Nebuchadnezer Attacks

00:00:00 Speaker 1: Previously on The Chosen People. 00:00:03 Speaker 2: This judgment is not the rage of a tyrant. It is the heartbreak of a father whose children have thrown themselves into danger. You call it wrath. But what is wrath if not love betrayed? If not justice for the oppressed, for the children who screamed as they burned? 00:00:24 Speaker 3: Then I will burn their gods before they burn my people. 00:00:29 Speaker 4: Lord Necho of Egypt declares, What quarrel is there, king of Judah, between you and me? I do not come against you today, but against the house with which I am at war. God has commanded me to hurry. Stop opposing God, who is with me, or he will destroy you. 00:00:51 Speaker 1: The battlefield was loud, which made Josiah's silence all the louder. Horses screamed, Chariots thundered, bronze clashed against bone. And then it happened. No trumpet, no flash, no divine sign. Just the cold, stupid reality of war. An archer, Egyptian, probably not even aiming, let fly. The arrow soared unnoticed until it buried itself in the king's side. Josiah gasped. 00:01:27 Speaker 2: He tried with all his heart, but no man can save Judah, not yet. 00:01:39 Speaker 1: The fire had gone out. Not literally, there were still embers smoldering in the pits where idols had been smashed, but spiritually, nationally, Judah had gone cold. The reformation Josiah lit like a match had burned hot and bright and short. Now the temple smelled like smoke and silence. Revival had slipped into memory, and memory, as it always does, softened the edges and skipped the cost. Josiah, the last good king, was dead, slain at Megiddo in a war he never should have been in. He had been killed by a pharaoh who hadn't forgotten Judah's insolence. And in the vacuum left behind, the people did what people always did. 00:02:35 Speaker 5: Panicked. 00:02:36 Speaker 1: They picked a new king. Not God's choice. Theirs. Jehoahaz. He was 23, inexperienced, insecure, and as much a puppet of public opinion as he was a prince. The scribes later tried to make it sound orderly. 00:02:56 Speaker 5: It wasn't. 00:02:57 Speaker 1: It was chaos wearing ceremony like a mask. The people crowned him in a rush, a warm body to sit on a cold throne. He'd barely had time to settle into the palace before the world outside started shifting again. There were rumours, war drums and movement in the south. Egypt and King Jehoahaz wasn't ready. The throne room of Judah still smelled like death. Wilted flowers rotted beneath linen banners half lowered. Oil stained the stone from the anointing of a king who no one really believed in. Jehoahaz sat stiffly on the throne like a child at a grown man's table. He wore the crown as if it were still debating whether to stay on his head. To his left stood Uriel. A holdover from Josiah's council. 00:03:56 Speaker 5: Still, no word from Lachish? Nothing? 00:04:00 Speaker 1: No, my king. 00:04:02 Speaker 6: Perhaps... perhaps the messengers were delayed. Or Pharaoh Nicho has chosen diplomacy. 00:04:11 Speaker 5: Diplomacy? After Megiddo? You think Egypt forgot how my father died? 00:04:17 Speaker 1: Jehoahaz rose hands balled into fists. For a heartbeat, he looked like his father, Josiah. Same jawline, same flare of righteous anger. But it was an echo. A mimicry. Something thinner underneath. 00:04:33 Speaker 5: My father bled. He bled on that battlefield, and he died on his feet. Nico doesn't want peace. He wants tribute. 00:04:43 Speaker 3: He wants to remind us of who we are. 00:04:47 Speaker 5: We're slaves. 00:04:49 Speaker 1: Then... He will come to collect. There was no warning, no battle, no siege, just dust on the horizon. And then, hoofbeats. Egypt didn't challenge Jerusalem. They didn't invite them out onto the field for battle. Egypt simply entered. Jehoahaz was taken, tied and hoisted up like hunted game. paraded through the same streets that once chanted his name. No arrow was fired, no sword drawn, because no one believed he could win, maybe not even him. The tent of Pharaoh Necho was massive, more temple than shelter. Gold inlay on the walls, incense burning in thick coils, and in the center, Necho. He didn't rise. He didn't need to. He lounged like a serpent basking after a kill, eyes half-lidded, hands lazily folded. Jehoahaz, the fallen king of Judah, knelt in the dirt, wrists scraped raw, mouth dry with dust and defiance. 00:06:08 Speaker 4: Josiah's boy, the king who defied me, the fool who bled for it. 00:06:17 Speaker 5: My father stood for the Lord. He stood for his people. And now you kneel for neither. 00:06:26 Speaker 1: Niko rose, slow and deliberate, crossing the space like a priest before an altar. His voice dropped. 00:06:34 Speaker 5: You are not a king. 00:06:36 Speaker 4: You are a cautionary tale for anyone who forgets who rules the rivers and roads. 00:06:43 Speaker 1: The pharaoh turned away with a flick of his hand. Soldiers dragged Jehoahaz out into the night. He would never see Jerusalem again. He would rot in Egypt, forgotten by all but the chroniclers. A week passed. Judah blinked, sighed, and bowed again. The Pharaoh installed a new king, Eliakim, Josiah's other son. Older, quieter, easier to manipulate. Pharaoh renamed him Jehoiakim, rebranded like a piece of livestock, installed by a foreign power. Eliakim accepted it all. No protest, no fire. Just a quiet obedience that felt like rot in slow motion. The throne room no longer smelled like mourning. Now it smelled like compromise. Incense, fresh-cut cedar. the kind of sanitized normalcy that makes you forget the cost. Chains from Jehoahaz's capture still hung in the corner. No one had removed them. Maybe they were waiting for another king to earn them. Jehoiakim stood before the throne, freshly robed, still and silent. Uriel, the steward, approached, slower this time, cautious, like a man checking if the ice would hold. 00:08:15 Speaker 5: My king don't call me that not until i've earned it they wanted a king like josiah but the fire's gone all that's left is smoke and ashes ashes don't rule they just they just remind you of what you lost. 00:08:35 Speaker 1: They still had the temple but it was hollow they still had a king but he bowed to pharaoh not the lord they still had peace but it was the peace of the graveyard. And somewhere, far beneath the temple stones, in scrolls no one read anymore, the ink of the covenant began to blur. Not from age or neglect, but from the tears of God himself. Before Jehoiakim raised walls, stationed guards, or reformed the courts, he built a palace. It rose like a curse against everything his father had stood for. The palace was lined with foreign cedar, draped in Assyrian silks, and paid for with blood taxes carved from the backs of the poor. It wasn't built to protect Judah. It was built to impress Egypt. A spectacle, a monument to ego. and somewhere in a cramped stone chamber near the temple mount, a gaunt, wild-eyed man with ink-stained fingers began to write about it all. His name was Jeremiah, and he had already seen the end. The palace hall was absurd, vulgar. ceilings, imported mosaics, torchlight flickering off cedar walls brought in at cost from Lebanon. It was stupid, ill-advised. Jehoiakim lounged like a man allergic to responsibility. One leg slung over the side of his chair, a goblet in hand. He ruled not like a son of David, but like a son of Pharaoh. Egypt's leash was still fresh around his neck, Babylon's shadow rising on the horizon. He wore power like it was inherited linen, wrinkled, too big, and badly stained. Servants moved like ghosts, no one made eye contact. A thin man in court robes, an advisor, gaunt and trembling, stepped forward with the posture of someone who hated what he was about to say. 00:10:56 Speaker 7: My lord, a message has arrived from the prophet Jeremiah. 00:11:01 Speaker 5: Ah, the weeping madman. What's he ranting about this time? 00:11:07 Speaker 4: Fire? 00:11:08 Speaker 5: Famine? Frauds? He. 00:11:12 Speaker 7: he wrote it down this time. 00:11:14 Speaker 5: A scroll. 00:11:16 Speaker 7: Delivered to the scribes this morning. Baruch the scribe read it publicly at the temple gates. 00:11:21 Speaker 1: That got his attention. Jehoiakim sat up slowly. 00:11:27 Speaker 5: So now the prophet fancies himself a poet. Well, let's hear the verse. Bring me the scroll. If I'm to be damned, I want the courtesy of knowing why. 00:11:38 Speaker 1: A hearth fire snapped in the corner, the only sound besides the slow unrolling of parchment. The king sat in a heavy robe, face half-lit by firelight. The words of the prophet. 00:11:52 Speaker 6: Jeremiah. 00:11:55 Speaker 7: Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness, his upper rooms by injustice, who makes his neighbor serve for nothing and does not pay his wages. 00:12:06 Speaker 1: Oh, good. 00:12:07 Speaker 5: A wage complaint from heaven. How very revolutionary. Go on, go on. 00:12:15 Speaker 7: Do you think you are a king because you excel in cedar? Did not your father, Josiah, do justice and righteousness? Then it was well with him. 00:12:27 Speaker 2: Enough! 00:12:29 Speaker 1: Jehoiakim's fingers twitched, his jaw clenched. That name, Josiah, carried more weight than he'd ever admit. Not because he loved his father, but because he could never measure up. He stood and ripped the scroll from the scribe's hands. Without ceremony, he strode to the fire. The parchment tore like bread in his hands, and he fed it to the flame, piece by piece. 00:12:58 Speaker 5: Let the gods of Babylon and Egypt see how Judah handles prophecy. No more ghosts, no more guilt. We write the story now. 00:13:10 Speaker 1: The last scrap curled in the flames. Ash danced in the air, but the words, the words did not die. Burning prophecy doesn't erase it. The scroll is a vessel, not the voice. The word of the Lord doesn't die in flame, it steps through it. And what walked out of that fire wasn't silence, it was war. A name, rising like smoke over the eastern hills. Nebuchadnezzar. The moon shimmered over the polished obsidian walls of Babylon's war room. The air smelled of oil and steel. At the center of the war room stood Nebuchadnezzar. He was a statue of a man. No, he was more than a man. He was something cut out of myth. A titan, not in stature. Although he was broad, but in presence. He was a man out of mythology, designed as a weapon of conquest and judgment. His eyes burned with mathematics. Distance, yield, casualties, control. He did not pace. He did not shout. His voice didn't need volume. It had weight. A general moved beside him, hesitant, holding a map of Judah like a man offering a rabbit to a lion. 00:14:47 Speaker 5: Judah's king bows to Pharaoh. Then he'll bow again. 00:14:53 Speaker 1: This time to me. 00:14:56 Speaker 5: Might be messy. 00:14:57 Speaker 1: Judah gives tribute to Pharaoh, pays him well. 00:15:00 Speaker 3: Then we collect interest. Every coin he paid Pharaoh, he now owes me. Plus blood. Send the merchants first. We'll send tributes and treaties as well. I want them to have the illusion of choice. No fire yet. Threats by time. Let them hope it's enough. Let them feel the noose before it tightens around their necks. 00:15:32 Speaker 5: Ah, yes. No fire. 00:15:35 Speaker 1: Let them smell the smoke. Precisely. 00:15:39 Speaker 3: I want their king to taste fear every time he swallows. 00:15:45 Speaker 1: Months had passed. The palace of Judah hadn't changed. The cedar still whispered of compromise. But the mood had rotted. Jehoiakim now knelt before emissaries of Babylon, crown crooked, hands trembling. Behind him, chests overflowed with tribute. Silver overflowing. wealth hemorrhaged into foreign hands. The lead envoy unfurled a scroll, a treaty, not of partnership, of submission. Jehoiakim signed it. His voice cracked as he said the words. 00:16:25 Speaker 5: Long live Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. 00:16:30 Speaker 1: He thought it would buy peace. It bought time. Time for Babylon to sharpen its teeth. time for god's patience to run out because the lord doesn't forget not the labor stolen to build a palace not the scroll that burned not the silence that followed and the prophet jeremiah sat hunched over a new scroll somewhere deep beneath jehoiakim in the palace cellars chained to the wall His arthritic hands shook. He looked like a man who had survived an apocalypse no one else noticed. He continued to write. Words of warning. Words of judgment. Words of hope amidst love. 00:17:19 Speaker 6: For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future. 00:17:30 Speaker 1: His words were for the people of Israel. although the promises of hope would fall on deaf ears until much later, when the walls of Jerusalem crumbled and the temple burned to ash. The siege arrived like a slow mounting tide. King Nebuchadnezzar was patient, inevitable. Babylon didn't roar in, they waited. Their war machines crouched in the dark like wooden beasts, massive and mute, groaning only when fed by the hands of soldiers. Every night, they inched closer, suffocating the city. Inside the walls, food vanished alongside hope. Barley turned to dust. Water was rationed in thimbles. Bread crumbled into ash between trembling fingers. Rats became currency. Hebrew mothers, once noble and proud, rocked their children with cracked lips and empty breasts. Some stopped singing lullabies. Others kept singing long after their children had stopped breathing. The marketplace was a graveyard. The temple courts fell silent. Sacrifice had nothing left to offer. Their prayers fell like broken arrows, too blunt to pierce heaven. Some whispered to God, others said he was gone. Both answers felt like a curse. The gates of Jerusalem didn't break open. They were opened, quietly, willfully. There comes a point when a city stops fighting, not out of cowardice, but out of exhaustion. King Jehoiakim, son of the late Jehoiakim, emerged wearing sackcloth beneath his royal robes, barefoot, crownless. He walked toward the Babylonian army alone. He did not weep. He did not resist. He simply surrendered. King Nebuchadnezzar trotted forward, mounted upon his dark steed. His breath rose in the chill like a dragon's breath. And then the screaming began. The army of Babylon was released like wolves. Every corner of the city was ransacked. Men were killed, priests were put on pikes, and the monuments to Judah's former greatness were burnt to a crisp. The work of Solomon, ashes. The legacy of David, rubble. Nebuchadnezzar knew better than to simply subjugate a people. He wanted them to lose all sense of culture and history. He wanted their heritage diluted and their heroes forgotten. In the southern quarter, where the lower priests and their families lived in worn brick homes, fire erupted. Soldiers slashed away at the priests, dragging the young men into carts. A boy no older than 15 was dragged by his hair through the courtyard. His mother clawed at the dirt, lungs emptying. Nebuchadnezzar watched it all, still, unmoved. That's enough. 00:21:06 Speaker 3: Leave Judah intact for now. Guards, find another of David's line to replace the king. One who knows how to bow. 00:21:18 Speaker 4: There's one. 00:21:19 Speaker 1: His name is Mattaniah. 00:21:22 Speaker 5: Not anymore. Call him Zedekiah. 00:21:26 Speaker 1: The name meant the Lord is righteous. History would remember it as irony. a final candle in a temple filled with ash. Judah still breathed, but it bled with every exhale. And somewhere in the temple, once the footstool of the Most High, the smoke no longer rose, because the covenant had been broken, not just once, but a thousand times. But the God of Jacob was still watching, waiting. This Pray.com production is only made possible by our dedicated team of creative talents. Steve Katina, Max Bard, Zach Schellewager and Ben Gammon are the executive producers of The Chosen People, narrated by Paul Coltofianu. Characters are voiced by Jonathan Cotton, Aaron Salvato, Sarah Seltz, Mike Reagan, Stephen Ringwald, Sylvia Zaradok, Thomas Copeland Jr., Rosanna Pilcher, and Mitch Lashinsky. Music by Andrew Morgan Smith. Written by Aaron Salvato, Brie Rosely, and Chris Baig. You can hear more Prey.com productions on the Prey.com app, available on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. If you enjoyed The Chosen People, please rate and leave a review.