2 Kings 24–25. Hope + Jehoiachin
I’ll never forget the 2016 NBA finals. LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers were playing the Golden State Warriors. Golden State weren’t just good. They were insanely good. They had won 73 games and lost only nine during the regular season—the best regular-season record in NBA history.
Then Cleveland went down 3–1 in the Finals. It looked over. There was basically no hope.
I remember watching the series in a room full of Golden State Warriors fans. One guy in particular spent the whole time trolling me. Apparently, I was just a LeBron bandwagoner. There was no chance LeBron was going to win. Golden State were too good. It was over.
Except Cleveland won Game 5. Then they won Game 6. Suddenly it was Game 7, and with less than two minutes left the score was tied 89–89. Golden State raced down the court and Andre Iguodala looked like he had an easy lay-up that would put the Warriors in front.
Then came LeBlock.
LeBron came flying in from behind and somehow blocked Iguodala’s shot against the backboard. Cleveland hadn’t won yet. Kyrie Irving still had to hit an enormous three-pointer, and they still had to finish the game. But LeBron had kept Cleveland alive.
There was still hope.
That’s a little bit like where we finish the book of 2 Kings. Except the situation in 2 Kings is much, much darker. God’s people haven’t lost a basketball series. They’re losing their king, their city, their temple and their land. It looks like there is no hope left.
But the story isn’t over.
1. Hope + Jehoiachin
God keeps hope alive
To understand what happens to Jehoiachin, we need to remember how Israel got here. God had rescued Israel, made them his people and given them his land. But for hundreds of years they kept turning away from him. They worshipped other gods, ignored his commands and refused to listen to the prophets he sent to warn them.
We have already seen what happened to the northern kingdom of Israel. In 722 BC, during the reign of Hoshea, the Assyrians captured Samaria and carried Israel into exile (17:5–6). This wasn’t because Assyria’s gods were stronger than the LORD or because God had lost control. God had warned Israel again and again about the consequences of rejecting him. Their exile was his judgment on generations of rebellion (17:7–23).
The southern kingdom of Judah survived for longer. Last week we met Josiah, one of Judah’s greatest kings. Josiah heard God’s Word, humbled himself and brought huge reforms throughout the kingdom. But even Josiah’s reforms couldn’t remove Judah’s guilt or permanently change the hearts of the people. After Josiah died, his successors went straight back to doing evil (23:31–37).
Judah’s judgment was coming. This time, the great world power wasn’t Assyria. It was Babylon. And it happened in three major stages.
Stage 1: 605 BC — Babylon arrives.
Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians defeated Egypt and established themselves as the dominant power in the region. Around this time, Daniel and some other young men from Judah were taken away to Babylon (Daniel 1:1–6).
Stage 2: 597 BC — Babylon returns.
By this point, Josiah’s grandson Jehoiachin had become king. He was only eighteen years old and had been king for just three months. But like the kings before him:
“He did evil in the eyes of the LORD, just as his father had done.”
(24:9)
Nebuchadnezzar’s army surrounded Jerusalem, and Jehoiachin surrendered:
“Jehoiachin king of Judah, his mother, his attendants, his nobles and his officials all surrendered to him.”
(24:12)
You might wonder why Jehoiachin’s mum keeps getting mentioned. Her name was Nehushta, and the king’s mother could have an important position in Judah’s royal court as the queen mother. So Babylon wasn’t just taking one young king prisoner. Nebuchadnezzar was dismantling Judah’s royal leadership.
He also stripped the temple and palace of their treasures and carried thousands of people away:
“He carried all Jerusalem into exile: all the officers and fighting men, and all the skilled workers and artisans—a total of ten thousand. Only the poorest people of the land were left.”
(24:14)
Jehoiachin, his mother, his wives, his officials, Judah’s soldiers and many of its skilled workers were taken to Babylon (24:15–16). Nebuchadnezzar then put Jehoiachin’s uncle Mattaniah on the throne and changed his name to Zedekiah (24:17).
Zedekiah eventually rebelled against Babylon (24:20), which brought the third and most devastating stage.
Stage 3: 586 BC — Babylon destroys Jerusalem.
Nebuchadnezzar returned and besieged Jerusalem. Eventually the city ran out of food. Zedekiah tried to escape, but the Babylonians captured him. They killed his sons in front of him, put out his eyes and took him to Babylon (25:1–7).
Then Nebuchadnezzar’s army entered Jerusalem:
“He set fire to the temple of the LORD, the royal palace and all the houses of Jerusalem. Every important building he burned down.”
(25:9)
The walls were demolished and more people were carried away (25:10–11). Priests and officials were executed (25:18–21). The temple that Solomon had built centuries earlier was gone. Then 2 Kings sums up the disaster in one devastating sentence:
“So Judah went into captivity, away from her land.”
(25:21)
Think about how hopeless that must have felt. God had promised David that his family would rule, but there was no son of David ruling in Jerusalem. God had given his people the land, but they had been dragged out of it. God had placed his temple among them, but now it was a pile of ashes.
And 2 Kings could have ended there.
But it doesn’t.
After the destruction of Jerusalem, the story suddenly jumps forward. We hear again about Jehoiachin, the eighteen-year-old king who had been dragged away to Babylon back in 597 BC. By now he has been in exile for thirty-seven years.
Then something surprising happens:
“In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the year Awel-Marduk became king of Babylon, he released Jehoiachin king of Judah from prison.”
(25:27)
Awel-Marduk, the new king of Babylon, does more than release him:
“He spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat of honour higher than those of the other kings who were with him in Babylon. So Jehoiachin put aside his prison clothes and for the rest of his life ate regularly at the king’s table.”
(25:28–29)
This isn’t the end of the exile. Jerusalem is still destroyed. The temple is still gone. Jehoiachin doesn’t return to Judah or sit again on David’s throne. But it is a surprisingly hopeful way for such a dark book to finish.
Jehoiachin is alive. The line of David hasn’t disappeared. Like Le Block, the final scene isn’t the victory. But it tells us that the story isn’t finished.
The royal throne is empty, but David’s family tree is still growing.
God keeps hope alive.
But where is that hope going? Why does it matter that David’s family line has survived? To answer that, we need to jump forward hundreds of years to the first page of the New Testament.
2. Hope + Jesus
This hope takes us to King Jesus
Eventually, Babylon itself fell. In 539 BC, the Persians conquered Babylon, and the Persian king Cyrus allowed Jewish exiles to return home (Ezra 1:1–4). Jerusalem and the temple were eventually rebuilt.
But something was still missing. There was no Davidic king ruling in Jerusalem like before. So what had happened to God’s promise?
Matthew begins his Gospel with a genealogy—a family tree tracing the ancestors of Jesus. He takes us from Abraham to David, through Judah’s kings and then to the exile. And right in the middle we find a familiar name:
“Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.”
(Matthew 1:11)
Jeconiah is Jehoiachin. They’re two forms of the same king’s name. He is also called Coniah elsewhere in the Bible (Jeremiah 22:24). So this is the same Jehoiachin we have just been reading about at the end of 2 Kings.
And the family tree doesn’t stop with him:
“After the exile to Babylon: Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel, Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel…”
(1:12)
The line continues through the exile. Generation follows generation until Matthew finally arrives at:
“Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.”
(1:16)
Now we can see where that little glimpse of hope at the end of 2 Kings was heading. 2 Kings leaves us with Jehoiachin alive in Babylon and David’s family line continuing. Matthew shows us where that line eventually leads.
It leads to Jesus.
God’s promise hadn’t failed when Jerusalem burned. It hadn’t failed when the temple was destroyed. It hadn’t failed when Judah was dragged into exile. Even when God’s people couldn’t see what he was doing, God was still keeping his promises.
And Jesus comes to deal with the deeper problem that had sent Judah into exile in the first place. Judah’s biggest problem wasn’t Babylon. Babylon was God’s judgment. The deeper problem was their sin. Generation after generation had rejected God, worshipped other gods and refused to listen to his Word.
And that’s our problem too. We have rejected God and lived his world our own way. We need more than a return from Babylon. We need forgiveness. We need to be brought back to God.
That’s what King Jesus comes to do. He dies for our sins, taking the judgment we deserve, and rises again. Through him, sinners can be forgiven and brought back to God. And unlike Jehoiachin, Jesus isn’t a defeated king living under the authority of another king. Jesus rises from the dead and reigns forever.
Jehoiachin’s release wasn’t the end of the story. Even Judah’s return from Babylon wasn’t the end of the story.
The hope at the end of 2 Kings takes us all the way to King Jesus.
But if Jesus is our King, what does that mean for us now? Surprisingly, the New Testament takes the language of exile and uses it to describe the people who belong to Jesus.
3. Hope + Us
Live as hopeful exiles
Peter calls Christians “foreigners and exiles” (1 Peter 2:11). That doesn’t mean Australia is Babylon or that Christians need to leave the country. It means that if you belong to Jesus, you belong to God and his kingdom while living in a world that is still waiting for Jesus to return.
Before Peter tells Christians how to live as exiles, he reminds them who they are:
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
(2:9–10)
That is why Christians can be hopeful exiles. Our hope doesn’t depend on everything going well or on fitting in with everyone around us. We belong to God. We have received his mercy. We belong to King Jesus.
And because we belong to him, Peter tells us to live differently:
“Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul.”
(2:11)
But living as an exile doesn’t mean hiding from the people around us. Peter continues:
“Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.”
(2:12)
So live like someone who belongs to King Jesus. At school, you don’t have to join in with gossip, cheating or cruel jokes just to fit in. With your friends, love them without simply copying everything they do, and look for opportunities to tell them about Jesus. At home, serve, forgive and obey even when you would rather get your own way. At church, encourage people, serve people and welcome new people because these are the people God has made your people.
Sometimes following Jesus will make you feel different. Sometimes you won’t fit in. But Christians aren’t hopeless exiles. We are hopeful exiles.
God’s people at the end of 2 Kings could only see a tiny glimpse of what God was doing. Jerusalem was destroyed. The temple was gone. They were living in exile. But Jehoiachin was still alive. David’s family line continued.
We can see where that hope was heading.
Jesus has come. Jesus has died for our sins. Jesus has risen. Jesus reigns. And Jesus will return.
So live as hopeful exiles. God keeps hope alive.
Discussion Questions
Pray and Get Going
Q1. What do you hope for? What are you looking forward to?
Last week we saw Josiah, the good king who listened to God’s Word and brought reform to Judah. But after Josiah died in 609 BC, Judah went downhill quickly. Josiah’s son Jehoahaz became king first, but after three months Pharaoh Necho of Egypt removed him and replaced him with another of Josiah’s sons, Jehoiakim, who did evil in the eyes of the Lord. After him came Jehoiakim’s son, Jehoiachin (also Josiah’s grandson). For generations, Assyria had been the great world superpower. But Assyria had fallen, and now Babylon reigned supreme. By about 597 BC, Jerusalem was in danger, and God’s people were about to lose almost everything.
Look at 2 Kings 24:8–17
Q2. Why does this situation feel so hopeless? (Look at 2 Kings 25:1–26 for more evidence of the hopelessness.)
Q3. How would you feel if you were King Jehoiachin or one of the citizens of Judah? What would you be thinking?
Look at 2 Kings 25:27–30
Q4. How are things going for Jehoiachin now? What hope does this bring?
At the end of 2 Kings, Jehoiachin is alive but still in exile in Babylon, and there is no king sitting on David’s throne. But God’s promise has not failed: the royal throne is empty, but David’s family tree is still growing. Almost 600 years later, Matthew shows us where that promise was heading.
Look at Matthew 1:6–16 (note: Jeconiah = Jehoiachin)
Q5. How does this passage make sense of the “hope vibes” we get in 2 Kings 25?
The Babylonian exile ended long ago, and many of God’s people returned to their land. But another kind of exile is still going on. Christians are still described as “foreigners and exiles” in this world. We belong to God, but we are living in a world that is not yet fully under King Jesus. So how do we live now, while we wait in hope for Jesus to return?
Look at 1 Peter 2:9–12
Q6. What hope does Jesus bring?
Q7. How are we to live as “exiles” and “foreigners”? What does this look like at school, at home, at church?
