'King' in the Bible

‘Then behold, all the women who are left in the palace of the king of Judah will be brought out to the officers of the king of Babylon and those women will say [to you, King Zedekiah],“Your close friendsHave prevailed against your better judgment and have overpowered and deceived you;While your feet were sunk in the mire [of trouble],They turned back.”

Also, all your wives and your children will be brought out to the Chaldeans; and you yourself will not escape from their hand, but you will be seized by the king of Babylon, and this city [Jerusalem] will be burned down with fire.’”

But if the princes (court officials) hear that I have talked with you, and they come to you and say, ‘Tell us now what you said to the king and what he said to you; do not hide it from us and we will not execute you,’

then you are to say to them, ‘I was presenting my [humble] petition and plea to the king so that he would not send me back to Jonathan’s house to die there.’”

Then all the princes (court officials) came to Jeremiah and asked him [just what King Zedekiah had anticipated they would ask], and he reported to them in accordance with all that the king had commanded. So they stopped questioning him, since the conversation [with the king] had not been overheard.

Now regarding the capture of Jerusalem: In the ninth year of [the reign of] Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army came against Jerusalem and besieged it;

Then all the officials of the king of Babylon came in and sat in the Middle Gate [establishing both military control of the city and their authority to judge the captives]: Nergal-sar-ezer, Samgar-nebu, Sar-sekim the Rab-saris (chief of the eunuchs), and Nergal-sar-ezer the Rab-mag (chief of the magicians), with all the rest of the officials of the king of Babylon.

When Zedekiah the king of Judah and all the men of war saw them, they fled and escaped from the city at night by way of the king’s garden, through the gate between the two walls; and the king went out toward the Arabah (Jordan Valley).

But the Chaldean (Babylonian) army pursued them and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. When they had seized him, they brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon at Riblah in the [Aramean] land of Hamath, where he passed sentence on him.

Then at Riblah the king of Babylon killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes; the king of Babylon also killed all the nobles of Judah.

Now Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon gave orders concerning Jeremiah through Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard, saying,

So Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard sent word, along with Nebushazban the Rab-saris (chief of the high officials), and Nergal-sar-ezer the Rab-mag (chief of the magicians), and all the leading officers of the king of Babylon;

While Jeremiah was still hesitating, the captain of the bodyguard said, “Go on back then to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon has appointed [governor] over the cities of Judah, and stay with him among the people; or else go wherever it seems right for you to go.” So the captain of the bodyguard gave him an allowance of food and a gift and let him go.

Now when all the commanders of the forces that were [scattered] in the open country [of Judah] and their men heard that the king of Babylon had made Gedaliah the son of Ahikam governor in the land [of Judah] and had put him in charge of the men, women, and children, those of the poorest of the land who had not been exiled to Babylon,

Then Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, swore to them and their men, saying, “Do not be afraid to serve the Chaldeans; stay in this land and serve the king of Babylon, that it may go well with you.

Likewise, when all the Jews who were in Moab and among the people of Ammon and in Edom and who were in all the [other] countries heard that the king of Babylon had left a remnant [of the people] in Judah and had appointed Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan over them [as governor],

and said to him, “Do you know that Baalis the king of the Ammonites has sent Ishmael the son of Nethaniah to take your life?” But Gedaliah the son of Ahikam did not believe them.

Now in the seventh month Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, of the royal family [of David] and one of the princes of the king, came [at the instigation of the Ammonites] with ten men to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam in Mizpah. As they were eating a meal together there in Mizpah,

Ishmael the son of Nethaniah and the ten men who were with him got up and struck down Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, with the sword and killed the one whom the king of Babylon had appointed [governor] over the land.

Now the cistern into which Ishmael had thrown all the corpses of the men whom he had killed along with Gedaliah was the one which King Asa [of Judah] had made [about three hundred years earlier] on account of King Baasha of Israel [believing that Baasha would lay siege to Mizpah]. Ishmael the son of Nethaniah filled it with [the bodies of] those who were killed.

because of the Chaldeans; for they were afraid of them because Ishmael the son of Nethaniah had killed Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, whom the king of Babylon had appointed [governor] over the land [and whose death the king might avenge].

Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon, whom you now fear [as if he were deity]; do not be afraid of him,’ says the Lord, ‘for [he is a mere man, but I am the living, omniscient God and] I am with you [always] to protect you and to deliver you from his hand.

and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, “Behold, I am going to send and get Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My servant, and I am going to set his throne over these stones that I have hidden; and his [majestic, royal] canopy will be spread over them.

Thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, I will give Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt into the hand of his enemies and into the hand of those who seek his life, just as I gave Zedekiah king of Judah into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, who was his enemy and was seeking his life.’”

The word that Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Baruch the son of Neriah, when he had written these words in a book at the dictation of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, saying,

Concerning Egypt, against the army of Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt, which was by the river Euphrates at Carchemish, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon defeated [decisively] in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah:

The word that the Lord spoke to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the coming of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to strike the land of Egypt:

“They cried there, ‘Pharaoh king of Egypt is destroyed and is merely a loud noise;He has let the appointed time [of opportunity] pass by!’

“As I live,” says the King,Whose name is the Lord of hosts,“Surely like Tabor among the mountainsOr like Carmel by the sea,So shall he [the great king of Babylon] come.

I will put them into the hand of those who seek their lives, and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and into the hand of his servants. Afterward Egypt will be inhabited as in the days of old,” says the Lord.

“Moab has been made desolate and his cities have gone up [in smoke and flame];And his chosen young men have gone down to the slaughter,”Says the King, whose name is the Lord of hosts.

Concerning the sons (descendants) of Ammon.Thus says the Lord:“Does Israel have no sons [to reclaim Gad from the Ammonites]?Has he no heir?Why then has Malcam taken possession of GadAnd [why do] his people live in the cities [of Gad]?

Concerning Kedar and concerning the kingdoms of Hazor, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon defeated. Thus says the Lord,“Arise, go up against KedarAnd destroy the men of the east.

“Flee, run far away! Dwell in the depths [of the desert],O inhabitants of Hazor,” says the Lord,“For Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has planned a course of action against youAnd devised a scheme against you.

The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning Elam, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, saying:

‘Then I will set My throne [of judgment] in ElamAnd I will destroy from there the king and princes,’Says the Lord.

Israel is a hunted and scattered flock [driven here and there as prey]; the lions have chased them away. First the king of Assyria devoured him, and now at last Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has broken (gnawed) his bones.

Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, ‘Behold, I will visit (inspect, examine) and punish the king of Babylon and his land, just as I visited and punished the king of Assyria.

“The king of Babylon has heard the report about them,And his hands fall limp and helpless;Anguish has seized him,And agony like that of a woman in childbirth.

One courier runs to meet another,And one messenger to meet another,To tell the king of BabylonThat his city has been captured from end to end;

“Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has devoured me, he has crushed me,He has set me down like an empty vessel.Like a monster he has swallowed me up,He has filled his belly with my delicacies;He has spit me out and washed me away.

“I will make her princes and her wise men drunk,Her governors and her commanders and her mighty warriors;They will sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake up,”Says the King—the Lord of hosts is His name.

The message which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah, the grandson of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah the king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. Now this Seraiah was chief chamberlain or quartermaster [and brother of Baruch].

For all this came about in Jerusalem and Judah because of the anger of the Lord, and [in the end] He cast them from His presence. And Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

Now it came about in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem; and they camped against it and built moveable towers and siege mounds all around it.

So the city was besieged until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.

But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and his entire army was scattered from him.

Then they seized the king and brought him to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the [Syrian] land of Hamath [on the northern border of Israel], where he pronounced sentence on him.

The king of Babylon killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes; he also killed all the princes of Judah at Riblah.

Then the king of Babylon blinded Zedekiah, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon and there he put him in prison [in a mill] until the day of his death.

Now in the fifth month, on the tenth day, which was the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan captain of the guard, who served the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem.

Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took away into exile some of the poorest of the people, those who were left in the city [at the time it was captured], along with those who deserted to join the king of Babylon [during the siege] and the rest of the artisans.

The two pillars, the one [enormous] Sea (basin), and the twelve bronze bulls under the Sea, and the stands, which King Solomon had made for the house of the Lord—the bronze of all these things was beyond weighing.

He also took out of the city one official who was overseer of the soldiers, and seven of the king’s advisers who were found in the city, and the scribe of the commander of the army who mustered the people of the land, and sixty men who were still in the city.

Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah.

Then the king of Babylon struck them down and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was led away into exile from its own land.

Now it came about in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin [also called Coniah and Jeconiah] king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-fifth of the month, Evil-merodach king of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, showed favor to Jehoiachin king of Judah and brought him out of prison.

And his allowance, a regular allowance was given to him by the king of Babylon, a daily portion [according to his needs] until the day of his death, all the days of his life.

And He has violently broken down His temple like a [fragile] garden hedge;He has destroyed His appointed meeting place.The Lord has caused the appointed feast and SabbathTo be forgotten in ZionAnd has despised and rejected the king and the priestIn the indignation of His anger.

Her gates have sunk into the ground;He has destroyed and broken her bars.Her king and her princes are [exiled] among the nations;The law is no more.Also, her prophets no longer findVision from the Lord.

The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord [our king],Was captured in their snares,He of whom we had said, “Under his shadowWe shall live among the nations.”

(On the fifth of the month, which was in the fifth year of King Jehoiachin’s captivity,

The king [of Judah] will mourn and the prince (Zedekiah) will be clothed with [garments of] despair and anguish, and the hands of the people of the land shall tremble [in terror]. I will deal with them in accordance with their conduct, and by their judgments I will judge them. And they will know [without any doubt] that I am the Lord.’”

It came about in the sixth year [of the captivity of King Jehoiachin], on the fifth day of the sixth month, as I sat in my house [near Babylon] with the elders of Judah sitting before me, that the hand of the Lord God fell on me there.

He broke off the topmost of its young twigs (young King Jehoiachin) and carried it to a land of traders (Babylonia); he set it in a city of merchants (Babylon).

He also took some of the seed of the land (Zedekiah, of the royal family) and planted it in fertile soil and a fruitful field; he placed it beside abundant waters and set it like a willow tree.

Then it sprouted and grew and became a low, spreading vine whose branches turned [in submission] toward him, but its roots remained under it. So it became a vine and yielded shoots and sent out branches.

“There was [also] another great eagle with great wings and many feathers; and behold, this vine (Zedekiah) bent its roots toward him and sent out its branches toward him, away from the beds where it was planted, for him to water.

“Say now to the rebellious house, ‘Do you not know (realize) what these things mean?’ Tell them, ‘Hear this, the king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and took its king [Jehoiachin] and its princes and brought them with him to Babylon.

As I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘surely in the country of the king (Nebuchadnezzar) who made Zedekiah [the vassal] king, whose oath he despised and whose covenant he broke, in Babylon Zedekiah shall die.

‘Then the nations set against him (the king)On every side from the provinces,And they spread their net over him;He was captured in their pit.

‘They put him in a cage with hooks and chainsAnd brought him to the king of Babylon;They brought him in hunting netsSo that his voice would be heard no moreOn the mountains of Israel.

‘But the vine was uprooted in [godly] wrath [by His representative]And it was thrown down to the ground;The east wind dried up its fruit.Its strong branch was broken offSo that it withered;The fire [of God’s judgment] consumed it.

“As I live,” says the Lord God, “most certainly with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and with wrath poured out, I shall be King over you.

“As for you, son of man, mark out two ways for the sword of the king of Babylon to come, both starting from the same land. And make a signpost; place it at the head of the way to the city.

For the king of Babylon stands at the parting of the way, at the fork of the two ways, to use divination. He shakes the arrows, he consults the teraphim (household idols), he looks at the liver [of an animal for an omen].

Again in the ninth year [of King Jehoiachin’s captivity by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon], in the tenth month, on the tenth [day] of the month, the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

“Son of man, record the name of the day, this very day. The king of Babylon has laid siege to Jerusalem this very day.

Now in the eleventh year, on the first [day] of the month [after the capture of King Jehoiachin], the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

For thus says the Lord God, “Behold, I will bring upon Tyre from the north Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, king of kings, with horses and chariots and with horsemen and a great army.

“Son of man, take up a dirge (funeral poem to be sung) for the king of Tyre and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord God,“You had the full measure of perfection and the finishing touch [of completeness],Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.

In the tenth year [of the captivity of King Jehoiachin by the king of Babylon], in the tenth month, on the twelfth of the month, the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

“Son of man, set your face toward Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him and against all Egypt.

Speak and say, ‘Thus says the Lord God,“Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt,The great monster that lies in the midst of his rivers,[Boastfully] declaring, ‘My Nile is my own, and I have made it for myself.’

In the twenty-seventh year [after King Jehoiachin was taken to Babylon], in the first month, on the first of the month, the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

“Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made his army work hard [at My command] against Tyre; every [soldier’s] head became bald and every shoulder was worn and peeled [from carrying loads of dirt and stones for siege works]. Yet he had no wages from Tyre [in proportion to the time and labor expended during the siege], either for himself or his army, for the work that he had done against it [for Me].”

Therefore thus says the Lord God, “Behold, I will give the land of Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. And he will carry off her wealth and capture her spoil and seize her plunder; and it shall be the wages for his army.

‘Thus says the Lord God,“I will also make the great people of Egypt ceaseBy the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.

In the eleventh year [after King Jehoiachin was taken to Babylon], in the first month, on the seventh of the month, the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

“Son of man, I have broken the arm of Pharaoh king of Egypt; and behold, it has not been bound up to heal or wrapped with a bandage, so that it may be strong to hold and wield the sword.

Therefore thus says the Lord God, ‘Behold, I am against Pharaoh king of Egypt and will break his arms, both the strong one and the broken, and I will make the sword fall from his hand.

I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon and put My sword in his hand; but I will break Pharaoh’s arms and he will groan before him (Nebuchadnezzar) with the groanings of a [mortally] wounded man.

But I will strengthen and hold up the arms of the king of Babylon and the arms of Pharaoh will fall down. Then the people [of Egypt] will know that I am the Lord, when I put My sword into the hand of the king of Babylon and he stretches it out against the land of Egypt.

In the eleventh year [after King Jehoiachin was taken captive to Babylon], in the third month, on the first of the month, the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

“Son of man, say to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his hordes,‘Whom are you like in your greatness?

In the twelfth year [after King Jehoiachin of Judah was taken into exile by the king of Babylon], in the twelfth month, on the first of the month, the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

“Son of man, take up a dirge (funeral poem to be sung) over Pharaoh king of Egypt and say to him,‘You have compared yourself to a young lion among the nations,But you are like a monster in the seas;You burst into your riversAnd disturbed and muddied the waters with your feetAnd fouled their rivers [the source of their prosperity].’”

For thus says the Lord God, “The sword of the king of Babylon will come on you.

In the twelfth year [after King Jehoiachin of Judah was taken into exile], on the fifteenth of the month, the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

and I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king will be king over all of them; and they will no longer be two nations, and will no longer be divided into two kingdoms.