An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 68: Boy Kings, Tingling Ears, and Nabuchadnezzar (2 Kings 21-25)

2 Kings 21-25
Boy Kings, Tingling Ears, and Nabuchadnezzar.

Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version).

In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.

For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT

For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP

And now:

2 Kings 21

“Therefore thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle.

Manasseh comes to the throne of Judah age 12, but re-instates Baal worship and worship of the “hosts of heaven” which seems to imply a pantheistic religion rather than angels etc. connected to Yahweh (as the term sometimes refers to). He also sacrifices his own son, and it is implied that child sacrifice becomes endemic in the kingdom as not only does he induce the people of Judah to follow his way, but it is mentioned later that he is responsible for a lot of innocent blood being spilt.

God is angry, and makes the above ear-tingling threat, to clean out Judah like a man wipes out a bowl, and promises via his prophets that the enemies of Judah will overtake them. But evidently God is working on an immortal timescale, as Manasseh manages to reign for fifty five years. His son Amon takes the throne but he is just as bad. He is murdered after two years by his servants, but the conspirators in their turn are killed by the people, and Amon’s son Josiah is made king.

2 Kings 22

“And Hilkiah the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the LORD. And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it.”

Josiah is made king at the age of eight and, remarkably, is not a baby-murdering tyrant. Via his servant Shaphan he orders Hilkiah the priest to rebuild the temple of God using tithe money and, in the process, Hilkiah discovers an old book of the laws of God (a copy of Leviticus, perhaps). He passes it on to King Josiah who is aggrieved when he reads it how many of the laws have been broken by his people and forefathers.

Hilkiah contacts Huldah, who unusually is a female prophet, and she passes on the word of God – that God will destroy Judah for their wickedness, but because Josiah showed remorse ha and his family will be spared the destruction. Well actually, what is implied is that they will not live to see the destruction, which could be construed to contain a hint of a threat.

2 Kings 23

“And he put down the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places round about Jerusalem; them also that burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven.”

The wheel turns again, a Josiah instigates a massive pogrom to remove the worship of foreign gods, destroying temples and sacred groves and altars, knocking down the three temples to Ashtarte, Chemosh and Milcom/Moloch built by Solomon, destroying places of child sacrifice, killing priests and “wizards” and smashing the remains of everything to powder. He re-swears the covenant and re-installs Passover, which has not been practiced since the time of the judges, according to this book.

However, God is not mollified. Josiah is killed in battle with the Egyptian King Pharaohnechoh (surely “Pharaoh Nechoh”?) and his son Jehoahaz deposed and enslaved by the Pharaoh, who installs another of Josiah’s son, Eliakim, as some kind of puppet, even changing  his name to Jehoiakim. Jehoiakim taxes the people to pay tribute to the Egyptians.

2 Kings 24

“In his days Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant three years: then he turned and rebelled against him.”

Enter Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, a figure vaguely familiar to me thanks to my school putting on a production of Verdi’s Nabucco. Nabuchadnezzar conquers Egpyt, and although Jehoiakim serves him for three years he is also beset by Chaldees, Moabites, Ammonites and Syrians, eventually dies and is succeeded by his son Jehoiachin.

Jehoiachin doesn’t have a very successful reign, as he is conquered by Nebuchadnezzar and carried off into slavery, as are most of the people of Jerusalem, it would seem, along with a lot of plunder from Solomon’s temple (considering how many previous kings have sold bits off as tribute I’m surprised there is anything left). Nebuchadnezzar instals a client king, Zedekiah, who is either the uncle of Jehoiachin or Nebuchadnezzar, which “he” it refers to is unclear.

And point I would like to make on the text of this chapter: V10 “At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against Jerusalem, and the city was besieged”, V11 “And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came against the city, and his servants did besiege it.” One of those would have done, come one.

2 Kings 25

“Now the rest of the people that were left in the city, and the fugitives that fell away to the king of Babylon, with the remnant of the multitude, did Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carry away.”

Nebuchadnezzar completes the destruction of Judah. He captures his puppet Zedekiah, kills his sons in front of him and blinds him. Nabuchadnezzar’s captain Nebuzaradan destroys the city and temples, carries off the rest of Solomon’s treasure as plunder, rounds up and kills various officers and high priests of Zedekiah’s court.

Nabuchadnezzar installs Gedeliah as a quisling ruler to look after the mainly agrarian peasant population that are left behind, who then tells the remaining army captains to submit to the Babylonians. They kill him in response and run away to Egypt. Meanwhile in Babylon Jehoiachin is released from prison, but kept under house arrest with a generous allowance by the new king Evilmeradoch (the name’s a giveaway isn’t it? “Evil Meradoch”).

And thus ends the books of Kings, a sorry sequence of betrayals and backsliding. No wonder these poltroons got overrun by the Babylonians in the end, they pretty much destroyed themselves with all the infighting. It’s not a good advertisement for rule by king.