Jeremiah 22:24

"As I live, saith Jehovah, though Coniah the son of Jehoiachin king of Judah were the signet upon my right hand, yet would I pluck thee thence; and I will give thee into the hand of them that seek thy life, and into the hand of them of whom thou art afraid, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans. And I will cast thee out, and thy mother that bare thee, into another country, where ye were not born; and there shall ye die. But to the land whereunto their soul longeth to return, thither shall they not return. Is this man Coniah a despised broken vessel? is he a vessel wherein none delighteth? wherefore are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into the land which they know not? O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of Jehovah, Write this man childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days; for no more shall a man of his seed prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling in Judah."

The prophecy here is that both Jeconiah (Coniah) and the queen mother shall go into Babylonian captivity and die in that land. This indeed came to pass; and Coniah lived thirty-seven years in captivity.

"Coniah ..." (Jeremiah 22:24). This man was named Jeconiah (Jeremiah 24:1) and Coniah (here and in Jeremiah 37:1); and he came to the throne under the name of Jehoiachin. Keil cited two other variations of the name which correspond to two of the three names cited here.[19]

Payne Smith stated that Coniah was king of Judah at the time Jeremiah wrote these words, basing his opinion upon the construction, "Coniah the son of Jehoiachim king of Judah."[20]

"Thee and the mother that bare thee ..." (Jeremiah 22:26). "The queen mother had some official status in Judah of that period and may have worn a crown and sat on a throne adjacent to that of the king ... Jehoiachin was eventually released in Babylon by Evil-Merodach; but he was required to remain in Babylon."[21]

"They are cast out, he and his seed ..." (Jeremiah 22:28-30). Some find a problem here, because Jeremiah 22:30 states that Jeconiah would die childless. The problem is solved either (1) by throwing out the last four words here as not belonging to the text (And this is supported by the LXX), or (2) by making Jeremiah 22:30 the full explanation of what is meant by "write Coniah childless." It meant merely that he would not have a successor on the throne of Judah. Either solution appears to be adequate.

Practically all present-day scholars accept solution (2), above. Some very learned men of an earlier generation insist that he died, literally, without any children. Payne Smith insisted that, "There is no proof that Jehoiachin ever had any children. None are mentioned in 2 Kings 24:15; and the fact that when his father Jehoiachim died the harem of that ruler passed to Coniah, suggests that the "children" mentioned in 2 Chronicles 3:17 might merely have been his adopted children through that inheritance."[22]

Matthew Henry also took the same view, offering as proof the fact, the oldest son of Jehoiachin was Shealtiel; but in the Lukan genealogy of Christ, Shealtiel is listed as the son of Neil, not Jehoiachin, indicating that Jehoiachin was only his adopted father.

We do not attach a great deal of importance to the question; but we prefer the views presented by the Dean of Canterbury and by Matthew Henry. There is nothing in their exegesis of this problem that is in any manner unreasonable.

Certainly, there is no Jehoiachin, Coniah, or Jeconiah in the Lukan account of the lineage of the Son of God which goes back to David, not through Solomon, but through Nathan.

Those who try to find Coniah in the ancestry of Christ will find it in Matthew 1:12; but that is only the legal ancestry of Christ through his foster father Joseph, making him the legal heir to the throne that was once held by Jeconiah.

Yes, it states in Matthew 1:12 that Jeconiah "begat Shealtiel"; but in genealogical tables distinctions such as real sons or adopted sons were not distinguished. In fact there are not even any distinctions between sons and grandsons, actual sons or Levirate sons, etc. Since Coniah was childless, Shealtiel an adopted son, inherited the non-existent throne of Judah; but Luke, unconcerned about legal rights to a throne traced Shealtiel's ancestry through his actual father Neri.

Both Ezekiel and Jeremiah regarded Jeconiah (Coniah) as the last king of Judah; but some writers insist that Zedekiah was the last king.[23] Of course, in a sense he was the last king; but in none of the eleven years that he reigned between 598,587 B.C. was he ever really "king of Judah," but a vassal of the Babylonians who had deposed and deported Jeconiah (Coniah) and placed Zedekiah on the throne as a puppet. Besides that, Nebuchadnezzar captured Zedekiah and blinded him after killing his sons before his eyes; and he was outlived many years by Jeconiah, who lived some thirty-seven years in captivity until he was released by Evil-Merodach. The Jews of Jerusalem never recognized Zedekiah as king and continually longed for the return of Jehoiachin. Therefore we follow the position of Ezekiel and of Jeremiah in considering Coniah as the last of Israel's kings.

It has been objected to Jeremiah's prophecy here that no one descended from Coniah would ever sit upon the throne of David; because, as premillennial advocates insist, "This would exclude Christ from sitting on David's throne."[24] Such an objection, however is worthless, since Luke's genealogy makes no mention of any son of Jehoiachin in the ancestry of Christ. However, even if it was otherwise, the prohibition was not against such a descendant "sitting on David's throne," but against his doing so "in Jerusalem!" Also, the scriptures flatly declare that the reference to some Great One to sit on David's throne was a reference to the resurrection of Jesus Christ (Acts 2:31). The fulfillment of the Messianic promise was complete when Jesus Christ, "sat down at the right hand of the majesty On High."