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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.”
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