Jeconiah - Dating Jeconiah's Reign

Dating Jeconiah's Reign

The Babylonian Chronicles establish that Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem the first time on 2 Adar (16 March) 597 BC. Before Wiseman's publication of the Babylonian Chronicles in 1956, Thiele had determined from Biblical texts that Nebuchadnezzar's initial capture of Jerusalem and its king Jeconiah occurred in the spring of 597 BC, whereas Kenneth Strand points out that other scholars, including Albright, more frequently dated the event to 598 BC. This is one of several instances cited by Strand showing that Thiele's approach of starting with the Biblical texts and assuming they were correct until proven otherwise, combined with his extensive knowledge of the recording methods of ancient historians, produced results that were useful in correcting dates derived from secular history.

Assuming that Jeconiah's reign ended on the day that the Babylonians captured Jerusalem the first time, 2 Adar (16 March) 597 BC, and further assuming that the Jewish calendar in the sixth century BC had the same number of days in the two preceding months as in the modern Jewish calendar, Jehoiachin's reign of three months and ten days (2 Chronicles 36:9) would have started on 21 Heshvan (9 December) 598 BC.