Today’s post will tackle another question that the Skeptic Annotated Bible asked: “How was Zedekiah related to Nebuchadnezzar?” This is one of their more recent addition and the website stated that this was added to the lists of contradictions online after the Skeptic Annotated Bible was already published.

Here are the two answers which the skeptic believes shows a Bible contradiction:

Zedekiah was Nebuchadnezzar’s uncle.

Then the king of Babylon made his uncle Mattaniah king in his place, and changed his name to Zedekiah. (2 Kings 24:17)

Zedekiah was Nebuchadnezzar’s brother.

At the turn of the year King Nebuchadnezzar sent and brought him to Babylon with the valuable articles of the house of the Lord, and he made his kinsman Zedekiah king over Judah and Jerusalem. (2 Chronicles 36:10)

(Note: Scriptural quotation comes from the New American Standard Bible)

Here’s a closer look at whether or not there is a contradiction:

When dealing with skeptics’ claim of Bible contradictions it seems one can never be reminded enough of what exactly is a contradiction. A contradiction occurs when two or more claims conflict with one another so that they cannot simultaneously be true in the same sense and at the same time. It is incredible to see how sloppy is the skeptic’s handling of Scripture with this alleged Bible contradiction. The skeptic thinks 2 Kings 24:17 and 2 Chronicles 36:10 teaches Zedekiah was related to Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar. But this is an error on the part of the skeptic. Zedekiah is not related to Nebuchadnezzar. Zedekiah is a Jewish name instead of it being a Babylonian/Chaldean name. We would expect if Zedekiah is related to Nebuchadnezzar then Zedekiah would be Babylonian and would have a Babylonian name. Instead Zedekiah is a Hebrew name that means “Yahweh is my righteous.” It is unlikely a pagan relative of Nebuchadnezzar would have a name that praises Yahweh, the God of Israel. In fact we see the Chaldeans have the precedence of renaming people with Hebrew names to pagan names referring to Babylonian deities as seen with the case of Daniel and his friends in Daniel 1. This suggests strongly Zedekiah was Jewish. Zedekiah’s original name was Mattaniah according to 2 Kings 24:17. Mattaniah is also a Jewish name. Mattaniah’s name is Hebrew and means “Gift of Yahweh.” Again it is unlikely a pagan relative of Nebuchadnezzar originally would have a name that praises Yahweh, the God of Israel. According to 1 Chronicles 3:15 Zedekiah was Jewish. That verse teaches that Zedekiah was the third “sons of Josiah.” Josiah is one of the king of Judah. A careful reading of the context of both 2 Kings 24 and 2 Chronicles 36 reveal that Zedekiah is not related to Nebuchadnezzar but Jehoiachin. The referent of the possessive pronoun “his” in both 2 Kings 24:17 and 2 Chronicles 36:10 points back to the previous verses which mentioned Jehoiachin. Right before 2 Kings 24:17 king Jehoiachin was the focus in 2 Kings 24:6-16. Right before 2 Chronicles 36:10 king Jehoiachin was the focus in 2 Chronicles 36:8-10. From point 2-3 we see now that the issue is how Zedekiah is related to Jehoiachin and not how Zedekiah is related to Nebuchadnezzar. For our next point we must state that it is important to remember that the Bible originally was not written in English. Here our passages from 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles are found in the Old Testament. The Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew. We must ask what the terms originally meant in the Hebrew to get the meaning being employed. From the Hebrew in 2 Kings 24:17 Zedekiah should be understood as Jehoiachin’s uncle. The word translated in 2 Kings 24:17 for “uncle” is דּוֹד. While this word has a wide lexical range among its meaning this term can be understood as “uncle.” דּוֹד appears in Leviticus 10:4. In the Septuagint, which is the Jewish’ Greek translation of the Old Testament, Leviticus 10:4 was translated as υἱοὺς τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ τοῦ πατρὸς Ααρων which literally means “the sons of the father’s brother.” We see definitely Jewish translators understanding דּוֹד as uncle. Numbers 36:11 and 1 Samuel 14:50 are also examples where we see דּוֹד means uncle. There are many other verses too but these three samples should be adequate. Again דּוֹד has a wide semantic range besides “uncle” such as the meaning of “beloved” and “love” as an abstract concept. But if we look at the chapter context of both 2 Kings 24:17 and 2 Chronicles 36:10 we see the meaning of “uncle” is the best way to understand the meaning of the term. Both 2 Kings 24:6 and 2 Chronicles 36:8 teaches that Jehoiachin was the son of king Jehoiakim. Recall earlier that 1 Chronicles 3:15 stated Zedekiah was the third “sons of Josiah.” That same verse mentioned Jehoiakim was the second “son of Josiah.” Since Jehoiachin was the son of Jehoiakim and Jehoiakim’s brother included Zedekiah therefore we can conclude Zedekiah was the uncle of Jehoiachin. Thus 2 Kings 24:17’s use of דּוֹד should be understood as referring to Zedekiah as Jehoiachin’s uncle. Even as 2 Kings 24:17 teaches that Zedekiah is Jehoiachin’s uncle this is not contradictory with 2 Chronicles 36:10 as the skeptic claims. In trying to force a contradiction our skeptic thinks that 2 Chronicles 36:10’s use of אָח means “brother.” Note the NASB did not translated it this way but instead translated אָח as “kinsman.“ The NASB is not wrong. One of the sense that אָח can be used include the idea of relative or fellow member of a clan, tribe, nation, etc. The meaning of relative for the word אָח can be seen in b oth Genesis 29:12, and 29:15. In Genesis 29:12 Jacob tells Rachel that he is אָח of her father. In Genesis 29:15 Laban, the father of Rachel, confirms to Jacob that he is his אָח. It is unlikely that Jacob is literally Laban’s brother since that would mean Jacob was very old to find such a young suitor. The meaning of “relative” makes better sense. It is unlikely Jacob is literally Laban’s brother since within the chapter in Genesis 29:10 we read “When Jacob saw Rachel the daughter of Laban his mother’s brother, and the sheep of Laban his mother’s brother, Jacob went up and rolled the stone from the mouth of the well and watered the flock of Laban his mother’s brother.” Three times this one verse mentions Laban was Jacob’s “mother’s brother.” Jacob’s mother didn’t need to be invoked in the chapter for the story to progress. Yet there is this sudden and frequent mention that Laban was Jacob’s mother’s brother. If אָח here merely means Laban was a relative of Jacob’s mother it makes little sense since that would already be understood already since Laban was Jacob’s אָח. Therefore one should understand that Jacob’s mother was literally the brother of Laban but Jacob as אָח in relations to Laban has sense of relative instead. The use of אָח as “relative” is not only possible but in terms of probability it is the most likely contextually. Don’t forget that earlier in point 6.2 we have established that Zedekiah was the uncle of Jehoiachin from 2 Chronicles 36:8 in light of 1 Chronicles 3:15. Since 2 Chronicles 36:8 is next to 2 Chronicles 36:10 it contextually presses אָח in 2 Chronicles 36:10 to mean “relative” instead of “brother.”

Conclusion

This post has pointed out the skeptic’s silly error of assuming Zedekiah was related to Nebuchadnezzar. This post also demonstrated that we do not have a Bible contradiction here since the claim that Zedekiah was the uncle of Jehoiachin is compatible with the claim that Zedekiah was a relative of Jehoiachin. This attack on the Bible is so ridiculous that the skeptic should tap out and cry “uncle.”