Глава 24

1–6. The subordination of Joachim to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, his deposition from the latter, the death of Joachim. 7–16. The three-month reign of Jeconiah, his wickedness and captivity. 17–20. The 20th and last king of Judah is Matthaniah Zedekiah. 2 Kings 24:1. In his days, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came out and Joachim became subject to him for three years, but then he separated from him. In 605, the Battle of Carchemish took place: Necho of Egypt was completely defeated by the Babylonians, led by their leader Nebuchadnezzar, then still the commander of his father Nabopolassar, the king of Babylon. As a result of this battle, Syria and in general the entire western Euphrates country was lost to Egypt (v. 7); he was even threatened with death at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar (cf. Jer. 46:2-20), but the latter at that time was forced to suspend his aggressive march due to the death of his father Nabopolassar (604), which forced Nebuchadnezzar to hasten to Babylon and there to assert the throne for himself; Nebuchadnezzar reigned from 604 to 561. When and under what circumstances Joachim’s submission to Nebuchadnezzar occurred is difficult to determine with precision: according to the book of the prophet Daniel (Dan. 1:1–2), Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem in the 3rd year of Joachim’s reign, took it and captured part of the vessels of the Jerusalem temple (according to 2 Chronicles 36:6), and there Joachim was put in chains “to guide him.” to Babylon." The 3rd year of Joachim’s reign, according to the accepted chronology, will approximately correspond to the year of Nebuchadnezzar’s accession (604), but it is not possible to assume that Joachim’s submission to Nebuchadnezzar occurred in this year, since then the reign of Joachim would have been reduced from 11 years (2 Kings 23:36; 2 Chronicles 35:5) to 5–6 years, since, in any case, after his submission to the Babylonian king, Joachim reigned for no more than 3 years (v. 1). In this sense, Josephus Flavius ​​establishes chronological dates for a given time. Having attributed the battle of Carchemish and the accession of Nebuchadnezzar to the 4th year of the reign of Joachim, I. Flavius ​​continues: “only after four years of his reign, when Joachim had already ruled the Jews for the eighth year, the Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar moved with a large army against the Jews, demanding tribute from Joachim or otherwise threatening him with war. Joachim was frightened by this threat and, preferring peace to money, began to pay tribute” (Ant. Jude 10:6, 1). According to this evidence, and in biblical scholarship of the present time, the year of the subjugation of Judea under the rule of Joachim to Nebuchadnezzar is considered to be the year 600 BC (Stade, Gesch. Isr, p. 678. Kittel, D. Bucher d. Konige, p. 306). Already 3 years later, in 597, after Joachim stopped paying tribute to Nebuchadnezzar, Joachim had to pay for his infidelity to the Babylonian king with the throne and life. 2 Kings 24:2. And the Lord sent against him the hordes of the Chaldeans, and the hordes of the Syrians, and the hordes of the Moabites, and the hordes of the Ammonites - he sent them against Judah to destroy him according to the word of the Lord, which He spoke through His servants the prophets. 2 Kings 24:3. According to the command of the Lord, this happened to Judah, to reject him from His presence for the sins of Manasseh, for everything that he had done; 2 Kings 24:4. and for the innocent blood that he shed, filling Jerusalem with innocent blood, the Lord did not want to forgive. 2 Kings 24:5. The rest about Jehoiakim and all that he did was written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah. 2 Kings 24:6. And Jehoiakim slept with his fathers, and Jehoiachin his son reigned in his stead. 2 Kings 24:7. The king of Egypt came out of his land no more, because the king of Babylon took everything that belonged to the king of Egypt, from the brook of Egypt to the river Euphrates. Probably incited by the Egyptian party at court, Joachim broke away from Babylon. But if Hezekiah, making his separation from Assyria (2 Kings 18:7), could rely on his Asian neighbors, at the head of whose coalition he could stand, then Joachim not only did not meet this support, but also found in the Syrians, Moabites and Ammonites the faithful servants of the Babylonian king, active accomplices of Nebuchadnezzar: hordes of these peoples, led by Chaldeans began the devastation of Judea. Egypt, of course, did not provide any assistance to the kingdom of Judah, being powerless and constrained in its possessions (v. 7). Under such circumstances, Joachim died, apparently without seeing the siege of Jerusalem itself by the regular troops of Nebuchadnezzar. Joachim died (v. 6) an inglorious death, according to the prediction of the prophet Jeremiah (Jer. 22:13–23), deprived of a royal burial with the kings of Judah (Jer. 36:30) and buried in a “donkey’s burial” (Jer. 22:19; cf. I. Flavius Jude. Ancient 10: 6,3) In Verse 5 contains the final reference to the chronicles of the kings of Judah. 2 Kings 24:8. Jeconiah was eighteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem for three months; His mother's name was Nehushta, the daughter of Elnathan, from Jerusalem. 2 Kings 24:9. And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord in everything, just as his father had done. Son and successor of Joachim, Jehoiachin, Heb. Jehoiachin, during his three-month reign, showed the same non-theocratic mood as his father Joachim. But the Jewish tradition, bearing in mind the mercy of God towards Jeconiah - in keeping him in captivity for 37 years and releasing him from prison under Nebuchadnezzar’s successor Evilmerodah (2 Kings 25:27; cf. Jer. 52:31 et seq.), retained the memory of Jehoiachin’s good deeds (I. Fla. X: 7, 1, remark in the Talmud; cf. (Var.1:2) et seq.). 2 Kings 24:10. At that time, the slaves of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, approached Jerusalem, and the city was besieged. 2 Kings 24:11. And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to the city while his servants were besieging it. 2 Kings 24:12. 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 eunuchs, and the king of Babylon took him in the eighth year of his reign. In the 8th year of his reign (v. 12) or, according to (Jer. 52:28), in the 7th year of his reign, therefore in 598 or 597, Nebuchadnezzar, apparently without any reason on the part of Jeconiah (according to Josephus, Jude. Ancient. 10:7, 1: “Nebuchadnezzar was afraid, as if Jehoiachin (in I. Flavius - Joachim), in revenge for the death of his father, did not leave him") besieged Jerusalem, probably completing the campaign of the Chaldeans, which had begun earlier, in alliance with other nations (v. 2). “The king (Jechonias), being a decent and fair man, did not want to allow the city to be endangered for his sake, but took his mother and relatives and gave them as hostages” (I. Flavius). Such submission of Jehoiachin (with his mother and the first ministers) and his voluntary surrender of Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar prompted the latter to grant Jehoiachin’s life, but did not save the cities from plunder, and the kingdom of Judah from the actual beginning of captivity. 2 Kings 24:13. And he took from there all the treasures of the house of the Lord and the treasures of the king's house; and he broke, as the Lord had spoken, all the golden vessels which Solomon king of Israel had made in the church of the Lord; 2 Kings 24:14. and he deported all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the brave army—ten thousand were deported—and all the carpenters and blacksmiths; there was no one left except the poor people of the earth. 2 Kings 24:15. And he moved Jehoiachin to Babylon; and he took the king's mother, and the king's wives, and his eunuchs, and the mighty of the land, to settle from Jerusalem to Babylon. 2 Kings 24:16. And the whole army, numbering seven thousand, and a thousand artists and builders, all the brave men who went to war, the king of Babylon led to settle in Babylon. The Babylonian king stole the precious vessels of the temple of Jerusalem (Jer. 27:18–20, 28:3) and the royal palace (he could not “break” the vessels of the church, as the Hebrew verb katsats is conveyed in Russian and other translations; LXX: συνεκοψε, Vulg.: concidit, slav.: “crush” - otherwise Cyrus subsequently could not return these vessels to the Jews: 1Ezra 1:7). At the same time, wanting to completely weaken the kingdom of Judah, deprive it of military, property and cultural strength, Nebuchadnezzar, together with King Jehoiachin (v. 15), took into captivity the most noble officials, the best warriors, members of the wealthy classes, and finally, representatives of the arts necessary in the national economy (cf. Jer. 29: 1-2). The total number of those resettled this time is determined by two figures: 10,000 (Article 14) and 7000 (Article 16), therefore over seventeen thousand. However, it is extremely difficult to determine the number of those resettled to Babylon both during this first captivity and in subsequent ones (cf. Jer. 52:28–30) due to the unequal numerical data about this in the books: 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles and Jeremiah (cf. in the book by E. Blagonravov, “The Babylonian Captivity and its significance in the history of the Jews.” Moscow, 1902, p. 121 etc.). Among the captives along with Jehoiachin were prophets and priests (Jer. 29:1), and the prophet Ezekiel (cf. Ezekiel 1:1-3) 22, as Josephus directly says (“among them—prisoners of war—was the prophet Ezekiel, who was then still a boy,” Jude 10:6, 3). Only its poor population was left in the country (v. 14, cf. Jer. 39:10). 2 Kings 24:17. And the king of Babylon made Matthaniah, Jehoiachin's uncle, reign in his stead, and changed his name to Zedekiah. 2 Kings 24:18. Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem for eleven years; His mother's name was Hamutal, daughter of Jeremiah, from Libnah. 2 Kings 24:19. And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord in everything, just as Joachim did. 2 Kings 24:20. The wrath of the Lord was upon Jerusalem and Judah to the point that He cast them out from before Him. And Zedekiah rebelled from the king of Babylon. The 20th and last king of Judah - Mattaniah, renamed Zedekiah by Nebuchadnezzar (Hebrew: Tzidkiyah), was the uncle of Jehoiachin, the youngest son of Josiah, born of the same mother as Jehoahaz (cf. verse 18 with 2 Kings 23:31-36; cf. Jer. 37:1). The very fact that Nebuchadnezzar changed the name of the new king of Judah (cf. 2 Kings 23:24) indicated that the latter received royal power only under the condition of absolute vassal dependence on the Babylonian king. But Nebuchadnezzar, in addition, took an oath from Zedekiah in the name of God, or an oath of allegiance to himself (2 Chron. 36:13; Ezek. 17:13); He, however, subsequently broke this oath (the year of his deposition from the Babylonian king is not indicated in the biblical text). The general mood and direction of Zedekiah's activities was unpleasing (v. 19, cf. Jer. 37:3); The kingdom of Judah, due to its internal decay, was ready to become the subject and victim of God's wrath (v. 20, cf. v. 3). Apparently, in order to return some of the Jewish captives from Babylon, Zedekiah first sent an embassy there (Jer. 29:3 ff), and then in the 4th year of his reign, probably for the same purpose, he undertook a trip there (Jer. 51:59), but both were in vain. Meanwhile, the neighboring tribes - the Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites and Phoenicians - decided to unite and throw off the yoke of Babylon with their combined forces; Zedekiah was also encouraged to do this, inviting him to join their coalition (Jer. 27:3). Having decided on this (Ezek.21:20,28), contrary to the admonitions of the prophet Jeremiah (Jer.27:4ff) and under the influence and encouragement of false prophets (Jer.28:1), Zedekiah sent for help and alliance to the Egyptian pharaoh Ophra (26th Sais dynasty, in 589–570) ( Ezek.17:15ff). Then followed an open revolt of Zedekiah against the Babylonian king, which caused a new and fatal campaign for the Kingdom of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar against Jerusalem and Judah (2 Kings 25:1). The story (2 Kings 24:18 – 2 Kings 25) is almost literally similar to the last (Jer.52) chapter of the book of the prophet Jeremiah, only in the latter there is no message (2 Kings 25:22-26), and in the 4th book of Kings there is no calculation (Jer.52:28-30). The mutual relationship of these parallel narratives, sacred-historical and prophetic, is quite similar to the relationship between (2 Kings 18:13–20) on the one hand and (Is.36–39) on the other, that is, each of the parallel narratives was based on a common source - the sacred chronicle of events compiled by one of the modern prophets-historiographers. Wed. in the dissertation of M. I. Skaballanovich. "The first chapter of the book of the prophet Ezekiel." Mariupol, 1904, p. 68 etc. You might be interested in: