2 Chronicles 35-36: The Fall of Judah

We trace Judah’s final arc from Josiah’s remarkable Passover to the fall of Jerusalem and the surprising hope in Cyrus’s decree, and we set up a chronological journey through the Minor Prophets to see God’s heart across the same timeline. We share a free visual guide to help map kings to prophets for clarity and deeper engagement.

• Josiah restores worship and leads an unmatched Passover
• A fatal decision at Megiddo ends a season of reform
• Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah accelerate decline
• Prophetic warnings from Jeremiah and Ezekiel are ignored
• Babylon destroys the temple and deports the people
• Seventy years of exile fulfill Jeremiah’s word
• Cyrus authorizes return and rebuilding in Jerusalem
• Why Chronicles speaks to a returning community
• Next: reading Minor Prophets roughly in order
• Free resource to visualize prophets to kings for study

Go check out that Kings and Prophets download at the website, outloudbible.com/resources. 

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Transcript

Setting The Stage: Judah’s Kings

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Welcome back to the Out Loud Bible Project Podcast, and this is Mike, and uh we get to conclude the book of 2 Chronicles today. That'll be a good good wrap to a pretty interesting book. We've been following the lines of kings of specifically the southern kingdom of Judah. Last time we read about Manasseh, who had a very long reign, most of it very bad, evil, just leading the people into idolatry and committing some of the most horrendous sins in the history, especially of the southern kingdom. But yet, when he was being carried away into exile, he legitimately humbled himself. He genuinely repented. God heard him, God saw him, God granted him mercy and grace to bring him back, and he then concluded his reign, fixing all the things that he had done wrong in the first place, getting the people right back on track. So really great example of God's mercy. I love that. His son, Amon, well, he did not learn from his father's example. He was evil, and he liked the first part of his dad's reign. I don't know. But his reign didn't last long, just a couple years, and uh some people around him killed him and set up his son, Josiah, as King Josiah. We got to see the beginning of his story. He worked to clean everything up and get the ship back on track, and uh in doing so discovered the law, a scroll of the law in the temple, had been forgotten, it had been neglected. So he had it read to the entire assembly of all the people, like a big out loud Bible experience, live in front of everyone, and then began to do more of the things like, okay, we gotta do this, we gotta get back to the ceremonies, we gotta get back to the things that God wants us to do. So we pick up the story here in 2 Chronicles 35. Josiah observed a Passover festival for the Lord in Jerusalem. They slaughtered the Passover lambs on the fourteenth day of the first month. He appointed the priests to fulfill their duties and encouraged them to carry out their service in the Lord's temple. He told the Levites, who instructed all Israel about things consecrated to the Lord, place the holy ark in the temple which King Solomon's son of David of Israel built. Don't carry it on your shoulders. Now, serve the Lord your God and his people Israel. Prepare yourselves by your families according to your divisions, as instructed in writing by King David of Israel and his son Solomon. Stand in the sanctuary, and together with the Levites, represent the family divisions of your countrymen. Slaughter the Passover lambs, consecrate yourselves, and make preparations for your countrymen to celebrate, according to the Lord's message which came through Moses. From his own royal flocks and herds, Josiah supplied the people with thirty thousand lambs and goats for the Passover sacrifice, as well as three thousand cattle. His officials also willingly contributed to the people, priests and Levites. Hilkiah, Zechariah, and Jehiel, the leaders of God's temple, gave the priests twenty-six hundred Passover sacrifices and three hundred cattle. Konaniah and his brothers Shemiah and Nethanel, along with Hashabiah, Jael, and Josebad, the officials of the Levites, supplied the Levites with five thousand Passover sacrifices and five hundred cattle. Preparations were made, and the priests stood at their posts, and the Levites in their divisions, as prescribed by the king. They slaughtered the Passover lambs, and the priests splashed the blood, while the Levites skinned the animals. They reserved the burnt offerings and the cattle for the family divisions of the people to present to the Lord as prescribed in the scroll of Moses. They cooked the Passover sacrifices over the open fire, as prescribed, and cooked the consecrated offerings in pots, kettles, and pans. They quickly served them to all the people. Afterward they made preparations for themselves and for the priests, because the priests, the descendants of Aaron, were offering burnt sacrifices and portions until evening. The Levites made preparations for themselves and for the priests, the descendants of Aaron. The musicians, the descendants of Asaph, manned their posts as prescribed by David, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthan, the king's prophet. The guards at the various gates didn't need to leave their posts, for their fellow Levites made preparations for them, so all the preparations for the Lord's service were made that day, as the Passover was observed, and the burnt sacrifices were offered on the altar of the Lord, as prescribed by King Josiah. So the Israelites who were present observed the Passover at that time, as well as the feast of unleavened bread for seven days. A Passover like this had not been observed in Israel since the days of Samuel the prophet. None of the kings of Israel had observed Passover like the one celebrated by Josiah, the priests, the Levites, all the people of Judah and Israel who were there and the residents of Jerusalem. This Passover was observed in the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign. After Josiah had done all this for the temple, King Neko of Egypt marched up to do battle at Carchimish on the Euphrates River. Okay, so this is nowhere near Judah, by the way. Josiah marched out to oppose him. Nico sent messengers to him, saying, Why are you opposing me, O king of Judah? I'm not attacking you today, but the kingdom with which I'm at war. God told me to hurry, so stop opposing God who is with me, or else he'll destroy you. But Josiah didn't turn back from him. He disguised himself for battle. He didn't take seriously the words of Nico which he had received from God, he went to fight him in the plain of Megiddo. Archers shot King Josiah. The king ordered his servants take me out of the chariot, for I'm seriously wounded. So his servants took him out of the chariot, put him in another chariot that he owned, and brought him to Jerusalem, where he died. He was buried in the tombs of his ancestors. All the people of Judah and Jerusalem mourned Josiah. Jeremiah composed laments for Josiah, which all the male and female singers use to mourn Josiah to this very day. It's been customary in Israel to sing these. They're recorded in the Book of Laments. The rest of the events of Josiah's reign, including the faithful acts he did in obedience to what is written in the law of the Lord and his accomplishments, from start to finish are recorded in the scroll of the kings of Israel in Judah. The people of the land took Jehoahaz, son of Josiah, and made him king in his father's place in Jerusalem. Jehoahaz was twenty three years old when he became king, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. The king of Egypt prevented him from ruling in Jerusalem and imposed on the land a special tax of one hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. The king of Egypt made Jehoahaz's brother Eliakim king over Judah and Jerusalem, and changed his name to Jehoakim. Nico seized his brother Jehoaz and took him to Egypt. Jehoakim was twenty five years old when he became king, and he reigned for eleven years in Jerusalem. He did evil in the sight of the Lord his God. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon attacked him, bound him with bronze chains, and carried him away to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar took some of the items in the Lord's temple to Babylon and put them in his palace there. The rest of the events of Jehoiakim's reign, including the horrible sins he committed and his shortcomings, are recorded in the scroll of the kings of Israel and Judah. His son, Jehoiakin, replaced him as king. Jehoiakin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem. He did evil in the sight of the Lord. At the beginning of the year, King Nebuchadnezzar ordered him to be brought to Babylon, along with the valuable items in the Lord's temple. In his place Nebuchadnezzar made Jehoiakim's relative Zedekiah king over Judah and Jerusalem. Zedekiah was twenty one years old when he became king, and he ruled for eleven years in Jerusalem. He did evil in the sight of the Lord his God. He did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, the Lord's spokesman. Guys, this is not good, because remember, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, these are the prophets who are speaking to these southern kingdom kings at the time, saying, Hey, Israel's already been taken away to Assyria. You're going to be taken away to Babylon if you don't shape up. And the kings of the southern kingdom that are just going downhill so fast are paying no attention to the Lord's prophets. Jeremiah is being ignored. Ezekiel thinks is being thought he's a crazy person. We're seeing these overlaps between these major prophets, and we're also going to see some of the minor prophets later, and these kings here. It's all overlapping. They're all contemporaries here over the course of the time where God is desperately trying to convince his people to repent and return to him. But here we go, we see the dumpster fire continue. Talking about Zedekiah, he also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him vow allegiance in the name of God. He was stubborn and obstinate and refused to return to the Lord God of Israel. All the leaders of the priests and people became more unfaithful and committed the same horrible sins practiced by the nations. They defiled the Lord's temple which he had consecrated in Jerusalem. The Lord God of their ancestors continually warned them through his messengers, for he felt compassion for his people and his dwelling place. But they mocked God's messengers, despised his warnings, and ridiculed his prophets. Finally the Lord got very angry at his people, and there was no one who could prevent his judgment. He brought against them the king of the Babylonians, who slaughtered their young men in their temple. He didn't spare young men or women, or even the old and aging. God handed everyone over to him. He carried away to Babylon all the items in God's temple, whether large or small, as well as what was in the treasuries of the Lord's temple and in the treasuries of the king and his officials. They burned down God's temple and tore down the wall of Jerusalem. They burned all its fortified buildings and destroyed all its valuable items. He deported to Babylon all who escaped the sword. One of those is Daniel, we read about in the book of Daniel. They served him and his sons until the Persian kingdom rose to power. This took place to fulfill the Lord's message spoken through Jeremiah, and lasted until the land experienced its sabbatical years. All the time of its desolation the land rested in order to fulfill the seventy years. In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, in fulfillment of the Lord's message spoken through Jeremiah, the Lord motivated King Cyrus of Persia to issue a proclamation throughout his kingdom, and also to put it in writing. It read, This is what King Cyrus of Persia says. He's appointed me to build a temple for him in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Any one of his people among you may go up there, and may the Lord his God be with him. And that concludes the book of Second Chronicles. Remember when we started the book of First Chronicles and going into Second Chronicles, I mentioned how these books were written for the people who were coming back from the exile that we just read about happening here at the end of the book. So when they're reading this book, they would have gotten to the point at the end of the book like we just did and be able to say, and that's how we got to where we are today. And so this was supposed to be a reminder for them of look what happened. And it's partly a warning of don't do this again, but but more intentionally supposed to be like a remember your heritage, remember where you came from, be encouraged that God has had a plan for you to live back in the land all along. Okay, and yes, your ancestors abandoned God and received the just p just punishment for it, and that has affected you and your generation, but now you get to come back, you get to have a fresh start, and don't forget who you are, don't forget your place at the center of God's heart. Now we also need to remember, and I mentioned it in this episode earlier and kind of throughout this book, that the books of the Bible are not in chronological order in the way that they happened, because there were a lot of things going on at the same time, and a lot of different voices to be heard at the same time, especially during this time of the kings as they were going into decline, as they were drifting away from God. God had a lot of prophetic activity, a lot of prophets voicing God's heart to the kings, to the leaders, to the people. And so we see, yes, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel being the major prophets that are speaking to the kings of Israel and Judah. However, there were a lot of other prophets. They're called minor prophets, not that they were less important. Frankly, they just had less to say, I guess, or at least less that we have recorded. In fact, in one earlier iteration of the Bible, all of those minor prophets were lumped into one book because they all were talking to the evil kings of Israel and Judah and even some of the surrounding nations, uh, delivering God's warning and communicating God's heart to try to help them avoid the punishment of going into exile. So while the stories here in 1 Chronicles and 2 Chronicles are still relatively fresh on our mind, we're going to look at the rest of the books of the Old Testament here that we haven't covered yet. That's the Minor Prophets plus Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. Now, technically, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther are the next books right after 2 Chronicles as they appear in the Bible. But we're going to take the rest of these books, the minor prophets plus Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. We're going to take them chronologically, roughly, as as well as we can, so that we can see how God's heart unfolded here for the kings that we just read about. So it should be a really interesting study. We get to see some really cool glimpses of God's heart through the minor prophets and some really interesting angles on the different situations that we've read about here in the Kings. Now I get it when we talk about all these kings and prophets and how they're contemporaries and are a lot of overlaps of who's talking to who and when, it can be kind of confusing. So I put together a new resource. It's called Kings and Prophets, and it's free. It's a free download from our website, outloudbible.com. And uh if you're more of a visual person and you want to have a better grasp of who's talking to who and when and where uh through the kings and the prophets that we've been reading, I'd recommend that. And uh I think it's gonna be great for your understanding and great for uh being able to enjoy even more what we're about to read and what we have read. So go check out that Kings and Prophets download at the website. I hope that's a blessing to you and helps you understand and engage with the Word of God. Hear it, love it, live it. Let's keep going as we go into the books of the minor prophets here next. We'll see you then here on the Out Loud Bible Project Podcast.