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Nebuchadnezer Attacks · The Chosen People

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Previously on The Chosen People.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: This judgment is not the rage of a tyrant. It
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: is the heartbreak of a father whose children have thrown
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: themselves into danger. You call it wrath. But what is
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: wrath if not love betrayed? If not justice for the oppressed,
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: for the children who screamed as they burned?
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: Then I will burn their gods before they burn my people.
• 0:29
  Speaker 4: Lord Necho of Egypt declares, What quarrel is there, king
• 0:34
  Speaker 4: of Judah, between you and me? I do not come
• 0:37
  Speaker 4: against you today, but against the house with which I
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  Speaker 4: am at war. God has commanded me to hurry. Stop
• 0:45
  Speaker 4: opposing God, who is with me, or he will destroy you.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: The battlefield was loud, which made Josiah's silence all the louder.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Horses screamed, Chariots thundered, bronze clashed against bone. And then
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: it happened. No trumpet, no flash, no divine sign. Just
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: the cold, stupid reality of war. An archer, Egyptian, probably
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: not even aiming, let fly. The arrow soared unnoticed until
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: it buried itself in the king's side. Josiah gasped.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: He tried with all his heart, but no man can
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: save Judah, not yet.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: The fire had gone out. Not literally, there were still
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: embers smoldering in the pits where idols had been smashed,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: but spiritually, nationally, Judah had gone cold. The reformation Josiah
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: lit like a match had burned hot and bright and short.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Now the temple smelled like smoke and silence. Revival had
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: slipped into memory, and memory, as it always does, softened
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: the edges and skipped the cost. Josiah, the last good king,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: was dead, slain at Megiddo in a war he never
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: should have been in. He had been killed by a
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: pharaoh who hadn't forgotten Judah's insolence. And in the vacuum
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: left behind, the people did what people always did.
• 2:35
  Speaker 5: Panicked.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: They picked a new king. Not God's choice. Theirs. Jehoahaz.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: He was 23, inexperienced, insecure, and as much a puppet
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  Speaker 1: of public opinion as he was a prince. The scribes
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: later tried to make it sound orderly.
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  Speaker 5: It wasn't.
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  Speaker 1: It was chaos wearing ceremony like a mask. The people
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: crowned him in a rush, a warm body to sit
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: on a cold throne. He'd barely had time to settle
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  Speaker 1: into the palace before the world outside started shifting again.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: There were rumours, war drums and movement in the south.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Egypt and King Jehoahaz wasn't ready. The throne room of
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  Speaker 1: Judah still smelled like death. Wilted flowers rotted beneath linen
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: banners half lowered. Oil stained the stone from the anointing
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: of a king who no one really believed in. Jehoahaz
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: sat stiffly on the throne like a child at a
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: grown man's table. He wore the crown as if it
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: were still debating whether to stay on his head. To
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: his left stood Uriel. A holdover from Josiah's council.
• 3:56
  Speaker 5: Still, no word from Lachish? Nothing?
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: No, my king.
• 4:02
  Speaker 6: Perhaps... perhaps the messengers were delayed. Or Pharaoh Nicho has
• 4:08
  Speaker 6: chosen diplomacy.
• 4:11
  Speaker 5: Diplomacy? After Megiddo? You think Egypt forgot how my father died?
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: Jehoahaz rose hands balled into fists. For a heartbeat, he
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: looked like his father, Josiah. Same jawline, same flare of
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: righteous anger. But it was an echo. A mimicry. Something
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: thinner underneath.
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  Speaker 5: My father bled. He bled on that battlefield, and he
• 4:37
  Speaker 5: died on his feet. Nico doesn't want peace. He wants tribute.
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  Speaker 3: He wants to remind us of who we are.
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  Speaker 5: We're slaves.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Then... He will come to collect. There was no warning,
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  Speaker 1: no battle, no siege, just dust on the horizon. And then, hoofbeats.
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  Speaker 1: Egypt didn't challenge Jerusalem. They didn't invite them out onto
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: the field for battle. Egypt simply entered. Jehoahaz was taken,
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  Speaker 1: tied and hoisted up like hunted game. paraded through the
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: same streets that once chanted his name. No arrow was fired,
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  Speaker 1: no sword drawn, because no one believed he could win,
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  Speaker 1: maybe not even him. The tent of Pharaoh Necho was massive,
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  Speaker 1: more temple than shelter. Gold inlay on the walls, incense
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  Speaker 1: burning in thick coils, and in the center, Necho. He
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  Speaker 1: didn't rise. He didn't need to. He lounged like a
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  Speaker 1: serpent basking after a kill, eyes half-lidded, hands lazily folded. Jehoahaz,
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  Speaker 1: the fallen king of Judah, knelt in the dirt, wrists
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  Speaker 1: scraped raw, mouth dry with dust and defiance.
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  Speaker 4: Josiah's boy, the king who defied me, the fool who
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  Speaker 4: bled for it.
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  Speaker 5: My father stood for the Lord. He stood for his people.
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  Speaker 5: And now you kneel for neither.
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  Speaker 1: Niko rose, slow and deliberate, crossing the space like a
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  Speaker 1: priest before an altar. His voice dropped.
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  Speaker 5: You are not a king.
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  Speaker 4: You are a cautionary tale for anyone who forgets who
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  Speaker 4: rules the rivers and roads.
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  Speaker 1: The pharaoh turned away with a flick of his hand.
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  Speaker 1: Soldiers dragged Jehoahaz out into the night. He would never
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: see Jerusalem again. He would rot in Egypt, forgotten by
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  Speaker 1: all but the chroniclers. A week passed. Judah blinked, sighed,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: and bowed again. The Pharaoh installed a new king, Eliakim,
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  Speaker 1: Josiah's other son. Older, quieter, easier to manipulate. Pharaoh renamed
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: him Jehoiakim, rebranded like a piece of livestock, installed by
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  Speaker 1: a foreign power. Eliakim accepted it all. No protest, no fire.
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  Speaker 1: Just a quiet obedience that felt like rot in slow motion.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: The throne room no longer smelled like mourning. Now it
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: smelled like compromise. Incense, fresh-cut cedar. the kind of sanitized
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: normalcy that makes you forget the cost. Chains from Jehoahaz's
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  Speaker 1: capture still hung in the corner. No one had removed them.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe they were waiting for another king to earn them.
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  Speaker 1: Jehoiakim stood before the throne, freshly robed, still and silent. Uriel,
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  Speaker 1: the steward, approached, slower this time, cautious, like a man
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  Speaker 1: checking if the ice would hold.
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  Speaker 5: My king don't call me that not until i've earned
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  Speaker 5: it they wanted a king like josiah but the fire's
• 8:25
  Speaker 5: gone all that's left is smoke and ashes ashes don't
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  Speaker 5: rule they just they just remind you of what you lost.
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  Speaker 1: They still had the temple but it was hollow they
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: still had a king but he bowed to pharaoh not
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: the lord they still had peace but it was the
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: peace of the graveyard. And somewhere, far beneath the temple stones,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: in scrolls no one read anymore, the ink of the
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  Speaker 1: covenant began to blur. Not from age or neglect, but
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: from the tears of God himself. Before Jehoiakim raised walls,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: stationed guards, or reformed the courts, he built a palace.
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  Speaker 1: It rose like a curse against everything his father had
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  Speaker 1: stood for. The palace was lined with foreign cedar, draped
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  Speaker 1: in Assyrian silks, and paid for with blood taxes carved
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  Speaker 1: from the backs of the poor. It wasn't built to
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  Speaker 1: protect Judah. It was built to impress Egypt. A spectacle,
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  Speaker 1: a monument to ego. and somewhere in a cramped stone
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  Speaker 1: chamber near the temple mount, a gaunt, wild-eyed man with
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  Speaker 1: ink-stained fingers began to write about it all. His name
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  Speaker 1: was Jeremiah, and he had already seen the end. The
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: palace hall was absurd, vulgar. ceilings, imported mosaics, torchlight flickering
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: off cedar walls brought in at cost from Lebanon. It
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  Speaker 1: was stupid, ill-advised. Jehoiakim lounged like a man allergic to responsibility.
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  Speaker 1: One leg slung over the side of his chair, a
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  Speaker 1: goblet in hand. He ruled not like a son of David,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: but like a son of Pharaoh. Egypt's leash was still
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  Speaker 1: fresh around his neck, Babylon's shadow rising on the horizon.
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  Speaker 1: He wore power like it was inherited linen, wrinkled, too big,
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  Speaker 1: and badly stained. Servants moved like ghosts, no one made
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  Speaker 1: eye contact. A thin man in court robes, an advisor,
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  Speaker 1: gaunt and trembling, stepped forward with the posture of someone
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  Speaker 1: who hated what he was about to say.
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  Speaker 7: My lord, a message has arrived from the prophet Jeremiah.
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  Speaker 5: Ah, the weeping madman. What's he ranting about this time?
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  Speaker 4: Fire?
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  Speaker 5: Famine? Frauds? He.
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  Speaker 7: he wrote it down this time.
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  Speaker 5: A scroll.
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  Speaker 7: Delivered to the scribes this morning. Baruch the scribe read
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  Speaker 7: it publicly at the temple gates.
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  Speaker 1: That got his attention. Jehoiakim sat up slowly.
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  Speaker 5: So now the prophet fancies himself a poet. Well, let's
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  Speaker 5: hear the verse. Bring me the scroll. If I'm to
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  Speaker 5: be damned, I want the courtesy of knowing why.
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  Speaker 1: A hearth fire snapped in the corner, the only sound
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  Speaker 1: besides the slow unrolling of parchment. The king sat in
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  Speaker 1: a heavy robe, face half-lit by firelight. The words of
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  Speaker 1: the prophet.
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  Speaker 6: Jeremiah.
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  Speaker 7: Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness, his
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  Speaker 7: upper rooms by injustice, who makes his neighbor serve for
• 12:03
  Speaker 7: nothing and does not pay his wages.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, good.
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  Speaker 5: A wage complaint from heaven. How very revolutionary. Go on,
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  Speaker 5: go on.
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  Speaker 7: Do you think you are a king because you excel
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  Speaker 7: in cedar? Did not your father, Josiah, do justice and righteousness?
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  Speaker 7: Then it was well with him.
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  Speaker 2: Enough!
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  Speaker 1: Jehoiakim's fingers twitched, his jaw clenched. That name, Josiah, carried
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  Speaker 1: more weight than he'd ever admit. Not because he loved
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  Speaker 1: his father, but because he could never measure up. He
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  Speaker 1: stood and ripped the scroll from the scribe's hands. Without ceremony,
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  Speaker 1: he strode to the fire. The parchment tore like bread
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  Speaker 1: in his hands, and he fed it to the flame,
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  Speaker 1: piece by piece.
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  Speaker 5: Let the gods of Babylon and Egypt see how Judah
• 13:02
  Speaker 5: handles prophecy. No more ghosts, no more guilt. We write
• 13:08
  Speaker 5: the story now.
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  Speaker 1: The last scrap curled in the flames. Ash danced in
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  Speaker 1: the air, but the words, the words did not die.
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  Speaker 1: Burning prophecy doesn't erase it. The scroll is a vessel,
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  Speaker 1: not the voice. The word of the Lord doesn't die
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  Speaker 1: in flame, it steps through it. And what walked out
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  Speaker 1: of that fire wasn't silence, it was war. A name,
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  Speaker 1: rising like smoke over the eastern hills. Nebuchadnezzar. The moon
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  Speaker 1: shimmered over the polished obsidian walls of Babylon's war room.
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  Speaker 1: The air smelled of oil and steel. At the center
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  Speaker 1: of the war room stood Nebuchadnezzar. He was a statue
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  Speaker 1: of a man. No, he was more than a man.
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  Speaker 1: He was something cut out of myth. A titan, not
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  Speaker 1: in stature. Although he was broad, but in presence. He
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  Speaker 1: was a man out of mythology, designed as a weapon
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  Speaker 1: of conquest and judgment. His eyes burned with mathematics. Distance, yield, casualties, control.
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  Speaker 1: He did not pace. He did not shout. His voice
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: didn't need volume. It had weight. A general moved beside him, hesitant,
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  Speaker 1: holding a map of Judah like a man offering a
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: rabbit to a lion.
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  Speaker 5: Judah's king bows to Pharaoh. Then he'll bow again.
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  Speaker 1: This time to me.
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  Speaker 5: Might be messy.
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  Speaker 1: Judah gives tribute to Pharaoh, pays him well.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: Then we collect interest. Every coin he paid Pharaoh, he
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: now owes me. Plus blood. Send the merchants first. We'll
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: send tributes and treaties as well. I want them to
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: have the illusion of choice. No fire yet. Threats by time.
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: Let them hope it's enough. Let them feel the noose
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: before it tightens around their necks.
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  Speaker 5: Ah, yes. No fire.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Let them smell the smoke. Precisely.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: I want their king to taste fear every time he swallows.
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  Speaker 1: Months had passed. The palace of Judah hadn't changed. The
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: cedar still whispered of compromise. But the mood had rotted.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Jehoiakim now knelt before emissaries of Babylon, crown crooked, hands trembling.
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  Speaker 1: Behind him, chests overflowed with tribute. Silver overflowing. wealth hemorrhaged
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  Speaker 1: into foreign hands. The lead envoy unfurled a scroll, a treaty,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: not of partnership, of submission. Jehoiakim signed it. His voice
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: cracked as he said the words.
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  Speaker 5: Long live Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.
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  Speaker 1: He thought it would buy peace. It bought time. Time
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  Speaker 1: for Babylon to sharpen its teeth. time for god's patience
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  Speaker 1: to run out because the lord doesn't forget not the
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: labor stolen to build a palace not the scroll that
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: burned not the silence that followed and the prophet jeremiah
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: sat hunched over a new scroll somewhere deep beneath jehoiakim
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: in the palace cellars chained to the wall His arthritic
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: hands shook. He looked like a man who had survived
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: an apocalypse no one else noticed. He continued to write.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Words of warning. Words of judgment. Words of hope amidst love.
• 17:19
  Speaker 6: For I know the plans I have for you, declares
• 17:21
  Speaker 6: the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you.
• 17:26
  Speaker 6: Plans to give you hope and a future.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: His words were for the people of Israel. although the
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: promises of hope would fall on deaf ears until much later,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: when the walls of Jerusalem crumbled and the temple burned
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: to ash. The siege arrived like a slow mounting tide.
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  Speaker 1: King Nebuchadnezzar was patient, inevitable. Babylon didn't roar in, they waited.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: Their war machines crouched in the dark like wooden beasts,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: massive and mute, groaning only when fed by the hands
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: of soldiers. Every night, they inched closer, suffocating the city.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Inside the walls, food vanished alongside hope. Barley turned to dust.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: Water was rationed in thimbles. Bread crumbled into ash between
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: trembling fingers. Rats became currency. Hebrew mothers, once noble and proud,
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  Speaker 1: rocked their children with cracked lips and empty breasts. Some
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: stopped singing lullabies. Others kept singing long after their children
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: had stopped breathing. The marketplace was a graveyard. The temple
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: courts fell silent. Sacrifice had nothing left to offer. Their
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: prayers fell like broken arrows, too blunt to pierce heaven.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Some whispered to God, others said he was gone. Both
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: answers felt like a curse. The gates of Jerusalem didn't
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: break open. They were opened, quietly, willfully. There comes a
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: point when a city stops fighting, not out of cowardice,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: but out of exhaustion. King Jehoiakim, son of the late Jehoiakim,
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: emerged wearing sackcloth beneath his royal robes, barefoot, crownless. He
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: walked toward the Babylonian army alone. He did not weep.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: He did not resist. He simply surrendered. King Nebuchadnezzar trotted forward,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: mounted upon his dark steed. His breath rose in the
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: chill like a dragon's breath. And then the screaming began.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: The army of Babylon was released like wolves. Every corner
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: of the city was ransacked. Men were killed, priests were
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: put on pikes, and the monuments to Judah's former greatness
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: were burnt to a crisp. The work of Solomon, ashes.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: The legacy of David, rubble. Nebuchadnezzar knew better than to
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: simply subjugate a people. He wanted them to lose all
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: sense of culture and history. He wanted their heritage diluted
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: and their heroes forgotten. In the southern quarter, where the
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: lower priests and their families lived in worn brick homes,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: fire erupted. Soldiers slashed away at the priests, dragging the
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: young men into carts. A boy no older than 15
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: was dragged by his hair through the courtyard. His mother
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: clawed at the dirt, lungs emptying. Nebuchadnezzar watched it all, still, unmoved.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: That's enough.
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: Leave Judah intact for now. Guards, find another of David's
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: line to replace the king. One who knows how to bow.
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: There's one.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: His name is Mattaniah.
• 21:22
  Speaker 5: Not anymore. Call him Zedekiah.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: The name meant the Lord is righteous. History would remember
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: it as irony. a final candle in a temple filled
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: with ash. Judah still breathed, but it bled with every exhale.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: And somewhere in the temple, once the footstool of the
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: Most High, the smoke no longer rose, because the covenant
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: had been broken, not just once, but a thousand times.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: But the God of Jacob was still watching, waiting. This
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Pray.com production is only made possible by our dedicated team
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: of creative talents. Steve Katina, Max Bard, Zach Schellewager and
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: Ben Gammon are the executive producers of The Chosen People,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: narrated by Paul Coltofianu. Characters are voiced by Jonathan Cotton,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Aaron Salvato, Sarah Seltz, Mike Reagan, Stephen Ringwald, Sylvia Zaradok,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Thomas Copeland Jr., Rosanna Pilcher, and Mitch Lashinsky. Music by
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Andrew Morgan Smith. Written by Aaron Salvato, Brie Rosely, and
• 22:42
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