What is meant by “deportation to Babylon” (Matthew
1:11)?
After God blessed the Jews into a great nation, they decided that they
didn't need Him anymore, and led by a series of wicked kings, worshipped
pagan idols as gods, even burning their own babies as human sacrifices, engaged in other abominations, and rejected
repeated warnings from prophets to repent and turn back to God. In
response, God destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel and sent it into
exile in Assyria in 722 BC, and then destroyed the southern kingdom of Judah and
sent it into exile in Babylon in 586 BC during the reign of
Jeconiah, who was also
known as
“Coniah” and
“Jehoiachin”
(Jeremiah 52:31): 24
“As I live,” says the LORD, “even if Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, king
of Judah, were the signet ring on My right hand, I would still pull you
off;
25 and I will
give you into the hand of those who seek your life, and into the hand of
those whose face you fear - the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon,
and the hand of the Chaldeans. 26
And I will cast you out, and your mother who bore you, into another
country where you were not born, and there you shall die.
27 They shall not
return to the land
to which they desire to return.
30 Thus says the
LORD: ‘Write down this man childless, a man who shall not prosper in
his days, for none of his descendants shall prosper, sitting on the
throne of David and ruling anymore in Judah’ ” (Jeremiah
22:24-27, 30).
What did God mean by Jeconiah being “childless”
(Jeremiah 22:30)?
Not that he won't have any descendants but that they won't prosper
to continue the royal line:
“for none
of his descendants shall prosper, sitting on the throne of David and
ruling anymore in Judah” (Jeremiah
22:30).