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2 Kings 24:1
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Babylon Controls Jehoiakim
1During Jehoiakim’s reign, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon invaded. So Jehoiakim became his vassal for three years, until he turned and rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar.
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Sir Robert AndersonSummary
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- Adam Clarke
- Keil-Delitzsch
- John Gill
- Matthew Henry
- Tyndale
Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
Nebuchadnezzar - This man, so famous in the writings of the prophets, was son of Nabopolassar. He was sent by his father against the rulers of several provinces that had revolted; and he took Carchemish, and all that belonged to the Egyptians, from the Euphrates to the Nile. Jehoiakim, who was tributary to Nechoh king of Egypt, he attacked and reduced; and obliged to become tributary to Babylon. At the end of three years he revolted; and then a mixed army, of Chaldeans, Syrians, Moabites, and Ammonites, was sent against him, who ravaged the country, and took three thousand and twenty-three prisoners, whom they brought to Babylon, Jer 52:28.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary
"In his days Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babel, came up; and Jehoiakim became subject to him three years, then he revolted from him again." נבכדנאצּר, Nebuchadnezzar, or נבוּכדראצּר, Nebuchadrezzar (Jer 21:2, Jer 21:7; Jer 22:25, etc.), Ναβουχοδονόσορ (lxx), Ναβουχοδονόσορος (Beros. in Jos. c. Ap. i. 20, 21), Ναβοκοδρόσορος (Strabo, xv. 1, 6), upon the Persian arrow-headed inscriptions at Bisutun Nabhukudracara (according to Oppert, composed of the name of God, Nabhu (Nebo), the Arabic kadr, power, and zar or sar, prince), and in still other forms (for the different forms of the name see M. v. Niebuhr's Gesch. pp. 41, 42). He was the son of Nabopolassar, the founder of the Chaldaean monarchy, and reigned, according to Berosus (Jos. l.c.), Alex. Polyh. (Eusebii Chr. arm. i. pp. 44, 45), and the Canon of Ptol., forty-three years, from 605 to 562 b.c. With regard to his first campaign against Jerusalem, it is stated in Ch2 36:6, that "against him (Jehoiakim) came up Nebuchadnezzar, and bound him with brass chains, to carry him (להוליכו) to Babylon;" and in Dan 1:1-2, that "in the year three of the reign of Jehoiakim, Nebuchadnezzar came against Jerusalem and besieged it; and the Lord gave Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, into his hand, and a portion of the holy vessels, and he brought them (the vessels) into the land of Shinar, into the house of his god," etc. Bertheau (on Chr.) admits that all three passages relate to Nebuchadnezzar's first expedition against Jehoiakim and the first taking of Jerusalem by the king of Babylon, and rejects the alteration of להוליכו, "to lead him to Babylon" (Chr.), into ἀπήγαγεν αὐτὸν (lxx), for which Thenius decides in his prejudice in favour of the lxx. He has also correctly observed, that the chronicler intentionally selected the infinitive with ל, because he did not intend to speak of the actual transportation of Jehoiakim to Babylon. The words of our text, "Jehoiakim became servant (עבד) to him," i.e., subject to him, simply affirm that he became tributary, not that he was led away. And in the book of Daniel also there is nothing about the leading away of Jehoiakim to Babylon. Whilst, therefore, the three accounts agree in the main with one another, and supply one another's deficiencies, so that we learn that Jehoiakim was taken prisoner at the capture of Jerusalem and put in chains to be led away, but that, inasmuch as he submitted to Nebuchadnezzar and vowed fidelity, he was not taken away, but left upon the throne as vassal of the king of Babylon; the statement in the book of Daniel concerning the time when this event occurred, which is neither contained in our account nor in the Chronicles, presents a difficulty when compared with Jer 25 and Jer 46:2, and different attempts, some of them very constrained, have been made to remove it. According to Jer 46:2, Nebuchadnezzar smote Necho the king of Egypt at Carchemish, on the Euphrates, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim. This year is not only called the first year of Nebuchadnezzar in Jer 25:1, but is represented by the prophet as the turning-point of the kingdom of Judah by the announcement that the Lord would bring His servant Nebuchadnezzar upon Judah and its inhabitants, and also upon all the nations dwelling round about, that he would devastate Judah, and that these nations would serve the king of Babylon seventy years (Jer 25:9-11). Consequently not only the defeat of Necho at Carchemish, but also the coming of Nebuchadnezzar to Judah, fell in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, and not in the third. To remove this discrepancy, some have proposed that the time mentioned, "in the fourth year of Jehoiakim" (Jer 46:2), should be understood as relating, not to the year of the battle at Carchemish, but to the time of the prophecy of Jeremiah against Egypt contained in Jer 46, and that Jer 25 should also be explained as follows, that in this chapter the prophet is not announcing the first capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, but is proclaiming a year after this the destruction of Jerusalem and the devastation of the whole land, or a total judgment upon Jerusalem and the rest of the nations mentioned there (M. v. Nieb. Gesch. pp. 86, 87, 371). But this explanation is founded upon the erroneous assumption, that Jer 46:3-12 does not contain a prediction of the catastrophe awaiting Egypt, but a picture of what has already taken place there; and it is only in a very forced manner that it can be brought into harmony with the contents of Jer 25. (Note: Still less tenable is the view of Hofman, renewed by Zndel (Krit. Unterss. b. d. Abfassungszeit des B. Daniel, p. 25), that Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem in the third year of Jehoiakim, and that it was not till the following, or fourth year, that he defeated the Egyptian army at Carchemish, because so long as Pharaoh Necho stood with his army by or in Carchemish, on the Euphrates, Nebuchadnezzar could not possibly attempt to pass it so as to effect a march upon Jerusalem.) We must rather take "the year three of the reign of Jehoiakim" (Dan 1:1) as the extreme terminus a quo of Nebuchadnezzar's coming, i.e., must understand the statement thus: that in the year referred to Nebuchadnezzar commenced the expedition against Judah, and smote Necho at Carchemish at the commencement of the fourth year of Jehoiakim (Jer 46:2), and then, following up this victory, took Jerusalem in the same year, and made Jehoiakim tributary, and at the same time carried off to Babylon a portion of the sacred vessels, and some young men of royal blood as hostages, one of whom was Daniel (Ch2 36:7; Dan 1:2.). The fast mentioned in Jer 36:9, which took place in the fifth year of Jehoiakim, cannot be adduced in disproof of this; for extraordinary fast-days were not only appointed for the purpose of averting great threatening dangers, but also after severe calamities which had fallen upon the land or people, to expiate His wrath by humiliation before God, and to invoke the divine compassion to remove the judgment that had fallen upon them. The objection, that the godless king would hardly have thought of renewing the remembrance of a divine judgment by a day of repentance and prayer, but would rather have desired to avoid everything that could make the people despair, falls to the ground, with the erroneous assumption upon which it is founded, that by the fast-day Jehoiakim simply intended to renew the remembrance of the judgment which had burst upon Jerusalem, whereas he rather desired by outward humiliation before God to secure the help of God to enable him to throw off the Chaldaean yoke, and arouse in the people a religious enthusiasm for war against their oppressors. - Further information concerning this first expedition of Nebuchadnezzar is supplied by the account of Berosus, which Josephus (Ant. x. 11, and c. Ap. i. 19) has preserved from the third book of his Chaldaean history, namely, that when Nabopolassar received intelligence of the revolt of the satrap whom he had placed over Egypt, Coele-Syria, and Phoenicia, because he was no longer able on account of age to bear the hardships of war, he placed a portion of his army in the hands of his youthful son Nebuchadnezzar and sent him against the satrap. Nebuchadnezzar defeated him in battle, and established his power over that country again. In the meantime Nabopolassar fell sick and died in Babylon; and as soon as the tidings reached Nebuchadnezzar, he hastened through the desert to Babylon with a small number of attendants, and directed his army to follow slowly after regulating the affairs of Egypt and the rest of the country, and to bring with it the prisoners from the Jews, Syrians, Phoenicians, and Egyptian tribes, and with the heavily-armed troops. So much, at any rate, is evident from this account, after deducting the motive assigned for the war, which is given from a Chaldaean point of view, and may be taken as a historical fact, that even before his father's death Nebuchadnezzar had not only smitten the Egyptians, but had also conquered Judah and penetrated to the borders of Egypt. And there is no discrepancy between the statement of Berosus, that Nebuchadnezzar was not yet king, and the fact that in the biblical books he is called king proleptically, because he marched against Judah with kingly authority.
John Gill Bible Commentary
In his days Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up,.... Against Jerusalem; this was in the latter end of the third, or the beginning of the fourth of Jehoiakim's reign, and the first of Nebuchadnezzar, Jer 25:1, when Jehoiakim was taken, but restored upon promise of subjection and obedience, and hostages given, at which time Daniel and his companions were carried captive, with some of the vessels of the temple; See Gill on Dan 1:1, Dan 1:2. and Jehoiakim became his servant three years: which were the fifth, sixth, and seventh years of his reign: then he turned and rebelled against him; being encouraged by the king of Egypt, who promised to assist him against the king of Babylon; Nebuchadnezzar is the Nabocolasser in Ptolemy's canon; and Berosus (n) testifies, that seventy years before the Persian monarchy he made war against the Phoenicians and Jews, and it is from this time the seventy years' captivity is to be dated. (n) Apud Clement. Alex. Stromat. 1. p. 329.
Matthew Henry Bible Commentary
We have here the first mention of a name which makes a great figure both in the histories and in the prophecies of the Old Testament; it is that of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon (Kg2 24:1), that head of gold. He was a potent prince, and one that was the terror of the mighty in the land of the living; and yet his name would not have been known in sacred writ if he had not been employed in the destruction of Jerusalem and the captivity of the Jews. I. He made Jehoiakim his tributary and kept him in subjection three years, Kg2 24:1. Nebuchadnezzar began his reign in the fourth year of Jehoiakim. In his eighth year he made him his prisoner, but restored him upon his promise of faithfulness to him. That promise he kept about three years, but then rebelled, probably in hopes of assistance from the king of Egypt. If Jehoiakim had served his God as he should have done, he would not have been servant to the king of Babylon; but God would thus make him know the difference between his service and the service of the kings of the countries, Ch2 12:8. If he had been content with his servitude, and true to his word, his condition would have been no worse; but, rebelling against the king of Babylon, he plunged himself into more trouble. II. When he rebelled Nebuchadnezzar sent his forces against him to destroy his country, bands of Chaldeans, Syrians, Moabites, Ammonites, who were all now in the service and pay of the king of Babylon (Kg2 24:2), and withal retained, and now showed, their ancient enmity to the Israel of God. Yet no mention is here made of their commission from the king of Babylon, but only of that from the King of kings: The Lord sent against him all these bands; and again (Kg2 24:3), Surely at the commandment of the Lord came this upon Judah, else the commandment of Nebuchadnezzar could not have brought it. Many are serving God's purposes who are not aware of it. Two things God intended in suffering Judah to be thus harassed: - 1. The punishment of the sins of Manasseh, which God now visited upon the third and fourth generation. So long he waited before he visited them, to see if the nation would repent; but they continued impenitent, notwithstanding Josiah's endeavours to reform them, and ready to relapse, upon the first turn, into their former idolatries. Now that the old bond was put in suit they were called up upon the former judgment; that was revived which God had laid up in store, and sealed among his treasures (Deu 32:34; Job 14:17), and in remembrance of that he removed Judah out of his sight, and let the world know that time will not wear out the guilt of sin and that reprieves are not pardons. All that Manasseh did was called to mind, but especially the innocent blood that he shed, much of which, we may suppose, was the blood of God's witnesses and worshippers, which the Lord would not pardon. Is there then any unpardonable sin but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost? This is meant of the remitting of the temporal punishment. Though Manasseh repented, and we have reason to think even the persecutions and murders he was guilty of were pardoned, so that he was delivered from the wrath to come; yet, as they were national sins, they lay still charged upon the land, crying for national judgments. Perhaps some were now living who were aiding and abetting; and the present king was guilty of innocent blood, as appears Jer 22:17. See what a provoking sin murder is, how loud it cries, and how long. See what need nations have to lament the sins of their fathers, lest they smart for them. God intended hereby the accomplishment of the prophecies; it was according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke by his servants the prophets. Rather shall Judah be removed out of his sight, nay, rather shall heaven and earth pass away, than any word of God fall to the ground. Threatenings will be fulfilled as certainly as promises, if the sinner's repentance prevent not. III. The king of Egypt was likewise subdued by the king of Babylon, and a great part of his country taken from him, Kg2 24:7. It was but lately that he had oppressed Israel, Kg2 23:33. Now he is himself brought down and disabled to attempt any thing for the recovery of his losses or the assistance of his allies. He dares not come any more out of his land. Afterwards he attempted to give Zedekiah some relief, but was obliged to retire, Jer 37:7. IV. Jehoiakim, seeing his country laid waste and himself ready to fall into the enemy's hand, as it should seem, died of a broken heart, in the midst of his days (Kg2 24:6). So Jehoiakim slept with his fathers; but it is not said that he was buried with them, for no doubt the prophecy of Jeremiah was fulfilled, that he should not be lamented, as his father was, but buried with the burial of an ass (Jer 22:18, Jer 22:19), and his dead body cast out, Jer 36:30.
Tyndale Open Study Notes
24:1–25:21 Nebuchadnezzar II invaded Judah on at least three occasions (605, 597, 586 BC) and took plunder from Jerusalem and captives to Babylon (see 24:1, 10-17; 25:1-21). 24:1 In 605 BC, Nebuchadnezzar commanded forces that defeated the remaining Assyrian army and an Egyptian contingent at Carchemish (see Jer 46:2). While he campaigned in the west, his father, Nabopolassar, died, and Nebuchadnezzar returned home to assume the throne as Nebuchadnezzar II (605–562 BC). When he rejoined his troops, they easily moved down the Mediterranean coast. Sometime during this campaign, he invaded the land of Judah and took much plunder and many captives to Babylon, including Daniel and his three friends (Dan 1:1-7). Jehoiakim was made a vassal to Nebuchadnezzar and paid him tribute for three years. When Pharaoh Neco defeated the Babylonians at the Egyptian border in 601 BC, Jehoiakim rebelled, seizing the opportunity to gain his independence.
2 Kings 24:1
Babylon Controls Jehoiakim
1During Jehoiakim’s reign, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon invaded. So Jehoiakim became his vassal for three years, until he turned and rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar.
- Scripture
- Sermons
- Commentary
- Adam Clarke
- Keil-Delitzsch
- John Gill
- Matthew Henry
- Tyndale
Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
Nebuchadnezzar - This man, so famous in the writings of the prophets, was son of Nabopolassar. He was sent by his father against the rulers of several provinces that had revolted; and he took Carchemish, and all that belonged to the Egyptians, from the Euphrates to the Nile. Jehoiakim, who was tributary to Nechoh king of Egypt, he attacked and reduced; and obliged to become tributary to Babylon. At the end of three years he revolted; and then a mixed army, of Chaldeans, Syrians, Moabites, and Ammonites, was sent against him, who ravaged the country, and took three thousand and twenty-three prisoners, whom they brought to Babylon, Jer 52:28.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary
"In his days Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babel, came up; and Jehoiakim became subject to him three years, then he revolted from him again." נבכדנאצּר, Nebuchadnezzar, or נבוּכדראצּר, Nebuchadrezzar (Jer 21:2, Jer 21:7; Jer 22:25, etc.), Ναβουχοδονόσορ (lxx), Ναβουχοδονόσορος (Beros. in Jos. c. Ap. i. 20, 21), Ναβοκοδρόσορος (Strabo, xv. 1, 6), upon the Persian arrow-headed inscriptions at Bisutun Nabhukudracara (according to Oppert, composed of the name of God, Nabhu (Nebo), the Arabic kadr, power, and zar or sar, prince), and in still other forms (for the different forms of the name see M. v. Niebuhr's Gesch. pp. 41, 42). He was the son of Nabopolassar, the founder of the Chaldaean monarchy, and reigned, according to Berosus (Jos. l.c.), Alex. Polyh. (Eusebii Chr. arm. i. pp. 44, 45), and the Canon of Ptol., forty-three years, from 605 to 562 b.c. With regard to his first campaign against Jerusalem, it is stated in Ch2 36:6, that "against him (Jehoiakim) came up Nebuchadnezzar, and bound him with brass chains, to carry him (להוליכו) to Babylon;" and in Dan 1:1-2, that "in the year three of the reign of Jehoiakim, Nebuchadnezzar came against Jerusalem and besieged it; and the Lord gave Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, into his hand, and a portion of the holy vessels, and he brought them (the vessels) into the land of Shinar, into the house of his god," etc. Bertheau (on Chr.) admits that all three passages relate to Nebuchadnezzar's first expedition against Jehoiakim and the first taking of Jerusalem by the king of Babylon, and rejects the alteration of להוליכו, "to lead him to Babylon" (Chr.), into ἀπήγαγεν αὐτὸν (lxx), for which Thenius decides in his prejudice in favour of the lxx. He has also correctly observed, that the chronicler intentionally selected the infinitive with ל, because he did not intend to speak of the actual transportation of Jehoiakim to Babylon. The words of our text, "Jehoiakim became servant (עבד) to him," i.e., subject to him, simply affirm that he became tributary, not that he was led away. And in the book of Daniel also there is nothing about the leading away of Jehoiakim to Babylon. Whilst, therefore, the three accounts agree in the main with one another, and supply one another's deficiencies, so that we learn that Jehoiakim was taken prisoner at the capture of Jerusalem and put in chains to be led away, but that, inasmuch as he submitted to Nebuchadnezzar and vowed fidelity, he was not taken away, but left upon the throne as vassal of the king of Babylon; the statement in the book of Daniel concerning the time when this event occurred, which is neither contained in our account nor in the Chronicles, presents a difficulty when compared with Jer 25 and Jer 46:2, and different attempts, some of them very constrained, have been made to remove it. According to Jer 46:2, Nebuchadnezzar smote Necho the king of Egypt at Carchemish, on the Euphrates, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim. This year is not only called the first year of Nebuchadnezzar in Jer 25:1, but is represented by the prophet as the turning-point of the kingdom of Judah by the announcement that the Lord would bring His servant Nebuchadnezzar upon Judah and its inhabitants, and also upon all the nations dwelling round about, that he would devastate Judah, and that these nations would serve the king of Babylon seventy years (Jer 25:9-11). Consequently not only the defeat of Necho at Carchemish, but also the coming of Nebuchadnezzar to Judah, fell in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, and not in the third. To remove this discrepancy, some have proposed that the time mentioned, "in the fourth year of Jehoiakim" (Jer 46:2), should be understood as relating, not to the year of the battle at Carchemish, but to the time of the prophecy of Jeremiah against Egypt contained in Jer 46, and that Jer 25 should also be explained as follows, that in this chapter the prophet is not announcing the first capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, but is proclaiming a year after this the destruction of Jerusalem and the devastation of the whole land, or a total judgment upon Jerusalem and the rest of the nations mentioned there (M. v. Nieb. Gesch. pp. 86, 87, 371). But this explanation is founded upon the erroneous assumption, that Jer 46:3-12 does not contain a prediction of the catastrophe awaiting Egypt, but a picture of what has already taken place there; and it is only in a very forced manner that it can be brought into harmony with the contents of Jer 25. (Note: Still less tenable is the view of Hofman, renewed by Zndel (Krit. Unterss. b. d. Abfassungszeit des B. Daniel, p. 25), that Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem in the third year of Jehoiakim, and that it was not till the following, or fourth year, that he defeated the Egyptian army at Carchemish, because so long as Pharaoh Necho stood with his army by or in Carchemish, on the Euphrates, Nebuchadnezzar could not possibly attempt to pass it so as to effect a march upon Jerusalem.) We must rather take "the year three of the reign of Jehoiakim" (Dan 1:1) as the extreme terminus a quo of Nebuchadnezzar's coming, i.e., must understand the statement thus: that in the year referred to Nebuchadnezzar commenced the expedition against Judah, and smote Necho at Carchemish at the commencement of the fourth year of Jehoiakim (Jer 46:2), and then, following up this victory, took Jerusalem in the same year, and made Jehoiakim tributary, and at the same time carried off to Babylon a portion of the sacred vessels, and some young men of royal blood as hostages, one of whom was Daniel (Ch2 36:7; Dan 1:2.). The fast mentioned in Jer 36:9, which took place in the fifth year of Jehoiakim, cannot be adduced in disproof of this; for extraordinary fast-days were not only appointed for the purpose of averting great threatening dangers, but also after severe calamities which had fallen upon the land or people, to expiate His wrath by humiliation before God, and to invoke the divine compassion to remove the judgment that had fallen upon them. The objection, that the godless king would hardly have thought of renewing the remembrance of a divine judgment by a day of repentance and prayer, but would rather have desired to avoid everything that could make the people despair, falls to the ground, with the erroneous assumption upon which it is founded, that by the fast-day Jehoiakim simply intended to renew the remembrance of the judgment which had burst upon Jerusalem, whereas he rather desired by outward humiliation before God to secure the help of God to enable him to throw off the Chaldaean yoke, and arouse in the people a religious enthusiasm for war against their oppressors. - Further information concerning this first expedition of Nebuchadnezzar is supplied by the account of Berosus, which Josephus (Ant. x. 11, and c. Ap. i. 19) has preserved from the third book of his Chaldaean history, namely, that when Nabopolassar received intelligence of the revolt of the satrap whom he had placed over Egypt, Coele-Syria, and Phoenicia, because he was no longer able on account of age to bear the hardships of war, he placed a portion of his army in the hands of his youthful son Nebuchadnezzar and sent him against the satrap. Nebuchadnezzar defeated him in battle, and established his power over that country again. In the meantime Nabopolassar fell sick and died in Babylon; and as soon as the tidings reached Nebuchadnezzar, he hastened through the desert to Babylon with a small number of attendants, and directed his army to follow slowly after regulating the affairs of Egypt and the rest of the country, and to bring with it the prisoners from the Jews, Syrians, Phoenicians, and Egyptian tribes, and with the heavily-armed troops. So much, at any rate, is evident from this account, after deducting the motive assigned for the war, which is given from a Chaldaean point of view, and may be taken as a historical fact, that even before his father's death Nebuchadnezzar had not only smitten the Egyptians, but had also conquered Judah and penetrated to the borders of Egypt. And there is no discrepancy between the statement of Berosus, that Nebuchadnezzar was not yet king, and the fact that in the biblical books he is called king proleptically, because he marched against Judah with kingly authority.
John Gill Bible Commentary
In his days Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up,.... Against Jerusalem; this was in the latter end of the third, or the beginning of the fourth of Jehoiakim's reign, and the first of Nebuchadnezzar, Jer 25:1, when Jehoiakim was taken, but restored upon promise of subjection and obedience, and hostages given, at which time Daniel and his companions were carried captive, with some of the vessels of the temple; See Gill on Dan 1:1, Dan 1:2. and Jehoiakim became his servant three years: which were the fifth, sixth, and seventh years of his reign: then he turned and rebelled against him; being encouraged by the king of Egypt, who promised to assist him against the king of Babylon; Nebuchadnezzar is the Nabocolasser in Ptolemy's canon; and Berosus (n) testifies, that seventy years before the Persian monarchy he made war against the Phoenicians and Jews, and it is from this time the seventy years' captivity is to be dated. (n) Apud Clement. Alex. Stromat. 1. p. 329.
Matthew Henry Bible Commentary
We have here the first mention of a name which makes a great figure both in the histories and in the prophecies of the Old Testament; it is that of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon (Kg2 24:1), that head of gold. He was a potent prince, and one that was the terror of the mighty in the land of the living; and yet his name would not have been known in sacred writ if he had not been employed in the destruction of Jerusalem and the captivity of the Jews. I. He made Jehoiakim his tributary and kept him in subjection three years, Kg2 24:1. Nebuchadnezzar began his reign in the fourth year of Jehoiakim. In his eighth year he made him his prisoner, but restored him upon his promise of faithfulness to him. That promise he kept about three years, but then rebelled, probably in hopes of assistance from the king of Egypt. If Jehoiakim had served his God as he should have done, he would not have been servant to the king of Babylon; but God would thus make him know the difference between his service and the service of the kings of the countries, Ch2 12:8. If he had been content with his servitude, and true to his word, his condition would have been no worse; but, rebelling against the king of Babylon, he plunged himself into more trouble. II. When he rebelled Nebuchadnezzar sent his forces against him to destroy his country, bands of Chaldeans, Syrians, Moabites, Ammonites, who were all now in the service and pay of the king of Babylon (Kg2 24:2), and withal retained, and now showed, their ancient enmity to the Israel of God. Yet no mention is here made of their commission from the king of Babylon, but only of that from the King of kings: The Lord sent against him all these bands; and again (Kg2 24:3), Surely at the commandment of the Lord came this upon Judah, else the commandment of Nebuchadnezzar could not have brought it. Many are serving God's purposes who are not aware of it. Two things God intended in suffering Judah to be thus harassed: - 1. The punishment of the sins of Manasseh, which God now visited upon the third and fourth generation. So long he waited before he visited them, to see if the nation would repent; but they continued impenitent, notwithstanding Josiah's endeavours to reform them, and ready to relapse, upon the first turn, into their former idolatries. Now that the old bond was put in suit they were called up upon the former judgment; that was revived which God had laid up in store, and sealed among his treasures (Deu 32:34; Job 14:17), and in remembrance of that he removed Judah out of his sight, and let the world know that time will not wear out the guilt of sin and that reprieves are not pardons. All that Manasseh did was called to mind, but especially the innocent blood that he shed, much of which, we may suppose, was the blood of God's witnesses and worshippers, which the Lord would not pardon. Is there then any unpardonable sin but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost? This is meant of the remitting of the temporal punishment. Though Manasseh repented, and we have reason to think even the persecutions and murders he was guilty of were pardoned, so that he was delivered from the wrath to come; yet, as they were national sins, they lay still charged upon the land, crying for national judgments. Perhaps some were now living who were aiding and abetting; and the present king was guilty of innocent blood, as appears Jer 22:17. See what a provoking sin murder is, how loud it cries, and how long. See what need nations have to lament the sins of their fathers, lest they smart for them. God intended hereby the accomplishment of the prophecies; it was according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke by his servants the prophets. Rather shall Judah be removed out of his sight, nay, rather shall heaven and earth pass away, than any word of God fall to the ground. Threatenings will be fulfilled as certainly as promises, if the sinner's repentance prevent not. III. The king of Egypt was likewise subdued by the king of Babylon, and a great part of his country taken from him, Kg2 24:7. It was but lately that he had oppressed Israel, Kg2 23:33. Now he is himself brought down and disabled to attempt any thing for the recovery of his losses or the assistance of his allies. He dares not come any more out of his land. Afterwards he attempted to give Zedekiah some relief, but was obliged to retire, Jer 37:7. IV. Jehoiakim, seeing his country laid waste and himself ready to fall into the enemy's hand, as it should seem, died of a broken heart, in the midst of his days (Kg2 24:6). So Jehoiakim slept with his fathers; but it is not said that he was buried with them, for no doubt the prophecy of Jeremiah was fulfilled, that he should not be lamented, as his father was, but buried with the burial of an ass (Jer 22:18, Jer 22:19), and his dead body cast out, Jer 36:30.
Tyndale Open Study Notes
24:1–25:21 Nebuchadnezzar II invaded Judah on at least three occasions (605, 597, 586 BC) and took plunder from Jerusalem and captives to Babylon (see 24:1, 10-17; 25:1-21). 24:1 In 605 BC, Nebuchadnezzar commanded forces that defeated the remaining Assyrian army and an Egyptian contingent at Carchemish (see Jer 46:2). While he campaigned in the west, his father, Nabopolassar, died, and Nebuchadnezzar returned home to assume the throne as Nebuchadnezzar II (605–562 BC). When he rejoined his troops, they easily moved down the Mediterranean coast. Sometime during this campaign, he invaded the land of Judah and took much plunder and many captives to Babylon, including Daniel and his three friends (Dan 1:1-7). Jehoiakim was made a vassal to Nebuchadnezzar and paid him tribute for three years. When Pharaoh Neco defeated the Babylonians at the Egyptian border in 601 BC, Jehoiakim rebelled, seizing the opportunity to gain his independence.