Day 190: Judah is Overrun

2 Kings 24:1-20 Babylon emerged as a powerful empire and took much of the land held by Egypt. Several waves of Babylonian invaders descended upon Jerusalem and put many people to death. Then, under Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon laid siege to Jerusalem, where the young King Jehoiachin surrendered three months into his reign. All but the poorest and simplest citizens were carried away to Babylon along with all the riches and spoils of war. Nebuchadnezzar installed Zedekiah, a son of Josiah and another idol-worshiper, as a puppet King of Judah.

2 Chronicles 35:1-26 Josiah renewed the Passover feast, and the ceremonies and rituals took on additional significance under the service of the priests. In an earlier narrative, Josiah was killed unexpectedly when he met with Pharaoh Neco (cf. 2 Kgs 23:29), but in this account, he went into battle against Neco and was killed.

Proverbs 8:22-31 Creation and the Revelation of God’s covenant are intimately connected. Wisdom, the Word of God, was present before the beginning of time, and part of this wisdom is expressed through the marvels of creation. Moral law is derived from the eternal wisdom of God; natural law is accessible to everyone since it is inscribed in the heart of every person. So everyone could enjoy the certainty of moral law and its ramifications, God explicitly revealed it to Moses. For any law to be binding, it must reflect, or at least be in keeping with, natural law. This is the First Reading at Mass on the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, Year C. (CCC 268, 1950-1956)

(*The Didache Bible RSV-CE Ignatius Edition, 2006)

• Including today, we have two more day left in this narrative of 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles

• When it comes to how these first 191 days of Bible in a Year have been crafted, we never ever want to LOSE THE STORY

• Starting on Day 192 we will dive deeply into the books of the PROPHETS

• We have read some of the prophets before

• We met some prophets who were preaching in the NORTH to Israel

• We also met some prophets who did double duty preaching to both NORTH and SOUTH

• We are starting The Book of Isaiah on Day 192

• We will also have some NARRATIVE BOOKS as well

• But we aren’t necessarily following the Great Adventure Bible Timeline, strictly speaking

• We want to situate these PROPHETIC BOOKS as well as other books into that timeline

• Wow! What a GIFT!

• The Book of Proverbs is ALL ABOUT WISDOM

• As we continue to journey forward in the Book of Proverbs, one of the things that we are going to keep coming back to is THE WISDOM OF GOD

• WISDOM IS IMPORTANT, and that is kind of the understatement of the year

• How essentially connected to God is WISDOM?

• Those who are FOOLISH are always disconnected from God

• Those who are WISE are always connected to God

• Among many other things, WISDOM is the ability to have RIGHT PRIORITIES

• WISDOM is the ability to SEE CORRECTLY

• WISDOM is the ability to VALUE CORRECTLY

• One of the things that we recognize is that those who have WISDOM are able to value the Lord PROPERLY as opposed to value the things of this world IMPROPERLY

• We saw in 2 Chronicles Ch 35 that Josiah was able to value the Lord PROPERLY

• What did he do?

• He re-established WORSHIP, which we heard about in 2 Kings

• He re-established the Passover Feast, which they celebrated for seven days and then felt it was so incredible to PRAISE AND WORSHIP GOD IN THE WAY HE DESERVES AND ASKS TO BE WORSHIPED

• So they are going to do ANOTHER SEVEN DAYS OF WORSHIP

• We also get the DEATH of Josiah by Pharaoh Neco of Egypt

• The next steps, Jehoahaz and Zedekiah and the fall of Jerusalem will happen tomorrow in 2 Chronicles Ch 36 but we read about it TODAY in 2 Kings Ch 24

• Judah is overrun by its enemies

• Nebuchadnezzar is the King of Babylon

• Jehoiakim and his son, Jehoiachin (who was also known as Jeconiah or Coniah 🤓)

• Thank you, namers of people in the Bible!! 🤣

• What did they do?

• They both did what was EVIL in the sight of the Lord

• They were the successors of Josiah

• They TURNED AWAY from the faith of their father and grandfather

• Nebuchadnezzar came in and God promised that because of the sins of Manasseh, Jerusalem is delivered into the hand of the Babylonians

• We will also see the beginning of the EXILE

• Nebuchadnezzar comes into the land of Judah, Benjamin, and Jerusalem

• He is going to bring into EXILE the servants of the king

• He is first going to take away the people who are the STRONGEST

• So he first takes away Jehoiachin who was the king at the time

• He takes away the princes

• He takes away the mighty men of valor

• He takes 10,000 captives

• He takes all the craftsmen and smiths

• He takes Jehoiachin’s family, his officials, and the chief men of the land

• NONE remained except the poor people of the land 

• All of those people are going into Babylon

• King Nebuchadnezzar makes Zedekiah a puppet king of Judah

• Zedekiah was the son of Josiah 

• We have the beginning of the EXILE

• The first thing that Nebuchadnezzar does is EXILE those that are MOST POWERFUL in Judah

• He takes away the POWER out of Judah and Jerusalem

• We are going to see tomorrow that he will take MORE people away

• He will EXILE even more

• The people of Israel will find themselves AWAY from the land

• The day after tomorrow, we will go into Isaiah and Tobit

• We are going to go back in time to when Isaiah the Prophet, Ezekiel the Prophet, and Jeremiah the Prophet were preaching

• The whole story that we JUST HEARD is going to be the time that these prophets are preaching against

• So when we hear about these bad kings and the people who were FALLING AWAY FROM THEIR FAITH, we will hear what Isaiah had to say to them

• If you recall in these last couple of chapters, as they are being brought into EXILE, one of the claims that God made was, “I sent you the man of God. I sent you my Word. I sent you my Prophets.”

• We are going to hear from these prophets over the next bunch of days

• Tomorrow, we are done with the NARRATIVE BOOKS of 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles

• We are launching into the PROPHETS the day after tomorrow

• It will be an INCREDIBLE journey

• It will be a CHALLENGE

• We have to constantly be reminded of what was going on when Isaiah was preaching, when Jeremiah was preaching, when Ezekiel was preaching

• Hopefully up to this point, the story has gotten INTO YOUR BONES

• Hopefully up to this point, YOU GET WHAT IS GOING ON in the NORTHERN KINGDOM OF ISRAEL and the SOUTHERN KINGDOM OF JUDAH and the fact that they are SO SO UNFAITHFUL even though God CONTINUES TO BE FAITHFUL 

• That is our next step after tomorrow when we conclude 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles

• WE CAN’T WAIT!

• PRAY FOR FR. MIKE

• PRAY FOR EACH OTHER

Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven we thank you and give you praise. Thank you for your wisdom, your wisdom that goes forth from you, your wisdom which created the world. It is true, Lord God, that when we listen to you and we keep your ways, we are happy. We are blessed. Help us to hear instruction and be wise. Help us to watch daily at the gates of wisdom. Help us to find wisdom and therefore find life and obtain favor from you. Thank you. Thank you, Lord. Thank you for this opportunity and thank you for this day. Once again, we pray this all in Jesus’ name. Amen.”