Evidence That King David’s Descendants Survived In Exile

so of all the discoveries that were made in the excavations of babylon there is one that i believe stands out in its significance when i got to babylon in my exploration i went to this particular place that i was intrigued with and it wasn't because of what it looked like it didn't look like much but it was because of the discovery that was made there and really because of the profoundness of the way this discovery fits together with the bible here at the pergamon museum in berlin is on display the ishtar gate this is one of the amazing finds in biblical archaeology so in 1899 the german archaeologist robert culdivay began excavating in babylon and there had been some previous excavations but by far cul de vay's excavations were the most extensive he excavated from 1899 to 1917 it was the outbreak of world war one that brought his excavations to an end if there was an award that was given out for the history of archaeology for the director that moved the most dirt in one dig it would have to be i would think given to cul de vey because the amount of earth that he moved is just mind-boggling he hired over 200 workers that worked daily for over 15 years so one of the main areas that he focused on first in his excavations was the processional way which was the main street of babylon that passed through the ishtar gate on its way to the temple of marduk in one of the early photographs we see the railroad that he built and the railroad carts that he used to move dirt and in this photograph protruding from the ground is the top of one of the towers of the ishtar gate and so in places he had to dig down with his team 80 feet to get to the paving stones in the processional way so the ishtar gate is in two sections one you see in babylon this is the lower section it's about preserved to about 40 feet in height and it's original it was built by nebuchadnezzar as well and then the upper part was this highly decorated part of the gate which cultivate found in fragments these fragments of which cultivate estimated there were about 37 000 fragments that he collected were put in crates and shipped back to berlin and then very painstakingly uh reconstructed like a giant jigsaw puzzle in the berlin museum so that people could come in and see this display and in fact it's displayed there to this day after i visited babylon i took a trip to berlin to see the ishtar gate in some of the other finds that cultivate made during his excavations here at the pergamon museum in berlin what we have on either side here is preserved originally 60 lions on each side so that's 120 lions like this for the processional way it was just elaborately decorated this is the ishtar gate that cultivate brought back here to berlin to display in this museum the dragon of babylon that's on the ishtar gate which is associated with marduk who is the king of the babylonian gods as well as the bull which is associated with marduk's son naboo so next to the ishtar gate cultivate excavated another building and this building had very unique construction it had 14 rooms with arched ceilings made of stone and this matched some of the descriptions of the famous hanging gardens of babylon so cultivate was convinced that this building was the hanging gardens of babylon and so he excavated it very extensively including the ancient staircase that went down to the entrance of the building and it was in association with this staircase that he found a cache of almost 300 cuneiform tablets okay this uh this is a modern staircase but it comes down where the ancient staircase came down cultivate was excavating here when he found what i consider to be the most important discovery in babylon that connects to the bible he found a stash of cuneiform tablets here almost 300 tablets so what these tablets ended up being is basically ancient receipts so it was the palace administration that was uh that was giving out rations mainly to prisoners and so it was a list of what they had given oil or grain and whom they had given it to because this is the nature of these tablets they're often referred to generally as the ration tablets mentioned on multiple tablets is a very significant name and title so as an example the translation from one of these tablets says ten selah of oil to yakin king of judah two and a half selah of oil to the sons of the king of judah and basically yahkin is a condensed version of the name yehoyakin or jehoiakin okay so this is very significant because ya'ken king of judah in the ration tablets is jehoiachin king of judah in the bible so we're in berlin at the museum and this is one of what are called the ration tablets that robert culdave found in 1903 jehoiachin king of judah is found in the bible and jehoiachin king of judah is found on this ration tablet on display here in berlin the label underneath this ration tablet uh is in german but it translates ration list mentioning jehoiachin of judah from the babylonian captivity and then it gives an approximate date of about 580 bc so what is what's the big deal what's the significance of this find well to understand that we need to go to the bible and really the place to start is second samuel chapter seven and here god makes david promises which are known as the davidic covenant and the promise that he makes him in verse 16 says your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me your throne will be established forever the house of david that is the royal dynasty his lineage of sons are going to never end they're going to last forever now why is it so important that the house of david lasts and endures the ravages of history because the promise is is that the messiah would come from the house of david we see this in isaiah 16 5 which says in love a throne will be established in faithfulness a man will sit on it one from the house of david and so logically if god keeps his promise to david then the house of david has to last at least from the time of david until the messiah comes from it and then sits on his throne and rules over his kingdom forever and ever so i want to give a quick example of how a house comes to an end how a royal dynasty becomes extinct and so we'll look at the house of basha basha was one of the kings that ruled the northern kingdom of israel in 1st king 16 the lord says i am about to wipe out basha in his house zimri came in struck him down and killed him then he succeeded him as king he killed off basha's whole family he did not spare a single male to end a house stage one you kill the king and replace him stage two you kill all of his male descendants and we see this happen again and again in the bible and then of course also in history and so this is typical and so what the lord is saying to david is this isn't going to happen to you your house your kingdom your throne will never end it's going to last forever the biggest threat to this promise was the babylonian conquest so the last king to rule from jerusalem over judah from the house of david is zedekiah and he is the king when the babylonian conquest conquers jerusalem and burns the city and the temple and so we read about his fate in second kings chapter 25 where it says king zedekiah was captured they killed the sons of zedekiah before his eyes then they put out his eyes bound him with bronze shackles and took him to babylon okay so that doesn't sound good that sounds like what happened to the house of basha so is this the end of the house of david has god broken his promise to david there has to be another explanation of course this event we just read happens in second kings chapter 25 if we go back one chapter to chapter 24 we read of another event that happened previously in second kings chapter 24 it says jehoiachin was 18 years old when he became king and he reigned in jerusalem three months at that time the officers of nebuchadnezzar king of babylon advanced on jerusalem and laid siege to it jehoiachin king of judah surrendered to him nebuchadnezzar took jehoiachin captive to babylon he made matanya jehoiachin's uncle king in his place and changed his name to zedekiah so based on this account who is the legitimate king of judah is it the king who inherited his throne and who is still alive though he's captive in babylon or is it the king that the enemy put in place obviously from the judean perspective the legitimate king is jehoiachin and we see in the ration tablets because they call yakin the king of judah we see that they also see jehoiachin as the legitimate king when you're watching a football game sometimes they fake the ball and sometimes even the cameraman follows the fake and so you think that this person has the ball but then they're tackled and you realize they don't have the ball and this person going around the end for a touchdown has the ball that's kind of what happens when you're reading through second kings chapters 24 and 25 is there's this fake you think that zedekiah has the promise of the house of david but then he gets destroyed his sons get killed and you realize he doesn't hold the promise jehoiachin is the one in babylon who holds the promise of the house of david and this is why the book of kings ends the way that it does if we think of first and second kings as one book it ends with these two sentences so jehoiachin put aside his prison clothes and for the rest of his life ate regularly at the king's table day by day the king gave jehoiachin a regular allowance as long as he lived so why does the book of kings end this way well because it ends with hope what is it saying what is it showing is showing that the house of david is still alive god's promise has not been broken to david the messiah is still coming from the house of david so here we have archaeological evidence of the house of david surviving the babylonian destruction of jerusalem so we have god promised that his house will last forever then we have the threat of the babylonian conquest and then we have the bible saying this is how the house of david survives that it survives through jehoiachin being taken to babylon as an exile and then we have confirmation of that that's found in the excavations of babylon by cultivate we have again another match between the archaeological evidence and the biblical text so also on this tablet it's talking about the oil that's being given to ya ken that's jehoiachin the king of judah it says and also to his sons now we know from the bible that one of the sons of jehoiachin is shaltil and one of his sons is zerubbabel so zerubbabel is the grandson of jehoiachin on this tablet who is the one who leads the exiles from babylon back to jerusalem to rebuild the temple and so these sons of the king of judah are the preservation of the lineage of of david that lassen tells a rubbable and beyond all the way until the new testament when the angel announces to mary in luke chapter 1 where he says you will conceive and give birth to a son and you are to call him jesus he will be great and will be called the son of the most high the lord god will give him the throne of his father david and he will reign over jacob's descendants forever his kingdom will never end this is the fulfillment of the promise to david that his house would last forever so one of the main reasons that i went all the way to babylon to see babylon was to see the place where the ration tablets were discovered so we have here archaeological evidence that the house of david survives the babylonian destruction the babylonian exile and then afterwards to go all the way to berlin i wanted to see the ration tablets themselves on display and so we have here one from the house of david that is mentioned both in the bible and outside of the bible on these ration tablets that were discovered in 1903 in babylon and in my opinion this is the most important discovery that called they made in his long and extensive dig at babylon this is evidence hard evidence archaeologically speaking uh this discovery is like the house of david coming up from the earth it's like the resurrection of the house of david it supports the faithfulness of god that god was faithful to david and he kept his promise that his house would endure forever until the messiah would come from it god also keeps his promise to all those who will put their trust in him he promises eternal life and we can rest assured that he will keep that promise to learn more about evidence supporting the bible you can order a copy of my book where god came down the archaeological evidence just click the link in the description below this video if you like this video please give it a like and i also recommend that you watch these other two videos about the tomb of david part one and part two and thank you for watching

Channel: Expedition Bible

Views: 795,651

Keywords: King David’s Descendants Survived, Joel Kramer, Christian archaeology, Christian, Expedition Bible, Bible, archaeology, Old Testament, New Testament, the Bible is true, biblical archaeology, Christianity, King David, House of David, Babylonian exile, Messiah from the House of David, Babylon, King Nebuchadnezzar, Jehoiachin, King of Judah, Zerrubbabel, ration tablets, Robert Koldewey, Babylon excavations

Id: BeDWfx1QUxs

Length: 15min 39sec (939 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 09 2022