Was Jehoiakim succeeded by his son, when Jeremiah said none of his line would sit on David’s throne?

Hard question · Israel’s history: Joshua to Esther · raised by 1 of the lists sceptics circulate

The passages

The objection

After Jehoiakim burned Jeremiah’s scroll, the Lord said that he “shall have none to sit upon the throne of David” (Jeremiah 36:30). Yet 2 Kings 24:6 says that when he died “Jehoiachin his son reigned in his stead”. The prophecy seems to have failed at once.

The answer

Jehoiachin did follow his father, but his reign was the briefest of interludes. He “reigned in Jerusalem three months” (2 Kings 24:8), or three months and ten days (2 Chronicles 36:9), while the Babylonian army closed in. Then he surrendered and was carried off to Babylon, where he spent the rest of his life in exile (2 Kings 24:10–15; 25:27–30). The next king, Zedekiah, was not Jehoiakim’s heir but his brother, put on the throne by Nebuchadnezzar: “the king of Babylon made Mattaniah his father’s brother king in his stead” (2 Kings 24:17).

The Hebrew word for ‘sit’ here is yashab, which also means to dwell, stay or remain. To ‘sit upon the throne of David’ is to reign there in a settled way, as David’s heir, not to hold the title for a hundred days under siege. Haley notes that the word implies some permanence, and John Gill writes that a reign of three months ‘is reckoned as nothing’. In this sense Jehoiakim had no one to sit on David’s throne after him.

The longer view bears this out. Of Jehoiachin himself the Lord said, “no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah” (Jeremiah 22:30), and no descendant of his ever reigned in Judah. (How this bears on Jesus’ descent from Jeconiah is a separate question, answered under the curse on Jeconiah.)

From the classic commentators

Jehoiachin's reign lasted but a few months, and was, perhaps, subject to his mother's tutelage. He was then carried captive to Babylon, and his uncle made king in his stead. The Hebrew term rendered "sit," in Jeremiah, implies some degree of permanence; hence there is no collision between the passages.J. W. Haley, Alleged Discrepancies (1874), p. 346

for his son Jeconiah reigned but three months, which is reckoned as nothing, and could not be called sitting upon the throne; and, besides, was never confirmed by the king of Babylon, in whose power he was, and by whom he was carried captiveJohn Gill, Exposition on Jeremiah 36:30 (1746–1763)

Was Jehoiakim succeeded by his son, when Jeremiah said none of his line would sit on David’s throne?

The passages

The objection

The answer

From the classic commentators

Sources

Further reading