2 Chronicles 36:9-10

Jehoiachin’s Reign

36:9 Jehoiachin was eighteen ¹  years old when he became king, and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem. ²  He did evil in the sight of ³  the Lord. 36:10 At the beginning of the year King Nebuchadnezzar ordered him to be brought ⁴  to Babylon, along with the valuable items in the Lord’s temple. In his place he made his relative ⁵  Zedekiah king over Judah and Jerusalem.

Jeremiah 24:1-5

Good Figs and Bad Figs

24:1 The Lord showed me two baskets of figs sitting before his temple. This happened after King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon deported Jehoiakim’s son, King Jeconiah of Judah. He deported him and the leaders of Judah, along with the craftsmen and metal workers, and took them to Babylon. ⁶  24:2 One basket had very good-looking figs in it. They looked like those that had ripened early. ⁷  The other basket had very bad-looking figs in it, so bad they could not be eaten. 24:3 The Lord said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” I answered, “I see figs. The good ones look very good. But the bad ones look very bad, so bad that they cannot be eaten.”

24:4 The Lord said to me, ⁸  24:5 “I, the Lord, the God of Israel, say: ‘The exiles whom I sent away from here to the land of Babylon ⁹  are like those good figs. I consider them to be good.

Jeremiah 52:28

52:28 Here is the official record of the number of people ¹⁰  Nebuchadnezzar carried into exile: In the seventh year, ¹¹  3,023 Jews;

Ezekiel 1:1-2

A Vision of God’s Glory

1:1 In the thirtieth year, ¹²  on the fifth day of the fourth month, while I was among the exiles ¹³  at the Kebar River, ¹⁴  the heavens opened ¹⁵  and I saw a divine vision. ¹⁶  1:2 (On the fifth day of the month – it was the fifth year of King Jehoiachin’s exile –

[36:9]  ¹ tc The Hebrew text reads “eight,” but some ancient textual witnesses, as well as the parallel text in 2 Kgs 24:8, have “eighteen.”

[36:9]  ² map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[36:9]  ³ tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

[36:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “sent and brought him.”

[36:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “and he made Zedekiah his brother king.” According to the parallel text in 2 Kgs 24:17, Zedekiah was Jehoiachin’s uncle, not his brother. Therefore many interpreters understand אח here in its less specific sense of “relative” (NEB “made his father’s brother Zedekiah king”; NASB “made his kinsman Zedekiah king”; NIV “made Jehoiachin’s uncle, Zedekiah, king”; NRSV “made his brother Zedekiah king”).

[24:1]  ⁶ sn See 2 Kgs 24:10-17 (especially vv. 14-16). Nebuchadnezzar left behind the poorest people of the land under the puppet king Zedekiah. Jeconiah has already been referred to earlier in 13:18; 22:25-26. The deportation referred to here occurred in 597 b.c. and included the priest Ezekiel.

[24:2]  ⁷ sn See Isa 28:4; Hos 9:10.

[24:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “The word of the Lord came to me.”

[24:5]  ⁹ tn Heb “the land of the Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4.

[52:28]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “these are the people.”

[52:28]  ¹¹ sn This would be 597 b.c.

[1:1]  ¹² sn The meaning of the thirtieth year is problematic. Some take it to mean the age of Ezekiel when he prophesied (e.g., Origen). The Aramaic Targum explains the thirtieth year as the thirtieth year dated from the recovery of the book of the Torah in the temple in Jerusalem (2 Kgs 22:3-9). The number seems somehow to be equated with the fifth year of Jehoiachin’s exile in 1:2, i.e., 593 b.c.

[1:1]  ¹³ sn The Assyrians started the tactic of deportation, the large-scale forced displacement of conquered populations, in order to stifle rebellions. The task of uniting groups of deportees, gaining freedom from one’s overlords and returning to retake one’s own country would be considerably more complicated than living in one’s homeland and waiting for an opportune moment to drive out the enemy’s soldiers. The Babylonians adopted this practice also, after defeating the Assyrians. The Babylonians deported Judeans on three occasions. The practice of deportation was reversed by the Persian conquerors of Babylon, who gained favor from their subjects for allowing them to return to their homeland and, as polytheists, sought the favor of the gods of the various countries which had come under their control.

[1:1]  ¹⁴ sn The Kebar River is mentioned in Babylonian texts from the city of Nippur in the fifth century b.c. It provided artificial irrigation from the Euphrates.

[1:1]  ¹⁵ sn For the concept of the heavens opened in later literature, see 3 Macc 6:18; 2 Bar. 22:1; T. Levi 5:1; Matt 3:16; Acts 7:56; Rev 19:11.

[1:1]  ¹⁶ tn Or “saw visions from God.” References to divine visions occur also in Ezek 8:3; 40:2