And he spake kindly to him, and set his throne above the throne of the kings that were with him in Babylon;
And he spake kindly - gave him liberty upon parole. Jehoiachin had continued a state-prisoner for 37 years during the whole reign of Nebuchadnezzar, and among the many causes of grief and of mortification to the feelings of the captive Jews, perhaps there was no circumstance more humiliating than the fact, conscious to all of them, that one native sovereign was a miserable tenant, in prison garments, in one of the dungeons of Babylon, and that there, too, their last sovereign was immured so long as he lived-the eyeless Zedekiah in chains (cf. Jeremiah 39:7). The kindly feeling which subsisted between the young king of Babylon and Jehoiachin is said to have originated in a familiar acquaintance formed in prison in which Evil-merodach had lain until his father's death, on account of some malversation while acting as regent during Nebuchadnezzar's seven years' illness (Daniel 4:32-33); But doubtless the improvement in Jehoiachin's condition is to be traced to the overruling providence and grace of Him who still cherished purposes of love to the house of David (2 Samuel 7:14-15).