The Crunch of Empires

Synopsis     2Kings 24:6-15     10/24/2019

King Jehoiakim died. After this, Jehoiachin became king. Jehoiachin was Jehoiakim’s son. And he was only eighteen years old when he became king.

At the time of his Jehoiachin’s coronation, King Nebuchadnezzar’s power was increasing. So much so that the Babylonian empire had completely eclipsed Egypt’s empire.

So, almost immediately after Jehoiachin became king, Babylon again attacked Jerusalem. After they besieged the city, Jehoiachin surrendered to Nebuchadnezzar. As a result, he and his family were deported to Babylon, along with his high officials and most of the wealth of the city. This was the first deportation.

The Crunch of Empires

By the time of Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin, the kingdom of Israel was limited to the territory associated with the tribe of Judah. So, it was a small kingdom. But, it was strategically positioned between three empires. In the past, the region was dominated by either Egypt or the Assyrian Empire. Assyria was northeast of Israel and Egypt’s empire was situated to the south.

Because of this, the kings of Judah historically attempted to use its strategic geographic location to remain independent of either empire. However, as the Babylonian empire began its dramatic rise, it subsumed the Assyrian empire and pressed right up to the boundary of Egypt. And this included the territory of Israel.

So, the Israelite effort to remain an important political territory and also maintain their independence proved to be impossible. Their efforts to remain independent in the context of Babylon’s raw military conquest and Egypt’s political intrigue had failed. But the greatest calamity was that their special relationship as God’s chosen people was ultimately threatened and all but lost as the people were deported to Babylon.

The preeminence of this relationship would only be restored when the surviving children of Israel were stripped of everything else.

The Crunch of Culture

Though I’m not a nation, it doesn’t feel very different for me. I call myself a child of God. But I so often find myself drawn into the stuff of earth. I gorge on the news of the day. I feel the need to have an opinion about everything and anything. And somehow my engagement with the world becomes less about creating value for others and more about my pride –  and protecting my place in this world.

It is the faithfulness of God that strips away the worthless and the nonsensical. But being stripped is being stripped. Anything I cling to makes the process more painful. Everything I cling to makes the process more painful.

Better to lay this down.

…”At that he said to them, “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” Matt 22:21