Preached January 15, 2012
from
2 Kings 24:6-17; Jeremiah 22:24-30; 2 Kings 25:27-30; Matthew 1:1-12

Theme: The story of the life of King Jehoiakin shows the wisdom of God in solving any problem we might have.

(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)

We continue our study of the Kings of Judah this morning by taking up the story of King Jehoiachin. And the story of his reign brings us very close to the end of our study of these Old Testament kings. Only one other Old Testament king follows after Jehoiachin; and few—even in his own day—considered that king to be a legitimate one. Many consider Jehoiachin to be the true ‘last’ of the Old Testament kings before the birth of King Jesus a little over six centuries later.

Jehoiachin’s reign over Jerusalem lasted for only a little over three months. But from the standpoint of God’s sovereign purposes for His people, his reign may well be one of the most significant of them all! This is because the reign of this young man Jehoiachin created a problem in the outworking of God’s sovereign purposes that was so great that only God Himself could have solved it. And the amazing way that He did solve it can truly be called the greatest ‘solution’ in all of history.

I’d ask you to join me this morning in looking at the four main passages of Scripture that, together, tell us the full story of King Jehoiachin. And as we do, my prayer is that the Holy Spirit will cause us to marvel at the wisdom of God; and be encouraged that there is not one problem in our lives that is too hard for our wise God to solve if we will let Him.

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First, turn with me to 2 Kings 24; and to the story of . . .

1. HIS CAPTIVITY IN BABYLON.

One reason the short reign of Jehoicahin is significant is because he was the king under whose reign the seventy-year Babylonian captivity of the people of Israel actually began.

Jehoiakim—Jehoiachin’s father—had reigned over Jerusalem for eleven years. He reigned as a vassal to the king of Babylon. But when he rebelled, the king of Babylon came against him and took him from his throne. 2 Kings 24:6 says,

So Jehoiakim rested with his fathers. Then Jehoiachin his son reigned in his place (2 Kings 24:6).

As we move on to verses 8 and 9, we read;

Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. His mother’s name was Nehushta the daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem. And he did evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father had done (vv. 8-9).

Given the wicked character of his father, and given that he was shown to be a wicked person even in his youth, it’s hard not to speculate that his mother Nehushta had brought a wicked influence on him as well.

Perhaps the king of Babylon had concerns that this new young king would be inclined to carry-on the rebellious policies of his father. So, we’re told,

At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against Jerusalem, and the city was besieged. And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came against the city, as his servants were besieging it. Then Jehoiachin king of Judah, his mother, his servants, his princes, and his officers went out to the king of Babylon; and the king of Babylon, in the eighth year of his reign, took him prisoner (vv. 10-12).

Now; whatever Nebuchadnezzar’s motives might have been in taking Jehoiachin prisoner, there’s no doubt that God His own sovereign purposes in it all. God had been gracious to the people of Judah and to their kings. He had sent prophets to warn them—most notably the prophet Jeremiah. But they wouldn’t listen. Each successive king seemed to be more rebellious against God than the one before. The prophet Isaiah had told Jehoiachin’s great-great-great-grandfather Hezekiah a little over a hundred years before this time;

“‘Behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house, and what your fathers have accumulated until this day, shall be carried to Babylon; nothing shall be left,’ says the LORD. ‘And they shall take away some of your sons who will descend from you, whom you will beget; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon’” (2 Kings 20:17-18).

God had warned Jehoiachin’s royal grandfather about this, and then his royal uncle, and then his royal father. But the hearts of the kings and of the people of Judah had grown harder and harder toward Him. And so, at last, God kept His promise and sent the king of the Babylonians against them.

And he carried out from there all the treasures of the house of the LORD and the treasures of the king’s house, and he cut in pieces all the articles of gold which Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the LORD, as the LORD had said (v. 14).

Just think of all the beauty that had characterized the temple that King Solomon had built. What a horrible thing it must have been to stand by helplessly and watch as the king of the Babylonians stripped God’s temple of all its splendor and rob it of all its gold!

Also he carried into captivity all Jerusalem: all the captains and all the mighty men of valor, ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and smiths. None remained except the poorest people of the land. And he carried Jehoiachin captive to Babylon. The king’s mother, the king’s wives, his officers, and the mighty of the land he carried into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon. All the valiant men, seven thousand, and craftsmen and smiths, one thousand, all who were strong and fit for war, these the king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon (vv. 15-16).

And thus young, eighteen-year-old Jehoiachin—after just three months on the throne—went into captivity to Babylon for the rest of his life. We’re told in verse 17;

Then the king of Babylon made Mattaniah, Jehoiachin’s uncle, king in his place, and changed his name to Zedekiah (v. 17).

But to tell the truth, there wasn’t much left for Zedekiah to rule over. The kingdom was practically stripped of its wealth; all the valiant soldiers, and skilled craftsmen, and wise statesmen and advisors had been taken away; and Zedekiah was left as little more than a puppet king over a broken nation that staggered under the dreadful judgment of God.

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So; that’s the history of what happened. And now, I ask you to keep a finger in this section of 2 Kings; but turn your Bibles open to Jeremiah 22. That’s were we find another very important aspect of Jehoiachin’s story . . .

2. GOD’S CURSE UPON HIS LINEAGE.

Beginning with verse 24, we find God expressing His own attitude toward Jehoiachin—here calling him by the name “Coniah”—and of the rebellious behavior of the kings of Judah that preceded him:

“As I live,” says the LORD, “though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were the signet on My right hand, yet I would pluck you off; and I will give you into the hand of those who seek your life, and into the hand of those whose face you fear—the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and the hand of the Chaldeans” (vv. 24-25).

A signet ring was a ring that was considered very valuable to a king. It was the ring by which he sealed his royal decrees and made them official. It had the authority of his own name. It was something very precious to a king, and worthy of protection and care. But because of the disobedience and rebelliousness of the kings of Judah, God said that even if Coniah—the king of Judah and heir to the royal promises that God had made to King David—were God’s own ‘signet’, He would still remove him and cast him away! Notice how God begins: “As I live . . .!” What strong words from God! It was a way of saying that judgment was now certain and irrevocable. He and his people would most definitely go into captivity to the Babylonians for seventy-years.

So I will cast you out, and your mother who bore you, into another country where you were not born; and there you shall die. But to the land to which they desire to return, there they shall not return” (vv. 26-27).

You see; the people of Judah had placed their hopes in Jehoiachin instead of in obedience to God. They expected that, so long as they had an offspring of David on the throne, nothing bad could ultimately happen to them. In a sense, they were treating Jehoiachin like an idol. And so, God said;

“Is this man Coniah a despised, broken idol—

A vessel in which is no pleasure?

Why are they cast out, he and his descendants,

And cast into a land which they do not know?

O earth, earth, earth,

Hear the word of the LORD! (vv. 28-29).

Notice how it seems that God calls the attention of the whole world to what He was declaring!

Thus says the LORD:

‘Write this man down as childless,

A man who shall not prosper in his days;

For none of his descendants shall prosper,

Sitting on the throne of David,

And ruling anymore in Judah’” (Jeremiah 22:24-30).

Do you see what God had done? If I may put it this way with the utmost reverence, it’s as if God had created a seemingly-impossible problem for Himself. God had made a promise to King David many centuries before:

“When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever” (2 Samuel 7:12-13).

This is a promise concerning the reign of the Messiah—the future King who would be born from David and could come from his own body. His rule would be an eternal one. “Forever” means exactly what it says! And yet, God now tells Jehoiachin—the offspring of David and rightful heir to the royal lineage—that none of his descendants that would come from his body shall sit on the throne of David and rule over Judah anymore.

Have you ever heard that philosophic question: “Can God create a stone so big that even He cannot lift it”? If I may say so; it almost seemed as if—by issuing this curse upon Jehoiachin—God had created a problem for which there could be no solution! How could God’s promise to David be kept? How could an offspring of David rule on the throne of the Messiah if God now says that no offspring of David’s only legitimate heir will sit on that throne?

I wonder if you are here this morning with a problem in your life that perplexes you. Well; there’s no problem any of us could ever have that’s as perplexing as this one!

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Now; as we read more about Jehoiachin’s story, we find that—even though He had placed this curse upon his royal lineage—God still loved him. He was still precious in God’s eyes because of the promises He made to King David.

Turn back with me now, once again, to 2 Kings 25; and let’s look at the rest of the history of Jehoiachin. It’s there that we see . . .

3. HIS PROMINENCE AMONG THE CAPTIVES.

Just think of what it must have been like to have been young King Jehoiachin—a prisoner in the land of the Babylonians. Just think of the sadness and remorse and shame that would have hung over him. I suspect that, as the years rolled on, Jehoiachin spent a lot of time reflecting sadly on God’s punishment and the curse that had been placed upon the royal lineage of David because of his rebelliousness.

The final verses of 2 Kings 25 tells the end of his story; beginning with verse 27.

Now it came to pass in the thirty-seventh year of the captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, that Evil-Merodach king of Babylon, in the year that he began to reign, released Jehoiachin king of Judah from prison (vv. 27-28).

It’s interesting that, in Jeremiah 52:31—when Jeremiah tells this story—he said that the newly enthroned king of Babylon “lifted up the head of Jechoiachin king of Judah”. That almost suggests that his royal head had hung in sorrow and shame during the thirty-seven years before that time. And yet now—at the age of 55—this sad prisoner-king was being restored to dignity.

This wasn’t true of other kings that had been captured. And yet, Jehoiachin—the heir of the royal promises of David—was being given a dignity by the king of Babylon that seemed to exceed that of any of his fellow prisoners:

He spoke kindly to him, and gave him a more prominent seat than those of the kings who were with him in Babylon. So Jehoiachin changed from his prison garments, and he ate bread regularly before the king all the days of his life. And as for his provisions, there was a regular ration given him by the king, a portion for each day, all the days of his life (vv. 29-30).

Why did this happen? And why did the Holy Spirit make sure that this was included in the story? I believe it was because God was letting Jehoiachin know—along with the people of Judah who were in captivity with him; and, indeed, the whole watching world as well—that He had not forgotten His promises to David. Somehow, it would still be that this king—so young at the time of his captivity—would be protected and preserved and would be allowed to father children; and that a member of the royal lineage of David would indeed still one day sit on the throne and reign forever!

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But how? How could God now keep the promise that He made to King David—that one of His offspring would sit upon the throne forever—after He had just cursed the royal lineage of David and said that none of Jehoiachin’s offspring would sit on the throne? How could God “lift” this seemingly impossible “stone” that He had created?

Dear brothers and sisters; I believe that the solution that God has provided is truly the most remarkable act of His sovereignty that you’ll find in all the biblical record! It shows the greatness and the glory of the wisdom of our great God to solve even the most perplexing problem; and the greatness of His providence to bring that solution about.

And to see this solution, I ask you to turn to the genealogy of our Lord Jesus Christ as it’s found in the first chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. It’s there that we discover . . .

4. GOD’S PROVISION THROUGH THE VIRGIN BIRTH OF JESUS.

As soon as you begin to read this genealogy, in Matthew 1:1, you see right away that God solved the problem:

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham . . . (Matthew 1:1).

So; how did He do it? As you move on down to verse 6, you read “and Jesse begot David the king.” And it’s then that you begin to see a lot of names that you will recognize from our study of the Kings of Judah:

David the king begot Solomon by her who had been the wife of Uriah. Solomon begot Rehoboam, Rehoboam begot Abijah, and Abijah begot Asa. Asa begot Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat begot Joram, and Joram begot Uzziah. Uzziah begot Jotham, Jotham begot Ahaz, and Ahaz begot Hezekiah. Hezekiah begot Manasseh, Manasseh begot Amon, and Amon begot Josiah. Josiah begot Jeconiah and his brothers about the time they were carried away to Babylon (vv. 7-11).

There, in verse 11, is Jehoiachin—the king of our story. Matthew calls him “Jeconiah”—of which his other name “Coniah” is a shortened version. Then, the genealogy follows on down from him all the way to the birth of our Savior:

And after they were brought to Babylon, Jeconiah begot Shealtiel, and Shealtiel begot Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel begot Abiud, Abiud begot Eliakim, and Eliakim begot Azor. Azor begot Zadok, Zadok begot Achim, and Achim begot Eliud. Eliud begot Eleazar, Eleazar begot Matthan, and Matthan begot Jacob. And Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ (vv. 12-16).

Do you notice how careful Matthew is in his wording of things? Joseph was not called the father of Jesus. Rather, he was “the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ”. Joseph was a man who was the rightful heir of the royal lineage of King David. And because Jesus was his adopted Son, Jesus was also an heir of that royal lineage.

But what about the promise to David? God had told David that it would be a son that came from his own body who would be the king who would sit on the throne forever. Joseph came from Jehoiachin’s body; but Jesus did not come from Joseph’s body. Jesus was conceived in the womb of Mary, apart from Joseph. So; how could it be said that God kept His promise?

We find the answer in the other genealogy of our Lord found in Luke’s Gospel. The genealogy found in Matthew is the genealogy of Jesus through Joseph; and the genealogy found in Luke’s Gospel is the genealogy of Jesus through Mary. And when we look at that genealogy, we find that Mary also was a descendant of King David. But not through David’s son Solomon. Rather, she came through another son named Nathan (Luke 3:31; see also 2 Samuel 5:14). Both Solomon and Nathan were sons of David. The lineage of David’s son Solomon was the royal lineage, but was placed under a curse in the days of Jehoiachin. The lineage of David’s son Nathan was free of this curse, but was not the royal lineage.

And so, God brought these two genealogies together. He ordained that Jesus our Savior would be born as a full son of David in every possible sense—physically born of the lineage of David’s son Nathan that was not under the curse by being conceived in the womb of the virgin Mary; but also as an inheritor of the full rights of royalty through the royal lineage of David’s son Solomon by adoption!

This could only be true of Jesus; and it could only have been done by His being born of a virgin! Only God could have solved this greatest of all problems in such an astonishing way!

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And what does all this have to do with you and me? For one thing, this teaches us that we can never have a problem so great that our great God cannot solve it—if we will but bring it to Him and ask. No one is as wise as He is! As the Bible says; “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him” (James 1:5). Is there anything too hard for Him?

But another thing that this has to do with us is that it reminds us of how God had solved the greatest problem we could ever have personally—the problem of our sin. You see; the Bible says that “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Our first father Adam was a sinner; and he passed his sin nature on to the rest of us so that we, like him, sin as well. We, too, are of a cursed lineage! How can God lovingly bring sinners like us (who born of a lineage cursed by sin, and are inheritors of a sin nature, and are utterly guilty because of the sins we have committed personally) into full fellowship with Himself and still remain a holy God—when justice demands that we die for our sins? What a problem our sins create for Him!

But what a wise God He is! He solved this great problem through the same virgin birth by which He solved the other problem. God sent His Son Jesus Christ to pay the death penalty for the sins of humanity by paying the debt in His own human body on the cross. But in order that He might be sinless, and thus fit to pay the debt for the sins of humanity, He had to be born without the taint of sin Himself. Thus, He was born of a virgin—fully human, yet apart from the guilt of Adam’s sin and his inherited sin nature. “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Praise Him for His wisdom!