Today’s Scripture Reading (April 25, 2020): 2 Kings 24
All of us
carry around baggage obtained through our growing up years. And we all react to
that baggage very differently. For some, that baggage is devastating. And it doesn’t
necessarily mean that we had terrible upbringings. Two siblings can react to
the same home and the same situations in very different ways. As parents, all
that we can do is our best and lift our children daily in prayer.
Three of the
sons of Josiah would reign as King over the land of Judah. But they did not
ascend to the throne in order according to their ages. Eliakim, who reigned as
Jehoiakim, was the oldest. Yet, Eliakim was passed over following the death of
his father, in favor of his younger brother, Jehoahaz. The reasons for this vary.
Some believe that Jehoahaz was simply the more popular of the brothers among
the leaders in Judah. Others point out that Eliakim or Jehoiakim was simply unfit
to lead the nation and that his father and the leaders of Judah understood that
fact when they made Jehoahaz king in 609 B.C.E.
Jehoiakim
was an angry man. But when Egypt took his younger brother, the now King of
Judah, Jehoahaz, into captivity only three months into his reign, the nation was
forced to turn to the violent Eliakim as their king. There was another brother,
but Zedekiah was still just a young boy. He would ascend to the throne and
serve as the last king of Judah after the death of Jehoiakim and the removal of
Jehoiakim’s son, Jehoiachin, by the Babylonians.
After he
became king, Jehoiakim wasted little time displaying that he was not his father’s
son. He overturned all of the reforms of his father, Josiah. Jehoiakim was a godless
man who feared little, other than the Babylonians, and his respect for them was
likely all show. He ruled Judah as a tyrant. He murdered everyone he didn’t
like, and Jerusalem was filled with the blood of the innocents (2 Kings 24:4). He
maintained incestuous relationships with his mother and other women in the
family. He seemed to regularly burn scrolls of scripture that he disagreed with
or that he thought might hold him in an unflattering light. He even tried to
reverse his Jewishness by restoring the foreskin stolen from him by his
circumcision as a child.
And then,
Jehoiakim died. That he died in 598 B.C.E. is really the only thing that we can
say for sure. The book of Kings simply says that he rested with his ancestors.
But the death of Jehoiakim was not likely that peaceful. And the Bible is not
in complete agreement as to how the king died. Some argue Jehoiakim died in
Jerusalem while the Sanhedrin was deliberating about whether or not the King
should be turned over to the Babylonians. After his death, the leaders of
Jerusalem unceremoniously threw his body over the wall to the waiting Babylonians
to do as they saw fit with the former King of Judah.
Another version
of the death of Jehoiakim argues that he died being let down over the wall to
the waiting Babylonians, maybe at the hands of the Babylonians themselves. Probably
the most gruesome of the possible fates of Jehoiakim is that he was handed over
to the Babylonians, where he was paraded in dishonor throughout the nation. When
the tour had finished, the King was executed, and his body was either fed piece
by piece to the dogs, or it was placed inside of a dead donkey and left for the
animals to devour.
At some point,
it seems that someone recovered the body of the King and brought it back to Jerusalem.
But even there, the author of Kings is wrong, because Jehoiakim found no rest.
According to the ancient rabbinic writing, the Aggadah, Jehoiakim is still
undergoing punishment for the great sin that he visited on Jerusalem and Judah
during his life.
Tomorrow’s
Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 1
No comments:
Post a Comment