Day 231(Kings 24-25, 2 Chronicles 36) - Year 4
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Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for The Bible Recap. Today we finished our 25th and 26th books of the Bible. I'm giving you a high five in my head.

Between those two books, we read about the last five kings of Judah. These five kings are often lumped together because they are the final turning point for Judah. Josiah was the last good king, and he was a really good one. But then all we have after him are these four bad kings. There are a lot of J names in today's reading, but as always, it's not as important that you remember their names as it is that you see God in these stories. But speaking of Js, some of them are apparently pronounced like a Y, so I'm going to give that my best shot.

After Josiah dies, his son Jehoahaz takes the throne. We read about him briefly on Day 217. He's barely a blip on the radar because he only reigns for three months before the Egyptian pharaoh Necho, who killed his dad Josiah, captures him and carts him off to Egypt where he dies in captivity. Now we're down to three more kings. At the time, Egypt is dominating Judah. Pharaoh Necho appoints their new king and even changes his name from Eliakim to Jehoiakim.

Then Niko demands that Judah act as a vassal nation to Egypt. We've talked about these vassal relationships before, where a weaker nation pays money or tribute to a stronger nation for protection, but they're often just being protected from the nation they're paying, kind of like the mafia. But then Babylon shows up on the scene and dominates both Judah and Egypt, and Egypt goes home with its tail between its legs.

Then Judah becomes a vassal of Babylon, but at some point they rebel and Babylon turns up the heat. They take Jehoiakim captive along with a lot of the holy vessels from the temple. And now we're down to two more kings. Next on deck is Jehoiakim's son, Jehoiachin. Not confusing at all, right? For the sake of clarity, I'm going to nickname them Kim and Chin. After Kim dies, Chin is only on the throne for three months before Babylon comes in to besiege Jerusalem.

He decides to surrender to Babylon. So they make him a prisoner and they also take the opportunity to destroy a bunch of his stuff as well as some of the vessels of the temple. Remember back to King Hezekiah in 2 Kings 20? He's the one who got sick and got better and then was showing off all the stuff in his kingdom and Isaiah was like, you did what? At some point they're going to carry all that stuff away. Well, this is that point. This is exactly what Isaiah prophesied would happen.

While Chin is in prison, the king of Babylon appoints a new king for Judah, which is our one remaining king. He appoints Madaniah. But as we've seen, whenever other nations appoint a new king, they tend to change the king's name. So this time they're like, Madaniah? What kind of name is that? Let's go with Zedekiah.

And as you know, Zedekiah with a Z is Judah's final king. Jeremiah prophesies a lot of tough stuff during Zedekiah's reign, and Zed keeps blowing up his phone asking for more updates. But Jeremiah's like, there is no update. This is God's word to you, and it's not going to change. So you can stop hitting refresh. I'm not Twitter. But Zed doesn't ever listen. And not only does Babylon destroy Jerusalem, just like Jeremiah prophesied, but Zed dies a prolonged, painful death.

Babylon also kills a lot of the other leaders of Judah and steals more treasure from the temple. Only a few people remain in the land at this point. And since Babylon has defeated Judah, they don't have any reason to set up a new king. So they just appoint a governor to watch over things locally. Yesterday we met the guy they appointed, Gedaliah. Our reading yesterday ended with his military leaders warning him about a plot to murder him, but he dismissed it as a lie. Today we saw that it wasn't a lie.

Just like they warned Gedaliah in Jeremiah 40, some of his trusted inner circle murdered him. Today we saw Jerusalem's fall and destruction, but our reading ended with a reminder that God already has his sights set on restoration. The final verses of 2 Chronicles point us to King Cyrus of Persia, who doesn't know God, yet God appoints him to head up the rebuilding of the temple.

I have been so excited to tell you about my God shot today. It's one of my favorite passages in scripture. In 2 Kings 25, verses 27 through 30, we follow up with the story on King Chin, Yehoyachin. He's the guy who surrendered to Babylon as soon as things got tough.

He's been imprisoned there under the reign of King Nebi. But today, Nebi dies, and a new king takes the throne in Babylon. His name is Evil-Merodach. Not a great name, but he showed me a beautiful picture of who God is today. Here's what the text says. Evil-Merodach, king of Babylon, in the year that he began to reign, graciously freed Jehoiachin, king of Judah, from prison. And he spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat above the seats of the kings who were with him in Babylon.

so jehoiachin put off his prison garments and every day of his life he dined regularly at the king's table and for his allowance a regular allowance was given him by the king according to his daily needs as long as he lived

You guys, this is our life story. This is exactly what God does for his kids. He graciously frees us. He speaks kindly to us. He seats us at his table. He provides for us daily according to our needs as long as we live. This is the gospel. Jehoiachin was an enemy king to Babylon and a bad king by God's standards. But he gets to experience freedom and provision and protection.

I can't get over this verse. So Jehoiachin put off his prison garments, and every day of his life he dined regularly at the king's table. He took my prison garments, my orange jumpsuit, and clothed me in robes of righteousness and seated me at his table. I am a prisoner, set free, dining with the king. This is it, you guys. He's where the joy is.

Tomorrow we'll be reading the book of Habakkuk. It's three chapters long. We're linking to a short video overview in the show notes that will help set you up for success with our new book. So check that out. It's seven minutes long.

Okay, Bible readers, it's time for our weekly check-in. How are you doing? What have you learned this week? Spend some time thinking about those things you've learned so far and reflect on the attributes of God's character that you've seen. And if this week felt confusing and you felt like you had more questions than God shots, that's okay. Ask him to give you wisdom and an increasing desire to know him more. That's a prayer he loves to answer with a yes.

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