There Is Something Of A Mystery about a man mentioned in the book of Ezra. His name was Sheshbazzar, which means ‘May Shin protect his father.’ Shin was a Babylonian moon god. He also had a nickname, Shenazzar, which means exactly the same thing. The likelihood is that you, dear reader, know nothing about him at all. Yet he was clearly a man of great importance in God’s purpose.
The most fascinating thing about Sheshbazzar, at least to me, is that, through God’s mercy and providence, he was a child begotten of love in a prison cell. He was born in the prison too, as was his brother Shealtiel, who was a direct ancestor of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here’s how his story goes.
The background
Sheshbazzar’s grandfather was one of the worst kings who ever misruled God’s people. The detestable things that he did are chronicled in Scripture, and the Lord was not willing to forgive, especially the shedding of innocent blood. He chopped up God’s word with a penknife and threw it page by page into a brazier, until the entire scroll was burned in the fire.
The thirty-six year old Jehoiakim (also called Eliakim) was a victim of his own arrogance. Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon attacked him and bound him with bronze shackles to take him to Babylon. He didn’t get very far. The prophet Jeremiah had already prophesied his ghastly end: he will have the burial of a donkey, dragged away and thrown outside the gates of Jerusalem. It was not nice, but God had made it very clear through Moses, no one who has treated me with contempt will be saved and inherit the Kingdom. Treating God’s word with contempt, so Jesus tells us, is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit and will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.
Although still only a teenager, Sheshbazzar’s father Jeconiah (also called Coniah or Jehoiachin) found himself nestled in cedar buildings — the House which Solomon had built as the royal palace four hundred years earlier. He was a very frightened man. His anxiety would not be lessened when the prophet Jeremiah told him: I will hand you over to those who seek your life. I will hurl you and the mother who gave you birth into another country, where neither of you was born, and there you both will die.
Jeconiah taken captive
The hapless Jeconiah reigned for three months and ten days, no more. The time is ominously precise. He was only 18, and his queen was the same age. Despite his youth, he had already begun to multiply wives and had children. These were obviously mere babies, but they wereflung out of the palace by the Babylonian soldiers, and we do not hear of them again. His junior wife or wives also disappear from the record.
The king and his mother, stripped and hurled around like common captives, endured the nine-week hike to Babylon. The beautiful eighteen-year old queen was subjected to special humiliation. All who honoured her despise her, for they have seen her nakedness. She herself groans and turns away. Jeconiah was put in prison. That’s where he stayed for the next 37 years.
Very mercifully, God spared the young queen from being taken into Nebuchadnezzar’s harem, which would have been her expected fate. She was to be an ancestress of the Lord Jesus, that is why. Another reason is that she deeply loved the husband of her youth, though I do wonder if he really deserved her love.
The young queen spared
Even in this terrible, frightful situation God’s love was at work. Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassion fail not. They are new every morning. Jeremiah described the surviving elders among the exiles as like good figs. The Lord said through the prophet, my eyes will watch over them for their good, and will give them a heart to know me.
Soon after the melancholy procession had left Jerusalem, Jeremiah sent a letter to Babylon. The postman was Elasah son of Shaphan, a secret disciple of Jeremiah’s. His message included this advice: have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.
These elders took Jeremiah’s comforting words and his advice seriously. They petitioned the government in Babylon and obtained permission for Jeconiah’s young queen to live with him in jail. She was eager to oblige. The happy events that ensued are recorded in the Chronicles: the sons of Jehoiachin (Jeconiah) the captive: Shealtiel his son, Malkiram, Pedaiah, Shenazzar, Jekamiah, Hoshama and Nedabiah.
Family records found
The family ‘ration book’ — an official baked clay tablet — has been dug up in Babylon. It indicates that she shared prison life with her husband from the age of 18 until they both were 55. She bore him five sons and several daughters before being pardoned at long last by the Babylonian king Evil-Merodach. On this clay tablet in Babylonian, the name of the fourth son is Sheshbazzar (Shenazzar). I am sure it must have been a long wait, those 37 years, as they longed for the release that Jeremiah had promised. They would surely empathize with us as we wait for the times of refreshing and the redemption of our bodies.
Jeremiah could never have imagined that the fulfilment of God’s promises and the coming of the Great King, the LORD our Righteousness, of which he spoke so often, would depend on this despised object no one wants and his wretched discredited captive queen making love in their prison cell. But such are the inscrutable ways of the Almighty. We tend to generalize sinners and stereotype the wicked. God does not. He is not concerned with masses. His great love is poured out abundantly on this particular man and that individual woman, on you and me.
Release from prison
At last the longed for day came. Evil-Merodach spoke kindly to Jeconiah and his faithful wife. They were freed from prison. He gave Jeconiah a seat of honour. They ate regularly at the king’s table. The family got a regular allowance as exiles, but they had to accept God’s will, as Jeremiah had spelled it out years before: You will never come back to the land you long to return to. As an involuntary exile myself, I can understand their heartache.
Sheshbazzar would have been a young man in his early twenties when his parents were released from prison. To the Jews he was hanasi, the prince, a representative of the ‘overturned’ Davidic line. Ezekiel, God’s prophet among the exiles was emphatic that he would never become king. The regal diadem of Israel would remain unworn until he comes to whom it rightfully belongs. In Jerusalem, Jeremiah also prophesied of the Righteous Branch: a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. This is the name by which he shall be called: The LORD Our Righteousness.
Cyrus encourages the return
Another 33 years went by. Sheshbazzar, now in his fifties, must have rejoiced with other faithful Jews when Cyrus the Persian entered Babylon in triumph and almost immediately decreed the Jews’ return to Zion. The 70 years captivity was over. For those, that is, who were willing and eager to take advantage of God’s mercy. Many Jews were happy to forget Jerusalem and stay in Babylon. Sheshbazzar was not one of them. He was in a sense among the first Zionists.
He immediately accepted the tremendous responsibility resulting from Cyrus’ decree. Cyrus made him pechah, a term meaning governor of a minor province, which Judah was then. In the official language of the court, this title was Tirshatha.
One great day in Sheshbazzar’s life was when he was called to the big ziggurat (temple ofNebo) in Babylon. Mithredath, Cyrus’ royal treasurer, handed over to him five thousand gold and silver vessels which Nebuchadnezzar’s army had carried off from the temple in Jerusalem 70 years before. Just the metal alone would be worth 50 million US dollars in today’s terms, while to find even one of those vessels in an archaeological dig would be a discovery of priceless worth. Sheshbazzar joyfully took on the job of conveying this huge treasure back to the ruined city of David.
Exiles return
When the first party of returning exiles arrived at the ruins of Jerusalem, Sheshbazzar had another great day. As representative of the Persian crown, protocol demanded that it was he who laid the foundation of the house of God. Unfortunately, for a long time nothing was built upon that foundation, but at least Sheshbazzar had shown the way.
There were some who claimed to be priests, but their birth certificates and family records had been lost in the captivity. So they could not provide proof. They were told by the governor not to eat any of the most sacred food until there was a priest ministering with the Urim and Thummim. This was the divine oracle within the High Priest’s breastplate that would present God’s infallible verdict on a matter.
Sadly, Sheshbazzar never lived to see that day. Hundreds of years were to elapse before Jesus, the great High Priest, suddenly came to his temple.
Sheshbazzar comes before us just once more. He must have been an old man by that time. Under the prodding of two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, reconstruction of the burned out shell of the temple in Jerusalem had begun and was progressing well. But his overlord Tattenai, the governor of the province of Trans-Euphrates, of which Judah was a small part, smelled rebellion and demanded to know who had authorized this work. King Darius of Persia was contacted, and there was a flurry of diplomacy. But God was blessing the work, and Tattenai was told in no uncertain terms: Do not inteifere with the work on this temple of God. Let the governor of the Jews and the Jewish elders rebuild this house of God on its site.
Sheshbazzar is an example of a man who, like Joseph, went from prison to the rulership, and who took very seriously the job of leading God’s people in difficult times, and from sadness to joy.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One