Judah’s Last Days

Johanan, Jehoiakim, Zedekiah, and Shallum

The text of 1 Chronicles 3.1–16 lists the kings of Judah from David through to the time of the exile. Like many Biblical lists, it has some neat numerical features. In 1 Chronicles 1, a list of ten descendants takes us from Adam down to Noah, and then a second list of ten descendants takes us from Shem down to Abraham (1.1–4, 24–27).

Meanwhile, in chapter 3, we begin with a pool of twenty descendants, i.e., David plus his six Hebron-born sons, plus his nine Jerusalem-born sons, plus his four other sons (3.1–4), and then a list of twenty kings takes us down from Solomon (שְׁלֹמֹה) to Shallum (שַׁלּוּם), all of which has a nice symmetry.

For all the neatness of chapter 3’s lists, however, Judah’s last days were a messy business. And so the Bible’s accounts of them embody a number of complexities. Below, I’ll outline a few of the more notable ones.

The text of 3.15 enumerates four sons of Josiah: first we have ⟨Johanan⟩ (יוֹחָנָן), then ⟨Jehoiakim⟩ (יְהוֹיָקִים), then ⟨Zedekiah⟩ (צִדְקִיָּהוּ), and finally ⟨Shallum⟩ (שַׁלּוּם). In the book of 2 Kings, however, a different sequence of kings is implied. After the death of Josiah, we read (in order) about the appointments of: i] Jehoahaz (יְהוֹאָחָז) (cp. 23.31ff.), ii] Eliakim (אֶלְיָקִים) (cp. 23.34ff.), iii] Jehoiachin (יְהוֹיָכִין) (Eliakim’s son) (cp. 24.6ff.), and iv] Mattaniah (Jehoiachin’s uncle) (מַתַּנְיָהוּ) (cp. 24.17ff.). Then, at the end of Mattaniah’s reign, Jerusalem falls. The details of 1 Chronicles 3 thus seem very different to those of 2 Kings, as shown below:

Why? What’s happened? Part of the answer is explicitly stated in the text. When Pharaoh installed Eliakim on the throne, he changed his name to ⟨Jehoiakim⟩ (23.34)—that is to say, he gave him a ‘throne name’—, and, later, when Nebuchadnezzar installed Mattaniah, he changed Mattaniah’s name to ⟨Zedekiah⟩ (24.17).

We can thus resolve at least some of the discrepancies between Kings and Chronicles without too much difficulty: the Jehoiakim of 1 Chronicles 3 is the Eliakim of 2 Kings, and the Zedekiah of 1 Chronicles 3 is the Mattaniah of 2 Kings, as shown below.

Meanwhile, since 1 Chronicles 3 describes Johanan as Josiah’s ‘firstborn’ (בְּכוֹר), it seems reasonable to identify him with the king who succeeded Josiah in 2 Kings 23, namely Jehoahaz (a point we’ll pick up later). Thus far, then, the picture looks as follows:

But a number of questions remain unanswered. First up, where does Shallum fit in? His name doesn’t appear anywhere in 2 Kings 23–24, yet he clearly reigned over Judah at some point (cp. Jer. 22.11). Other questions are also raised by the text.

How come the book of Kings has Jehoiachin start to reign at the age of eighteen when the book of Chronicles has him start to reign at the age of eight (cp. 2 Kgs. 24.8 w. 2 Chr. 36.9)?¹ Why does 2 Chronicles refer to Mattaniah as Jehoiachin’s ‘brother’ when Kings refers to him as Jehoiachin’s ‘uncle’ (2 Chr. 36.10 w. 2 Kgs. 24.17)? And how come Zedekiah is listed third in 1 Chronicles 3 yet is the fourth king to reign in Josiah’s place in 2 Kings 23–24’s version of events?

Granted a relatively simple hypothesis, for which we already have independent evidence, all of these questions can be answered at a stroke. The hypothesis is as follows:

⟨Jehoiachin⟩ was Shallum’s throne name; in the first year of his eleven-year reign, Jehoiakim made his son (Shallum) crown prince, promoted him to the position of co-heir of Josiah’s throne (alongside Jehoiakim himself), and gave him the throne name ⟨Jehoiachin⟩ (יְהוֹיָכִין) = ‘YHWH has established (him)’. (Kings were able to exercise a certain amount of discretion in such matters: 2 Chr. 11.22.) Then, when Jehoiakim was led away into captivity, Shallum-aka-Jehoiachin began his sole reign (at the age of eighteen).

The name ⟨Jehoiakim⟩ can thus be compared to various Mesopotamian throne names. One is Sargon’s. Sargon was in all probability not the natural successor to the throne of Uruk: he claimed it by force and subsequently proclaimed himself ⟨Šarru-kēn⟩—i.e., ‘the true/established king’—in announcement/legitimation of his actions. Another involves the names of King Aššur-etel-ilāni-mukīn-apli. The king’s given name—⟨Aššūr-aḫu-iddina⟩ = ‘Aššūr has provided a brother’—was hardly a name fit for a king; indeed, it cast aspersions on his claim to the throne since it suggested he wasn’t actually a firstborn son, but had a brother somewhere in the realm. Hence, when he acceded to the throne (or perhaps shortly beforehand), he assumed the throne name ⟨Aššur-etel-ilāni-mukīn-apli⟩, which sent out a far more appropriate message: ‘Aššur, supreme among the gods, has established an heir’.

Apparently, then, Shallum’s change of name to ⟨Jehoiachin⟩ (יְהוֹיָכִין) —‘YHWH has established him’—was motivated by a similar intention. It even involves the same verb found in the names ⟨Šarru-kēn⟩ and ⟨Aššur-etel-ilāni-mukīn-apli⟩ (cp. Hebrew ⟨KWN⟩ with Assyrian ⟨kuānu⟩ = ‘to become permanent, established’).

We can thus provide answers to the questions posed above, as follows:

The name ⟨Shallum⟩ doesn’t appear in 2 Kings 23–24 because the text of 2 Kings refers to Jehoiachin by his throne name. The book of Chronicles has Jehoiachin start to reign at the age of eight because that’s when he was appointed as crown prince; he didn’t begin his sole reign until ten years later, when he was eighteen—a notion also proffered by the Geneva Bible and the Radak.² 2 Chronicles refers to Mattaniah as Jehoiachin’s ‘brother’ (as opposed to his ‘uncle’) because of Jehoiachin’s promotion; just as the patriarch Joseph’s sons became co-heirs with Jacob’s biological sons (cp. 1 Chr. 5.1), so Jehoiachin became a co-heir with Josiah’s biological sons (and can hence be referred to as a ‘son’ of Josiah in 1 Chronicles 3).³ And, for the same reason, Zedekiah wasn’t the third king to reign after Josiah’s death but the fourth; the promotion of Shallum moved him back a notch.

Our hypothesis is also consistent with (and/or helps to explain) a number of other features of the Biblical text.

First, it sheds light on the name of Johanan-aka-Jehoahaz. Johanan’s accession was unexpected: he was 23 years old when he began to reign, reigned for three months, and was succeeded by a 25-year-old Jehoiakim (2 Kgs. 23.31, 36). Johanan wasn’t, therefore, Josiah’s firstborn son, yet he was installed as king anyway (by popular demand: 23.30). As a result, Johanan needed a good throne name. (His given name ⟨Johanan⟩ [יוֹחָנָן] simply alluded to YHWH’s provision of a child, per the sense of חנ׳׳ן in Gen. 33.5.) Hence, when Johanan acceded to the throne, he assumed a throne name ⟨Jehoahaz⟩ (יְהוֹאָחָז) which sent out an authoritative statement: ‘YHWH has selected [אח׳׳ז] (me)!’ (cp. the sense of אח׳׳ז in Num. 31.30, 47, 1 Chr. 24.6 and, by analogy, the sense of לכ׳׳ד [‘to choose’] in Josh. 7.14).

Second, it makes sense of the flow of 1 Chronicles 3.15ff. and its reference to Josiah as the father of four sons.

Shallum-aka-Jehoiachin appears twice in 3.15–17: initially he appears in 3.15 under the name Shallum in his promoted position (as a co-heir of Josiah’s throne), where he and his brothers are listed in the order in which they would have been expected to reign after the appointment of Jehoahaz. And, afterwards, he appears under the throne name Jehoiachin as the biological son of Jehoiakim who did in fact reign in Judah (3.16ff.).

Third, it helps to explain some of Jeremiah 22’s more unusual features. At first blush, Jeremiah’s references to a king named Shallum looks as if it has Jehoahaz in mind (Jer. 22.11–12). Yet, as we’ve seen, Jehoiachin can also (in a sense) be said to have reigned in place of his father Josiah, and Jeremiah never mentions Jehoahaz-aka-Johanan by name in his prophecies, which makes the name Shallum unlikely to have him in mind; indeed, 1.1–2 tells us Jeremiah prophesied: a] in the days of Josiah and b] from the days of Jehoiakim until the time of the exile, which overlooks the reign of Jehoahaz entirely. Jeremiah’s use of the name Shallum may also be significant for another reason: Jeremiah doesn’t recognise Jehoiachin as a man whom God has established (כו׳׳ן). The false prophets do, hence they happily refer to him as Jehoiachin (28.4), but Jeremiah refers to Jehoiachin either by his given name Shallum or by a weakened form of his name, viz. ⟨Jeconiah⟩/⟨Coniah⟩ (יְכָנְיָה/כָּנְיָה) = ‘May YHWH establish (him)’.

True, the text of Jeremiah 22 still has its interpretative challenges (God hasn’t made things easy for us), which I might tackle some other time, but I hope some of the above has been an encouragement to dig into the details of Scripture and to persevere with our divinely-inspired text.

1. The easy way out is to say the word עשרה (‘ten’) got lost somewhere along the line. But, to explain the MT as we have it today, we need to posit more than just the loss of the word עשרה, since the omission of עשרה from בן שמנה עשרה שנה would leave בן שמנה שנה, which would be ungrammatical. We need בן שמונה שנים, per 2 Chr. 36.9.

2. The text of Jer. 22.24 also seems to hint at Jehoiakim’s appointment of Jechoniah as a co-regent, since, in 22.24, YHWH tells Jehoiakim, ‘Even if Jechoniah was a signet ring on my right hand, I would still remove you from the throne!’. Apparently, then, Coniah was held in high esteem (before he commenced his sole reign), and Jehoiakim thought the appointment of Coniah as his co-regent might cast his reign in a better light. YHWH, however, would not be so easily fooled.

3. Cp. in particular Jacob’s statement to Joseph, ‘Your two sons, who were born to you in the land of Egypt,…are mine; Ephraim and Manasseh are to be mine, as Reuben and Simeon are’ (Gen. 48.5).