We end the account of the lives of the kings of Judah with words of hope and doom. The first sentence of chapter 35—"Josiah kept the Passover in Jerusalem"—looks forward to a reenergized faith that is emerging during the reigns of kings like Hezekiah and Josiah. There is a new awareness of the law and the observance of the Passover witnesses to a return to Israel's historic beginnings.
For Jews today Passover is a family holiday celebrated at home; in ancient Judaism it was a corporate feast, celebrated at the sanctuary in Jerusalem with massive sacrifices. We are told in elaborate detail about the sacrifices of Josiah's Passover. The king himself donates "lambs from his own possessions" to supply the people with Passover sacrifices (35:7), and he functions as host to the whole nation. The temple staff is pressed into service to solemnize the feast. The singers are "in their place according to the command of David" (35:15); the gatekeepers are mustered to keep order. King Hezekiah's Passover had been a jubilant but rather "ad hoc" affair. Josiah's Passover is a much better organized, and we are told that "no Passover like it had been kept in Israel since the days of the prophet Samuel" (35:18).
The eighteenth year of his rule, the year of the great Passover, is the pinnacle of the King Josiah's reign. Three years later he makes a terrible and fatal mistake. The Prophet Huldah had told Josiah that he would die a natural death "in peace" without seeing the destruction of Jerusalem (34:28), and so he might have. But in 609 B.C.E, Josiah attempts to stop the Pharaoh Necco of Egypt from crossing Judean territory. Necco is hurrying north to join the beleaguered Assyrians who are about to join in battle with the forces of the resurgent Neo-Babylonian empire, the new super-power rising in the Middle East. The Pharaoh asks for safe passage on his way to Carchemish on the Euphrates where the great battle will take place. He sends a message to Josiah that ends by saying: "Cease opposing God, who is with me, so that he may not destroy you" (35:21-22). But apparently Josiah does not recognize the will of God behind the Egyptian relief expedition (35:22).
He goes out with his army to fight the Egyptians, and they join in battle on the plain of Megiddo. It is a suicidal act, and why Josiah does it we do not know. Perhaps he is honoring a secret treaty he had with the Babylonians. Perhaps he was driven by hatred of the ruthless and cruel Assyrians who had caused such suffering to Israel and Judah. In any case he takes his little army to meet the Egyptian war machine, and in the battle that follows he is fatally wounded and is carried back to Jerusalem where he dies. (By the way, Josiah's gallant delaying tactic does work. The Egyptians arrive too late to reinforce the Assyrians at Carchemish, and Babylon is triumphant.)
The prophet Jeremiah makes lament for King Josiah, and the chronicler tells us that "all the singing men and singing women [speak] of Josiah in their laments to this day" (35:25). Josiah is buried in Jerusalem among the kings with great mourning and is succeeded by his son Jehoahaz.
Jehoahaz reigns only three months. The Pharaoh Necco, returning from Carchemish, pauses on his way home long enough to exact an enormous tribute from Jerusalem, probably in retaliation of Josiah's opposition, and to take Jehoahaz away as a hostage to Egypt where he lives out the rest of his life. Pharaoh then sets his brother on the throne under the name of Jehoiakim.
Jehoiakim, caught between the two super-powers of the day, Babylon and Egypt, hold out for eleven years. He does what is evil in the sight of the LORD, the chronicler tells us, and as a result the LORD sends King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon to besiege Jerusalem. He takes Jehoiakim, "bound with fetters to Babylon", and "carries off some of the vessels of the house of the LORD" (36:6-7)—a bitter foretaste of things to come.
Nebuchadnezzar then sets Jehoiakim's son Jehoiachin on the throne as a puppet king. The chronicler says he was only eight years old when he becomes king. In 2 Kings 24:8 we are told he was eighteen—which makes more sense, because he does what is evil in the sight of the Lord and lasts of only three months as king before Nebuchadnezzar returns and takes him to Babylon as well, together with more "precious vessels of the house of the LORD" (36:10). His brother Zadekiah is then placed on the throne.
Zedekiah, the last king of independent Judah, reigns for eleven troubled years. He also does what is evil in the sight of the LORD and will not humble himself before the prophet Jeremiah "who spoke from the mouth of the LORD" (36:12). Ignoring Jeremiah's warning, he breaks faith with Nebuchadnezzar and plots rebellion. The "leading priests and the people [also prove] exceedingly unfaithful" (36:14), we are told. They pollute the house of the LORD and mock his prophets.
But God is not mocked. When the end comes it is swift and terrible. In 586 B.C.E. the Babylonian king besieges and takes Jerusalem, slaughters the youth of both sexes, systematically loots the city, burns the temple and all the important buildings to the ground. Then he carries "into exile in Babylon those who had escaped the sword, and they [become] servants to him and to his sons (36:20).
There in Babylon, the Judean exiles remain for seventy years, "until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia" (36:20). This is to fulfill the prophecy of Jeremiah that the weary Land of the Promise shall lie fallow until it makes up for its Sabbaths (36:21). The seventy year exile is to make up for the 490 years during which the Sabbath was neglected (7 X 70).
But when those seventy years are over, again in fulfillment of the prophesy of Jeremiah, "the LORD [stirs] up the spirit of King Cyrus the Persian," who orders that the temple shall be rebuilt and allows those who wish to return to Jerusalem to do so (36:22-23). And it is with that return that our story picks up the Book of Ezra, which we will begin tomorrow.
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