2 Chronicleschapter 36
23 verses · Ezra, by tradition · 450 to 400 BC · History
Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz son of Josiah and made him king in Jerusalem in place of his father.
Introduction
Ezra, by tradition, History, 2 Chronicles Overview.
This chapter was written for the community that came home, asking why the city had fallen and who had opened the way back. It moves quickly through the last four kings of Judah. Then the book stops to give the reason for the fall in its own voice. Listen for how the long patience of God is described before the end comes. Notice how the years of exile are given a length and a purpose. The book closes on the words of a foreign king, and its last sentence is left open.
Context
- Who
- The community that came back, reading why the city had fallen and who had opened the door home
- What
- The last four kings of Judah, the burning of the temple and Jerusalem by Babylon, the exile, and the decree of Cyrus allowing the return.
- Where
- Jerusalem under Egypt and then Babylon, the exile in Babylon, and at the end the court of Persia.
- When
- 609 to 586 BC for the last reigns and the fall, and 538 BC for the decree of Cyrus.
- Why
- To explain that Jerusalem fell because its people would not heed the prophets, and that God kept His word both in judgment and in restoration.
Historical context
The chapter belongs to four kings and then to a fifth who was no king of Judah at all. Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin and Zedekiah hold the throne between them, and the last two verses belong to Cyrus of Persia.
Show the rest of the historical context, 4 more paragraphs
The time runs from 609 BC to 586 BC for the reigns and the fall, and then jumps to 538 BC for the decree. These are among the firmest dates in the period, since Babylonian records cover them.
The place is Jerusalem, and by verse 20 it is Babylon. Two of the four kings are installed by a foreign power and given new names by it, one by Egypt and one by Babylon.
The occasion is the end of the monarchy. The chapter gives the four reigns twenty-one verses and then turns to the reason for the fall in its own voice.
A first hearer knew what the burning of the house meant, because the building had stood four centuries and there was no lawful substitute for it. A hearer also knew the sabbath law of Leviticus 26:34 to 35, which is what verse 21 reaches for when it says the land kept sabbath. And a hearer in the Persian period knew Cyrus by name, and knew that returning displaced peoples to their own places was this empire's stated policy.
Significance
For the returning community this chapter answered the question they lived with. The city fell because a people and its priests would not hear messengers sent early and often, until there was no remedy.
Show the rest of the significance, 2 more paragraphs
It also gave the exile a term and a reason rather than leaving it as a blank stretch of time. Seventy years were owed to the land, and Jeremiah had said so before the years began.
The last two verses handed them a door. A king outside the covenant proclaimed that the God of heaven had charged him to build a house in Jerusalem, and the book ends in the middle of the summons to go up.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
Chronicles stands among the Writings in the Hebrew canon, and the annual cycle of Torah portions and their Haftarot draws on other books. A Jewish reader meets this chapter in study rather than in a reading appointed for a Sabbath or a feast, and the site's own reading data records the same for every chapter.
The seventy years of this chapter are counted in sabbatical years, and Rashi says so twice. The land had to be appeased for its sabbaths, on the law of Leviticus that the land rests as long as it lies desolate (Rashi on II Chronicles 36:20:1). He gives that as the reason the servitude lasted until the Persian kingdom, and repeats it at the next verse (Rashi on II Chronicles 36:21:1). A Jewish reader meets the sabbatical year here as the measure of the exile itself.
The position of this chapter in the Hebrew ordering is the other thing worth knowing. In the order the Talmud records at Bava Batra 14b, Chronicles stands last among the Writings, so these verses close the Hebrew Bible and leave a sentence unfinished at the command to go up. That ordering is carried in this repository at src/components/book/dossier-content/2-chronicles.ts.
How it is read
The naming of a puppet king is read as a display of ownership. Rashi says it is the custom of kings to give a servant whatever by-name they wish, and cites the renamings of Joseph, of Joshua and of Daniel and his companions (Rashi on II Chronicles 36:4:1). He adds why the name was changed here, after the Egyptian king had killed Josiah and laid a tribute of servitude on the land (Rashi on II Chronicles 36:4:2).
The chronology of the first deportation is a known problem and Rashi works it out. He reports the question Seder Olam raises against the third year given in Daniel, and answers by counting from the rebellion rather than from the reign (Rashi on II Chronicles 36:7:1). He sets the Babylonian king's conquest of Nineveh in his first year and his defeat of Jehoiakim in his second. He fixes the fourth year of Jehoiakim as the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, from the dating in Jeremiah.
The burial of Jehoiakim is read against a prophecy. Rashi says the king died on the way and his body was thrown aside. He reads the burial of a donkey that Jeremiah foretold as the point of the silence in Kings, where no burial is recorded (Rashi on II Chronicles 36:6:2).
Zedekiah's evil is defined narrowly. Rashi reports the teaching of Rabbi Eliezer son of Rabbi Meshullam, that the evil was his refusal to humble himself before Jeremiah (Rashi on II Chronicles 36:12:1). Apart from that refusal and the breaking of his oath, Rashi says he did not do what Jehoiakim had done. The collective guilt of the fourteenth verse is read the same way, as a failure of office. The chiefs of the priests had the standing to protest and did not use it (Rashi on II Chronicles 36:14:1).
The warnings before the fall are read as the ground of the verdict. Rashi says the account is an acknowledgment of divine justice, set down so that no one may say the people were left unwarned. The warning came every morning rather than once a year (Rashi on II Chronicles 36:15:1). The Chaldeans are read as a people of no standing, raised up to answer a provocation, on the pattern of the song of Moses (Rashi on II Chronicles 36:17:1).
The last two verses are glossed briefly and without a Christian reading. Rashi takes the spirit of Cyrus to mean the king's own will (Rashi on II Chronicles 36:22:1). The claim over all the kingdoms of the earth he reads as the king's claim about his own reign (Rashi on II Chronicles 36:23:1).
Radak comments at 36:9:1, which is the verse where the age given to Jehoiachin differs from the parallel account. Malbim comments at 36:1:1 and Metzudat David at 36:19:1. The corpus holds no English text for any of them, so all three stand cited and unquoted. Rashi is heavier here than anywhere else in the range, at twenty-one comments.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty locators on this chapter and holds the locator alone for each. The Babylonian Talmud carries it at Yoma 53b:14 and 53b:17, Sanhedrin 103b:13, Keritot 5b:15 and Horayot 11b:18. Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition) carries it at Yoma 5:8, Nedarim 9:2 and Shabbat 16:20, and the plain edition at Yoma 5:11 and Nedarim 9:2. The Jerusalem Talmud carries it at Shekalim 6:1:3 and 6:1:9. The Rabbah collections carry it at Vayikra Rabbah 19:6, Esther Rabbah 3:1, Kohelet Rabbah 9:1:1, and Eikhah Rabbah 1:37 and Petichta 12. The Tanchuma carries it at Behar 1:1, Lech Lecha 20:6, Mishpatim 12:5, Sh'lach 1:1 and Vayikra 1:1. Midrash Tanchuma Buber carries it at Achrei Mot 1:1, Behar 2:1, Vaera 18:1, Vayetzei 14:1 and Vayikra 1:1. The halakhic midrashim carry it at Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 20:16, Sifrei Devarim 352:8, Sifrei Zuta 12:34:1 and Midrash Tannaim on Deuteronomy 33:12:36. The rest are Midrash Sekhel Tov Shemot 1:20:2, Midrash Tehillim 7:19, Otzar Midrashim Midrash Shelosha v'Arba'ah 4:5 and Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 11:17. Last are Seder Olam Rabbah 24:2, 25:2 and 27:2, and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 658:12 and 957:1.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on II Chronicles, the Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg (Sefaria, CC-BY); Malbim, Malbim on II Chronicles 36, cited by ref from the Sefaria corpus, which holds no English version of it; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on II Chronicles 36, cited by ref from the Sefaria corpus, which holds no English version of it; Radak, Radak on II Chronicles 36, cited by ref from the Sefaria corpus, which holds no English version of it; The Sefaria corpus on disk, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/2-chronicles/36.json, fetched 2026-09-19; The reading data of this site, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed in this lane: 2-chronicles parashot 0, haftarah uses 0, hasSynagogueReading true for 0 of 36 chapters; The 2 Chronicles dossier of this site, src/components/book/dossier-content/2-chronicles.ts, which records the Talmud's canon order at Bava Batra 14b.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim carried off by Egypt and Babylon
2 Chronicles 36:1-3
made him king in Jerusalem in place of his father: The people of the land make Jehoahaz king, and Chronicles gives his reign three verses where 2 Kings 23 to 24 gives a fuller record. After three months the king of Egypt dethrones him and imposes “a levy of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold”.
2 Chronicles 36:1
“He was the youngest son of Josiah, but the popular favorite, probably on account of his martial spirit (Eze 19:3) and determined opposition to the aggressive views of Egypt. At his accession the land was free from idolatry; but this prince, instead of following the footsteps of his excellent father, adopted the criminal policy of his apostatizing predecessors.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
2 Chronicles 36:1
“The narrative runs parallel with 2 Kings (marginal reference) as far as 2Ch 36:13. The writer then emits the events following, and substitutes a sketch in which the moral and didactic element preponderates over the historical.”
he reigned in Jerusalem three months: Jehoahaz was two years younger than his brother Eliakim, so the people passed over the elder son. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, following Keil, argue from the four to five hundred miles that Necho could not have marched within three months. Matthew Henry notes from Kings that he did evil.
2 Chronicles 36:2
“The improbability, indeed the impossibility, of his doing so appears from this: Carchemish was from four hundred to five hundred miles from Megiddo, so that within "three months" an army could not possibly make its way thither, conquer the fenced city of Carchemish, and then march back a still greater distance to Jerusalem, and take that city [KEIL].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold: Adam Clarke reads the deposition as a claim of supremacy: the people crowned Jehoahaz without Egypt's consent, so Necho treated Judah as a subject state. The levy was paid by Jehoiakim, who taxed the land to raise it, 2 Kings 23:35.
2 Chronicles 36:3
“The king of Egypt put him down - He now considered Judah to be conquered, and tributary to him and because the people had set up Jehoahaz without his consent, he dethroned him, and put his brother in his place, perhaps for no other reason but to show his supremacy. For other particulars, see the notes on 2Ki 23:31-35 (note).”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
he changed Eliakim’s name to Jehoiakim: Neco makes Eliakim king and changes his name to Jehoiakim, so the king of Egypt now names Judah's king. Jehoahaz is carried off to Egypt, and Chronicles never brings him back into the story. Jeremiah's oracle states his fate in full.
2 Chronicles 36:5-8
he did evil in the sight of the LORD his God: Jehoiakim does evil, and Chronicles adds a detail Kings omits: Nebuchadnezzar binds him “with bronze shackles to take him to Babylon”. Adam Clarke notes that the record does not say the deportation was carried out. Some articles of the LORD's house go to Babylon and into Nebuchadnezzar's own temple.
2 Chronicles 36:5
“His character is portrayed with a masterly hand in the prophecy of Jeremiah (Jer 22:13-19). As the deputy of the king of Egypt, he departed further than his predecessor from the principles of Josiah's government; and, in trying to meet the insatiable cupidity of his master by grinding exactions from his subjects, he recklessly plunged into all evil.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
bound him with bronze shackles: The text states the purpose, to take him to Babylon, and leaves the outcome open. Matthew Henry and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown judge that he was left on the throne as a vassal. Adam Clarke reports Archbishop Ussher's view that the seventy years of captivity are counted from this point.
2 Chronicles 36:6
“Came up Nebuchadnezzar - See the notes on 2Ki 24:1. Archbishop Usher believes that Jehoiakim remained three years after this tributary to the Chaldeans, and that it is from this period that the seventy years’ captivity, predicted by Jeremiah, is to be reckoned.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 36:6
“Though Jehoiakim had been taken prisoner (and it was designed at first to transport him in chains to Babylon), he was allowed to remain in his tributary kingdom. But having given not long after some new offense, Jerusalem was besieged by a host of Assyrian dependents.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
put them in his temple in Babylon: Daniel 1:2 records the same removal, the articles placed in the treasury of his god. Albert Barnes identifies that god as Merodach. Matthew Henry sees a just return: Judah had brought idols into the LORD's house, and now the LORD's vessels served in an idol's house.
2 Chronicles 36:7
“In his temple - Compare “the house of his god” Dan 1:2. Nebuchadnezzars inscriptions show him to have been the special votary of Merodach, the Babylonian Mars. His temple, which the Greeks called the temple of Behus, was one of the most magnificent buildings in Babylon. Its ruins still remain in the vast mound, called Babil, which is the loftiest and most imposing of the “heaps” that mark the site of the ancient city.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 36:7
“The sin of Judah was that they had brought the idols of the heathen into God's temple; and now their punishment was that the vessels of the temple were carried away to the service of the gods of the nations. If men will profane God's institutions by their sins, it is just with God to suffer them to be profaned by their enemies.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
all that was found against him: Albert Barnes points to Jeremiah 7 and 19 for the abominations, and judges that Jehoiakim restored the idolatries his father removed. John Wesley takes what was found against him as his rebellion against Babylon, kept hidden and then exposed. Jeremiah 22:18 and 19 foretold that no one would mourn him.
2 Chronicles 36:8
“Found in him - That crime of rebellion against the king of Babylon, which for a time he kept in his own breast, but when he saw fit, discovered it, and was convicted of it.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 36:8
“His abominations which he did - See Jer 7:9, Jer 7:30-31; Jer 19:3-13; Jer 25:1 etc.; Jehoiakim appears to have restored all the idolatries which Josiah his father had swept away.”
Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah who stiffened his neck
2 Chronicles 36:9-10
he reigned in Jerusalem three months and ten days: Jehoiachin reigns “three months and ten days,” and evil is still the one word Chronicles gives him. The Hebrew gives his age as eight, and the Berean follows the eighteen of 2 Kings 24:8. Nebuchadnezzar brings him to Babylon and makes Zedekiah king, the last king Judah will have.
2 Chronicles 36:9
“Eight years old - Rather, eighteen (see the marginal reference). Jehoiachin had several wives and (apparently) at least one child Jer 22:28, when, three months later, he was carried captive to Babylon.”
In the spring: The Hebrew reads at the turn of the year, the season when kings went out to war, John Wesley and Albert Barnes explain. Barnes notes that Zedekiah was a son of Josiah and so Jehoiachin's uncle, and that the Hebrew word for brother covers such a relative.
2 Chronicles 36:10
“Made Zedekiah - king - His name was at first Mattaniah, but the king of Babylon changed it to Zedekiah. See 2Ki 24:17 (note), and the notes there.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Chronicles 36:11-13
Zedekiah was twenty-one years old: Verse 12 names a failure Kings does not record. Zedekiah “did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke for the LORD”, though a living voice of God was in his city. He had sworn loyalty to Nebuchadnezzar by God's name, John Wesley notes, so his rebellion carries perjury.
did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet: Humbling oneself is the Chronicler's test: Rehoboam humbled himself in 12:6 and 7, Manasseh in 33:12, Josiah in 34:27, and each found mercy. Zedekiah is the last king measured by it. Adam Clarke notes these kings ruled as deputies of God and held the throne only while they were faithful.
2 Chronicles 36:12
“Did that which was evil - Was there ever such a set of weak, infatuated men as the Jewish kings in general? They had the fullest evidence that they were only deputies to God Almighty, and that they could not expect to retain the throne any longer than they were faithful to their Lord; and yet with all this conviction they lived wickedly, and endeavored to establish idolatry in the place of the worship of their Maker! After bearing with them long, the Divine mercy gave them up, as their case was utterly hopeless.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 36:12
“On Zedekiah’s character, see 2Ki 24:19 note.”
who had made him swear by God: Albert Barnes dates the oath to Zedekiah's installation and points to Ezekiel 17:13 to 20. Stiffening the neck is the sin Hezekiah warned against in 30:8. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown name the causes of the fall together: the king's pride, the nation's idolatry and its disregard of the prophets.
2 Chronicles 36:13
“By God - Who had required him to swear fealty and constant obedience to him by the true God, whom he called upon to be a witness against him if he broke his oath. So his rebellion was aggravated with perjury, and horrid contempt of God.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 36:13
“The oath of allegiance was taken when he was first installed in his kingdom. On Zedekiah’s sin in breaking his oath, see Eze 17:18-20; Eze 21:25.”
they defiled the house of the LORD: The chief priests, who should have led resistance to idolatry, lead it instead, and the whole people follow after the abominations of the nations. Henry's comment stands on the text's own logic: a place is not far from ruin where religion in it is already ruined.
2 Chronicles 36:14
“Polluted the house of the Lord - Toward the close of Zedekiah’s reign idolatrous rites of several different kinds were intruded into the sacred precincts of the temple (compare Eze 8:10-16).”
God sent messengers, rising up early, till there was no remedy
Again and again the LORD: Judgment comes only after long warning: “Again and again the LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to His people through His messengers”. The King James renders the Hebrew behind “Again and again” as rising up betimes, and Matthew Henry reads it as diligence.
2 Chronicles 36:15
“He gave them early timely notice both of their duty and danger. Let this quicken us to seek God early, that he rises betimes to send to us. The prophets that were sent rose betimes to speak to them, were diligent and faithful in their office, lost no time, slipped no opportunity of dealing with them; and therefore God is said to rise betimes.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
But they mocked the messengers of God: The wrath was stirred “beyond remedy,” a phrase found in the Hebrew Bible only here and at Proverbs 6:15 and 29:1. Chronicles applies to a nation what Proverbs applies to one obstinate man. John Gill takes the lost remedy as repentance itself, with no bringing them back.
2 Chronicles 36:16
“But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words,.... Which was the treatment Jeremiah and Ezekiel frequently met with: and misused his prophets; imprisoned them, as Micaiah and Jeremiah were: until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people; which burned like fire in his breast, and broke out to the consumption of them: till there was no remedy; or healing of them; there was no reclaiming or recovering of them, no bringing them to repentance, and no pardon for them.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 36:16
“The ill usage they gave Jeremiah who lived at this time, and which we read much of in the book of his prophecy, is an instance of this. This was an evidence of an implacable enmity to God, and an invincible resolution to go on in their sins. This brought wrath upon them without remedy, for it was sinning against the remedy.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Chronicles 36:17-19
put their young men to the sword: The king of the Chaldeans puts young men to the sword “in the sanctuary, sparing neither young men nor young women, neither elderly nor infirm”. Chronicles lists in a few lines what Kings tells as narrative. Adam Clarke calls the temple the most costly building ever raised by human hands.
2 Chronicles 36:17
“Chaldees - Abraham was called out of Ur of the Chaldees, when God took him into covenant with himself. And now his degenerate seed are carried into that country again, to signify that they had forfeited all that kindness wherewith they had been loved for their father's sake, and the benefit of the covenant into which he was called.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 36:17
“The fearful slaughter took place at the capture of the city, in the courts of the temple itself (Eze 9:6-7; compare Lam 2:7, Lam 2:20).”
both large and small: John Gill notes that this took what was left after the removals of verses 7 and 10. The vessels were kept in Babylon and returned under Cyrus, while the treasures became plunder. Isaiah had told Hezekiah that the treasures of his house would be carried to Babylon, Isaiah 39:6.
2 Chronicles 36:18
“And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small,.... All that were left; for some had been carried away in both the reigns preceding: and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king and of his princes; which became the spoil and booty of the soldiers: all these he brought to Babylon; the vessels were laid up there, and restored when Cyrus took it; but the treasures were no doubt in part taken for his own use, and the rest divided in the army.”
set fire to the house of God: 2 Kings 25:8 and 9 and Jeremiah 52:12 and 13 date the burning to the fifth month of Nebuchadnezzar's nineteenth year. John Gill refers to Jeremiah for the details. The house Solomon dedicated stood until this day, and Matthew Henry reads the ruin as the havoc that sin makes.
2 Chronicles 36:19
“They burnt the house of God - Here was an end to the temple; the most superb and costly edifice ever erected by man. Brake down the wall of Jerusalem - So it ceased to be a fortified city. Burnt all the palaces - So it was no longer a dwelling-place for kings or great men. Destroyed all the goodly vessels - Beat up all the silver and gold into masses, keeping only a few of the finest in their own shape. See 2Ch 36:18.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
servants to him and his sons: Those who escaped the sword become servants in Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar and his sons “until the kingdom of Persia came to power”. John Gill notes that this is the first place the name Persia enters Scripture. The next two verses already name the kingdom that will end the exile.
2 Chronicles 36:20
“And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away captive,.... The king of Babylon, or his general by his orders, excepting some poor persons left to till the land, see Jer 52:15, where they were servants to him and his sons; his son Evilmerodach, and his grandson Belshazzar; see Gill on Jer 27:7, until the reign of the kingdom of Persia; until that monarchy began, as it did upon the taking of Babylon by Cyrus king of Persia. This is the first place we meet with this name of Persia in Scripture.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 36:20
“Servants - Or, “slaves.” They were probably employed by Nebuchadnezzar in the forced labor which his great works necessitated. His sons - The word probably includes all Nebuchadnezzars successors in the independent sovereignty of Babylon.”
the land enjoyed its Sabbath rest: The land keeps the Sabbaths people never gave it: it “enjoyed its Sabbath rest all the days of the desolation, until seventy years were completed”. Albert Barnes dates the seventy years from the fourth year of Jehoiakim to Cyrus's decree, about 605 to 536 BC, the span Daniel prays over.
2 Chronicles 36:21
“See the marginal references. The 70 years of desolation prophesied by Jeremiah, commenced in the fourth year of Jehoiakim (Jer 25:1, Jer 25:12; compare Dan 1:1), or 605 B.C.; and should therefore have terminated, if they were fully complete, in 536 B.C.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Chronicles 36:21
“This divine institution, however, was neglected--how soon and how long, appears from the prophecy of Moses (see on Le 26:34), and of Jeremiah in this passage (see Jer 25:9-12), which told that for divine retribution it was now to remain desolate seventy years.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Cyrus proclaims: who is there among you of all His people?
2 Chronicles 36:22-23
the LORD stirred the spirit of Cyrus: The Hebrew Bible's last chapter turns on a pagan king: “the LORD stirred the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia” to fulfill Jeremiah's word. The same words open Ezra 1:1-3, and Adam Clarke reads the two verses as carried from Ezra's opening.
2 Chronicles 36:22
“They are there the introduction to a pleasant story; here they are the conclusion of a very melancholy one; and so we learn from them that, though God's church be cast down, it is not cast off, though his people be corrected, they are not abandoned, though thrown into the furnace, yet not lost there, nor left there any longer than till the dross be separated.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Adam Clarke cites the Targum, which reads the blessing as the Word of the LORD being his helper. He closes his notes on the book with the LORD's power, justice, mercy and patience toward His people. Isaiah 44:28 and 45:1 name Cyrus as the LORD's shepherd and anointed.
2 Chronicles 36:23
“The Lord his God be with him - “Let the Word of the Lord be his helper, and let him go up.” - Targum. See the notes on the beginning of Ezra. Thus ends the history of a people the most fickle, the most ungrateful, and perhaps on the whole the most sinful, that ever existed on the face of the earth. But what a display does all this give of the power, justice, mercy, and long-suffering of the Lord! There was no people like this people, and no God like their God.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
How this psalm is built
The form: A compressed strip of four regnal notices, closed by a narrator's own indictment, a statement of the exile's term, and a royal decree that breaks off mid-sentence, as Albert Barnes, with Jamieson, Fausset and Brown classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Four reigns in twenty-one verses | Jehoahaz gets three verses, Jehoiakim four, Jehoiachin two and Zedekiah three, and the site's exposition note on 36:1 to 3 reads the compression itself as a comment. The book works from a sketch that favours the moral shape of these years over political detail told elsewhere. Two of the four kings have their names changed by the foreign power that installs them.Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, cited by the site's exposition note on 2 Chronicles 36:1 to 3. | 2 Chronicles 36:1, 2 Chronicles 36:4, 2 Chronicles 36:9, 2 Chronicles 36:10 |
| Till there was no remedy | Verse 16 closes the indictment with a phrase that stands in only two other places in the Hebrew Bible. The site's exposition note on that verse records it at Proverbs 6:15 and 29:1, both naming a hardness that sudden calamity cannot cure. Chronicles applies to a nation the word Proverbs applies to one obstinate man. John Gill reads the failed remedy as repentance itself, with no reclaiming them and so no pardon left to give.John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, cited by the site's exposition note on 2 Chronicles 36:16. | 2 Chronicles 36:16, 2 Chronicles 36:14, 2 Chronicles 36:15 |
| Compassion, and no compassion | Verse 15 says the LORD sent by his messengers because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. Verse 17 says the Chaldean sword had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man or him that stooped for age. The site's exposition note on 36:17 to 19 reads the second as the first inverted. It records that the same verses list the house burnt, the wall broken down and the palaces burnt in one sentence.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, cited by the site's exposition note on 2 Chronicles 36:17 to 19. | 2 Chronicles 36:15, 2 Chronicles 36:17, 2 Chronicles 36:19 |
| The land kept sabbath | Verse 21 gives the exile a term and two sources in one sentence, the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah and the sabbath law the people had broken. The site's exposition note on that verse names Leviticus 26:34 to 35 as the law in question. It records Albert Barnes dating the seventy years from the fourth year of Jehoiakim to the decree of Cyrus. This gloss on the exile stands nowhere in the Kings account.Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, cited by the site's exposition note on 2 Chronicles 36:21. | 2 Chronicles 36:21, 2 Chronicles 36:20 |
The historical value
15 more paragraphs on the patterns
The dossier's timeline gives this chapter two of its fixed dates. Jerusalem falls in 586 BC, with the house of God burnt and the vessels carried to Babylon, anchored at 36:19. Cyrus issues his decree in 538 BC, anchored at 36:23, and the dossier's own line is that the book stops mid-sentence and Ezra 1 finishes it.
One of the dossier's three ancient Near Eastern parallels bears on the close. The Cyrus Cylinder is Achaemenid Persian and dated about 539 to 538 BC. In it Cyrus credits a god with giving him the kingdoms and describes displaced peoples and their sanctuaries returned to their own places, in the same royal voice these verses use. The verdict the dossier attaches to it is the one a page carries with it. The Cylinder shows the restoration policy was genuine Persian practice put in exactly this kind of proclamation. It concerns Babylonian sanctuaries and does not mention Judah or Jerusalem, so it corroborates the policy rather than the specific decree.
The dossier's manuscripts section adds one fact about the book's place in the canon that bears on its last sentence. In the Leningrad Codex, as in the Talmud's ordering, Chronicles stands among the Writings rather than after Kings, so the Hebrew Bible itself closes on this decree and on the words go up.
The debated concept
Two of the dossier's seven questions sit in this chapter.
The first is whether Jehoiachin was eight years old or eighteen. Verse 9 reads eight and 2 Kings 24:8 reads eighteen. The dossier records that some Hebrew manuscripts, along with the Septuagint and the Syriac, read eighteen here as well. It calls that the ordinary way a difference of this kind is handled, with a number damaged in one line of copying and sound in the other. The dossier's own manuscripts section records the same variant from the Septuagint's side. The site's exposition note on 36:9 records that evil is the one verdict Chronicles gives him on either reading, since he is a boy king in either case.
The second is when the seventy years begin and end. The dossier gives two countings and says both come out close to seventy. One runs 605 to 538 BC, from the first deportation to the decree of Cyrus, which is how Jeremiah 25:11 frames it as a servitude to Babylon. The other runs 586 to 516 BC, from the burning of the house to the finishing of the second temple, which is how 36:19 to 21 frames it as the desolation of the house itself. The site's exposition note on verse 21 records Albert Barnes taking the first, roughly 605 to 536 BC, and records that this is the span Daniel reads in Jeremiah's scroll at Daniel 9:2.
The divine connection
The chapter states its theology in its own indictment rather than leaving a reader to infer it. Verse 15 gives the LORD's patience a reason, that he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. The site's exposition note on that verse records Matthew Henry reading rising up betimes as diligence, with no opportunity lost to call a people back. Verse 16 gives the answer to that patience in three verbs and one clause about a remedy that ran out.
Verse 21 is the chapter's most distinctive theological move and the Kings account has nothing like it. The exile is read as the land collecting sabbaths owed to it, which sets the years of the captivity against a law in Leviticus rather than against a political calculation.
The last two verses hand the future to a king outside the covenant. The guide's Christ table sets 36:22 to 23 against Isaiah 45:1, where a prophet writing before the fact names Cyrus as his anointed, mashiach. The guide's own line is that God raising an outsider to accomplish covenant deliverance is a recurring shape in the Old Testament.
How the rest of Scripture reads this chapter
The parallel is 2 Kings 23:31 to 25:30, which tells the same four reigns and the same siege at far greater length and closes on Jehoiachin eating at the king of Babylon's table. The site's exposition note on 36:1 to 3 records that Chronicles works from a sketch here and leaves the political detail to the older account.
The chapter names Jeremiah twice, at verses 12 and 21. The site's exposition note on 36:11 to 13 records the specific failure Kings leaves out, that Zedekiah did not humble himself before Jeremiah speaking from the mouth of the LORD. The seventy years of verse 21 are Jeremiah's own term at Jeremiah 25:11 and 29:10, and Daniel 9:2 records a reader working from that scroll.
The closing verses are the opening verses of Ezra. The site's exposition note on 36:22 to 23 records Adam Clarke reading them as carried over from Ezra's own opening, and records that the door is left facing Jerusalem either way. The dossier's provenance section records the near-identical wording as the strongest evidence for the tradition that Ezra the scribe compiled this book, a tradition it traces to the Babylonian Talmud at Bava Batra 15a.
Keep studying
Studies4
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Albert Barnes, with Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Notes on the Old Testament and Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, cited together by the site's exposition note on 2 Chronicles 36:1 to 3 and the site's 2 Chronicles guide, the last-four strip of `Book2ChroniclesGuide.tsx`, covering 36:1 to 21, with the Christ table's Cyrus entry at 36:22 to 23.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil, The Books of the Chronicles and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.