Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - This is Not the Last Chapter | Historical Books | 2 Kings 25:22-30

Episode Date: November 27, 2025

How does the book of Kings end? What hope do we have? Does your life feel imprisoned? In today's episode, Patrick shares how 2 Kings 25:22-30 points us forward to Jesus, the one who came to set his people free. If you're listening on Spotify, tell us about yourself and where you're listening from! Read the Bible with us in 2025! This year, we’re exploring the Historical Books—Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, and 1 & 2 Kings. Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: 2 Kings 25:22-30

Welcome to 10 minute Bible talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. Today we come to the conclusion of Second Kings, which means it's the conclusion of the entire set of first and second kings. You might not realize this, but they were not originally two separate books. It was actually, well, originally it was one big scroll. And that scroll told the story from the time of Solomon's reign. Remember Solomon was the son of King David all the way to the time of Zedekite.

Rhea's reign, and Zetakaya was the last king from David's line to sit on the throne of Jerusalem until the Babylonians showed up and burned the entire city down. Now, after going through first and second kings, you're probably used to the pattern. Things get worse and worse and worse. For brief moments, light flashes out. There's Hezekiah and Josiah, but it's just like light shining off of shaken foil. It's there for a moment, and then it's gone. But on the whole, you know how the story goes. The kings disobey God, the given to idolatry, the people go astray, and then disaster follows. The ultimate disaster was the fulfillment of the covenant curses laid out in the book of Deuteronomy by God to Moses before the people entered the land. And in those passages, God warned his people

that if they turned from him, he'd give them over to the gods that they worshipped. He said, look, if you want to bow down to the gods of Babylon, then to Babylon you go. The king of Babylon, his name was Nebuchadnezzar, and he became the instrument of God's justice against the people who were disobeying him for hundreds and hundreds of years. Nebuchadnezzar invaded Judah three different times, and he took three successive waves of exiles to Babylon, and each time he took the cream of the crop from Judah. On his very last visit, he was so angry that he burned the temple down, he burned the palace down, he burned the city down. His warriors pillaged, they raped, they imprisoned the Israelites. It was awful. And it was far beyond what he should have done. That was not just. In fact, God would later judge the

Babylonians for how they abused Israel. But that's not the point I'm trying to get at today. Second Kings, the way it ends, looks like it's going to end on an even darker note than we've heard so far. Let's pick up in verse 22. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, appointed Getaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Sheffan, to be over the people he had left behind in Judah. When all the army officers and their men heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Getalaya as governor, they came to Getalaya at Mitzpah, Ishmael, son of Netanya, Johannan, son of Correa, Siriah, son of Tanhumith, the Nito-thite, and their men. Getaliah took an oath to reassure them and their men.

Do not be afraid of the Babylonian officials, he said, settle down in the land and served the king of Babylon, and it will go well with you. In the seventh month, however, Ishmael, the son of Elashama, who was of royal blood, so this is someone who came from the line of David. He came with ten men and assassinated Getaliah, and also the men of Judah and the Babylonians who were with him in Mitzpah. At this, all the people, from the least to the greatest, together with the army officers,

fled to Egypt for fear of the Babylonians. So let's pause and try to wrestle with the state of God's people and the state of God's land at this point in the story. The people, they're almost all dead or they're in exile. They're either in Egypt or they're in Babylon. Most of them are in Babylon. And all that's left in the land are a tiny number of subsistence farmers. The government is in shambles. There's no king from the line of David on the throne,

and the people who are from the line of David have either become assassins or they're on the run or they're in prison in Babylon. In fact, the last living king of Jerusalem, Jehoia Chin, he is in prison right now. He was taken to Babylon when he was eight years old, and at this point, he's lived in a Babylonian prison for 30 years. Can you imagine spending the time from being eight years old to 38 in a foreign prison? Well, that's where the last Davidic king is. So if you're walking out of the story feeling hopeful, you must have misread it. You can imagine the questions people who were in exile must have been asking, where's God at? Has he given up on us? Will this be the end of our people, our land, our way of life? And they're all probably living with PTSD. After living through the

trauma of watching their family and friends murdered and burned alive, they've lived through the trauma of relocation, of losing everything that they have, of now living in a land where they don't speak the language, they don't worship the gods, they don't understand the culture. Seriously, stop and imagine being in that situation. The book of first and second kings was written and compiled after the exile, so after all of these events took place, and it was likely written for those exiles, for the people living in Babylon. It was written to explain to them that their exile wasn't an accident. It was the result of sin. Just as Adam and Eve were exiled from the Garden of Eden, because they chose death and selfishness and idolatry and destruction, well, in the exact same way,

the people of Judah, the Israelites, were exiled from God's land. First and Second Kings is thus written to them, to lead them to repentance. It's a book that's meant to force them and us to reflect on the ways we've given our hearts to idols. We've rejected God. We've chosen the path of death, not life. But the people reading this book, remember, they didn't have Jesus. They didn't know how the story would climax. Instead, they're just living in despair, living in fear, wondering if their grandchildren would even live

or even know about the nation and the land and the God that they once knew. So again, stop. Imagine being in their shoes, reading this book. And then consider that this is not how the book ends. Instead, there's a brief paragraph at the end that points us in a different direction, in the direction of hope, not despair. And this passage, it's biblical writing at its best, biblical writing at its most subtle. In the world of fiction writing, there's an old adage, show, don't tell.

And it's just a way of saying that art is more effective when it shows us what to feel, rather than spelling things out. So rather than writing, Jill was angry at Jack, the author might write, Jill began to yell at Jack and stick her finger in his face. The second sentence is more evocative. It doesn't tell us what's going on. It shows us something. And that's where its power lies. Let's pick up in verse 27. In the 37th year at the exile of Jehoia Chin, king of Judah, In the year, Awell Marduk became king of Babylon. He released Jehoia Chin, the king of Judah, from prison. So remember, this is the last Davidic king, the one who was exiled to Babylon when he was eight.

He spent 30 plus years in prison. Well, the Babylonian king takes him out. He did this on the 27th day of the 12th month. He spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat of honor higher than those of other kings who were with him in Babylon. So Jehoia Chin put aside his prison. clothes. For the rest of his life, he ate regularly at the king's table. Day by day, the king gave Johoyotchen a regular allowance as long as he lived. So what's happening here? Well, imagine reading this as an exile. And I think you'll get the point. The king who spent over 30 years in a squalid prison from

childhood through adulthood, that same king is now sitting at the table of the king. That same king has now now been set free. That same king has now been given a place of honor. That same king is now robed and housed and fed. Now I think you see what it says to the people. You're like that king. God hasn't given up on you. Though you may tarry in the prison of exile, exile is not the end of the story. It's not the last paragraph. In God's kindness, he plans to raise you up, to honor you, to clothe you, to house you, to feed you, and to start a new chapter that you cannot even imagine. Jesus was the one through whom God accomplished this mission, not just for the Jews in exile, but for the whole of humanity exiled from the Garden of Eden. So wherever you're at,

whatever prison you're in, take hope, because this is not the last paragraph. This is not the last chapter. No, there's another paragraph. There's another chapter because the king, has come to invite you to his table, to honor you, to feed you, to heal you, to make you whole, and one day we will all rise up from this prison in eternal life with him.