The First Deportation to Babylon

After his victory at Carchemish, Nebuchadnezzar II made Judah a vassal of Babylon. King Jehoiakim rebelled, and Kings records his death before it describes the siege (2 Kings 24:1–6, 10). His son Jehoiachin, eighteen years old, reigned for three months, and in that time Jerusalem was besieged (2 Kings 24:8–11).

Jehoiachin surrendered with his mother, his officials and his court. Nebuchadnezzar carried off the treasures of the temple and the palace and deported the king, the leading families, the soldiers and the craftsmen to Babylon. He made Jehoiachin’s uncle Mattaniah king and renamed him Zedekiah (2 Kings 24:12–17). Kings speaks of ten thousand captives; a list preserved in Jeremiah counts 3,023 (Jeremiah 52:28).

Babylon’s court chronicle records the same event from the other side. In his seventh year, it says, the king marched west, besieged “the city of Judah”, took it on the second day of Addaru, captured its king, appointed a king of his own choosing and carried heavy tribute back to Babylon (Babylonian Chronicle 5 rev. 11–13).

Among the deported was the priest Ezekiel, who dates his visions from the year of Jehoiachin’s exile (Ezekiel 1:1–3). Jehoiachin himself appears in administrative tablets excavated at Babylon, which list oil rations issued to the king of Judah and his retinue (Ration tablet from Babylon VAT 16378). The books of Kings end with his release from prison thirty-seven years later (2 Kings 25:27–30).

The deportation removed Judah’s king and much of its leadership a decade before the city itself was destroyed. Jeremiah wrote to the exiles, telling them to build houses, raise families and seek the welfare of the city where they now lived (Jeremiah 29:1–14).