2 Chronicles 36


2 Chronicles 36 is the thirty-sixth chapter of the Second Book of Chronicles the Old Testament of the Christian Bible or of the second part of the Books of Chronicles in the Hebrew Bible. The book is compiled from older sources by an unknown person or group, designated by modern scholars as "the Chronicler", and had the final shape established in late fifth or fourth century BCE. This chapter belongs to the section focusing on the kingdom of Judah until its destruction by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar and the beginning of restoration under Cyrus the Great of Persia . It contains the regnal accounts of the last four kings of Judah - Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin and Zedekiah - and the edict of Cyrus allowing the exiled Jews to return to Jerusalem.

Text

This chapter was originally written in the Hebrew language and is divided into 23 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter in Hebrew are of the Masoretic Text tradition, which includes the Aleppo Codex, and Codex Leningradensis.
There is also a translation into Koine Greek known as the Septuagint, made in the last few centuries BCE. Extant ancient manuscripts of the Septuagint version include Codex Vaticanus, and Codex Alexandrinus. This chapter is also largely reproduced in chapter 1 of the Septuagint's 1 Esdras.

Old Testament references

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    Analysis

The final chapter contains shortened history of the four final kings of Judah. The omissions are on the details of Jerusalem's destruction, the names of the queen mothers, part of the evaluations on the kings, and some death announcements, the deportation of the survivors of Judah and the mention of the Persian successors to Babylon. In particular, [|verse 21] contains an interpretation of the exile and part of Cyrus's edict, which is more completely cited in the opening part of the book of Ezra, allowing the deported Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple.

Jehoahaz king of Judah (36:1–4)

The regnal account of Jehoahaz is brief and omits details of the journey to the land of Hamath as well as the concluding judgement . Mathys links this to the positive verdict in the Book of Jeremiah.

Verse 1

  • "Jehoahaz": written as "Joahaz" in Masoretic Texts. It could be a throne name since Jeremiah 22:11 and 1 Chronicles 3:15 wrote his name as "Shallum".

    Verse 2

  • Cross reference: 2 Kings 23:31
  • "Twenty and three years old when he began to reign": Both William F. Albright and E. R. Thiele dated his reign to 609 BCE, making his birth in 633/632 BCE. The Babylonian Chronicles dates the battle in Harran with Assyrians and Egypt under Pharaoh Necho from Tammuz to Elul of 609 BCE, which would place the death of Josiah and the start of Jehoahaz reign in month of Tammuz 609 BCE or the month prior, when Egyptian army was still on the way to Harran.

    Verse 3

  • "A hundred talents": about 3¾ tons, or 3.4 metric tons.
  • "A talent": about 75 pounds, or 34 kilograms.

    Verse 4

  • Cross reference: 2 Kings 23:34
  • "Turned his name": Probably Pharaoh Neco made the new king swear fealty "by Jehovah", then changed his name to be "Jehoiakim", to remind the people of the oath. Apparently the Pharaoh left the choice of the name to the person, so the change could be as small as possible, in this case, to substitute the initial element "El" in "El-iakim" with "Jeho" in "Jeho-iakim".
  • "Jehoahaz": spelled as "Joahaz" in Masoretic Text.

    Jehoiakim king of Judah (36:5–8)

The regnal account of Jehoiakim is much reduced compared to the Book of Kings: omitting the attacks of the Chaldeans, Arameans, Moabites, and Ammonites and adding the information about Nebuchadnezzar's attack in 597 BCE, placed Jehoiakim in fetters and intended to take him to Babylon, although it is unclear how far the journey was, since the Hebrew text allows multiple interpretations. More attention is given to the fate of the temple and its equipment which links to Daniel 1:2.

Verse 5

  • "Jehoiakim": the throne name of Eliakim, the son of Josiah and the older brother of Jehoahaz.

    Jehoiachin king of Judah (36:9–10)

The regnal account of Jehoiachin focuses on the deportation of the king along with temple equipments. The Babylonian Chronicles record 2 Adar, 597 BCE, as the date that Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem, putting an end to the reign of Jehoaichin and installing Zedekiah as king of Judah.

Verse 9

  • Cross reference: 2 Kings 24:8
  • "Jehoiachin" the son of Jehoiakim. His existence was attested by tablets found near the Ishtar Gate of ancient Babylon, such as the Jehoiachin's Rations Tablets, dated to c. 592 BCE, mentioning his name in cuneiform and his five sons as recipients of food rations in Babylon. "Jehoiachin" is the throne name of Jeconiah as written in Jeremiah 24:1; 28:4; 29:2, which has the abbreviated form "Coniah" in Jeremiah 22:24, 28; 37:1.
  • "Three months and ten days": according Thiele's chronology, Jehoiachin became "co-regent" with his father, Jehoiakim, in September 608 BCE when he was 8 years old, then became the sole ruler at the age of 18 from 21 Marcheshvan to 10 Nisan. The precise date of Jehoiachin's reign can be reconstructed from extra-biblical documents such as Babylonian Chronicles that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, took Jerusalem on 15/16 March 597 BCE. Jehoiachin was deported to Babylon on 22 April 597 BCE, so the start of his reign of 3 months and 10 days can be calculated to be on 9 December 598 BCE, right after the death of Jehoiakim, whose corpse would be exposed to the frost of night.

    Verse 10

  • "His brother": refers to Jehoiakim.
The Nebuchadnezzar Chronicle attested the replacement of the king of Judah as follows:

Zedekiah king of Judah (36:11–16)

The regnal account of Zedekiah is similarly short as those of the previous three kings, even for the account of 'the pillage of the cultic vessels', because the emphasis is on the sin of the people and their kings, that Zedekiah 'did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, just as Jehoiakim had done'. In addition, Zedekiah was also disobedient towards the prophet Jeremiah and did not want to repent.

Verse 11

  • "Zedekiah": was the throne name of "Mattaniah", the younger brother of Jehoahaz from the same father and mother and the uncle of Jehoiachin.

    The fall of Jerusalem (36:17–21)

The climax of temple plundering: 'All the vessels of the house of God' in verse 18 is followed by the taking away of the king's and princes' private treasures with very little words about Jerusalem's actual destruction and nothing about vineyard and field workers who were left behind on the land. Instead, it directly relates the end of exile when the kingdom of Persia ruled over Babylon. The sentence in verse 21 combines Jeremiah's prophecy of 70 years of exile with the warning in Leviticus 26 regarding the consequences of abusing the sabbath years.

Verse 20

  • "Until the rule of the kingdom of Persia": from this, it may be concluded that the books of Chronicles were written after the return of the exiles from captivity.

    Verse 21

  • "By the mouth of Jeremiah": See Jeremiah 25:12 and Jeremiah 29:10.

    The edict of Cyrus (36:22–23)

The last section of the chapter relates Cyrus's edict, allowing the exiled Jews to return to their land and to rebuild the temple. The text could be based on Ezra 1:1–3, but it was left as an open ending, with the appeal, 'Let him go up', which may serve as a link to the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah or as a general reference to the future.

Verse 22

  • Cross reference: Ezra 1:1
  • "Cyrus king of Persia":, commonly known as "Cyrus the Great"; his name and title as the "king of Persia" are written in the Nabonidus Chronicle. He "put in writing" a declaration in Akkadian cuneiform script on a clay cylinder, now known as the "Cyrus Cylinder", which was used as a foundation deposit following the Persian conquest of Babylon in 539 BC, when the Neo-Babylonian Empire was invaded by Cyrus and incorporated into his Persian Empire. The words recorded in Ezra 1:2–4 are thought to represent the oral form of the edict, whereas the written form is recorded in Ezra 6.

    Verse 23

  • Cross reference: Ezra 1:2–3
  • "House": here means "temple".
  • "And let him go up": translated from the Hebrew word וְיָֽעַל, wə-yā-‘al, from the verb "", meaning "to go up, ascend, climb".
In the Cyrus Cylinder there is a statement related to the Cyrus's edict which gives the historical background to the book of Ezra:
Cyrus's edict is significant to the return of the Jews, because it shows that they did not slip away from Babylon but were given official permission by the Persian king in the first year of his rule, and it is a specific fulfillment of the seventy years prophecy of Jeremiah.