I have always had a hard time figuring out the final years of the Southern Kingdom of Israel before it went into captivity, especially figuring out who was king and when.
It doesn’t help at all that one of the major books about the time, Jeremiah isn’t in order in how he relates God’s judgment—he jumps back and forth between various kings and with their similar names, Jehoiakim, Jehoiakim, and Jehoahaz, plus their father/grandfather Josiah—I got confused.
It was easy to remember Zedekiah was the last king (the letter “Z” being the last in the alphabet), but I couldn’t remember why he was king and how he was related to the others.
When the time came to teach the time period recently, I realized NOW was the time to figure it out and so I sat down with commentaries, Bible, and notepad to figure it out finally. Once I did that, I transferred what I learned to Canva (www.canva.com) the graphics program I use to create most of the infographics I share with you.
The infographic has helped me make sense of the time, the kings, and what God did and proved helpful in class. I’m posting it online here; you can download the handout and have my permission to share it freely.
Just click on the image above to do that.