The Sunday School Lesson Zedekiah The Last by David McGee
Jan 28, 2018
Zedekiah The Last (41:50)
Referenced Scriptures: 2 Kings 24:15-20; 2 Chronicles 36:12-21
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Nobody enjoys talking about judgment. Some Christians might even be inclined to avoid the subject entirely. Howerever, this is an unwise course of action, soberly evidenced by today's lesson on Judah's last king, Zedekiah.
King Zedekiah's story, including his judgment and the exile that surrounded it, represents the culmination of centuries in which God's people had rejected His Word and His plan for them. God had sent prophets to warn them, even after giving them the Law, which clearly outlined His expectations of them. Yet they persisted in their sin. And, ultimately, the wages of sin were both severe and tragic.
The scriptures below are from the WEB Bible.
2 Kings 24:15-20
15) He carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon; and the king‘s mother, and the king‘s wives, and his officers, and the chief men of the land, carried he into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon.
16) All the men of might, even seven thousand, and the craftsmen and the smiths one thousand, all of them strong and apt for war, even them the king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon.
17) The king of Babylon made Mattaniah, [Jehoiachin‘s] father‘s brother, king is his place, and changed his name to Zedekiah.
18) Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign; and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem: and his mother‘s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.
19) He did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, according to all that Jehoiakim had done.
20) For through the anger of Yahweh did it happen in Jerusalem and Judah, until he had cast them out from his presence. Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.
2 Chronicles 36:12-21
12) and he did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh his God; he didn‘t humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet [speaking] from the mouth of Yahweh.
13) He also rebelled against king Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God: but he stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart against turning to Yahweh, the God of Israel.
14) Moreover all the chiefs of the priests, and the people, trespassed very greatly after all the abominations of the nations; and they polluted the house of Yahweh which he had made holy in Jerusalem.
15) Yahweh, the God of their fathers, sent to them by his messengers, rising up early and sending, because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling-place:
16) but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets, until the wrath of Yahweh arose against his people, until there was no remedy.
17) Therefore he brought on them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or gray-headed: he gave them all into his hand.
18) All the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of Yahweh, and the treasures of the king, and of his princes, all these he brought to Babylon.
19) They burnt the house of God, and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces of it with fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels of it.
20) Those who had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon; and they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia:
21) to fulfill the word of Yahweh by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths: [for] as long as it lay desolate it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.
The WEB Bible is provided by Public Domain.