God’s Word for You

2 Chronicles 36:9-10 Jehoiachin’s polygamy

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Tuesday, June 24, 2025

9 Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months and ten days. He did what was evil in the eyes of the LORD. 10 In the spring of the year King Nebuchadnezzar sent men and had him brought to Babylon, together with the precious vessels of the House of the LORD, and made his uncle Zedekiah king over Judah and Jerusalem.

Jehoiachin became king when his father was captured and removed to Babylon. That was in December of 598 BC. By late March or early April, in the spring of the year (as our text says), after three months and ten days, the Babylonians came once again, this time taking away Jehoiachin. But not only the king. They took away his mother, all of his palace attendants, and many princes, officials, and leading men of Judah. This was the same exile in which the young Ezekiel was captured (who later became a prophet), and also Mordecai, the cousin of the girl who became Queen Esther (Esther 2:6). This was the second exile to Babylon, the second of three. I find it easiest to remember those three deportations according to the prophets who were taken: First, Daniel went. Second, Ezekiel. Third, Jeremiah was chained up to go but was released at the last minute (Jeremiah 40:1-5). So therefore the deportations are according to the list of the Major Prophets except for Isaiah, and they are in reverse order of their books in the Bible: Daniel, Ezekiel, Jeremiah.

Besides the young king and his wives and mother, the Babylonians now plundered the temple and took everything of value. Ten thousand people from Judah and Benjamin went away with this group into exile. They were exiled all along the territory of Babylon, from the upper Euphrates (Ezekiel 1:1; Ezra 8:15) to the lower Tigris (Esther 1:2; Nehemiah 1:1; Daniel 8:2).

One of Jeremiah’s prophecies says: “As I live, declares the LORD, even if you, Coniah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, were a signet ring on my right hand, I would pull you off. I will deliver you into the hand of those who want to take your life, those you fear. I will deliver you into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and into the hand of the Chaldeans. I will throw you and the mother who bore you into another country, where neither of you were born, and there you will die” (Jeremiah 22:24-26). Coniah is one of Jeremiah’s names for Jehoiachin.

This king is judged as having done evil in the eyes of the Lord. 2 Kings 24:9 tells us that this evil was “just as his father had done.” Therefore we know that there was disrespect for the word of God and for his prophets. Perhaps some or most of this happened already when he was a young prince watching his father’s actions, watching him burn Jeremiah’s scroll, or watching him persecute and even murder the prophets of God. So even though there is only one particular sin mentioned by name during his reign, he was guilty of sin and evil just as Jehoiakim had been guilty.

That one sin in particular is described in 2 Kings 24:15, where we hear that exiled along with the king and his mother were the eth-nashey hammelek, “the wives of the king.” We discussed the sin of polygamy among Israel’s kings when we meditated on King Abijah back in 2 Chronicles 13:21. We recalled that there was a law in Moses specifically forbidding the king to marry multiple wives (Deuteronomy 17:17). But we also recall that Deuteronomy itself was seemingly lost for a long time, and that the practice of all the nations was that a king, or a prince, or even just a wealthy man, could have many wives. But then what happens when that king discovers in the Word of God that this is a sin? “The king,” Moses said, “must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray” (Deuteronomy17:17). Moses went on to say in the next verse: “When he takes the throne, he is to write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll, taken from the copy of the priests, who are Levites. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life, so may learn to revere the Lord his God” (Deuteronomy 17:18-19). This was therefore not just a law he might or might not have heard once when it was read in the temple services, but it was a law he was supposed to study on a regular basis.

So what does a man do when, as a younger man, he fell into the sin of polygamy? If it were theft, he could repent and promise not to do it anymore. Or gossip. Or coveting. But polygamy leaves him with the indisputable responsibility of taking care of women who are, after all, royal wives.

The extra problem with polygamy with royal wives is that to divorce one, or to set one aside, leaves her open to being married to another man—a man who might take her former position as a queen and use it to claim the kingship. And given any kind of following, he might succeed. This was the plan of David’s son Adonijah, who decided to ask Solomon’s permission to marry David’s last wife, the girl named Abishag (1 Kings 2:17). Solomon immediately understood the danger and had his brother Adonijah executed for treason (1 Kings 2:22-28).

Therefore, once a king had multiple wives, he had to take care of them and was trapped in his polygamy. He could not kill the extra wives, obviously, without breaking the commandment against murder (and it would be expected that he would love and cherish them, anyway). He could not release them with the danger of a rival challenging him for the throne. He could do nothing, in fact, apart from treating one as his true queen, and the others as something less. Repentance would lead him to refraining from sleeping with them, but he would have to supply their needs, housing, providing for their children, and so forth. This is an application of the law of divorce in Deuteronomy 22:28-29. The other wives would—assuming his repentance and his true intent to keep the word of God despite his sin in committing polygamy—the other wives would remain wives but would not longer have his intimacy. They would have his name and a share in his property, and a claim on his protection.

So our contemplation on the brief reign and sin of King Jehoiachin has taken us down this path. Our sins have consequences in this lifetime as well as in eternity. And while forgiveness through the blood of Christ on the cross releases us from the guilt of our sin in eternity, there may remain certain consequences that cannot be avoided in life. A painful example here is of course the thief on the cross, who came to faith and was saved, and yet died that same day for his transgression against the government and against his fellow man. And so the polygamist faces consequences, as well as the adulterer, the foul-mouthed cursing man, the liar, the thief, the robber, the sexual pervert, and all the rest. Forgive us our sins, O Lord, as we forgive those who sin against us!

And so we pray (as we confess in the Catechism) “that our Father in heaven would not look upon our sins or because of them deny our prayers; for we are worthy of none of the things for which we ask, neither have we deserved them, but we ask that he would give them all to us by grace; for we daily sin much and surely deserve nothing but punishment. So we too will forgive from the heart and gladly do good to those who sin against us.”

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

Browse Devotion Archive