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2 Kings 25 Bible study: Bread before the king
2 Kings doesn't end in the fire. The house is burned (25:9) and Judah is "carried away captive out of his land" (25:21), but the last verses find a king of David's line alive in Babylon, out of prison, eating bread before the king "all the days of his life" (25:29). And Matthew carries the line on from him: "After the exile to Babylon, Jechoniah became the father of Shealtiel" (Matthew 1:12).
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“and changed his prison garments. Jehoiachin ate bread before him continually all the days of his life;”
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“Neither when Solomon's bronze vessels were made nor when the Chaldeans carried them away was their bronze weighed.”
Is that in 2 Kings 25, or not? Make your call.
What's really going on
The siege, and the king who fled
The chapter before ends, "Then Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon" (24:20). Now "Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and encamped against it; and they built forts against it around it" (25:1). "So the city was besieged until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah" (25:2), until "the famine was severe in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land" (25:3). "Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled by night" (25:4), "and the king went by the way of the Arabah" (25:4). He didn't get away: "the Chaldean army pursued the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered from him" (25:5). "Then they captured the king and carried him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah; and they passed judgment on him" (25:6). The next verse tells in plain words what was done there to Zedekiah's sons and to Zedekiah, and that they "carried him to Babylon" (25:7). The chapter doesn't add a word about why; 24:20 had already said, "For through the anger of the LORD, this happened in Jerusalem and Judah, until he had cast them out from his presence" (24:20).
Where it leads to Jesus
The captive king, in Jesus' line
2 Kings 25:27leads toMatthew 1:12
"In the thirty-seventh year of the captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah" (25:27), Evilmerodach "released Jehoiachin king of Judah out of prison" (25:27), and "Jehoiachin ate bread before him continually all the days of his life" (25:29). Matthew's "book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David" (Matthew 1:1) goes on past the exile from the same king: "After the exile to Babylon, Jechoniah became the father of Shealtiel" (Matthew 1:12), and runs on to "Jesus, who is called Christ" (Matthew 1:16). 2 Kings calls Jehoiakim's son Jehoiachin (24:6); 1 Chronicles calls him Jeconiah (1 Chronicles 3:16), and Matthew writes Jechoniah. 2 Kings doesn't name Shealtiel; 1 Chronicles does: "The sons of Jeconiah, the captive: Shealtiel his son" (1 Chronicles 3:17). Matthew doesn't quote 2 Kings 25; he names the king this chapter ends with, and carries the line on from him.
Honest questions
Questions people ask about 2 Kings 25
That was a taste
The rest of 2 Kings 25 is waiting in Favor
- The house burned, the bronze carried away
- Carried away out of his land
- Out of prison
- Back to Egypt
- A chapter with no word from the LORD
- 10 questions as you read
- 8 more Hebrew words
- A short check at the end
- Your notes, saved as you go
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The Hebrew word behind it
נָשָׂאnasa'say na-SA
Brown-Driver-Briggs: "lift, carry, take". Strong's: "to lift, in a great variety of applications". Evilmerodach "released Jehoiachin king of Judah out of prison" (25:27). In Hebrew, he lifted up the head of Jehoiachin, with this verb and rosh, "head" (tap chief). In Jeremiah's account the WEB keeps those words: he "lifted up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah, and released him from prison" (Jeremiah 52:31). They are the words Joseph used in prison to Pharaoh's cup bearer (Genesis 40:12): "Pharaoh will lift up your head, and restore you to your office" (Genesis 40:13). Earlier in this chapter the same verb is carried: the Chaldeans "carried the bronze pieces to Babylon" (25:13), as Isaiah had told Hezekiah that all in his house "will be carried to Babylon" (20:17).
For your group
2 Kings 25 Bible study questions
- 1Gedaliah said, "Don’t be afraid… Dwell in the land" (25:24), yet the people went to Egypt "for they were afraid" (25:26). When has fear pushed you to run, when staying was what you had been told to do?
- 2The book doesn't end with the fire (25:9). It ends with a king of David's line spoken to kindly and eating bread before the king of Babylon "all the days of his life" (25:29). What does it mean to you that the story's last scene is bread and not the ruins?
- 3Matthew carries Jesus' line on through Jechoniah, the king who was carried away (Matthew 1:12). What does it say to you that the line to Jesus runs through exile and prison?
Leading a group? In Favor, everyone reads 2 Kings 25 during the week and answers these questions privately. Answers stay sealed until you meet, then appear together, and you can print the week's sheet.
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