JOACHIN. - King of Judah, better known as Jeconiah (the same name with the transposition of its component parts ["Yahweh disposes"]: cf. Jer. 37:1; 1 Chron. 3:16-17; Matt. 1:11-12). Son of Jehoiakim (v.), he succeeded his father at the age of 18, while the city of Jerusalem was besieged by the Chaldeans (597 B.C.). But after three months he had to surrender to Nebuchadnezzar, who sent him into exile, with his mother and the court, to Babylon, where he remained a prisoner for 37 years.
With King I. many other people were deported, among them 7,000 warriors and notables and a thousand skilled workers to be employed in the construction works at Babylon: in Jerusalem "only the poorest of the land remained" (2 Kings 24:14 ff.). On the throne of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar placed an uncle of I., Mattaniah, the third son of Josiah, whose name he changed to Zedekiah (v.). For the entire time that Nebuchadnezzar lived, that is, for almost 37 years, I. suffered harsh imprisonment in Babylon: it is known only that, in the fifth year of imprisonment, the prophet Baruch read his prophecy to the imprisoned king and to the other exiles in Babylon, who listened to it moved and sent offerings to Jerusalem, imploring prayers for King Nebuchadnezzar and for themselves (Bar. 1:2-13).
Nebuchadnezzar's successor, Evil-merodach, as soon as he ascended the throne (561 B.C.), "brought him out of prison, spoke kindly to him and set his seat higher than that of the other kings who were with him in Babylon"; indeed he welcomed him among his table companions (2 Kings 25:27 ff.). This detail, with which 2 Kings closes, has found recent splendid confirmation in the cuneiform tablets discovered at Babylon in 1912 and reported in 1939 by E. F. Weidner: among other things, they record month by month the supplies destined on behalf of the king of Babylon for "Jehoiachin king of the land of Judah," for his five sons and for eight Jews of his retinue: he was therefore regarded as a vassal king and treated with the respect due to his dignity. On this exiled king were fixed the messianic hopes of the Davidic dynasty, and to him the genealogical line is linked, after the exile, down to Christ
(cf. Matt. 1:11-12). It is not known how many more years he survived and when he died.