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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 2 Chronicles 36:9 - 36:9
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The reign of Jehoiachin. Cf. 2Ki 24:8-17. - Jehoiachin's age at his accession is here given as eight years, while in 2Ki 24:8 it is eighteen. It is so also in the lxx and Vulg.; but a few Hebr. codd., Syr., and Arab., and many manuscripts of the lxx, have eighteen years in the Chronicle also. The number eight is clearly an orthographical error, as Thenius also acknowledges. Bertheau, on the contrary, regards the eight of our text as the original, and the number eighteen in 2 Kings as an alteration occasioned by the idea that eighteen years appeared a more fitting age for a king than eight years, and gives as his reason, “that the king's mother is named along with him, and manifestly with design, 2Ki 24:12, 2Ki 24:15, and Jer 22:26, whence we must conclude that she had the guardianship of the young king.” A perfectly worthless reason. In the books of Kings the name of the mother is given in the case of all the kings after their accession has been mentioned, without any reference to the age of the kings, because the queen-mother occupied a conspicuous position in the kingdom. It is so in the case of Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin, 2Ki 23:36 and 2Ki 24:8. On account of her high position, the queen-mother is mentioned in 2Ki 24:12 and 2Ki 24:15, and in Jeremiah, among those who submitted to Nebuchadnezzar and were carried away to Babylon. The correctness of the number eighteen is, however, placed beyond doubt by Eze 19:5-9, where the prophet portrays Jehoiachin as a young lion, which devoured men, and knew widows, and wasted cities. The knowing of widows cannot apply to a boy of eight, but might well be said of a young man of eighteen. Jehoiachin ruled only three months and ten days in Jerusalem, and did evil in the eyes of Jahve. At the turn of the year, i.e., in spring, when campaigns were usually opened (cf. 1Ki 20:22; 2Sa 11:1), Nebuchadnezzar sent his generals (2Ki 24:10), and brought him to Babylon, with the goodly vessels of the house of Jahve, and made his (father's) brother Zedekiah king in Judah. In these few words the end of Jehoiachin's short reign is recorded. From 2Ki 24:10-16 we learn more as to this second campaign of Nebuchadnezzar against Jerusalem, and its issues for Judah; see the commentary on that passage. Zidkiyah (Zedekiah) was, according to 2Ki 24:17, not a brother, but דֹּוד, uncle or father's brother, of Jehoiachin, and was called Mattaniah, a son of Josiah and Hamutal, like Jehoahaz (2Ki 24:18, cf. 2Ki 23:31), and is consequently his full brother, and a step-brother of Jehoiakim. At his appointment to the kingdom by Nebuchadnezzar he received the name Zidkiyah (Zedekiah). אָהִיו, in 2Ch 36:10, is accordingly to be taken in its wider signification of blood-relation.