Jehoiachin: Lucky just to be alive!

(Jeremiah's ministry during the 3^rd period circa 626-582 b.c.)            

Jeremiah 52.31. In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the year Evil-Merodach became king of Babylon, he released Jehoiachin king of Judah and freed him from prison on the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month.
32. He spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat of honor higher than those of the other kings who were with him in Babylon.
33. So Jehoiachin put aside his prison clothes and for the rest of his life ate regularly at the king's table.
34. Day by day the king of Babylon gave Jehoiachin a regular allowance as long as he lived, till the day of his death.

Should 'the message' ever change? Let's look at Jeremiah...A different era – a different message. This segment of Jeremiah’s life and ministry is different in the ‘3^rd period’ from what it was in his earlier life in what is considered the ‘2^nd period.’

By the '52nd' chapter it was no longer a time for warnings. Times had changed. This passage about Jehoiachin (along with the 29th chapter) is one of the best illustrations in the entire Bible of how there are times when God expects us to be pragmatic.

Many zealots, pick an era, have brought about their own demise without accomplishing anything other than their own death. Death for the sake of proving one's commitment to a cause is an incredible waste and foolish. Even Jeremiah, the 'weeping prophet,' reached a point where it was no longer the time to shout against the evils that continued to surround him. There is a time for everything.

A wise man from an era long before Jeremiah said that it is better to be a "live dog than a dead lion."

Jehoiachin had only been king of Judah for three months when the Babylonians came against him, as they had against his father. Jehoiachin was only eighteen years old. The difference between Jehoiachin's response to the Babylonian victory and that of his father, Jehoiachim, and that of his successor, his uncle Zedekiah, was Jehoiachin's acquiescence to the advise of the prophets and officials. He pragmatically decided that surrender was better than slaughter.

This is the second time in the book of Jeremiah that we find the goodness of God being exhibited in merely allowing someone to continue living (the first example is in chapter 45). What kind of life was it for a king to be 'allowed' to live as a captive?

If we can't find joy in the process of living; if our life must be defined by status and place and possessions; if we must have the right of self-determination in order to feel alive - then we have missed the Word of the Lord for His people throughout all ages, in all times.

Should you then seek great things for yourself? Seek them not. For I will bring disaster on all people, declares the LORD, but wherever you go I will let you escape with your life. Jeremiah 45:5

I'm 'lucky just to be alive!' Have joy, my friend, you are still among the living. That, along with a good attitude, enables you to fare better than many captive kings of era's past.