2 Kings 24:1-2

24:1 During Jehoiakim’s reign, ¹  King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon attacked. ²  Jehoiakim was his subject for three years, but then he rebelled against him. ³  24:2 The Lord sent against him Babylonian, Syrian, Moabite, and Ammonite raiding bands; he sent them to destroy Judah, as he had warned he would do through his servants the prophets. ⁴ 

2 Kings 24:5-6

24:5 The rest of the events of Jehoiakim’s reign and all his accomplishments, are recorded in the scroll called the Annals of the Kings of Judah. ⁵  24:6 He passed away ⁶  and his son Jehoiachin replaced him as king.

2 Kings 24:13-20

24:13 Nebuchadnezzar ⁷  took from there all the riches in the treasuries of the Lord’s temple and of the royal palace. He removed all the gold items which King Solomon of Israel had made for the Lord’s temple, just as the Lord had warned. 24:14 He deported all the residents of Jerusalem, including all the officials and all the soldiers (10,000 people in all). This included all the craftsmen and those who worked with metal. No one was left except for the poorest among the people of the land. 24:15 He deported Jehoiachin from Jerusalem to Babylon, along with the king’s mother and wives, his eunuchs, and the high-ranking officials of the land. ⁸  24:16 The king of Babylon deported to Babylon all the soldiers (there were 7,000), as well as 1,000 craftsmen and metal workers. This included all the best warriors. ⁹  24:17 The king of Babylon made Mattaniah, Jehoiachin’s ¹⁰  uncle, king in Jehoiachin’s place. He renamed him Zedekiah.

Zedekiah’s Reign over Judah

24:18 Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he ruled for eleven years in Jerusalem. ¹¹  His mother ¹²  was Hamutal, ¹³  the daughter of Jeremiah, from Libnah. 24:19 He did evil in the sight of ¹⁴  the Lord, as Jehoiakim had done. ¹⁵ 

24:20 What follows is a record of what happened to Jerusalem and Judah because of the Lord’s anger; he finally threw them out of his presence. ¹⁶  Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

¹ tn Heb “In his days.”

² tn Heb “came up.” Perhaps an object (“against him”) has been accidentally omitted from the text. See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 306.

³ tn The Hebrew text has “and he turned and rebelled against him.”

⁴ tn Heb “he sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the Lord which he spoke by the hand of his servants the prophets.”

⁵ tn Heb “As for the rest of the events of Jehoiakim, and all which he did, are they not written on the scroll of the events of the days of the kings of Judah?”

⁶ tn Heb “lay down with his fathers.”

⁷ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Nebuchadnezzar) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁸ tn Heb “and he deported Jehoiachin to Babylon; the mother of the king and the wives of the king and his eunuchs and the mighty of the land he led into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.”

⁹ tn Heb “the entire [group], mighty men, doers of war.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “his.”

¹¹ map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

¹² tn Heb “the name of his mother.”

¹³ tc Some textual witnesses support the consonantal text (Kethib) in reading “Hamital.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

¹⁵ tn Heb “according to all which Jehoiakim had done.”

¹⁶ tn Heb “Surely [or, ‘for’] because of the anger of the Lord this happened in Jerusalem and Judah until he threw them out from upon his face.”