event · E0485
Galut Yechonyah גלות יכניה
Nevuchadnetzar's first conquest of Jerusalem ended not in fire but in surrender: Yehoyachin (Yechonyah) went out to the king of Bavel and was carried into exile with his mother, his officers, the warriors, and the charash vehamasger — the craftsmen and the smiths, in whom tradition sees the scholars of the generation. Nevuchadnetzar set Matanyah on the throne, renaming him Tzidkiyahu; eleven years later the city burned. The golah counted its years from this exile — Yechezkel dates his prophecies "of the exile of the king Yoyachin" — so that galut Yechonyah became the era by which the exile told time.
I. Who
- Hebrew
- גלות יכניה
- Also known as
- Exile of Yehoyachin, Galut HeCharash VeHaMasger, Nevuchadnetzar's First Capture of Jerusalem
- Era
- bible
II. When
- Traditional
- 3327 AM — eleven years before the churban (3338 AM)
- Civil (computed)
- 3327 AM · 434 BCE (trad.)
- Academic
- 2 Adar = 16 March 597 BCE, dated to the day by the Babylonian Chronicle
- Date range
- 434 BCE (traditional) / 597 BCE (academic)
- Precision
- exact
III. Where
- Places
- Jerusalem, Bavel
IV. What
- Events
- Babylonian Chronicle ABC 5, Jehoiachin Ration Tablets, Destruction of the First Temple
V. How do we know
| Claim | Evidence | Confidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nevuchadnetzar besieged Jerusalem; Yehoyachin king of Yehudah went out to the king of Bavel, he and his mother and his servants and his officers, and was taken into exile in the eighth year of Nevuchadnetzar's reign, with all the officers and warriors — ten thousand exiles — "and all the craftsmen and the smiths" (kol hecharash vehamasger); and the king of Bavel made Matanyah his uncle king in his place, and changed his name to Tzidkiyahu.
Confidence is for what the biblical text states. |
biblical | ★★★★★ | |
| The exile of Yechonyah became the fixed point from which the golah counted. Yirmiyahu's vision of the two baskets of figs is dated "after Nevuchadnetzar exiled Yechonyahu ben Yehoyakim," his letter to the exiles is addressed to those who went out with the king, and Yechezkel — himself among them — dates his opening vision to "the fifth year of the exile of the king Yoyachin," the epoch he keeps throughout his sefer. | biblical | ★★★★★ | |
| The traditional date follows from the churban itself: Tzidkiyahu, installed at this surrender, reigned eleven years until the city fell in 3338 AM — placing galut Yechonyah at 3327 AM on the Seder Olam framework, the same year the atlas's Babylonian Chronicle entry (Babylonian Chronicle ABC 5) uses for the capture it records.
The eleven-year spacing before the churban is explicit in the pesukim and in Seder Olam's framework; the AM-to-BCE rendering diverges from the academic count by the Persian-period seam flagged at Destruction of the First Temple.
|
tradition | ★★★★☆ | |
| Babylon kept its own record of the day. The Babylonian Chronicle (BM 21946) reports under Nevuchadnetzar's seventh year: "he encamped against the city of Judah and on the second day of the month of Adar he seized the city and captured the king. He appointed there a king of his own choice" — 2 Adar = 16 March 597 BCE, the only cuneiform narrative of a capture of Jerusalem. And ration tablets from Nevuchadnetzar's palace archive list oil for "Ya'u-kinu, king of the land of Yahudu" and his sons — Yehoyachin, fed at the king of Bavel's table, exactly where Melachim leaves him.
Both witnesses are held as atlas artifacts — the Babylonian Chronicle (Babylonian Chronicle ABC 5) and the Jehoiachin Ration Tablets (Jehoiachin Ration Tablets).
|
external | ★★★★★ |