The Long Winter of Jehoiachin

Living in upstate New York long enough, you know what’s coming.

That edge in the air. The way the wind starts to whisper through the trees differently. The daylight shrinking just a little earlier each evening. You can feel winter getting ready to settle in.

Last year at this time, my family and I were packing up our little apartment in downtown Chicago. We lived just a few blocks from Moody Bible Institute, where I had been finishing my Master of Divinity. For three years, the sound outside our window was traffic and sirens, the glow of city lights bouncing off brick.

When we pulled out of Chicago, the city skyline disappeared in the rearview mirror, and I remember thinking, this is really happening. We were heading to the Adirondacks—to be near Northern Frontier Camp and the community of people God had knit our hearts to.

We arrived right at the end of November. The snow had already started to fall.

And that first night… the house was cold.

The heat wasn’t working yet.

So Cass and I laid blankets down on the floor, pulled Judah—who was six months old at the time—between us, and just tried to stay warm. He would’ve been far too cold in his crib.

That night, huddled together on the floor, I remember thinking, This is going to be a long winter.

And it was.

Between learning how to keep a wood stove going, finding fuel oil for the furnace, and unpacking boxes after long workdays, it felt like everything was uphill. We were tired, isolated, trying to make something new feel like home.

But here we are—about to face that season again.

And this year, it’s different. We’ve been through one winter now. We know what to expect. The wood’s been stacked early. The fuel tank’s filled. We’ve learned that winter isn’t something you avoid—it’s something you prepare for.

You survive it by learning how to live in it.

And that’s where this morning’s passage meets us.

Because God’s people once found themselves in a winter of their own—a long, spiritual winter called exile. A winter that lasted not months, but decades.

Their world had fallen apart.

Their city was gone.

The temple that had once blazed with glory was reduced to ashes.

And in the center of that cold, desolate season sits a forgotten king named Jehoiachin—a man who, like us, had to learn what it means to trust God when life grows cold, when comfort fades, and when everything feels like waiting.

So I invite you to turn with me to 2 Kings, chapter 24.

We’re going to step into that story—the fall of Jerusalem, the exile of a king, and the slow, surprising mercy of a God who still works in winter.

Because, as we’ll see, Jehoiachin’s story isn’t just about judgment.

It’s about what God does while the world waits for spring.

A king forgotten by his people, remembered only by God. A story so quiet you could almost miss it, yet so full of hope that it echoes through the genealogy of Jesus Christ.

It’s the story of Jehoiachin—the king of Judah who lived through the long winter of exile.

The Fall of a King (2 Kings 24:8–17)

In verse 8, we’re introduced to this young ruler. He comes to the throne of Judah at eighteen years old—barely a man. His grandfather, Josiah, had been the great reformer king. You remember Josiah: the one who rediscovered the Book of the Law, tore down the idols, and led revival across the land. But revival is fragile when it lives only in memory.

Josiah died in 609 BC at Megiddo. The last bright candle of hope for reform is snuffed out. From 609-598 BC, his son Jehoiakim reigned. He’s ambitious, unjust, and spiritually reckless. Jeremiah calls him out for building palaces “with injustice.”

During that time, in 605 BC, Babylon crushed Egypt at Carchemish. Like two behemoths, these empires are battling it out, and now the balance of power is over. Egypt had been the nation to keep Babylon in check.

Not long after, Nebuchadnezzar II, the powerful Babylonian emperor, marched on Jerusalem. In 597 BC, Jehoiakim dies during the siege, and his eighteen-year-old son, Jehoiachin, inherits the throne—just in time for disaster. And he doesn’t fare much better than his father. Scripture tells us bluntly that “He [Jehoiachin] did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father had done.” (2 Kings 24:9)

So here’s the picture: a punk teenage king surrounded by the armies of the world’s greatest empire. The walls are shaking. The prophets’ words are echoing. And Jehoiachin’s three-month reign becomes one long surrender.

Jehoiachin appears in a few different books of the bible, and in each place his name is slightly altered. Here in Kings, as in Chronicles, it’s Jehoiachin, which means “the Lord Establishes. But nothing about his life looks established at all. Later in the New Testament, he’s referred to as Jeconiah, which reflects the post-exilic Hebrew dialect—effectively his Babylonian name. Jeremiah 22:24 refers to him in this way: 

“As I live, declares the LORD, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were the signet ring on my right hand, yet I would tear you off.” (Jeremiah 22:24)

The signet ring—the symbol of royal identity and divine authority—was being torn away. When Jeremiah calls him “Coniah,” he’s dropped the divine prefix “Jeho-“ (meaning Yahweh), which was his way of showing God’s displeasure, almost as if to say, “I’ve cut My name from yours.” 

So Coniah, Jeconiah, Jehoiachin, it’s the same man–the eighteen-year-old who watched Jerusalem collapse.

So when Nebuchadnezzar lays siege to Jerusalem, it’s not just Babylon attacking—it’s God fulfilling His word. The prophets had warned of this moment for generations. Now we’re in verse 10,

“The servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up to Jerusalem, and the city was besieged. And Jehoiachin king of Judah gave himself up… and the king of Babylon took him prisoner in the eighth year of his reign.” (2 Kings 24:10-12)

Jehoiachin rules for only three months before he surrenders. He walks out through the city gate with his mother, his servants, and his officials. The Babylonians strip the temple bare—“cut in pieces all the vessels of gold that Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the LORD, as the LORD had foretold” (v. 13).

Nebuchadnezzar’s plan was strategic. First, you capture a nation’s leaders and artisans, deport them to Babylon, and leave behind only the poor to farm the land. Verse 14 says, “None remained except the poorest people of the land.”

This is the first major deportation–597 BC. Among those taken were young men you would recognize: Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (Dan. 1:1-6).

Jehoiachin is marched east, roughly 900 miles, chained and humiliated. He will spend the next thirty-seven years imprisoned in Babylon, most of his life.

The Temple Burns (2 Kings 25:8–11)

After Jehoiachin’s departure, Nebuchadnezzar installs his uncle, Zedekiah, as their puppet ruler. He reigns for 11 years, then rebels. In 586 BC, the Babylonians return, and this time, they’re not coming to negotiate.

The siege lasts eighteen months. The famine is unbearable. Scripture records that “the famine was so severe that there was no food for the people in the land.” (25:3)

Jeremiah says in Lamentations:

“Happier were the victims of the sword than the victims of hunger… The hands of the compassionate women have boiled their own children.” (Lam. 4:9-10)

The walls are breached. Zedekiah flees by night but is caught on the plains of Jericho. The Babylonians slaughter his sons before his eyes and then blind him. The last thing he ever sees is the end of his bloodline.

And then the Babylonian commander sets the temple on fire.

“He burned the house of the LORD and the king’s house and all the houses of Jerusalem; every great house he burned down.” (2 Kings 25:9)

The smoke of Solomon’s temple—the house where God’s glory once filled the room—is now rising into heaven as ash.

The author of Kings writes it quietly, almost clinically. But every Israelite reading it would have wept.

This is the end of everything they thought unshakable. The temple lies in ruins, the people are scattered, and the David dynasty appears extinguished. For those who believed God’s promise in 2 Samuel 7–“Your throne shall be established forever”–this looks like the end of the world.

The Silence of Exile

We’ve come to call this “the exile.”

It’s more than geography—it’s theology.

The king is gone. The treasures are gone. The temple of the Lord has been burned to the ground.

And with them, something in the heart of God’s people dies too.

And what’s Jehoiachin doing at this time? What does the writer of Kings tell us about the thoughts going through his mind? Where are the songs and prayers the king of Israel writes to his people to encourage them during their exile? They don’t exist. There’s no record of his words. Just silence.

Thirty-seven years of silence.

And that silence, I think, is the sermon.

God’s people are out of place, out of step, out of His presence. The land was supposed to be a place of promise. The temple, the place of meeting. But both are gone.

The fall of Jerusalem is the undoing of creation: Where there was order, now there’s chaos. Where there was light, now there’s darkness. Where there was presence, now there’s absence.

Ezekiel, writing from exile, describes seeing the glory of God rise from the temple and leave the city. Imagine that—the visible presence of God lifting up and departing.

Humanity walked east, banished from the place God had prepared for them. This wasn’t the first time this happened to God’s people. Adam and Eve walked a similar path in Genesis 3.

And in a prison cell in Babylon, Jehoiachin waits.

We don’t know if he prayed. We don’t know if he cried out to God. We don’t know if he kept hope alive. But we know this: God is never absent in His silence.

When the Lord hides His face, He’s still moving.

When the story slows, the Author hasn’t stopped writing.

Waiting as Formation

I think about the off-season at camp—when the cabins are empty, the trails will soon be covered in snow, the silence almost eerie.

You’d think that’s when camp goes to sleep. But that’s actually when camp grows stronger.

That’s when we repair canoes, refinish tables, and rebuild. We retool our program, refine our methods, and update our staff training procedures. We research and discover new ways to accomplish the same mission God has set before us for 80 years. The winter off-season is what makes the summer possible.

Jehoiachin’s off-season lasted thirty-seven years. But God was not asleep. He was reshaping His people’s theology.

Jeremiah wrote to the exiles during this very period:

“Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” (Jeremiah 29:5–7)

The people wanted escape. God wanted endurance. He was teaching them that His presence was not tied to a temple—it was tied to trust. Some of God’s greatest work happens in captivity. Some of His deepest lessons come through delay.

That’s why the prophet Habakkuk could pray, 

“Though the fig tree should not blossom,

    nor fruit be on the vines,

the produce of the olive fail

    and the fields yield no food,

the flock be cut off from the fold

    and there be no herd in the stalls,

18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord;

    I will take joy in the God of my salvation.” (Hab. 3:17–18).

Faith that only sings in summer hasn’t yet learned winter’s song.

The Long Winter Breaks (2 Kings 25:27–30)

And then, just when you think the story is over—when all you see are ashes and absence—the text whispers something miraculous.

Thirty-seven years later. Let’s pause and clear up that name. Because if you, like me, hear a name like “Evil Merodach” and picture a grinning man twirling his villainous mustache, then we’re in good company. But that’s just a transliteration of the Akkadian Amel-Marduk, meaning “man of Marduk.” Marduk was Babylon’s chief deity, like Zeus for the Greeks.

Amel-Marduk reigned from 562-560 BC and was Nebuchadnezzar’s son. When he took the throne, even for a brief moment, one of his first official acts was to release a forgotten Jewish king from prison, restore his dignity, and invite him to eat at the royal table for the rest of his life. The text says, “He spoke kindly to him.” More literally, “He spoke goood things.” This is the same Hebrew word God uses in Genesis when he pronounces creation good–“tov. The phrase “lifted up his head” mirrors Genesis 40, when Pharaoh “lifts up the head” of Joseph and restores him to honor.

Why did he do it? We don’t know for certain–perhaps a political gesture to please captive nations, perhaps compassion for an aging prisoner, perhaps because his father imparted on his son an appreciation for the God of Israel. Remember how Daniel tells us that Nebuchadnezzar worshipped the LORD? That’s Evil-Merodach’s dad! 

This has God’s design all over it. God’s timing is written in careful detail: “the twelfth month, the twenty-seventh day.” Every minute accounted for. Every second on schedule. Like Gandalf, God has his plan unfold precisely when he means to.

Jehoiachin removes his prison clothes. He eats at the king’s table. He receives a daily allowance “as long as he lived.” Every day—manna in Babylon. Can you feel the Father’s tenderness?

It’s not a triumphant return. It’s not fireworks. It’s quiet, consistent grace.

And that’s often how God restores us—not with noise, but with nourishment.

The Covenant Still Holds

The book of Kings ends right there.

That’s not an accident.

The author wants you to see that even in exile, God’s promises are not broken.

He told David that his throne would endure forever. For thirty-seven years, that looked impossible. But now, the line of David lives.

God’s silence was never abandonment—it was preparation.

And centuries later, when you open the New Testament, the very first verses of Matthew’s Gospel prove it:

“Josiah, the father of Jehoiachin and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon… and after the deportation to Babylon, Jehoiachin was the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel.” (Matthew 1:11–12)

Jehoiachin’s name reappears. The chain of grace has held. Through him will come Zerubbabel, who will rebuild the temple. And through Zerubbabel’s line will come Jesus, who will rebuild the world.

Jeremiah 22 said God tore off the signet ring;

Haggai 2 says God gives it back.

What was cursed becomes chosen.

What was lost becomes lineage.

What was forgotten becomes foundation.

The Gospel Hidden in Exile

Do you see the pattern?

Jehoiachin’s story is a shadow of the gospel itself.

A son of David loses his throne.

He’s bound, exiled, humiliated, forgotten.

And then, at the appointed time, he’s lifted up, clothed in honor, and seated at the table of a king.

That’s the pattern of redemption.

Jesus, too, was a son of David. He left His throne. He was bound, humiliated, and crucified outside the city walls. He entered our exile, bearing our chains. And three days later, God lifted His head.

He rose, He ascended, He sat down at the right hand of the Father—King of kings, Lord of lords.

And what does He do for us?

He invites us to the table.

“Take, eat,” He says. “This is my body.”

The story of Jehoiachin ends with a meal.

The story of Jesus does, too.

And one day, ours will as well—at the marriage supper of the Lamb.

The Lessons of a Long Winter

So what do we learn from this forgotten king?

First, God’s slowness is not His absence.

He’s never late. He’s just thorough.

Second Peter 3:9 says, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you.”

Second, grace can find you anywhere.

Jehoiachin didn’t climb out of prison. He was brought out.

You don’t earn resurrection; you receive it.

Psalm 139 says, “If I make my bed in Sheol, You are there.”

Third, small mercies matter.

Jehoiachin’s “daily allowance” doesn’t sound exciting—but it’s grace.

How often do we miss the manna because we’re waiting for the miracle?

Every meal, every conversation, every breath is evidence that God’s still sustaining you.

Fourth, the story always ends in restoration.

Psalm 30:5 says, “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.”

The God who lifted Jehoiachin will lift you too.

The Thaw

Every year in the Adirondacks, there’s this moment when the ice on the lake starts to crack. It’s subtle at first—a low groaning sound that echoes through the forest. Then the wind shifts, the water moves, and before you know it, the ice gives way.

It’s a hopeful sound. Because it means spring is coming.

That’s what Jehoiachin’s story sounds like. After thirty-seven years, the ice breaks. Grace rushes in.

And maybe that’s what God is doing in your life right now.

Maybe the long winter you’re living isn’t punishment—it’s preparation.

The silence isn’t God’s distance; it’s His deep work in the roots.

The ice is thinner than you think.

A God Who Never Forgets

The book of Kings closes with a table. A meal shared by a king who once wore chains.

The Bible ends with a table too—one spread by the hands of a King who wore a crown of thorns.

And that means your story, if you belong to Him, ends the same way: not in exile, not in shame, not in silence—but in fellowship.

So if you find yourself in a season where God feels slow, where answers don’t come, where you’re tired of waiting—remember this:

He is faithful in the silence.

He is present in the prison.

And He is moving, even when all you can see is winter.

The God who lifted Jehoiachin will lift you.

The God who remembered His promise then remembers it now.

The story isn’t over.

Spring is coming.