2 Chronicles 36:13

_AND HE ALSO REBELLED AGAINST KING NEBUCHADNEZZAR, WHO HAD MADE HIM SWEAR BY GOD: BUT HE STIFFENED HIS NECK, AND HARDENED HIS HEART FROM TURNING UNTO THE LORD GOD OF ISRAEL._ Who had made him swear. Zedekiah received his crown on the express condition of taking a solemn oath of fealty to the king of Babylon (Ezekiel 17:13), so that his revolt, by joining in a league with Pharaoh-Hophra, king of Egypt, involved the crime of perjury (see the notes at 2 Kings 25:1; also an account of the war between Nebuchadnezzar and Pharaoh-Hophra (Aprics); an account of Zedekiah in Rawlinson's 'Herodotus,' ii., p. 386). His own pride and obdurate impiety, the incurable idolatry of the nation, and their reckless disregard of prophetic warnings, brought down on his already sadly reduced kingdom the l

1-21 The ruin of Judah and Jerusalem came on by degrees. The methods God takes to call back sinners by his word, by ministers, by conscience, by providences, are all instances of his compassion toward them, and his unwillingness that any should perish. See here what woful havoc sin makes, and, as we value the comfort and continuance of our earthly blessings, let us keep that worm from the root of them. They had many times ploughed and sowed their land in the seventh year, when it should have rested, and now it lay unploughed and unsown for ten times seven years. God will be no loser in his glory at last, by the disobedience of men. If they refused to let the land rest, God would make it rest. What place, O God, shall thy justice spare, if Jerusalem has perished? If that delight of thine were cut off for wickedness, let us not be high-minded, but fear....

The oath of allegiance was taken when he was first installed in his kingdom. On Zedekiah’s sin in breaking his oath, see Ezekiel 17:18; Ezekiel 21:25....

EXPOSITION One short chapter now brings to a conclusion the work, in so many aspects remarkable, called 'The Chronicles.' And thirteen verses sum the contents of the four last pre-Captivity kings of the line of Judah. The words of Keil, in opening this last chapter in his commentary, are not unworthy of note. He says, "As the kingdom of Judah after Josiah's death advanced with swift steps to its destruction by the Chaldeans, so the author of the Chronicle goes quickly over the reigns of the last kings of Judah, who by their godless con-duet hastened the ruin of the kingdom. As to the four kings remaining, who reigned between Josiah's death and the destruction of Jerusalem, he gives, besides their ages at their respective accessions, only a short characterization of their conduct towards God, and a statement of the main events which, step by step, brought about the ruin of the king and th...

2 Chronicles 36:1...

9. THE FINAL DECLINE AND APOSTASY CHAPTER 36:1-14 _ 1. Jehoahaz's reign (2 Chronicles 36:1)_ 2. Jehoiachin's brief reign (2 Chronicles 36:8) 3. Zedekiah (2 Chronicles 36:11) As the complete record of these three final rulers is given in the second book of Kings, the annotations are made there. Nothing needs to be added. It was the final plunge before the awful judgment overtook Jerusalem and Judah. And there will be a final plunge into apostasy in connection with the professing Church, before the predicted judgment with the coming of our blessed Lord will end this present evil age and usher in His glorious kingdom....

MADE HIM SWEAR. Ezekiel refers to this (Ezekiel 17:11)....

_who had made him swear by God_ Cp. Ezekiel 17:11-19....

21. THE REIGN OF ZEDEKIAH (2 Chronicles 36:11-17) TEXT 2 Chronicles 36:11. Zedekiah was twenty and one years old when he began to reign; and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem: 12. and he did that which was evil in the sight of Jehovah his God; he humbled not himself before Jeremiah the prophet speaking from the mouth of Jehovah. 13. And he also rebelled against king Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God: but he stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart against turning unto Jehovah, the God of Israel. 14. Moreover all the chiefs of the priests, and the people, trespassed very greatly after all the abominations of the nations; and they polluted the house of Jehovah which he had hallowed in Jerusalem. 15. And Jehovah, the God of their fathers, sent to th

THE FALL OF JERUSALEM This is a brief record of the reigns of Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah, and of the destruction of Jerusalem. The first twenty vv. of this chapter are abbreviated from 2 Kings 23:30 to 2 Kings 25:21, with some variations of statement....