Hands up those who have ever heard a sermon on Jehoiachin. (Pronounced Gee-hoy-a-kin.)
Gee-hoy-a-kin who? Who was he? A king.
A king of where? Israel.
Was he a good king? No.
Did he reign a long time? No
Why would anyone preach about him? Why should anyone make him the subject of a sermon?
That is just it – Jehoiachin has been overlooked and yet he tells us the most amazing things about God. He is one of the Bible’s best kept secrets.
Jehoiachin reigned in Israel for about three months when he surrendered to the king of Babylon. He languished in prison there for 37 years so he must have been around 55-60 years of age by now.
But don’t feel too sorry for him, he was a king ‘who did evil’ while he reigned. So, serve him right, you might say, he got what he deserved.
Really?
One day the king of Babylon sent for him:
“Come and have supper with me, Jehoiachin.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, Jehoiachin, I want you to have supper with me, not just this one time, but every evening.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh, and by the way, I would like you to live close by, so I have arranged for you to move into an apartment here at the palace, Jehoiachin.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“And I like my guests to feel comfortable so my tailors have designed you a new wardrobe, Jehoiachin.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“And Jehoiachin, you’ll be socially despised without financial support, so I have arranged for you to receive a regular, daily pension as long as you live.”
“Thank you, sir.”
And here we have a pension system and a picture of how God treats us.
We have not done well, in fact, as Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “If you, then, being evil …” He takes it for granted we are evil, or at best we are not good. (Matthew 7:11)
We are all in that prison and the only escape is rescue. By our King.
We also have to have a whole new wardrobe – see the banquet clothes in Matthew 22. The clothes must be provided by our King. The same story is in Genesis 3:21 – God provided covering. And Isaiah says ‘He has robed me in deliverance.’
Then an apartment is being prepared for us so that we can go to him. But in the meantime, He comes to sup with us – He comes to us! He left His palace to come to us. What a God is this: the King came to our prison in person.
He came clothed in flesh and lodged with us. Now He dwells by His Spirit, with us to glorification day.
And look at the feast stories Jesus gives us – ‘I am the bread;’ we ‘live by every word that proceeds from God.’ We have the bread that fed Jesus – meat to eat the world knows nothing about, the word of God.
And the pension? The Holy Spirit is with us and opens our understanding of Scripture – just how much do we want?
Jehoiachin tells us what we are like, and the king of Babylon tells us what God is like. It is an Old Testament physical story of a New Testament spiritual reality.
Read it in 2 Kings 25:27-30.
Elizabeth Price