Thursday
Evening Bible Study
April
18, 2013
Introduction
Do people see Jesus? Is the gospel
preached? Does it speak to the broken hearted? Does it build up the church? Milk
– Meat – Manna Preach for a decision Is the church loved?
After the death
of King Solomon, the
kingdom of Israel split into two nations.
The northern
kingdom would be known as “Israel”.
The southern
kingdom was known as “Judah”.
We’ve now entered
that part of history where the northern kingdom has been wiped out and
scattered through the Assyrian empire.
On the world stage,
the two big players are the Assyrians
and the Babylonians.
The Assyrians have been the dominant force, ruling over much of the world.
But the Babylonians
are on the rise.
We are just a few years away from Daniel being taken captive to Babylon in
the first captivity.
We are now in the year 622
BC. Daniel will be taken captive
in 605 BC.
We’ve seen the kingdom of Judah be ruled by good King Hezekiah, only to be
followed by his son Manasseh, the worst of the worst.
We are now looking at the reign of Manasseh’s grandson, Josiah, who will be
the best of the best.
We are in the 18th year of Josiah’s reign (622 BC), when the
Temple is being refurbished and the priests make an exciting discovery – they find the Word of God.
23:1-25 Josiah’s
Repentance
:1 Now the king sent them to gather all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem
to him.
:2 The king went up to the house of the Lord
with all the men of Judah, and with him all the inhabitants of Jerusalem—the
priests and the prophets and all the people, both small and great. And he read
in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant which had been found
in the house of the Lord.
:2 he read in their
hearing
There is an interesting law concerning kings that Josiah must have heard
when Shaphan the scribe first read it to the king.
(Dt 17:18–20 NKJV) —18
“Also it shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that
he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book, from the one
before the priests, the Levites. 19 And it shall be with him, and he shall
read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God and be careful to observe
all the words of this law and these statutes, 20 that his heart may not be lifted above his
brethren, that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right
hand or to the left, and
that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children
in the midst of Israel.
Lesson
Obedience starts with the Word
Kings needed to be reading the Word of God all the days of their life so
they would learn to fear God and do the right things.
When you realize that you are not living the right way, you need to
change. You need to get on the right
“path” of life.
Getting on the right path always starts with knowing what the path is. The path is found in the Word of God.
We too need to be in the Word daily.
Josiah is so impressed with what the Word is saying, that he in turn reads
it to the people.
:3 Then the king
stood by a pillar and made a covenant before the Lord, to follow the Lord
and to keep His commandments and His testimonies and His statutes, with all his
heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were
written in this book. And all the people took a stand for the covenant.
:3 took a stand for
the covenant
This is their way of agreeing to obey the covenant.
We are told:
(2 Ch 34:33 NKJV) Thus Josiah removed all the abominations from all the
country that belonged to the children of Israel, and made all who were
present in Israel diligently serve the Lord
their God. All his days
they did not depart from following the Lord
God of their fathers.
Josiah brought about a reformation among the people, but be careful here …
Lesson
Outward Only Changes
During Josiah’s time, the nation got rid of lots of idolatry, it had to, it
was the law of the land.
Josiah would rule for 13 more years from this point until his death (he
ruled for 31 years, this is his 18th year ...)
But after Josiah was gone, the people went back to what they REALLY wanted
to do.
The prophet Jeremiah spoke up at the beginning of Josiah’s son’s
reign. We learn that after Josiah died,
the people simply went back to their evil ways because that’s what they wanted
to do all along (Jer. 26).
(Je 26:13 NKJV) Now therefore, amend your ways and your doings, and obey the voice
of the Lord your God; then the Lord will relent concerning the doom
that He has pronounced against you.
Are the changes in your life real, or are they “enforced”?
What do you do when nobody’s around?
This is why we need a little reserve in our response when a person “accepts”
the Lord.
We hope and pray that it’s a true conversion.
The test is what happens over time, and whether or not the person actually
allows God to make changes in them.
:4 And the king
commanded Hilkiah the high priest, the priests of the second order, and the
doorkeepers, to bring out of the temple of the Lord all the articles that were made for Baal, for Asherah,
and for all the host of heaven; and he burned them outside Jerusalem in the
fields of Kidron, and carried their ashes to Bethel.
:4 the priests of the second order
When David was king, he had divided the priests into 24 divisions. Each division of priests would serve about
two weeks during the year.
It’s the “second shift” that is on duty when the Temple cleansing
begins.
:4 Kidron …
Bethel
Play Kidron and
Bethel map clip
Kidron is the brook that flows on the east side of Jerusalem and the Temple
Mount.
Bethel is the city 10 miles north of Jerusalem where King Jeroboam had set
up his alternative worship site for the northern kingdom.
They take out
all the trash, burn it in the valley next to the Temple, then haul the ashes up to
Bethel treating Bethel like a trash dump.
:5 Then he removed
the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense on
the high places in the cities of Judah and in the places all around Jerusalem,
and those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun, to the moon, to the
constellations, and to all the host of heaven.
:5 the idolatrous priests
The Hebrew text indicates that these were priests who led people into the
worship of pagan idols, not Yahweh. They
had been given their jobs by the kings of Judah.
:6 And he brought out the wooden image from the house of the Lord, to the Brook Kidron outside
Jerusalem, burned it at the Brook Kidron and ground it to ashes, and
threw its ashes on the graves of the common people.
:6 wooden image
– ‘asherah – the Babylonian goddess
of fortune and happiness
One of the things that Manasseh had done was to make an Asherah pole and
actually put it in God’s Temple. (2Ki. 21:7)
(2 Ki 21:7 NKJV) He even set a carved
image of Asherah that he had made, in the house of which the Lord had said to David and to Solomon
his son, “In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the
tribes of Israel, I will put My name forever;
:7 Then he tore down
the ritual booths of the perverted persons that were in the house
of the Lord, where the women wove
hangings for the wooden image.
:7 booths of the
perverted persons
Some of the pagan gods were worshipped through homosexual practices. Some of these male prostitutes had actually
set up “booths” or perhaps tents in the courtyard of the Temple. Wow.
In this same place in the Temple women wove some sort of tapestries that
were involved in the worship of the Asherah.
:8 And he brought
all the priests from the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the
priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beersheba; also he broke down the high
places at the gates which were at the entrance of the Gate of Joshua the
governor of the city, which were to the left of the city gate.
:8 defiled the high
places
Josiah has the Levitical priests help him to defile these illegal places of
worship. This was something that
Hezekiah had done, but they had been rebuilt after Hezekiah. Some of these might not have been pagan in
origin, but might have been for the worship of Yahweh, but they were illegal in
that they weren’t the Temple. (Deut. 12)
:8 from Geba to Beersheba
Play Geba to
Beersheba clip
When we describe the entire nation of Israel, we say “from Dan to
Beersheba” because Dan is the farthest northern place in Israel, and Beersheba
is the southernmost place.
Geba is the northernmost place in the tribe of the southern kingdom of
Judah. This is describing the entire
nation of Judah.
:9 Nevertheless
the priests of the high places did not come up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, but they ate
unleavened bread among their brethren.
:9 the priests of the high
places
There were Levitical priests who had been offering worship, presumably to
Yahweh, but on these illegal high places.
Josiah did not allow these men to come and lead worship through sacrifices
in the temple of Jerusalem. He did allow them to eat
unleavened bread with the other priests, though.
:10 And he defiled Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of
Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter pass through the fire to
Molech.
:10 he defiled
Topheth
This was the place where the Molech worshippers offered their children to Molech.
They “offered” their children by burning them in the red hot arms of the
burning statue of Molech.
:10 the Valley of
the Son of Hinnom
This is the
valley on the south side of Jerusalem. Later in history, this
valley will become the trash
dump, where trash was burned.
The phrase
“valley of Hinnom” in Hebrew is “Gehenna”.
This is the
word translated “hell” 12 times in the New Testament.
(Mt 5:22 NKJV) —22 But I say to you that whoever is angry
with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And
whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But
whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire.
Both the
burning of babies in pagan sacrifices as well as the burning of trash become a strong
picture of what “hell” is.
:11 Then he removed
the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun, at the entrance to
the house of the Lord, by the
chamber of Nathan-Melech, the officer who was in the court; and he
burned the chariots of the sun with fire.
These horses and their chariots were used in some pagan ritual honoring the
sun.
:12 The altars that were on the roof, the upper chamber of Ahaz,
which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in
the two courts of the house of the Lord,
the king broke down and pulverized there, and threw their dust into the Brook
Kidron.
:12 altars that were
on the roof
It is thought that Ahaz had built these altars for the worship of the stars and planets.
Jeremiah writes about
(Je 19:13 NKJV) …the houses on whose roofs they have burned incense to all the host
of heaven, and poured out drink offerings to other gods.
:13 Then the king
defiled the high places that were east of Jerusalem, which were
on the south of the Mount of Corruption, which Solomon king of Israel had built
for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the abomination of
the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the people of Ammon.
:13 the Mount of
Corruption
This was the southern
part of the Mount of Olives (a series of connected hills east of Jerusalem).
:13 Solomon
… had built for Ashtoreth
In his later years, Solomon’s wives turned his heart away from the Lord and
he set up these altars to foreign gods. (1Ki. 11:4-8)
(1 Ki 11:4–8 NKJV) —4 For it was so, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned
his heart after other gods; and his heart was not loyal to the Lord his God, as was the heart
of his father David. 5 For
Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the
abomination of the Ammonites. 6 Solomon
did evil in the sight of the Lord,
and did not fully follow the Lord,
as did his father David. 7 Then
Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, on the hill
that is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech the abomination of the people
of Ammon. 8 And he did likewise
for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods.
It’s kind of interesting that Solomon’s idols were still around in Josiah’s
day, four hundred years later.
Sometimes it’s the oldest habits that are the hardest to change.
Lesson
Made to Worship
Have you noticed how many different things were “worshipped”?
Man was made to worship.
There is
something deep inside of us that knows that we must worship something.
The problem comes when we choose to worship everything but the One True
God.
:14 And he broke
in pieces the sacred pillars and cut down the wooden images, and filled
their places with the bones of men.
:14 filled their
places with the bones of men
This is the best way to “gross out” the “gods” of these places of idol
worship.
If you look at the parallel passage in Chronicles, you will find out that
Josiah actually started “cleansing” the land back in his 8th year.
(2 Ch 34:3 NKJV) For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, he
began to seek the God of his father David; and in the twelfth year he began to
purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the wooden images, the carved
images, and the molded images.
It’s now ten
years later, and just look at all this stuff that still needs to be dealt with.
Before, he was operating according to his conscience, hopefully being led
somewhat by the Spirit of God.
Yet now he’s operating according to God’s Word.
Lesson
God’s Cleansing Word
We can certainly grow a lot as we simply learn to obey the leading of the
Holy Spirit.
But the problem is that the Holy Spirit has to work through a sinful
person, you.
And we don’t always like to be as honest with ourselves as we ought to be.
We tell ourselves, “Well, just a few nice pictures of
pretty girls can’t be all that bad ... after all, it’s all part of God’s
creation, isn’t it?”
We can be pretty easy on ourselves.
But when immerse ourselves in God’s Word, we learn the truth about what
needs work in our lives.
(Heb 4:12 NKJV) For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than
any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of
joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
God’s Word gets right to the point.
(2 Ti 3:16–17 NKJV) —16
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is
profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness, 17 that the man
of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
I’ve been a Christian now for over forty years. And I think I can honestly say that I am
still continuing to grow in my walk.
There are plenty of things that I have dealt with years ago, things I no
longer practice.
But the more I stay in the Word, the more I realize that I’ve got miles and
miles and miles to go.
:15 Moreover the
altar that was at Bethel, and the high place which Jeroboam the
son of Nebat, who made Israel sin, had made, both that altar and the high place
he broke down; and he burned the high place and crushed it to powder,
and burned the wooden image.
:15 the altar that was
at Bethel
Bethel – “the house of God”
This was the big thing that had contributed the most to the fall of the
northern kingdom.
When Jeroboam
split off from the southern kingdom, he had worried that if his people were
allowed to go back to Jerusalem to worship during the regular feasts, that they
might end up leaving his country for good.
So he devised a
counterfeit religion, to keep the people satisfied, and they worshipped golden
calves in the cities of Dan in the north, and Bethel in south of Israel.
:16 As Josiah turned,
he saw the tombs that were there on the mountain. And he sent and took
the bones out of the tombs and burned them on the altar, and defiled it
according to the word of the Lord
which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words.
:16 according to
the word
Over three hundred
years earlier, during the days when Jeroboam had set up his false worship, a
prophet from Judah came north to Bethel and warned that it would be destroyed one
day…
(1 Ki 13:2 NKJV) Then he cried out against the altar by the word of the Lord, and said, “O altar, altar! Thus
says the Lord: ‘Behold, a child, Josiah by name, shall be
born to the house of David; and on you he shall sacrifice the priests of the
high places who burn incense on you, and men’s bones shall be burned on you.’ ”
The prophecy even mentions Josiah by name.
Our Josiah is the first king of Judah with this name.
Lesson
God has a plan for you.
Josiah isn’t the only one that God has had a plan for.
(Eph 2:10 NKJV) For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,
which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
We are God’s workmanship, His “poema”, His “made-things”, His works of beauty.
God has “good works” which He was already set up ahead of
time for us to do.
All we have to do is find them and do them.
Play
“Patrick Hughes Blind
Musician” clip
I think we need to be careful about thinking that God
can’t use us. He certainly can.
:17 Then he said, “What
gravestone is this that I see?” So the men of the city told him, “It
is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and proclaimed these
things which you have done against the altar of Bethel.”
:18 And he said, “Let him alone; let no one move his bones.” So they let
his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria.
:18 let no one move his bones
Out of respect for the prophet that had prophesied concerning himself, he
let the guy’s bones alone.
The prophet who came from Samaria
was the fellow who pretended that God wanted this Judean prophet to come to his
house, persuaded the prophet to disobey what God had clearly spoken to him
(don’t stop and visit with anyone) when in fact he was lying (1Ki. 13). When the Judean prophet was then killed by a
lion, the old lying prophet told his sons …
(1 Ki 13:31 NKJV) …“When I
am dead, then bury me in the tomb where the man of God is buried; lay my
bones beside his bones.
:19 Now Josiah also took away all the shrines of the high places that were
in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke the Lord to anger; and he did to them
according to all the deeds he had done in Bethel.
:20 He executed all the priests of the high places who were there,
on the altars, and burned men’s bones on them; and he returned to Jerusalem.
:19 that were
in the cities of Samaria
Keep in mind, the cities of Samaria, as well as Bethel were in the original
kingdom of Israel under Solomon, but they are not in Josiah’s kingdom of Judah.
These cities of Samaria are now inhabited by people that had been brought
into the land by the Assyrians.
Josiah is taking his reform programs beyond his own borders.
:21 Then the king
commanded all the people, saying, “Keep the Passover to the Lord your God, as it is written
in this Book of the Covenant.”
:22 Such a Passover surely had never been held since the days of the judges
who judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of
Judah.
:23 But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah this Passover was held before
the Lord in Jerusalem.
:22 Such a Passover
surely had never been held …
The Passover was Israel’s oldest feast, celebrating the one event that
really pulled them together as a nation, when they were delivered from slavery
in Egypt.
It celebrated the one event that made them a free nation.
You can read more details about this Passover in 2Chron.35.
The parallel passage states:
(2 Ch 35:18 NKJV) There had been no Passover kept in Israel like that since the days
of Samuel the prophet; and none of the kings of Israel had kept such a Passover
as Josiah kept, with the priests and the Levites, all Judah and Israel who were
present, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
That’s quite a statement, considering the people that had been around
between Samuel’s day and Josiah’s day.
That includes people like King David, Solomon, Jehoshaphat, and even Josiah’s
great-grandfather, Hezekiah.
Hezekiah had held a Passover after restoring temple worship, but his Passover
had some problems:
They had to hold it a month late because the people couldn’t
get spiritually prepared in time.
Many of the priests were still spiritually unready when
they celebrated, and the people also had arrived at the feast in an “unclean”
condition.
When people from the north had been invited to the feast,
they only laughed at Hezekiah.
It means that
Josiah’s was the best Passover ever. The feast was held exactly as the Lord had
commanded it should be.
:24 Moreover
Josiah put away those who consulted mediums and spiritists, the household gods
and idols, all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in
Jerusalem, that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the
book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the Lord.
:25 Now before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his
soul, and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses; nor after him
did any arise like him.
:25 no king like him
Josiah is the best of the best.
:25 heart, with all
his soul, and with all his might
heart – lebab -
inner man, mind, will, heart, soul, understanding
soul – nephesh - soul, living being, desire,
emotion, passion
might – m@‘od -
might, force, abundance
There’s only one other verse in the Bible that uses these same three Hebrew
words (heart, soul, might) like this:
(Dt 6:5 NKJV) You shall love the Lord
your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
Lesson
The Whole Person
Christians can fall into several categories.
There are those
who revel in the passionate side of being a Christian.
They love to express themselves in worship. They thrill in the emotional side of things.
There are those
who are a bit more brainy.
They know the finer side of apologetics. They can talk about Greek verbs and know
their way around theological terms like prelapsarian and postmillennialism.
There are those
who place great emphasis on obedience.
They are in five accountability groups. Their friends say they are a bit legalistic.
The problem is, we are all supposed to love God with all three.
Our walk with God ought to involve our mind, our passions, and our
“strength” (obedience).
23:26-27 Judgment
still coming
:26 Nevertheless the Lord did
not turn from the fierceness of His great wrath, with which His anger was
aroused against Judah, because of all the provocations with which Manasseh had
provoked Him.
:27 And the Lord said, “I
will also remove Judah from My sight, as I have removed Israel, and will cast
off this city Jerusalem which I have chosen, and the house of which I said, ‘My
name shall be there.’ ”
:26 the Lord did not turn
It was already too late. God’s judgment for the many years of the peoples’
sin was already on its way.
It’s not that Josiah’s revival didn’t do any good.
We saw last week that God promised to wait until after Josiah was king for
the judgment to come.
Lesson
Judgment is still coming
We need to have our eyes opened that even if there is one last great
revival before the Lord comes back, it still won’t change the fact that He must
bring judgment on the world.
But there’s no reason we shouldn’t be praying to snatch as many as we can
from the jaws of hell.
:16 because of …
Manasseh
Even with Manasseh, even though he repented, he had caused such widespread
immorality, that the nation never recovered from it.
23:28-30 Josiah
Dies
:28 Now the rest of the acts of Josiah, and all that he did, are
they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
:29 In his days Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt went to the aid of the king of
Assyria, to the River Euphrates; and King Josiah went against him. And Pharaoh
Necho killed him at Megiddo when he confronted him.
:30 Then his servants moved his body in a chariot from Megiddo, brought him
to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own tomb. And the people of the land took
Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, anointed him, and made him king in his father’s
place.
:29 days Pharaoh …
went to the aid of … Assyria
By 609 BC, the
Assyrians had already lost their capital of Nineveh to the Babylonians.
The Assyrians were camped out at Carchemish, on the Euphrates River.
The Egyptians
were more afraid of the Babylonians than they were of the Assyrians, so they
decided to take their armies north to Carchemish to help out the Assyrians
against Babylon.
Eventually by
605 BC, the Babylonians would win at Carchemish under Nebuchadnezzar.
:29 King Josiah
went against him
Josiah appears
to have favored the Babylonians in the scheme of things and thought that as the
Egyptians made their way north to Carchemish, he would help out by taking on
the Egyptians.
Josiah challenges Necho at Megiddo, which stands at the pass on the road
northward along the coastal plain in Israel.
The writer of Chronicles gives us more details:
(2 Ch 35:20–21 NKJV) —20
After all this, when Josiah had prepared the temple, Necho king of
Egypt came up to fight against Carchemish by the Euphrates; and Josiah went out
against him. 21 But he sent
messengers to him, saying, “What have I to do with you, king of Judah? I
have not come against you this day, but against the house with which
I have war; for God commanded me to make haste. Refrain from meddling with
God, who is with me, lest He destroy you.”
In the end, Necho
was right. And Josiah ended up dead.
Lesson
No exemptions from stupidity
It is wrong to think that if you are living your life in a godly fashion
that you are invincible.
Jesus was
tempted by Satan to do something stupid.
(Mt 4:5–7 NKJV) —5 Then the
devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 and said to Him,
“If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He
shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, In their hands they shall
bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’ ” 7 Jesus said to
him, “It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’ ”
There’s no excuse for doing stupid things.
Play “Lighting
pants on fire” video.
If you do
stupid things, God may not rescue you.
I think we ought to think twice when we don’t do wise things like taking
care of our health, getting regular checkups, exercising, etc.
23:31-34 Johoahaz
:31 Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he
reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal the
daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.
:32 And he did evil in the sight of the Lord,
according to all that his fathers had done.
:33 Now Pharaoh Necho put him in prison at Riblah in the land of Hamath,
that he might not reign in Jerusalem; and he imposed on the land a tribute of
one hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.
:34 Then Pharaoh Necho made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in place of his
father Josiah, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. And Pharaoh took
Jehoahaz and went to Egypt, and he died there.
:31 Jehoahaz
When Josiah is killed, the nation makes Jehoahaz king. Jehoahaz has another name as well, “Shallum”.
:31 put him in
prison at Riblah
Because Necho had beaten Josiah in battle, he now exercises his “rights” as
conqueror to name his own king. After
interviewing Jehoahaz, he realizes that he isn’t too sympathetic to the
Egyptians, so he lands in prison.
Play Riblah map
video
Riblah is 200 miles north of Jerusalem, halfway to Carchemish.
:33 he imposed on
the land a tribute
100 talents
of silver = 3 ¾ tons of silver
a talent of
gold = 75 pounds of gold
It’s at this time that the Lord gives a prophecy to Jeremiah regarding
Jehoahaz (Jer. 22:10-13),
he’s going to die in captivity.
(Je 22:10–13 NKJV) —10 Weep not for the dead, nor bemoan him;
Weep bitterly for him who goes away, For he shall return no more, Nor see his
native country. 11 For thus says the Lord concerning Shallum the son of
Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned instead of Josiah his father, who went from
this place: “He shall not return here anymore, 12 but
he shall die in the place where they have led him captive, and shall see this
land no more. 13 “Woe to him who
builds his house by unrighteousness And his chambers by injustice, Who
uses his neighbor’s service without wages And gives him nothing for his work,
:34 Eliakim …
Jehoiakim
Necho chooses another son of Josiah as king and gives him a slightly new
name, showing who is boss.
His name changes from “God
raises up” to “Yahweh
raises up”.
23:35-37 Jehoiakim
:35 So Jehoiakim gave the silver and gold to Pharaoh; but he taxed the land
to give money according to the command of Pharaoh; he exacted the silver and
gold from the people of the land, from every one according to his assessment,
to give it to Pharaoh Necho.
:36 Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he
reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zebudah the
daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah.
:37 And he did evil in the sight of the Lord,
according to all that his fathers had done.
:37 he did evil
Another bad king…