Bible Strands
2 Kings 24:12
Jehoiachin king of Judah, his mother, his servants, his commanders, and his officials all surrendered to the king of Babylon. So in the eighth year of his reign, the king of Babylon took him captive.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The narrator documents the surrender of Jehoiachin, his mother, his court, and his officials to the Babylonian king at the end of the siege on Jerusalem. This capitulation occurs in the eighth year of Jehoiachin’s reign, immediately preceding the removal of temple and palace treasures.
The words — The Hebrew verb וַיֵּצֵא (va.ye.tze) literally means “and he went out,” denoting the physical departure of the royal party from the city. The proper name יְהוֹיָכִין (Yeho-yakhin) identifies the Judahite monarch who formally yields to the king of Babylon.
The thread — The deportation of Jehoiachin (Jeconiah) is cross-referenced in Jeremiah 24:1 and Jeremiah 52:28, which catalog the exiled officials and population. His later release is noted in 2 Kings 25:27, which marks the end of his thirty-seven-year captivity.
Why it lands — The text records a concrete political surrender and the subsequent removal of captives without offering immediate consolation. It requires the reader to acknowledge that royal power and national independence can be terminated by historical force before any theological resolution is stated.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And Jehoiachin the king of Judah went out to the king of Babylon, he, and his mother, and his servants, and his princes, and his officers: and the king of Babylon took him in the eighth year of his reign.
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 24:1 After Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, as well as the officials of Judah and the craftsmen and metalsmiths from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon, the LORD showed me two baskets of figs placed in front of the temple of the LORD.
- Jeremiah 52:28 These are the people Nebuchadnezzar carried away: in the seventh year, 3,023 Jews;
- 2 Kings 25:27 On the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month of the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Judah’s King Jehoiachin, in the year Evil-merodach became king of Babylon, he released King Jehoiachin of Judah from prison.
- 2 Chronicles 36:10 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.
- Jeremiah 29:1 This is the text of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders among the exiles and to the priests, the prophets, and all the others Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.
- Jeremiah 25:1 This is the word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, which was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.
- Ezekiel 17:12 “Now say to this rebellious house: ‘Do you not know what these things mean?’ Tell them, ‘Behold, the king of Babylon came to Jerusalem, carried off its king and officials, and brought them back with him to Babylon.
- Jeremiah 22:24 “As surely as I live,” declares the LORD, “even if you, Coniah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, were a signet ring on My right hand, I would pull you off.
- Jeremiah 38:17 Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “This is what the LORD God of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‘If you indeed surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, then you will live, this city will not be burned down, and you and your household will survive.
- Jeremiah 52:31 On the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month of the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the first year of the reign of Evil-merodach king of Babylon, he pardoned Jehoiachin king of Judah and released him from prison.