(9) Jehoiachin was eight years old.--2Kings 24:8 has correctly "eighteen;" and so some MSS., LXX. (Alex.), Syriac, Arabic. What the prophet Ezekiel says of him could not apply to a boy of eight. (The difference turns on the omission of the smallest Hebrew letter, namely, yod, which as a numeral represents ten.)

Three months and ten days.--Kings, "three months;" Syriac and Arabic here have "one hundred days," i.e., three months and ten days. Thenius thinks the ten days were added, in order that the catastrophe of Jehoiachin's reign might fall on a tenth day of the month, like the investment of Jerusalem and the fall of the city under Zedekiah (2Chronicles 25:1; 2Chronicles 25:8).

He did that which was evil.--2Kings 24:9. (See also the above-cited passages of Jeremiah and Ezekiel.) According to the latter prophet, Jehoiachin "devoured men, and forced widows, and wasted cities."

Verse 9. - Eight years old. Our text, not the writer, is in error, and the parallel furnishes the correction, "eighteen years old."

36:1-21 The ruin of Judah and Jerusalem came on by degrees. The methods God takes to call back sinners by his word, by ministers, by conscience, by providences, are all instances of his compassion toward them, and his unwillingness that any should perish. See here what woful havoc sin makes, and, as we value the comfort and continuance of our earthly blessings, let us keep that worm from the root of them. They had many times ploughed and sowed their land in the seventh year, when it should have rested, and now it lay unploughed and unsown for ten times seven years. God will be no loser in his glory at last, by the disobedience of men. If they refused to let the land rest, God would make it rest. What place, O God, shall thy justice spare, if Jerusalem has perished? If that delight of thine were cut off for wickedness, let us not be high-minded, but fear.Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah,.... Of whose reign, and of the three following, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah, and the account of them, from hence to the end of 2 Chronicles 36:13, what needs explanation or reconciliation; see Gill on 2 Kings 23:31, 2 Kings 23:32, 2 Kings 23:33, 2 Kings 23:34, 2 Kings 23:35, 2 Kings 23:36, 2 Kings 23:37, 2 Kings 24:5, 2 Kings 24:6, 2 Kings 24:8, 2 Kings 24:10, 2 Kings 24:17, 2 Kings 24:18