Study Desk

Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned for eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.

The city came under siege [for nearly two years] until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.

On the ninth day of the fourth month the famine [caused by the siege] was severe in the city; there was no food for the people of the land.

The two pillars, the one sea (large basin), and the bases which Solomon had made for the house of the LORD, the bronze of all these articles was incalculable.

And from the city [of Jerusalem] he took an officer who was in command of the men of war, and five men from the king's personal advisors who were found in the city, and the scribe of the captain of the army who mustered the people of the land [for military service] and sixty men from the people of the land who were found in the city.

Then all the people, both small and great, and the captains of the forces set out and went to Egypt; for they were afraid of the Chaldeans (Babylonians).

Jehoiachin changed his prison clothes [for palace garments] and he dined regularly in the king's presence for the remainder of his life;

and his allowance, a continual one, was given to him by the king (Evil-meridach), a portion every day, for the rest of his life.

These were the potters and those who lived [among plantations and hedges] at Netaim and Gederah; they lived there with the king for his work.

So they journeyed to the entrance of Gedor, to the east side of the valley, to seek pasture for their flocks.

They found rich, good pasture, and the [cleared] land was wide, quiet, and peaceful; for those who had lived there previously came from Ham [and had left it a better place for those who came after them].

These, registered by name, came in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and they attacked their tents and the Meunites (foreigners) who were found there, and utterly destroyed them to this day; and they settled in their place, because there was pasture there for their flocks.

Now [we come to] the sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel—for Reuben was the eldest, but because he defiled his father's bed [with Bilhah his father's concubine], his birthright was given to [Manasseh and Ephraim] the sons of Joseph [the favorite] son of Israel, so that he is not enrolled in the genealogy according to the birthright.

They were given help against them, and the Hagrites were handed over to them, and all who were allied with them; for they cried out to God [for help] in the battle; and He granted their entreaty because they relied on and trusted in Him.

For a great number fell mortally wounded, because the battle was of God. And these Israelites settled in their territory until the exile [by Assyria more than five centuries later].

As for Elkanah, the sons of Elkanah: Zophai his son and Nahath his son,

Their relatives the Levites [who were not descended from Aaron] were appointed for all the other kinds of service of the tabernacle of the house of God.

But [the line of] Aaron and his sons made offerings on the altar of burnt offering and on the altar of incense, ministering for all the work of the Holy of Holies (Most Holy Place), and [they did so] to make atonement for Israel, according to all that Moses, God's servant, had commanded.

Now these are their settlements according to their camps within their borders: to the sons of Aaron of the families of the Kohathites (for theirs was the first allocation by lot)

and from the half-tribe of Manasseh [these cities], with their pasture lands: Aner and Bileam, for the rest of the families of the sons of Kohath.