Bible Contradiction: Jehoiachin's Age When He Began To Reign

This particular “contradiction” in the Bible is a fascinating one to study because the principles derived from it can be used to solve a variety of additional difficulties in Scripture. The two passages in question are:

“Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. And his mother’s name was Nehushta, the daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem.” (II Kings 24:8)

“Jehoiachin was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem: and he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD.” (II Chronicles 36:9)

As you can see, there is a difference of ten years between the two ages at which Jehoiachin is said to have begun his reign, but both passages give basically the same length for his reign. This is often presented as one of the clearest cases of contradiction in Scripture, and there are two popular solutions for it.
 
The LXX Solution
 
The solution preferred by proponents of the modern translations is to claim that the Masoretic Hebrew text contains an error in II Chronicles 36:9. Most modern translations read “eighteen” in this passage, and they often include footnotes claiming that this reading is found in one Hebrew manuscript, some Septuagint editions, and the Syriac Peshitta. This solution fails for a number of reasons.
 
For example, accepting a reading that is found in only a single Hebrew manuscript is problematic at best. Benjamin Kennicott collated more than 600 Hebrew manuscripts in the eighteenth century, and De Rossi increased that total up to about 1,375. The remarkable amount of agreement among these manuscripts makes it nearly impossible that this variant found in a single copy represents the true text with all the remaining witnesses representing a corruption of the text. That’s more of a conspiracy theory than an argument.
 
Additionally, the claim that this reading is found in some Septuagint editions is also misleading. A more accurate statement would be that the fifth century Alexandrinus manuscript and the nineteenth century Lagarde reconstruction of Lucian’s Septuagint both include the “eighteen” reading in II Chronicles 36:9. However, the Alexandrinus manuscript of the Septuagint is an edited compilation of sources, and even if Lagarde’s reconstruction is a faithful representation of Lucian’s work, Lucian himself was known for his practice of revising the text to eliminate difficulties in harmonization. The older and significantly less edited version of the Septuagint contained in the fourth-century Codex Vaticanus reads “eight” in this passage. It is interesting to note that Jerome specifically rejected the works of Lucian and other harmonizers when he produced his Latin translation. He was particularly derisive of the various Greek translations of the books of Chronicles and chose to follow the Hebrew manuscripts of his day over those of the Septuagint.[1] Regarding the Syriac Peshitta, it should be noted that the Chronicles portion of the Peshitta is widely known to be more of a paraphrase than a translation, and it was heavily influenced by the Targums.[2]
 
This is the unstable foundation that modern Bible translators have chosen for their solution to this contradiction. They have chosen to reject the practically unanimous voice of the Hebrew manuscripts in favor of translations that are widely acknowledged to be erroneous.
 
The Co-Regency Solution
 
Those who hold to the doctrines of inspiration, inerrancy, and preservation prefer to view the difference between these two accounts as evidence of a co-regency.
 
Jehoiachin was the grandson of Josiah, the last of the righteous kings in Judah. In 609 BC, Josiah was killed in a battle against Pharaoh Necho at Megiddo.[3] This set off a chain of events that eventually led to Babylon’s destruction of Jerusalem.
 
After Josiah’s death, the people of Judah asserted their own choice of a king by anointing Jehoahaz, another of Josiah’s sons, in his father’s place.[4] He reigned only three months before Egypt intervened. Pharaoh Necho carried Jehoahaz to Egypt in chains[5] and levied a tribute of one hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold on the land.[6] He then installed another of Josiah’s sons on the throne, changing his name from Eliakim to Jehoiakim.[7]
 
Jehoiakim’s eleven-year reign was the exact opposite of his father Josiah’s reign. He taxed the people heavily to fund the tribute he owed to Egypt,[8] built his palace through forced and unpaid labor,[9] executed the prophet Urijah for speaking the word of God,[10] and burned the scroll of Jeremiah’s prophecy rather than heed its warnings.[11] He eventually transferred his vassalage to Babylon but rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar after three years.[12] His death was as inglorious as his life. He was bound in fetters with the apparent intention of being taken to Babylon,[13] but he died before leaving Jerusalem, and his body ended up cast outside the walls of the city without burial, fulfilling Jeremiah’s prophecy that he would receive “the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem.”[14] He is the only king of Judah in Scripture that received no burial whatsoever. Jeremiah had also declared that “He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David,”[15] and Matthew’s genealogy fulfills that decree by skipping Jehoiakim entirely and listing Jehoiachin as Josiah’s direct heir.[16]
 
About one year after Egypt installed Jehoiakim, the people of Judah decided to anoint their own king. They installed Jehoiachin, the young son of Jehoiakim, as co-regent. He was eight years old at the time, and II Chronicles records the beginning of his kingly career from that point: “Jehoiachin was eight years old when he began to reign.”[17] Ezekiel 19 confirms this, describing Israel as a lioness who “took another of her whelps, and made him a young lion.”[18] Both Jehoahaz and Jehoiachin are described in Ezekiel 19 as being made young lions at the will of the people, but Jehoiakim was so reviled that Ezekiel doesn’t mention his reign at all and refers to the year between Jehoahaz’s capture and the anointing of Jehoiachin as simply a time when Israel “saw that she had waited, and her hope was lost.”[19]
 
For the next ten years, Jehoiachin served alongside his father, learning the exercise of royal power. Ezekiel 19:6 describes this as: “he went up and down among the lions, he became a young lion, and learned to catch the prey, and devoured men.”[20] When Jehoiakim died, Jehoiachin became the sole king of Judah at eighteen years of age, and II Kings records the beginning of his reign at that point: “Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign.”[21] Both texts are accurate. II Chronicles reaches back to the beginning of his co-regency, and II Kings focuses on the beginning of his sole reign.
 
The “In Jerusalem” Indicator
 
The key to understanding the co-regency lies in a phrase embedded in the standard regnal formula that Kings and Chronicles apply to every king of Judah. That formula records the king’s age at accession, the length of his reign, and the phrase: “in Jerusalem.” That phrase marks the period of active, full, sovereign rule from the throne of David. A co-regent does not reign in Jerusalem in the sense the formula intends, because his father is the one sitting on the throne of David in Jerusalem. The co-regent carries a title and exercises kingly authority, but the ultimate seat of authority was the throne of David.
 
With that in mind, look again at the structure of II Chronicles 36:9. The verse says Jehoiachin “was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem.” The “began to reign” clause reaches back to age eight, but the “reigned in Jerusalem” clause covers only three months and ten days. Jehoiachin could not be said to have “reigned in Jerusalem” during the co-regency because Jehoiakim was the king who occupied the throne of David. Jehoiachin’s three months reign in Jerusalem only refers to the period of sole rule after his father’s removal.
 
This understanding of the phrase “in Jerusalem” was not invented to rescue a single difficult passage. It’s a pattern that appears consistently in other examples of co-regencies in the Bible. When Jehoram was installed as co-regent alongside his father Jehoshaphat, II Kings 8:17 then gives the regnal formula: “he reigned eight years in Jerusalem.” Those eight years exclude the four years of Jehoram’s reign while his father was still king. Solomon is the most celebrated example of this. All of I Kings 1 narrates his anointing and installation while David still lived. Israel shouted “God save king Solomon,”[22] and yet when I Kings 11:42 and II Chronicles 9:30 summarize his reign, both say he “reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel forty years.” That forty-year count does not reach all the way back to his coronation because his father David was still king at that time. Jotham provides a third example. II Kings 15:5 records that when Uzziah was struck with leprosy, “Jotham the king’s son was over the house, judging the people of the land.” Yet his reign is later summarized as sixteen years in Jerusalem,[23] a count that does not include the time that he reigned during his father’s illness. In every case, the phrase “in Jerusalem” only refers to the time during which a king reigned on the throne of David as the primary sovereign Judah.
 
Proving the Pattern from Jehoram’s Chronology
 
Since the Jehoram example is the most directly parallel to Jehoiachin’s situation, it is worth demonstrating that the eight years assigned to him in II Kings 8:17 provably refers to sole reign rather than total kingly career. There are three independent proofs of this.
 
The first comes from II Chronicles 21. Verse four says that when Jehoram “was risen up to the kingdom of his father,” he killed all his brothers to secure his position.[24] Verse five immediately follows this with the statement: “he reigned eight years in Jerusalem.”[25] The murder of the brothers is the first act of a man who has just assumed sole power. A co-regent with his father still living has no need to eliminate his brothers, because his father’s authority still governs the succession. Chronicles anchors the eight-year count to the moment Jehoram secured his position on the throne of David, not to the earlier co-regency.
 
The second proof comes from the internal logic of II Kings 8:16–17 itself. Verse sixteen says Jehoram began to reign “Jehoshaphat being then king of Judah.”[26] If the eight Jerusalem years began at this moment, the formula would be counting years during which Jehoshaphat was also reigning in Jerusalem. Two kings cannot simultaneously “reign in Jerusalem” in the sense that phrase is used in the rest of Scripture. The phrase “Jehoshaphat being then king” is the textual signal that the eight-year count does not start at this point.
 
The third proof is a mathematical comparison between the kings of Judah and the kings of Israel. First, II Kings 1:17 states that Joram of Israel began to reign “in the second year of Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah.”[27] This means Jehoram’s co-regency was already one year along when Joram of Israel’s reign started. Setting the co-regency beginning as Year 0, Joram of Israel’s reign begins at Year 1. Second, we find in II Kings 3:1 that Joram of Israel began to reign “in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat,”[28] and since Jehoshaphat reigned 25 years in total,[29] he had seven years remaining after Joram of Israel started, placing his death in approximately Year 8 of Joram of Israel. Third, II Kings 9:29 tells us that Ahaziah, Jehoram’s successor in Judah, began to reign “in the eleventh year of Joram the son of Ahab,”[30] which is Year 12 in our sequence. Jehoram died when Ahaziah began, in Year 12.
 
Now the math. If Jehoram’s eight years of reign in Jerusalem had counted from Year 0, Jehoram would have died at Year 8. But he actually died in Year 12. The four extra years represent the co-regency period that preceded the eight-year Jerusalem count. The fifth year of Joram of Israel, Year 5 in the sequence, is the pivot point: Jehoshaphat died there, Jehoram’s sole reign commenced there, and the eight-year count begins there. Thiele’s detailed chronological work places the sole reign at exactly this point, running from approximately 848 BC to 841 BC.[31] The math cannot be made to work if the eight years includes the co-regency, and this demonstration from Jehoram’s chronology confirms that the same formula in II Chronicles 36:9 is doing precisely what I have argued: measuring Jehoiachin’s reign as the sole regent sitting on the throne of David without including his time as a co-regent under his father.
 
The Evidence of Ezekiel 19
 
Ezekiel 19 is a lament over the princes of Israel presented through two extended metaphors: a lioness and her whelps in verses 2–9, and a vine and its branches in verses 10–14.[32] The lioness represents Israel, and the young lions represent successive kings. The first young lion is taken “in their pit” and brought “with chains unto the land of Egypt.”[33] This matches the account of Jehoahaz exactly: the people anointed him, he reigned three months, and Pharaoh Necho carried him to Egypt in chains.[34]
 
We already saw that Jehoiakim’s reign was only mentioned in passing as the hope that was lost, but notice the grammar of the passage when we turn to the second young lion in verses 5–9. In verse five, the lioness is the active agent: “she took another of her whelps, and made him a young lion.”[35] In verse six, the lion himself becomes the focus, and we read that “he became a young lion” after a period of learning.[36] This maps naturally onto the idea of a co-regency followed by a sole reign in Jerusalem. Jehoiachin was made a co-regent with his father at age eight. He spent ten years walking with other rulers and learning from them until he became the sole regent at the age of eighteen.
 
There are multiple observations that confirm that this young lion is Jehoiachin. First, the ward, chains, and holds mentioned in verse nine describe a condition of extended captivity in Babylon, and II Kings 25:27–30 records that Jehoiachin was held in prison for thirty-seven years in Babylon before his release. The closing phrase of verse 9, “that his voice should no more be heard upon the mountains of Israel,”[37] fits with Jeremiah’s prophecy that Jehoiachin (aka: Coniah) would die without returning to the land.[38] And finally, Ezekiel himself was carried away with Jehoiachin in 597 BC and dates every prophecy in his book by the years of Jehoiachin’s captivity.[39] A lament over the princes of Israel composed during those years of captivity would be a very strange document indeed if it omitted the man by whose captivity the author measured his own ministry.
 
The vine metaphor in verses 10–14 carries Ezekiel’s lament to its conclusion with language describing the total desolation of the kingdom: “fire is gone out of a rod of her branches, which hath devoured her fruit, so that she hath no strong rod to be a sceptre to rule.” This language points naturally toward Zedekiah’s reign and Jerusalem’s final destruction, placing Zedekiah, the final king of Judah, in the vine section of the chapter rather than the lion section. Placing him in both would create structural redundancy and disrupt the chapter’s clear movement from the silencing of individual kings to the uprooting of the entire dynasty.
 
The Voluntary Surrender
 
When Nebuchadnezzar’s forces arrived before Jerusalem in 597 BC, Jehoiachin “went out to the king of Babylon, he, and his mother, and his servants, and his princes, and his officers.”[40] He surrendered voluntarily, and the leading men of the kingdom went with him. The loyalty that the leaders of Judah showed in surrendering with Jehoiachin is itself evidence for the co-regency. Three months of sole reign is not enough time to build the kind of devotion that would move the princes and officers to follow their king into Babylonian captivity rather than negotiate their own terms. But that is consistent with Jehoiachin exercising ten years of recognized leadership as a co-regent. The lions among whom Jehoiachin had gone up and down during his decade of co-regency were the very men who walked out of Jerusalem beside him.
 
The surrender was also consistent with submission to Jeremiah’s prophetic word. Jeremiah had declared that God had appointed Babylon as His instrument of judgment and that surrender was the way of life: “He that goeth out, and falleth to the Chaldeans that besiege you, he shall live.”[41] Jehoiakim had burned Jeremiah’s scroll. Jehoiachin walked out and surrendered to the army Jeremiah said was God’s judgment. This stands in sharp contrast with Zedekiah who ruled after Jehoiachin. Zedekiah resisted, was captured, had his sons killed before his eyes, was blinded, and died in Babylonian imprisonment.[42] Jehoiachin surrendered, and thirty-seven years later was released from prison, elevated above all other captive kings in Babylon, and provided a daily allowance for the rest of his life.[43]
 
The Wickedness Charge
 
Both II Kings 24:9 and II Chronicles 36:9 record that Jehoiachin did evil “according to all that his father had done.”[44] Under the co-regency reading, this verdict covers a decade of formation under Jehoiakim’s direct influence rather than merely three months of sole reign. Ezekiel 19:6 says Jehoiachin “learned to catch the prey.” Learning takes time. Ten years in the court of a man who burned prophetic scrolls, executed prophets, and built his palace through forced labor would have had a profound influence on the young king.
 
Signs of Change During Captivity
 
Scripture records no explicit repentance by Jehoiachin, but several indirect indicators suggest that his decades of imprisonment worked a change in him. His voluntary surrender was already consistent with beginning to heed Jeremiah’s counsel, and the names he gave to sons born during the captivity are telling. I Chronicles 3:17–18 lists among them Salathiel, meaning “I have asked of God,” Nedabiah, meaning “the LORD has been generous,” and Malchiram, meaning “my king is exalted.”[45] Men who have abandoned their faith do not ordinarily give their children names like these. Whatever the captivity did to Jehoiachin over thirty-seven years, his sons’ names suggest that it did not leave him unchanged. The preservation of his line through those decades rests ultimately on God’s covenant faithfulness to the house of David rather than on Jehoiachin’s personal merit, but that faithfulness operated through a man who was, at the very least, still calling his sons by the name of the God who had judged him.
 
The Restoration
 
Both II Kings 25:27–30 and Jeremiah 52:31–34 record what happened in the thirty-seventh year of Jehoiachin’s captivity. Evil-merodach, king of Babylon, released him from prison, spoke kindly to him, set his throne above all other captive kings in Babylon, changed his prison garments, and provided a daily allowance for the rest of his life.[46] Both Kings and Jeremiah close their accounts on this note. The historians who traced the entire trajectory of Judah’s failure and exile chose to end their accounts not with the destruction of Jerusalem or the blinding of Zedekiah, but with Jehoiachin eating at a pagan king’s table, elevated above every other captive monarch in Babylon. These accounts lead us to wonder if Jehoiachin might have repented of his wickedness and turned to God during his captivity.
 
Evil-merodach’s elevation of Jehoiachin above all other captive kings also suggests a standing among the captives that a mere three months on the throne cannot account for. Whatever the king of Babylon recognized in Jehoiachin, it was the recognition of a man whose stature among his own people was visible even from a foreign throne. That stature had roots that ran back ten years before the surrender of 597 BC.
 
Haggai 2:23 brings the redemptive arc to its conclusion. God declares to Zerubbabel, Jehoiachin’s grandson: “I will take thee, O Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shealtiel, saith the LORD, and will make thee as a signet: for I have chosen thee, saith the LORD of hosts.”[47] This is a deliberate reversal of the plucking of Jeremiah 22:24. The signet removed from God’s hand in judgment on Jehoiachin’s wickedness is restored in grace to his grandson. From Jehoiachin through Shealtiel and Zerubbabel, the line runs to Joseph the legal father of Christ, as Matthew 1:11–12 records.[48] The captive king eating at a Babylonian table was the vessel through which God preserved the seed of David until the fullness of time.
 
The supposed contradiction between II Kings 24:8 and II Chronicles 36:9 is an invitation to study the Bible more carefully rather than a problem to be corrected. Both accounts are true. They begin at different points in Jehoiachin’s career. They both use the phrase “in Jerusalem” to describe the length of his time as sole regent ruling from the throne of David, and his period of co-regency fits perfectly with all the other accounts of Jehoiachin in Scripture. God inspired both texts accurately, and reading them together produces a rich study of the last days of Judah that is lost when the passage in II Chronicles is changed.
 
 


[1]Jerome’s Preface to the Book of Paralipomenon (Chronicles), c. AD 396. https://www.fourthcentury.com/jeromes-preface-to-the-book-of-paralipomenon-chronicles-c-a-d-396/

[2]https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/369885

[3]II Chronicles 35:20–24.

[4]II Kings 23:30.

[5]II Kings 23:33; Ezekiel 19:4.

[6]II Chronicles 36:3.

[7]II Chronicles 36:4; II Kings 23:34.

[8]II Kings 23:35.

[9]Jeremiah 22:13–14.

[10]Jeremiah 26:20–23.

[11]Jeremiah 36:22–23.

[12]II Kings 24:1.

[13]II Chronicles 36:6.

[14]Jeremiah 22:19.

[15]Jeremiah 36:30.

[16]Matthew 1:11.

[17]II Chronicles 36:9.

[18]Ezekiel 19:5.

[19] Ezekiel 19:5
 

[20]Ezekiel 19:6.

[21]II Kings 24:8.

[22]I Kings 1:39.

[23]II Kings 15:33.

[24]II Chronicles 21:4.

[25]II Chronicles 21:5.

[26]II Kings 8:16.

[27]II Kings 1:17.

[28]II Kings 3:1.

[29]I Kings 22:42.

[30]II Kings 9:29.

[31]Edwin R. Thiele, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1994). Thiele places Jehoram of Judah’s co-regency at 853/852 BC and the beginning of his sole reign at 848/847 BC, with his death at 841/840 BC.

[32]Ezekiel 19:2–14.

[33]Ezekiel 19:4.

[34]II Kings 23:33; II Chronicles 36:3–4.

[35]Ezekiel 19:5.

[36]Ezekiel 19:6.

[37]Ezekiel 19:9.

[38]Jeremiah 22:26.

[39]Ezekiel 1:2.

[40]II Kings 24:12.

[41]Jeremiah 21:9.

[42]II Kings 25:6–7.

[43]II Kings 25:27–30.

[44]II Kings 24:9; II Chronicles 36:9.

[45]I Chronicles 3:17–18.

[46]II Kings 25:27–30; Jeremiah 52:31–34.

[47]Haggai 2:23.

[48]Matthew 1:11–12.