Secret_History

456 The Secret History of the World
“So Jehoiakim slept with his fathers: and Jehoiachin his son reigned in his
stead.[…] Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign, and he
reigned in Jerusalem three months. And his mother’s name was Nehushta, the
daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem. And he did that which was evil in the sight of
the Lord, according to all that his father had done.[…] And Jehoiachin the king of
Judah went out to the king of Babylon, he, and his mother, and his servants, and
his princes, and his officers: and the king of Babylon took him in the eighth year
of his reign. 341
At this point, the mysterious Zedekiah comes to the throne. He is a twenty-one
year old son of Josiah and he reigned for eleven years before he was hauled off by
the Babylonians.
Well, aside from the most interesting fact that we have a sort of doublet here in
terms of the lengths of the reigns, there is the totally bizarre fact that in both
“sets”, the three month reign ends in being taken hostage: Jehoahaz to Egypt, and
Jehoiachin to Babylon. Not only that, but Jehoiakim’s eleven year reign ends in
him being killed in battle against the Babylonians, and Zedekiah’s children are
slain, his eyes are put out and he is taken in chains to Babylon.
All of that is confusing enough. But, we notice that after Jehoahaz is taken to
Egypt, Pharaoh Necho supposedly put his brother on the throne. Once again, we
have a double header. But this one has a twist: The second book of Kings, chapter
24, vs. 17 says:
“And the king of Babylon made Mattaniah, Jehoiachin’s uncle, king in his stead,
and changed his name to Zedekiah.”
But the second book of Chronicles tells us, in chapter 35, vs. 10:
“In the spring, King Nebuchadnezzar sent and brought him to Babylon, with the
precious vessels of the house of the Lord, and made Zedekiah the brother [of
Jehoiachin] king over Judah and Jerusalem.”
This means that we have now used up three of Josiah’s four sons. And if the
Bible can be specific enough to name an uncle in one place, and a brother in
another, I don’t think that the argument that a “brother” can mean just a kinsman
holds up. What is more, only one of the names of these brothers is the same as
given in the genealogy: Johanan, Jehoiakim, Zedekiah, Shallum as opposed to:
Jehoahaz, Jehoikim, Mattaniah. We also know that Jehoiachin is the only one of
this little group of kings at this period of time whose existence has been confirmed
by external evidence. Within the corpus of administrative documents found in the
excavations of Babylon are some dating to the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. One
broken document mentions providing rations to Jehoiachin, specifically named as
the king of Judah, and to his sons. This same Babylonian document also mentions
341 The Bible, 2 Kings, 24:6.