Jehoiachin

AI summary: Jehoiachin matters because the cross references place him at the hinge between failed monarchy in Jerusalem and life in exile. He appears as the king carried away with nobles, craftsmen, and temple treasures, and later as the long-imprisoned Davidic figure finally shown favor in Babylon. That closing note of release gives his story a faint but important signal of continuing royal memory beyond national collapse. Taken together, the material presents Jehoiachin as a displaced king whose life embodies both the humiliation of exile and the persistence of Davidic identity.¹

Succeeded his father Jehoiakin (B.C. 599) when only eight years of age, and reigned for one hundred days (2 Chr. 36:9). He is also called Jeconiah (Jer. 24:1; 27:20, etc.), and Coniah (22:24; 37:1). He was succeeded by his uncle, Mattaniah = Zedekiah (q.v.). He was the last direct heir to the Jewish crown. He was carried captive to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, along with the flower of the nobility, all the leading men in Jerusalem, and a great body of the general population, some thirteen thousand in all (2 Kings 24:12-16; Jer. 52:28). After an imprisonment of thirty-seven years (Jer. 52:31, 33), he was liberated by Evil-merodach, and permitted to occupy a place in the king’s household and sit at his table, receiving “every day a portion until the day of his death, all the days of his life” (52:32-34). ³