Bible Difficulties (48 page)

How could the embassy from Merodach-baladan have come to Hezekiah after 701

B.C., if by that time Merodach-baladan had been expelled from Babylon (2 Kings
20:12-15)?

Merodach-baladan (or
Marduk-apa-iddin
, as it is spelled in cuneiform) was in secure control of Babylon from 721-710. If Hezekiah's illness occurred fifteen years before his death in 698 or 696 (as it is variously reckoned), then it must have occurred in 712 or 711

B.C. This coincides very well with a diplomatic approach on the part of the king of Babylon (who was technically a vassal of the king of Assyria) Sargon II (722-705), to organize an east-west
entente cordiale
against the Assyrian over-lord. If we place Hezekiah's illness back in that period rather than after the Sennacherib invasion of 701, then the embassy from Babylon fits in very well with the chronology of Hezekiah.

But how can we date Hezekiah's illness before the Assyrian invasion of Judah in 701? Is it not narrated in Isaiah after the invasion is over? Does not the introductory phase "In those days" (Isa. 38:1) refer to the episode just narrated in chapter 37, which tells how the angel of the Lord took the lives of 185,000 Assyrian troops in a single night, thus compelling the God-defying, blaspheming Sennacherib to retreat to Nineveh without capturing Jerusalem? Normally we would be justified in making this connection, but in this particular case we encounter the difficulty that the last episode referred to in Isa 37:38 did not take place until 681. Therefore a strict construction of "In those days" in Isa 38:1 would mean that Hezekiah did not become ill until 681, and that he must have had fifteen more years of life (v.5) after that. But all authorities, even Edwin Thiele (who mistakenly defers the accession of Hezekiah until 715 B.C. [cf. his
A Chronology of the
212

Hebrew Kings
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1977), p. 65]), accept the statement of 2 Kings 18:2 that Hezekiah reigned only twenty-nine years. No authority has ever suggested that he reigned any later than 686; yet fifteen years after 681 would come out to 666 or 665.

Therefore "In those days" cannot be construed as referring to the event immediately preceding, namely, the murder of Sennacherib by his sons in 681.

We must understand "In those days" as an introductory formula for a new episode--e.g.,

"Now it came about in those days when Hezekiah was king that he became mortally ill."

Similar uses of this formula may be found in Esther 1:2 (where it introduces the account of the king's feast without any tie-in with a preceding event), in Judges 17:6 ("In those days there was no king in Israel"), likewise Judges 18:1; 19:1. Compare also in the New Testament Matthew 3:1: "Now in those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea." There is no clear connection with Matthew 2:22 (the verse immediately preceding), which probably refers to the return of the holy family from Egypt to Nazareth after the close of the reign of Herod Archelaus in A.D. 6--at which time John the Baptist would have been only eleven years old!

If, then, the formula "In those days" does not refer to the days following Sennacherib's departure from Palestine in 701, what are the indications as to the time of his illness? As we have already suggested, the promise of fifteen more years points to a date of around 713 for his medical crisis. Since Hezekiah must have died sometime between 698 and 696 (his successor, Manasseh, was only twelve at the time of his accession, and he ruled until 642, as all authorities agree--after a reign of fifty-five years, according to 2 Kings 21:1), the choice must lie with 713 or 711 at the latest. Now Isaiah 39:1 informs us that Merodach-baladan sent his embassage to Hezekiah in order to congratulate him on his recovery from his nearly fatal illness. Since Merodach-baladan was expelled from Babylon by 710 and did not get back there, except very briefly in 704 or 703, the evidence point very strongly to a date of no later than 711 for the arrival of his envoys at Jerusalem--subsequent to Hezekiah's illness. This shows that the placement of Isaiah 38

after the narrative of Sennacherib's invasion in chapter 37 was due, not to chronological sequence, but to a shift of topic, which served some other purpose in Isaiah's mind than a sequential order of events. What could that purpose have been?

In order to clear up this question, we must observe the implications of the prediction uttered by Isaiah after he transmitted God's message to the king concerning his foolish pride in showing off his treasures to the Babylonian envoys. Isaiah 39:6 contains this ominous warning: "Behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house, and all that your fathers have laid up in store to this day shall be carried [off] to Babylon; nothing shall be left, says the LORD" (NASB). In view of the contemporary situation, with Babylon a subject province under the Assyrian yoke, this was a very surprising prophecy indeed. Yet this was the judgment God had ordained for His backslidden nation, and He had revealed His plan to His prophet Isaiah. It would be the Babylonians, specifically the Chaldeans in charge of Babylon, who would finally carry out the sentence of total depopulation and exile for the disobedient people of Judah. From this standpoint Isaiah 39 forms an appropriate introduction to chapter 40 and the subsequent chapters of Isaiah's prophecy, all of which were probably composed in the reign of Hezekiah's 213

ungodly son, Manasseh. Chapter 40 presupposes the Babylonian captivity as a sure and settled prospect in store for Judah. The focus of attention is largely diverted from Assyria to the future crisis of Nebuchadnezzar's destruction of Jerusalem and deportation of the Jews, along with the promise of their ultimate restoration to their homeland after the Exile is over. Thus we see that the contents of chapter 39 make a most fitting introduction to chapter 40, since it explains the reason for the coming deportation to Babylon, the headquarters of Merodach-baladan.

How, when, and where did Jehoiakim die?

2 Kings 24:6 states, "So Jehoiakim slept with his fathers, and Jehoiachin his son became king in his place" (NASB). (This suggests that this wicked king enjoyed a normal burial and was buried in a royal tomb--although "slept with his fathers" might mean simply that he joined his forefathers in the realm of the dead--Sheol.)

2 Chronicles 36:5-8 reads: "Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when be became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem....Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against him and bound him with bronze chains to take him to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar also brought some of the articles of the house of the LORD to Babylon and put them in his temple in Babylon....And Jehoiachin his son became king in his place" (NASB). This could be construed to mean that Jehoiakim was taken off to Babylon as a prisoner and remained there the rest of his life--an event that would have to have occurred in 598 B.C.

(since he ruled eleven years from 608 B.C.) Yet the text here does not actually say that he never returned from Babylon, as a chastened vassal of Nebuchadnezzar, having given him solemn promises of loyalty and assurances that he would never again team up with Pharaoh Necho and the Egyptians against the Chaldean overlordship. If it was the latter, then this event probably took place in 604 B.C., after Nebuchadnezzar had extended his rule over Syria, Phoenicia, Samaria, and Judah, taking with him an assortment of hostages, such as Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.

Just as Ashurbanipal of Assyria took King Manasseh from his kingdom and imprisoned him for a considerable length of time in Babylon (2 Chron. 33:11-12), until he became repentant for his previous unfaithfulness to God and was finally restored to his throne by the Assyrian king, so also Jehoiakim was probably restored to his throne in Jerusalem as a chastened vassal king under the Chaldean overlordship. The Chronicles passage does not describe his deportation to Babylon in terms clearly suggestive of the downfall of Jerusalem in 597, when the young son and successor Jehoiachin was thus deported, along with "all the captains and all the mighty men of valor, ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and the smiths. None remained except the poorest people of the land" (2 Kings 24:14, NASB). Moreover, on the occasion of that second deportation, Nebuchadnezzar did not remove just "some of the articles of the house of the LORD" (2 Chron. 36:7) but, rather, "
all
the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king's house" (2

Kings 24:13, italics mine).

It therefore appears that the episode of 2 Chronicles 36:5-8 was not the same as that of 2

Kings 24:14. The former took place in 604, along with the captivity of Daniel and his 214

friends; the latter took place in 597 and involved a different king (Jehoiachin), with a far larger amount of treasure and a huge number of captives. Thus the case for establishing a discrepancy completely fails; the data of the biblical text precludes identifying the two events as the one and same transaction.

But the manner and place of Jehoiakim's death were a bit more pathetic than the brief statement in 2 Kings 24:6 would indicate, for we read in Jeremiah 22:18-19: "Therefore thus says the LORD in regard to Jehoiakim the son of Josiah...`They will not lament for him:'...He will be buried with a donkey's burial, dragged off and thrown out beyond the gates of Jerusalem" (NASB). This predicts the shameful treatment meted out to Jehoiakim's corpse after he died (apparently around 7 December 598 B.C.). Instead of a normal interment in a royal tomb--whether at the time of the funeral or sometime thereafter--that body was tossed into some open pit like that intended for a dead animal; and he was permanently interred outside the city walls by a citizenry that deeply resented his wicked and disastrous reign. His unhappy son, Jehoiachin, remained to face the full consequences of his father's oath breaking toward Nebuchadnezzar--as noted above.

What was the correct age for Jehoiachin when he came to the throne, eight or
eighteen?

2 Kings 24:8 tells us that Jehoiachin "was eighteen years old when he became king."

But the parallel passage in 2 Chronicles 36:9 states that he was "eight" years old when be began to reign. Obviously there has been a textual error committed by the copyist either in 2 Kings or in 2 Chronicles. This type of error occurs now and then because of blurring or surface damage in the earlier manuscript from which the copy is made. A numerical system generally in use during the fifth century (when Chronicles was probably composed--very likely under Ezra's supervision) features a horizontal stroke ending in a hook at its right end as the sign for "ten"; two of them would make the number "twenty."

(See article on 2 Kings 8:26.) The digits under ten would be indicated by rows of little vertical strokes, generally in groups of three. Thus what was originally written as a horizontal hooked stroke over one or more of these groups of short vertical strokes (in this case, eight strokes) would appear as a mere "eight" instead of "eighteen."

The probabilities are that 2 Chronicles 36:9 is incorrect, both because the age eight is unusually young to assume governmental leadership--though Joash ben Ahaziah was only seven when be began to reign (2 Kings 11:21) and Josiah was was only eight (2 Kings 22:1)--and because the Chaldeans treated him as a responsible adult and condemned him to permanent imprisonment in Babylon after he surrendered to them in 597 B.C.

Moreover, it is far less likely that the copyist would have mistakenly seen an extra ten stroke that was not present in his original than that he would have failed to observe one that had been smudged out.

While it is true that Jehoiachin's father, Jehoiakim, must have been unusually young to have begotten him (sixteen or seventeen), nevertheless some of the Judean royalty seem to have married at an early age (in other words, if Jehoiakim was twenty-five at his accession in 608 [2 Kings 23:36], and if Jehoiachin was eighteen in 598 when his father 215

died [2 Kings 24:8], then there must have been only a difference of seventeen or eighteen years between them). Note that Ahaz appears to have fathered Hezekiah at the age of thirteen or fourteen, judging from the fact that Ahaz was twenty on his vice-regency in 743 and that Hezekiah was twenty-five at his father's death in 725 (hardly at his first appointment as vice-regent in 728!) (cf. 2 Kings 16:2 [2 Chron. 28:1] and 2 Kings 18:2 [2

Chron. 29:1]).

216

1 Chronicles

Special note:
For a general discussion of the distinctive purposes of the author of 1 and 2

Chronicles consult the first discussion under Jonah, p. 300 concerning the alleged midrashic elements in Jonah.

Why are there so many genealogies in 1 and 2 Chronicles?

The Chronicles were apparently complied by Ezra in the middle of the fifth century B.C., or at least by a contemporary of his. After the long ordeal of the Babylonians captivity, which lasted from 586 to 539, a group of Jewish colonists was led back by Zerubbabel and Jeshua to establish a new commonwealth of Israel in their ruined homeland. The Israelites had lost every material possession--every building, every home-

-as a result of the Chaldean devastation. All that was left were the people, their memories, their traditions, and their Bible--and, of course, the God who had given it to them and who had kept His promise by restoring them to their land after the Exile was over. It was therefore of utmost importance to establish their lines of descent, from Abraham and the twelve sons Jacob, and from the later ancestors to whom specific territories, cities, and towns had been assigned back in the days of Joshua.

There are many people today who will spare no effort to trace their ancestry back as far as they can. But in Israel's case there was the added factor that Yahweh Elohim had made a personal covenant with Abraham and his "seed," a series of gracious promises and special requirements for them to lead a godly life. Probably the great majority of the deported Israelites elected not to undertake the hardships involved in making the trek back to Jerusalem; the 42,000 freemen who made up the group of returnees could hardly have been more than 10 percent of those eligible to go back from Babylon. (cf. Isa. 6:13) It was very important to establish definitely which families were represented in the second commonwealth, for God's plan of redemption was bound up with them rather than with the 90 percent who preferred to stay in Exile.