Untangling the Final Kings of Judah
Between Josiah's death in 609BC, and the fall of Jerusalem in 587/6BC, Judah gets through four more kings; about par for Israel in one of her more unsettled phases, but decidedly high for Judah. There is considerable disagreement as to the precise year that each event in the period happened (due to uncertainty as to when the new year was considered to begin), but the sequence is clear. Below I suggest a possible sequence of events to try to explain why things happened as they did. My sources are the Old Testament (2 Kings, 2 Chronicles and Jeremiah) and the Babylonian Chronicles. I have not included Josephus' commentary as he is unlikely to have had access to any first-hand information. Firstly, one must understand that the Babylonian Chronicles (which unfortunately are not extant as far as the fall of Jerusalem) primarily record what the emperor (Nebuchadnezzar for the years of our interest) is doing, rather than what his army is doing. Nebuchadnezzar may be at home with his