiah.

18 Zedekiah was twenty and one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.

19 And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that Jehoiakim had done.

20 For through the anger of the LORD it came to pass in Jerusalem and Judah, until he had cast them out from his presence, that Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.