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2 Chronicles36:9–10

Jehoiachin Reigns in Judah

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2 Chronicles 36:9–10 — Jehoiachin Reigns in Judah. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.

9

Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months and ten days. And he did evil in the sight of the LORD.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

yə·hō·w·yā·ḵîn šə·mō·w·neh šā·nîm ben- bə·mā·lə·ḵōw mā·laḵ bî·rū·šā·lim ū·šə·lō·šāh ḥo·ḏā·šîm wa·‘ă·śe·reṯ yā·mîm way·ya·‘aś hā·ra‘ bə·‘ê·nê Yah·weh

Word by word15 · parsed
יְהוֹיָכִ֣יןyə·hō·w·yā·ḵînJehoiachinH3078
√ Yᵉhôwyâkîyn — Jehojakin, a Jewish kingNounpropermasculine singular
שְׁמוֹנֶ֤הšə·mō·w·nehwas eighteenH8083
√ shᵉmôneh — a cardinal number, eight (as if a surplus above the 'perfect' seven)Numberfeminine singular
shᵉmôneh: eight The most contested word in the unit. K&D: “The number eight is clearly an orthographical error, as Thenius also acknowledges,” and he settles it not by counting manuscripts but by Ezekiel 19:5-9, where Jehoiachin “knew widows,” which “cannot apply to a boy of eight.” Cambridge is more cautious, noting that LXX (B) supports eight, and floats the conjecture that “and ten days” below is a displaced fragment of an original ben shĕmôneh esreh shanah. Geneva alone does not emend at all: it harmonizes by co-regency. The ⚙ reader should know that every English “eighteen” here is a decision, not a translation.
שָׁנִים֙šā·nîmyearsH8141
√ shâneh — a year (as a revolution of time)Nounfeminine plural
בֶּן־ben-oldH1121
√ bên — a son (as a builder of the family name), in the widest sense (of literal and figurative relationship, including grandson, subject, nation, quality or condition, etcNounmasculine singular construct
bên: son Function noun in the age formula (“son of eight years”), but worth one glance: the Chronicler's whole architecture is sons of David succeeding sons of David, and the formula that has run since 1 Chronicles is now running out.
בְּמָלְכ֔וֹbə·mā·lə·ḵōwwhen he became kingH4427
√ mâlak — to reignPreposition-bVerbQalInfinitive constructthird person masculine singular
mâlak: to reign (Qal infinitive construct with preposition) “In his becoming king,” the standard accession formula of Kings and Chronicles. Its ordinariness is the point: the form used for Asa, Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah is used for a boy who will hold the throne for a hundred days.
מָלַ֖ךְmā·laḵand he reignedH4427
√ mâlak — to reignVerbQalPerfectthird person masculine singular
mâlak: to reign (Qal perfect) The same root as 4, now a completed act. In v. 10 the root returns in the Hifil with a foreign subject: Nebuchadnezzar causes the next man to reign. Within two verses the verb of David's house changes hands.
בִּירוּשָׁלִָ֑םbî·rū·šā·limin JerusalemH3389
√ Yᵉrûwshâlaim — Jerushalaim or Jerushalem, the capital city of PalestinePreposition-bNounproperfeminine singular
וּשְׁלֹשָׁ֤הū·šə·lō·šāhthreeH7969
√ shâlôwsh — threeConjunctive wawNumbermasculine singular
חֳדָשִׁים֙ḥo·ḏā·šîmmonthsH2320
√ chôdesh — the new moonNounmasculine plural
chôdesh: new moon, month Three months. Kings says the same; the Chronicler adds the days.
וַעֲשֶׂ֣רֶתwa·‘ă·śe·reṯand tenH6235
√ ʻeser — ten (as an accumulation to the extent of the digits)Conjunctive wawNumbermasculine singular construct
יָמִ֔יםyā·mîmdaysH3117
√ yôwm — a day (as the warm hours), whether literal (from sunrise to sunset, or from one sunset to the next), or figurative (a space of time defined by an associated term), (often used adverb)Nounmasculine plural
yôwm: day “And ten days.” Ellicott records Thenius' suggestion that the ten days were added so that the fall of Jehoiachin would land on a tenth of the month, matching the investment and fall of Jerusalem under Zedekiah. Cambridge suspects instead that these two words are the stray remains of the numeral “eighteen.” Two respectable scholars, two opposite explanations of the same three syllables: the honest report is that we do not know.
וַיַּ֥עַשׂway·ya·‘aśAnd he didH6213
√ ʻâsâh — to do or make, in the broadest sense and widest applicationConjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singular
ʻâsâh: to do, make (Qal consecutive imperfect) The verb of the whole formula. Note what it is not attached to: no policy, no war, no building. In one hundred days the only recorded act of this king is the doing of the evil. K&D compresses it exactly: “Jehoiachin ruled only three months and ten days in Jerusalem, and did evil in the eyes of Jahve.”
הָרַ֖עhā·ra‘evilH7451
√ raʻ — bad or (as noun) evil (natural or moral)ArticleAdjectivemasculine singular
raʻ: bad, evil (with article) The definite article turns a moral adjective into the standing charge of the book. Ellicott points beyond the formula to Ezekiel's portrait: Jehoiachin “devoured men, and forced widows, and wasted cities.” The Chronicler declines to itemize; he has one word for it, and it is the same word he used for the man's father.
בְּעֵינֵ֥יbə·‘ê·nêin the sightH5869
√ ʻayin — an eye (literally or figuratively)Preposition-bNouncdc
ʻayin: eye The covenant courtroom of Kings and Chronicles: evil is not measured by outcome but by what the eyes of YHWH see. The Chronicler has used this noun the other way round as well, in Hanani's word to Asa at 2 Chronicles 16:9, where the eyes of YHWH range through the whole earth to strengthen those whose heart is whole toward him. The same watching eyes that sought out loyalty in chapter 16 register evil here. A reign too short to leave a policy is not too short to be seen.
יְהוָֽה׃Yah·wehof the LORDH3068
√ Yᵉhôvâh — Jehovah, Jewish national name of GodNounpropermasculine singular
Yᵉhôvâh: the divine name The name stands last in the Hebrew clause, after the eyes. Nebuchadnezzar will fill the next verse with his own name and his own verbs, but the sentence that judges this reign ends where the book ends: with YHWH.
10

In the spring, King Nebuchadnezzar summoned Jehoiachin and brought him to Babylon, along with the articles of value from the house of the LORD. And he made Jehoiachin’s relative Zedekiah king over Judah and Jerusalem.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

wə·liṯ·šū·ḇaṯ haš·šā·nāh ham·me·leḵ nə·ḇū·ḵaḏ·neṣ·ṣar šā·laḥ way·ḇi·’ê·hū ḇā·ḇe·lāh ‘im- kə·lê ḥem·daṯ bêṯ- Yah·weh ’ā·ḥîw ṣiḏ·qî·yā·hū way·yam·lêḵ ’eṯ- ‘al- yə·hū·ḏāh wî·rū·šā·lim

Word by word19 · parsed
וְלִתְשׁוּבַ֣תwə·liṯ·šū·ḇaṯIn the springH8666
√ tᵉshûwbâh — a recurrence (of time or place)Conjunctive waw, Preposition-lNounfeminine singular construct
tᵉshûwbâh: a return, recurrence A rare noun (8 verses) whose other homes are the campaign formula of 2 Samuel 11:1, 1 Kings 20:22 and 1 Chronicles 20:1. Ellicott, Benson, Poole and Cambridge all gloss it the same way: the season “when kings usually went forth to war.” The Chronicler dates the end of a Davidic reign by the calendar of Gentile armies. ⚙ The one thing that still returns on schedule in this chapter is the campaign season.
הַשָּׁנָ֗הhaš·šā·nāh. . .H8141
√ shâneh — a year (as a revolution of time)ArticleNounfeminine singular
הַמֶּ֣לֶךְham·me·leḵKingH4428
√ melek — a kingArticleNounmasculine singular
נְבֽוּכַדְנֶאצַּ֔רnə·ḇū·ḵaḏ·neṣ·ṣarNebuchadnezzarH5019
√ Nᵉbûwkadneʼtstsar — Nebukadnetstsar (or -retstsar, or -retstsor), king of BabylonNounpropermasculine singular
Nᵉbûwkadneʼtstsar: Nebuchadnezzar He enters as the grammatical subject of sending, bringing and enthroning. In the Chronicler's syntax the initiative has passed entirely out of Jerusalem, and he does not soften it with a word about YHWH's hand until later in the chapter.
שָׁלַח֙šā·laḥsummoned [Jehoiachin]H7971
√ shâlach — to send away, for, or out (in a great variety of applications)VerbQalPerfectthird person masculine singular
shâlach: to send Objectless. The verb that in the prophets describes YHWH sending messengers to Judah (compare Henry on this chapter: God calling back sinners “by his word, by ministers”) is here what Babylon does instead.
וַיְבִאֵ֣הוּway·ḇi·’ê·hūand brought himH935
√ bôwʼ — to go or come (in a wide variety of applications)Conjunctive wawVerbHifilConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singularthird person masculine singular
bôwʼ: to come, go (Hifil) Causative: “he caused him to come.” The Hifil is the grammar of deportation. It is also, precisely, the grammar of the exodus reversed: the verb that brought Israel into the land now brings her king out of it.
בָבֶ֔לָהḇā·ḇe·lāhto BabylonH894
√ Bâbel — Babel (iNounproperfeminine singularthird person feminine singular
Bâbel: Babylon With the directional ending (Bāḇelāh), “Babylon-ward.” Cambridge adds what the Chronicler omits: “It was not the king only, but also all the best of the people, ‘the princes, … men of valour, the craftsmen and the smiths’ who went into captivity.”
עִם־‘im-along withH5973
√ ʻim — adverb or preposition, with (iPreposition
כְּלֵ֖יkə·lêthe articlesH3627
√ kᵉlîy — something prepared, iNounmasculine plural construct
kᵉlîy: vessel, article The temple furniture. Ellicott notes that “some of the vessels” had already gone in v. 7; this is the second stripping, and a third is coming. The Chronicler counts the emptying of the house in installments.
חֶמְדַּ֣תḥem·daṯof valueH2532
√ chemdâh — delightNounfeminine singular construct
chemdâh: delight, desire Desirableness, not price. Henry, on this whole passage, calls Jerusalem the “delight” of God (“If that delight of thine were cut off for wickedness, let us not be high-minded, but fear”). ⚙ The same category of word is used of what God desired in Zion and of what Babylon wanted out of it.
בֵּית־bêṯ-from the houseH1004
√ bayith — a house (in the greatest variation of applications, especially family, etcNounmasculine singular construct
bayith: house Not “temple” but house. The house of YHWH is emptied in the same verse in which the house of David is handed a king by a foreigner. The Chronicler sets the two houses side by side and does not comment.
יְהוָ֑הYah·wehof the LORDH3068
√ Yᵉhôvâh — Jehovah, Jewish national name of GodNounpropermasculine singular
אָחִ֔יו’ā·ḥîwAnd he made Jehoiachin’s relativeH251
√ ʼâch — a brother (used in the widest sense of literal relationship and metaphorical affinity or resemblance (like father))Nounmasculine singular constructthird person masculine singular
ʼâch: brother, kinsman The crux of the verse. Ellicott, Benson, Poole, Barnes, Cambridge and K&D agree that Zedekiah was in fact Jehoiachin's uncle, a son of Josiah, and that ʼâch is used in its wide sense of blood-relation. Barnes adds the reason it reads naturally: Zedekiah “was nearly of the same age with Jehoiachin.” Cambridge is blunter: 2 Kings is “more accurately” his father's brother.
צִדְקִיָּ֣הוּṣiḏ·qî·yā·hūZedekiahH6667
√ Tsidqîyâh — Tsidkijah, the name of six IsraelitesNounpropermasculine singular
Tsidqîyâh: Zedekiah, righteousness of YHWH A throne name, not a birth name: Cambridge notes that his original name was Mattaniah (2 Kings 24:17) and that Zedekiah is “a covenant-name like ‘Jehoiakim.’” A Babylonian king therefore renames a son of Josiah with the covenant name of YHWH's righteousness. The irony is not the Chronicler's invention; Cambridge himself points to Jeremiah 23:6.
וַיַּמְלֵךְ֙way·yam·lêḵkingH4427
√ mâlak — to reignConjunctive wawVerbHifilConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singular
mâlak: to reign (Hifil) “He made him king.” In v. 9 the root is Qal with Jehoiachin as subject; here it is causative with Nebuchadnezzar as subject. ⚙ That single change of stem is the constitutional history of the end of Judah: the throne of David is now something a foreign king confers.
אֶת־’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Direct object marker
עַל־‘al-overH5921
√ ʻal — above, over, upon, or against (yet always in this last relation with a downward aspect) in a great variety of applicationsPreposition
ʻal: over, upon “Over Judah and Jerusalem.” Strong's notes the downward aspect the preposition often carries; the last king of Judah is set over the city by a hand above them both.
יְהוּדָ֖הyə·hū·ḏāhJudahH3063
√ Yᵉhûwdâh — Jehudah (or Judah), the name of five IsraelitesNounpropermasculine singular
וִֽירוּשָׁלִָֽם׃פwî·rū·šā·limand JerusalemH3389
√ Yᵉrûwshâlaim — Jerushalaim or Jerushalem, the capital city of PalestineConjunctive wawNounproperfeminine singular

The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.

⚙

Grand Commentary — the unit, read whole

synthesis · verify

AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.

i. Eight, or eighteen: a number that trembles — 36:9

The Hebrew in front of us reads בֶּן־שְׁמוֹנֶה שָׁנִים, “son of eight years.” Nearly every English Bible prints eighteen, and every commentator in this brief explains why. Pulpit is flattest: “Our text, not the writer, is in error, and the parallel furnishes the correction.” Ellicott names the mechanism, the loss of a yod, “the smallest Hebrew letter,” which as a numeral represents ten, and lists the witnesses that keep the ten: some MSS, LXX (Alex.), Syriac, Arabic. Barnes and Poole simply cross-reference 2 Kings 24:8. Benson calls eighteen “probably the right reading.” K&D argues it on other ground entirely: Ezekiel 19:5-9 portrays this king as a young lion who “knew widows,” and “the knowing of widows cannot apply to a boy of eight, but might well be said of a young man of eighteen.” JFB reasons the same way from “the full development of his ungodly principles and habits.”

Two voices hold out. Cambridge notes that LXX (B) of Chronicles and of Esdras actually read eight, calls the number “probably corrupt,” and then offers a quieter conjecture: that the clause “and ten days” is a misplaced fragment of an original ben shĕmôneh esreh shanah. Geneva does not emend at all; it harmonizes, making the boy a co-regent at eight who “reigned ten years when his father was alive,” and reigned alone three months and ten days after. K&D also records, and demolishes, Bertheau's defense of eight (“A perfectly worthless reason”). ⚙ The honest report is that the consonantal text says eight, the weight of scholarship says eighteen, and the reader of an English Bible is never told that a decision was made.

ii. One hundred days, and one recorded act — 36:9

The reign is measured in the smallest units the Chronicler ever uses for a king: שְׁלֹשָׁה חֳדָשִׁים וַעֲשֶׂרֶת יָמִים, three months and ten days. Kings says only three months; Ellicott records that Syriac and Arabic here read “one hundred days,” which is the same span said another way, and passes on Thenius' suggestion that the ten days were added “in order that the catastrophe of Jehoiachin's reign might fall on a tenth day of the month, like the investment of Jerusalem and the fall of the city under Zedekiah.” Cambridge, as noted, suspects the same two words are textual debris. Cambridge also observes what the Chronicler drops: “The Chronicler here omits the king's mother's name … though she was a person of some influence,” pointing to 2 Kings 24:12 and Jeremiah 22:24-26. K&D, arguing the other side of that same fact, insists the queen mother is named in Kings for every king “without any reference to the age of the kings, because the queen-mother occupied a conspicuous position in the kingdom.”

Into that hundred days the Chronicler writes exactly one act: וַיַּעַשׂ הָרַע בְּעֵינֵי יְהוָה. Not evil, but the evil, with the article, the same charge filed against his father. Ellicott points to what Ezekiel saw behind the formula, a king who “devoured men, and forced widows, and wasted cities.” ⚙ Chronicles will not itemize. It has room for one clause about this reign, and it spends it on the eyes of YHWH.

iii. At the turning of the year, the verbs change hands — 36:10

Verse 10 opens on a rare word: תְּשׁוּבַת הַשָּׁנָה (tᵉshûwbâh, H8666, in only eight verses). Barnes keeps it literal, “at the return of the season for military expeditions”; Ellicott, Benson, Poole and Cambridge all gloss it by the formula of 2 Samuel 11:1 and 1 Kings 20:22, the time “when kings go out to battle.” K&D says the same: “At the turn of the year, i.e., in spring, when campaigns were usually opened.” Then the verbs arrive, and every one of them has Nebuchadnezzar as subject: he sent, he brought him Babylon-ward, he made a king. JFB says he “came in person against Jerusalem, captured the city, and sent Jehoiachin in chains to Babylon”; K&D, reading the bare שָׁלַח alongside 2 Kings 24:10, says instead that he “sent his generals.” The Hebrew here settles neither, and we should not pretend otherwise.

What goes out with the king are כְּלֵי חֶמְדַּת בֵּית־יְהוָה, the vessels of the desire of the house of YHWH. Ellicott recalls that “some of the vessels” had already gone in v. 7 and sends the reader to 2 Kings 24:13 and Jeremiah 27:18-22. Cambridge adds the human column of the same invoice: not the king only but “the princes, … men of valour, the craftsmen and the smiths.” Last, a king is installed by a foreign hand and given a covenant name. Ellicott, Benson, Poole, Barnes, Cambridge and K&D all agree that אָחִיו means kinsman here, since Zedekiah was uncle to Jehoiachin, a son of Josiah; Cambridge notes his birth name was Mattaniah and that “Zedekiah” is a covenant name meaning, on his reading, “Righteousness of Jehovah.” Matthew Henry, writing over the whole chapter, gives the frame: “The methods God takes to call back sinners by his word, by ministers, by conscience, by providences, are all instances of his compassion toward them.”

Read under Sola Scriptura — this tool’s own fallible reading (⚙)

⚙ Read the two verses only for their grammar and a constitutional change is visible. In v. 9 מָלַךְ stands in the Qal with Jehoiachin as its subject: he reigned. In v. 10 the same root returns in the Hifil with Nebuchadnezzar as its subject: he caused Zedekiah to reign. Between those two forms lies everything the Chronicler wants to say about the end of the house of David. The throne is no longer held, it is granted; the covenant name Zedekiah is no longer given by a father but issued by a conqueror; and the vessels made for the desire of YHWH's house are carried off as somebody else's assets. Even the date is borrowed: the year is measured not by Passover but by the turning of the campaign season, the calendar of the armies that are doing this.

And yet the Chronicler will not let Babylon have the last clause of v. 9. The sentence that judges this reign ends with the eyes of YHWH, and the only verb attributed to Jehoiachin himself in one hundred days is the doing of the evil. ⚙ That is the fallible reading offered here for testing: the collapse is narrated as a transfer of verbs, not a transfer of sovereignty. Nebuchadnezzar gets the active verbs of the surface; YHWH keeps the eyes. A king who ruled a hundred days is remembered because of what was seen, not because of what was done, and the same book that records his deportation will let 2 Kings and Jeremiah record, thirty-seven years later, that his head was lifted up in a foreign prison.

The throne of David has become something a foreign king confers: one change of verb stem, and the kingdom is over.

⚙

Canonical Threads — out to the whole of Scripture

cross-refs · verify

AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.

The parallel that corrects the copy verbal / quotation: confirmed

Both verses are the Chronicler's compression of a longer account in Kings. Every commentator here reads them against it: Barnes and Poole simply cross-reference, Pulpit says “the parallel furnishes the correction,” K&D heads his section “Cf. 2 Kings 24:8-17,” and Cambridge notes that the Kings account “contains much that is not given in Chron. and, in particular, many details of the first captivity of Judah.” The Verifier confirms the verbal overlap: the rare royal name יְהוֹיָכִין stands in only eight verses of the whole Hebrew Bible, and two of them are 2 Kings 24:12 and 24:15. This is a genuine synoptic relationship, not one text quoting the other.

2 Kings 24:8 · 2 Kings 24:12 · 2 Kings 24:15

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H3078 Yᵉhôwyâkîyn (rare, in 8 vv), H8083 shᵉmôneh (in 105 vv), H4427 mâlak (in 284 vv) with 2 Kings 24:8 and 24:12; H3078 plus H894 Bâbel with 24:15. The rare name carries the link. Recorded honestly: this is parallel transmission of one account, not a citation of one book by the other.

At the return of the year, when kings go out verbal / quotation: confirmed

תְּשׁוּבַת הַשָּׁנָה is a fixed campaign formula, and a rare one: tᵉshûwbâh (H8666) stands in only eight verses. Ellicott, Benson, Poole and Cambridge all send the reader to the same two, 2 Samuel 11:1 and 1 Kings 20:22, and K&D cites both. ⚙ The resonance is not only chronological. At 2 Samuel 11:1 the formula introduces the season when David stayed home and fell; here it introduces the season when David's line is carried away. The phrase that once marked the vigor of the dynasty now marks its removal.

2 Samuel 11:1 · 1 Kings 20:22 · 1 Chronicles 20:1

basis: Verifier: shared rare Hebrew lexeme H8666 tᵉshûwbâh, attested in only 8 verses, with 2 Samuel 11:1, 1 Kings 20:22, 1 Kings 20:26 and 1 Chronicles 20:1. A fixed idiom shared verbatim, not a quotation.

The same rare name, thirty-seven years later verbal / quotation: confirmed

Chronicles ends Jehoiachin's story at the deportation. 2 Kings 25:27 and Jeremiah 52:31 do not: in the thirty-seventh year of his captivity, in a named month, Evil-Merodach lifted up his head. Pulpit is the only voice in this unit to follow it there, noting that the captivity “lasted thirty-seven years, till B.C. 561, past the end of Nebuchadnezzar's reign.” The Verifier links the passages by the same rare royal name that this verse carries. ⚙ The Chronicler's silence is not ignorance; it is a choice about where his book ends. The last word on this king in the Hebrew canon is not the chains of v. 10.

2 Kings 25:27 · Jeremiah 52:31

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H3078 Yᵉhôwyâkîyn (rare, in 8 vv) and H2320 chôdesh (in 224 vv) with 2 Kings 25:27; H3078, H2320 and H894 Bâbel (in 233 vv) with Jeremiah 52:31. The rare proper name is the load-bearing link.

Vessels of desire, and a king no one desired structural / thematic: confirmed

chemdâh (H2532, in 23 verses) is not a valuation word but a desire word. The Verifier records it twice more in Chronicles: at 2 Chronicles 20:25, paired with the same noun kᵉlîy, where Judah gathers desirable goods from a defeated enemy, and at 2 Chronicles 21:20, where the Chronicler uses it of how a king's departure was regarded. ⚙ Set beside each other, the Chronicler's uses of the word trace an arc: Judah once carried desirable vessels home as spoil; a king of Judah once went out undesired; now Judah's own desirable vessels are carried out as another nation's spoil. No quotation is claimed, and no single motif is asserted beyond what the shared lexeme supports.

2 Chronicles 20:25 · 2 Chronicles 21:20

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H2532 chemdâh (in 23 vv) with both 2 Chronicles 20:25 and 21:20, plus H3627 kᵉlîy (in 276 vv) with 20:25. A real verbal overlap inside one author's vocabulary; tiered thematic because no quotation or allusion is claimed.

Jeconiah at the hinge of the genealogy structural / thematic: confirmed

JFB identifies this king at once: “called also Jeconiah or Coniah (Jer 22:24),” and Cambridge names him “Jeconiah” from 1 Chronicles 3:16 and cites Jeremiah 22:24-26 for the deportation of the king and the queen mother. ⚙ Matthew's genealogy is built on three spans of fourteen, and its middle joint is the deportation to Babylon; the name written at that joint is Jechoniah. The event of v. 10 is therefore not only the end of the Chronicler's kings but a structural hinge in the New Testament's account of the line of David.

Matthew 1:11-12 · Jeremiah 22:24-26

basis: Cross-Testament (Greek to Hebrew), so no shared Strong's number is possible and no verbal tier may be claimed. The recorded basis is the named person and the named event: JFB and Cambridge both identify the Jehoiachin of this verse with the Jeconiah/Coniah of Jeremiah and 1 Chronicles 3:16, and Matthew organizes his genealogy around the deportation to Babylon at which that name stands.

A covenant name issued by a pagan king flagged: verify source

Cambridge records two things about v. 10 that belong together: that Zedekiah's original name was Mattaniah (2 Kings 24:17) and that “Zedekiah” is “a covenant-name like ‘Jehoiakim.’” ⚙ Nebuchadnezzar, installing a vassal, therefore renames him with a name built on YHWH's own covenant vocabulary. Whether the renaming was a Babylonian assertion of ownership or a concession to Judahite form, the text does not say, and this link is offered only as the pattern Cambridge himself points at, not as a demonstrated intention.

2 Kings 24:17 · 1 Chronicles 3:15

basis: The renaming itself is sourced (Cambridge, Pulpit and K&D all note that Zedekiah's name was formerly Mattaniah, per 2 Kings 24:17). What is flagged is the inference about the namer's intent: 2 Chronicles 36:10 does not report the renaming at all, and the reader should check 2 Kings 24:17 directly before resting weight on it.

⚙Christ in the Unittypology · verify

AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.

The signet torn off, and a signet set again ancient/widely-held

JFB names this king “Jeconiah or Coniah (Jer 22:24),” and Cambridge sends the reader to Jeremiah 22:24-26. That is the passage in which the LORD swears that though Coniah were the signet on his right hand, he would pluck him off, and writes him down childless in the sense that none of his seed shall prosper sitting upon the throne of David. Verse 10 of our chapter is that sentence carried out: the king goes Babylon-ward and a different son of Josiah is set over Judah by a foreign hand. ⚙ Yet the line is not extinguished. Haggai 2:23 takes up the identical signet image and applies it to Zerubbabel, who stands in this same royal descent, and Matthew 1:12 carries the genealogy of Jesus straight through Jechoniah. The redemptive-historical point is the one the church has long made: the curse falls on the throne, not on the seed, and what the exile ends is the dynasty's independent succession, not God's promise to David. ⚙ The joining of Haggai's signet to Jeremiah's is offered as the tool's own reading; the identification of this king with Jeremiah's Coniah is sourced here to JFB and Cambridge.

Jeremiah 22:24-30 · Haggai 2:23 · Matthew 1:12

Zedekiah: the name the last king could not carry ancient/widely-held

This is Cambridge's observation, not ours: the name Zedekiah “seems to mean ‘Righteousness of Jehovah’; cp. the significant title in Jeremiah 23:6, ‘The Lord is our Righteousness.’” The Chronicler's last king therefore bears, as an imposed throne name, precisely the title Jeremiah gives to the righteous Branch whom God will raise up to David. ⚙ The man wearing the name was installed by Nebuchadnezzar, ruled at another king's pleasure, and ends this chapter in rebellion and ruin. The gap between the name and the man is the space Jeremiah's promise fills: the last Davidic king is called YHWH's righteousness and is not it; the Branch is called by that name and is it. This is a reading recorded in the sources, not invented here, though Cambridge only points and does not preach it.

Jeremiah 23:6 · Jeremiah 33:15-16

The house emptied of its vessels novel

The Chronicler records the emptying of the temple in installments: some vessels in v. 7, the vessels of desire here, the rest later. Ellicott traces the sequence and adds Jeremiah 27:18-22, where the fate and the future return of those vessels are in question; Ezra 1:7 records Cyrus bringing them out again for the house in Jerusalem. ⚙ A house whose contents can be inventoried, deported and restored is a house that can be emptied. The reading offered here, and marked as this tool's own rather than the commentators', is that John 2:19-21 answers exactly this vulnerability: the temple raised in three days is one no Nebuchadnezzar can strip, and the desire of the house is finally a person rather than an object.

Ezra 1:7 · Jeremiah 27:18-22 · John 2:19-21

Apparatus & Provenance

The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.

Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:

  • Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, — (1880s)
  • Charles Ellicott, Commentary for English Readers (1878)
  • Geneva Study Bible, Marginal Notes (1599)
  • Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory (1871)
  • Keil & Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1860s)
  • The Pulpit Commentary, Spence & Exell, eds. (1880s)

Text. The largest uncertainty in this unit is in v. 9 and it is a matter of one letter. The Hebrew before us reads שְׁמוֹנֶה, eight (H8083); BSB prints “eighteen,” and the interlinear gloss supplied in our sources has already been harmonized to that reading. Ellicott, Barnes, Benson, Poole, JFB, Pulpit and K&D all judge eight to be a scribal slip for eighteen, chiefly on the strength of 2 Kings 24:8 and Ezekiel 19:5-9; Cambridge notes that LXX (B) of Chronicles and of Esdras actually read eight, and proposes that “and ten days” may be displaced remains of the longer numeral; Geneva keeps eight and harmonizes by co-regency instead. We have printed the literal as the Hebrew stands and reported the correction rather than silently adopting it.

Sources. Our voices are Ellicott, Benson, Henry, Barnes, JFB, Poole, Gill, Geneva, Cambridge, Pulpit and K&D. Two of them contribute little here by their own choice: Gill's note on this passage simply refers the reader to his comments on 2 Kings, and Henry's is a single paragraph covering 2 Chronicles 36:1-21 as a whole, so anything drawn from Henry is chapter-level, not verse-level. Two disagree on a point the Hebrew does not settle: v. 10 has only the bare verb “sent,” and JFB has Nebuchadnezzar come in person while K&D has him send his generals on the authority of 2 Kings 24:10.

What is uncertain. (1) Whether “and ten days” is original detail (Ellicott, reporting Thenius) or displaced text (Cambridge). (2) The precise force of אָחִיו: the consensus that it means kinsman rather than brother rests on 2 Kings 24:17 and 1 Chronicles 3:15, not on anything in this verse. (3) Our cross-Testament threads and the third Christ entry cannot be verified by shared Strong's numbers, since Greek and Hebrew share no lexeme numbering; they are tiered structural or marked novel accordingly. (4) Every ⚙ paragraph in this unit is machine synthesis and fallible; the ✦ excerpts are verbatim and named, and the interlinear, parse and lexicon data are sourced.

✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)