14 All the chiefs of the priests also, and the people, increased their transgressions, according to all the abominations of the nations; and they defiled the house of Jehovah which he had hallowed in Jerusalem.
And he said unto me, Son of man, lift up now thine eyes toward the north. And I lifted up mine eyes toward the north, and behold, northward of the gate of the altar, this image of jealousy in the entry. And he said unto me, Son of man, seest thou what they do? the great abominations that the house of Israel commit here, to cause [me] to go far off from my sanctuary? And yet again thou shalt see great abominations. And he brought me to the entry of the court, and I looked, and behold, a hole in the wall. And he said unto me, Son of man, dig now through the wall; and I digged through the wall, and behold, a door. And he said unto me, Go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here. And I went in and looked, and behold, every form of creeping thing and abominable beast, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed upon the wall round about. And there stood before them seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up. And he said unto me, Hast thou seen, son of man, what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every one in his chambers of imagery? for they say, Jehovah seeth us not; Jehovah hath forsaken the land. And he said unto me, Yet again thou shalt see great abominations which they do. And he brought me to the entry of the gate of Jehovah's house that was toward the north; and behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. And he said unto me, Seest thou, son of man? Thou shalt yet again see greater abominations than these. And he brought me into the inner court of Jehovah's house, and behold, at the entry of the temple of Jehovah, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of Jehovah and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east.
Her princes in the midst of her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves, that leave nothing for the morning. Her prophets are vain-glorious, treacherous persons; her priests profane the sanctuary, they do violence to the law.
Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment, and pervert all equity, that build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with unrighteousness. The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money; yet do they lean upon Jehovah, and say, Is not Jehovah in the midst of us? no evil shall come upon us.
And I said, Hear, I pray you, ye heads of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel: Is it not for you to know judgment? Ye who hate the good, and love evil; who pluck off their skin from them, and their flesh from off their bones; and who eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them, and break their bones, and chop them in pieces as for the pot, and as flesh within the cauldron. Then shall they cry unto Jehovah, but he will not answer them; and he will hide his face from them at that time, according as they have wrought evil in their doings.
And we have not hearkened unto thy servants the prophets, who spoke in thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.
her priests do violence to my law, and profane my holy things: they put no difference between the holy and profane, neither do they make known [the difference] between the unclean and the clean, and they hide their eyes from my sabbaths, and I am profaned among them. Her princes in the midst of her are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, to destroy souls, to get dishonest gain. And her prophets have daubed for them with untempered [mortar], seeing vanity and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah! and Jehovah hath not spoken.
And king Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria; and he saw the altar that was at Damascus, and king Ahaz sent to Urijah the priest the form of the altar, and the pattern of it, according to all its workmanship. And Urijah the priest built an altar according to all that king Ahaz had sent from Damascus; thus Urijah the priest made [it], against king Ahaz came from Damascus. And when the king came from Damascus, the king saw the altar; and the king approached to the altar, and offered upon it. And he burned his burnt-offering and his oblation, and poured out his drink-offering, and sprinkled the blood of his peace-offering upon the altar. And the brazen altar which was before Jehovah, he brought forward from the forefront of the house, from between [his] altar and the house of Jehovah, and put it by the side of [his] altar on the north. And king Ahaz commanded Urijah the priest saying, Upon the great altar burn the morning burnt-offering, and the evening oblation, and the king's burnt-offering, and his oblation, and the burnt-offering of all the people of the land, and their oblation, and their drink-offerings; and sprinkle upon it all the blood of the burnt-offerings, and all the blood of the sacrifices; and the brazen altar shall be for me to inquire [by]. And Urijah the priest did according to all that king Ahaz had commanded.
And the princes said unto the king, Let this man, we pray thee, be put to death; for why should he weaken the hands of the men of war that remain in this city, and the hands of all the people, in speaking to them according to these words? for this man seeketh not the welfare of this people, but the hurt.
And when he was in the gate of Benjamin, a captain of the guard was there whose name was Irijah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah; and he laid hold on the prophet Jeremiah, saying, Thou art deserting to the Chaldeans. And Jeremiah said, It is false: I am not deserting to the Chaldeans. But he hearkened not to him; and Irijah laid hold on Jeremiah, and brought him to the princes. And the princes were wroth with Jeremiah, and smote him, and put him in the place of confinement in the house of Jonathan the scribe: for they had made that the prison.
I will go unto the great men, and will speak unto them; for they know the way of Jehovah, the judgment of their God; but these have altogether broken the yoke, have burst the bonds.
Since the days of our fathers, we have been in great trespass to this day; and for our iniquities we, our kings, our priests, have been given into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, and to captivity, and to spoil, and to confusion of face, as it is this day.
And he built altars in the house of Jehovah, of which Jehovah had said, In Jerusalem shall my name be for ever. And he built altars to all the host of heaven in both courts of the house of Jehovah. He also caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom; and he used magic and divination and sorcery, and appointed necromancers and soothsayers: he wrought evil beyond measure in the sight of Jehovah, to provoke him to anger. And he set the graven image of the idol that he had made, in the house of God, of which God had said to David and to Solomon his son, In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will I put my name for ever;
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on 2 Chronicles 36
Commentary on 2 Chronicles 36 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 36
2Ch 36:1-4. Jehoahaz, Succeeding, Is Deposed by Pharaoh.
1. the people of the land took Jehoahaz—Immediately after Josiah's overthrow and death, the people raised to the throne Shallum (1Ch 3:15), afterwards called Jehoahaz, in preference to his older brother Eliakim, from whom they expected little good. Jehoahaz is said (2Ki 23:30) to have received at Jerusalem the royal anointing—a ceremony not usually deemed necessary, in circumstances of regular and undisputed succession. But, in the case of Jehoahaz, it seems to have been resorted to in order to impart greater validity to the act of popular election; and, it may be, to render it less likely to be disturbed by Necho, who, like all Egyptians, would associate the idea of sanctity with the regal anointing. He was the youngest son of Josiah, but the popular favorite, probably on account of his martial spirit (Eze 19:3) and determined opposition to the aggressive views of Egypt. At his accession the land was free from idolatry; but this prince, instead of following the footsteps of his excellent father, adopted the criminal policy of his apostatizing predecessors. Through his influence, directly or indirectly used, idolatry rapidly increased (see 2Ki 23:32).
2. he reigned three months in Jerusalem—His possession of sovereign power was of but very brief duration; for Necho determined to follow up the advantage he had gained in Judah; and, deeming it expedient to have a king of his own nomination on the throne of that country, he deposed the popularly elected monarch and placed his brother Eliakim or Jehoiakim on the throne, whom he anticipated to be a mere obsequious vassal. The course of events seems to have been this: on receiving intelligence after the battle of the accession of Jehoahaz to the throne, and perhaps also in consequence of the complaint which Eliakim brought before him in regard to this matter, Necho set out with a part of his forces to Jerusalem, while the remainder of his troops pursued their way at leisure towards Riblah, laid a tribute on the country, raised Eliakim (Jehoiakim) as his vassal to the throne, and on his departure brought Jehoahaz captive with him to Riblah. The old expositors mostly assumed that Necho, after the battle of Megiddo, marched directly against Carchemish, and then on his return came to Jerusalem. The improbability, indeed the impossibility, of his doing so appears from this: Carchemish was from four hundred to five hundred miles from Megiddo, so that within "three months" an army could not possibly make its way thither, conquer the fenced city of Carchemish, and then march back a still greater distance to Jerusalem, and take that city [Keil].
3. an hundred talents of silver—£3418 15s.
and a talent of gold—£5475; total amount of tribute, £8893 15s.
4. carried him—Jehoahaz.
to Egypt—There he died (Jer 22:10-12).
2Ch 36:5-8. Jehoiakim, Reigning Ill, Is Carried into Babylon.
5. Jehoiakim … did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord—He followed the course of his idolatrous predecessors; and the people, to a great extent, disinclined to the reforming policy of his father, eagerly availed themselves of the vicious license which his lax administration restored. His character is portrayed with a masterly hand in the prophecy of Jeremiah (Jer 22:13-19). As the deputy of the king of Egypt, he departed further than his predecessor from the principles of Josiah's government; and, in trying to meet the insatiable cupidity of his master by grinding exactions from his subjects, he recklessly plunged into all evil.
6. Against him came up Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon—This refers to the first expedition of Nebuchadnezzar against Palestine, in the lifetime of his father Nabopolassar, who, being old and infirm, adopted his son as joint sovereign and despatched him, with the command of his army, against the Egyptian invaders of his empire. Nebuchadnezzar defeated them at Carchemish, drove them out of Asia, and reduced all the provinces west of the Euphrates to obedience—among the rest the kingdom of Jehoiakim, who became a vassal of the Assyrian empire (2Ki 24:1). Jehoiakim at the end of three years threw off the yoke, being probably instigated to revolt by the solicitations of the king of Egypt, who planned a new expedition against Carchemish. But he was completely vanquished by the Babylonian king, who stripped him of all his possessions between the Euphrates and the Nile (2Ki 24:7). Then marching against the Egyptian's ally in Judah, he took Jerusalem, carried away a portion of the sacred vessels of the temple, perhaps in lieu of the unpaid tribute, and deposited them in the temple of his god, Belus, at Babylon (Da 1:2; 5:2). Though Jehoiakim had been taken prisoner (and it was designed at first to transport him in chains to Babylon), he was allowed to remain in his tributary kingdom. But having given not long after some new offense, Jerusalem was besieged by a host of Assyrian dependents. In a sally against them Jehoiakim was killed (see on 2Ki 24:2-7; also Jer 22:18, 19; 36:30).
9, 10. Jehoiachin was eight years old—called also Jeconiah or Coniah (Jer 22:24)—"eight" should have been "eighteen," as appears from 2Ki 24:8, and also from the full development of his ungodly principles and habits (see Eze 19:5-7). His reign being of so short duration cannot be considered at variance with the prophetic denunciation against his father (Jer 36:30). But his appointment by the people gave umbrage to Nebuchadnezzar, who, "when the year was expired" (2Ch 36:10)—that is, in the spring when campaigns usually began—came in person against Jerusalem, captured the city, and sent Jehoiachin in chains to Babylon, removing at the same time all the nobles and most skilful artisans, and pillaging all the remaining treasures both of the temple and palace (see on 2Ki 24:8-17).
2Ch 36:11-21. Zedekiah's Reign.
11. Zedekiah—Nebuchadnezzar appointed him. His name, originally Mattaniah, was, according to the custom of Oriental conquerors, changed into Zedekiah. Though the son of Josiah (1Ch 3:15; Jer 1:2, 3; 37:1), he is called the brother of Jehoiachin (2Ch 36:10), that is, according to the latitude of Hebrew style in words expressing affinity, his relative or kinsman (see 2Ki 24:18; 25:1-21).
13. who had made him swear by God—Zedekiah received his crown on the express condition of taking a solemn oath of fealty to the king of Babylon (Eze 17:13); so that his revolt by joining in a league with Pharaoh-hophra, king of Egypt, involved the crime of perjury. His own pride and obdurate impiety, the incurable idolatry of the nation, and their reckless disregard of prophetic warnings, brought down on his already sadly reduced kingdom the long threatened judgments of God. Nebuchadnezzar, the executioner of the divine vengeance, commenced a third siege of Jerusalem, which, after holding out for a year and a half, was taken in the eleventh year of the reign of Zedekiah. It resulted in the burning of the temple, with, most probably, the ark, and in the overthrow of the kingdom of Judah (see on 2Ki 25:1-7; Eze 12:13; Eze 17:16).
21. until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths—The return of every seventh was to be held as a sabbatic year, a season of rest to all classes, even to the land itself, which was to be fallow. This divine institution, however, was neglected—how soon and how long, appears from the prophecy of Moses (see on Le 26:34), and of Jeremiah in this passage (see Jer 25:9-12), which told that for divine retribution it was now to remain desolate seventy years. As the Assyrian conquerors usually colonized their conquered provinces, so remarkable a deviation in Palestine from their customary policy must be ascribed to the overruling providence of God.
2Ch 36:22, 23. Cyrus' Proclamation.
22. the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus—(See on Ezr 1:1-3).