to “the sins of Manasseh.” It is of interest to note that the principal post hoc statements
on the earlier fall of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, namely, 1 Kings 11 : 29 – 39 ,
14 : 5 – 16 , and 2 Kings 17 : 7 – 29 , characterize Jeroboam I in the same way. He was
the “original sinner” of northern Israel, just as Manasseh was of Judah (cf. 2 Kings
16 : 3 – 4 regarding the sins of Ahaz).
The present study deals with biblical views of the Babylonians, whereas the cultic-
moral agenda is basically a self-critical, internal agenda directed at the Israelites,
themselves, and need not occupy us for too long. Suffice it to say that it was a primary
thrust of the prophetic movement from its inception to insist that the God of Israel
demands a just society, and condemns the shedding of innocent blood. This principle
was likewise encoded in biblical law. There is nothing unrealistic about prophetic
denunciations of social injustice and lawlessness in Judah, and earlier, in the Northern
Israelite society. The rich and powerful were grabbing land from the debt-ridden
poor, and were bribing judges, who often condemned the innocent. Nor was there
any lack of cultic heterodoxy, for that matter. It was basic to the prophetic doctrine
to insist on the exclusive worship of Yahweh, the God of Israel, to eliminate foreign
worship, and, as the Deuteronomic movement progressed, even to ban sacrifice at
local ba ̄ môt “cult sites.” When these dictates are violated, the God of Israel becomes
angry, so that moral and cultic offenses become part of the explanation of defeat. It
bears mention that, like the political agenda, so the cultic-moral agenda speaks
primarily of royal policy, fixing accountability on the Judean kings; at an earlier time,
on the kings of Northern Israel.
And so, the royal chronicle in Second Kings continues. Jehoiakim was succeeded
by another of Josiah’s sons, Jechoniah, renamed Jehoiachin, who ruled for only three
months. Because Jehoiachin surrendered to Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BCE, Jerusalem
was not razed to the ground, although the exile to Babylonia began, of the skilled
and the professional military, as well as of the king, himself, and his entire court,
leaving only the poor peasantry. Except for his idiomatic characterization as a king
who did what was evil in Yahweh’s sight, Jehoiachin warrants only an oblique reference
to disobedience in 2 Kings 24 : 13 – 16. In that passage, Isaiah’s “prediction” of 2 Kings
20 : 16 – 18,that Jerusalem’s treasures will be plundered, is fulfilled in Jehoiachin’s day,
and the description of the plundering resonates clearly with the passage in 2 Kings
20. Nebuchadnezzar then installed Zedekiah, Jehoiachin’s uncle, previously named
Mattaniah, as king in place of Jehoiachin. His eleven-year reign is introduced in 2
Kings 24 : 18 – 20 as follows:
He did what was evil in Yahweh’s sight just like all that Jehoiakim had done.
For it was because of Yahweh’s wrath that these things happened in Judah and
Jerusalem, until he (finally) cast them off from his presence. Then Zedekiah
rebelled against the king of Babylonia.Second Kings 25 : 1 – 21 proceeds to chronicle the reign of Zedekiah (compare
Jeremiah 39 and 52 ), employing synchronic regnal years, so that Nebuchadnezzar’s
siege of Jerusalem extended from the ninth to the eleventh years of Zedekiah, whereas
it was in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar that his commander, Nebuzaradan,
completed the destruction of Jerusalem and the burning of the Temple. Before that,
— The view from Jerusalem —