Covenant Name: Living in Righteousness

The Prophets

Covenant Name – Living in Righteousness

A note on the translation. This page uses the Legacy Standard Bible rather than God’s Word, because LSB prints the covenant name itself — Yahweh — where most translations put the LORD. On a page about the name, that matters. You can switch versions from the drop-down on BibleGateway.

The last five kings of Judah

Jeremiah 23 is spoken over the end of the monarchy. This is the family it ended in — and it is a short one.

The last five kings of JudahFamily diagram of the last five kings of Judah: Josiah, then his sons Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim and Zedekiah, and his grandson Jehoiachin, ending with the deportation to Babylon in 587 or 586 BC.12354JosiahJehoahazJehoiakimZedekiahJehoiachinShallumEliakimMattaniahJeconiah · Coniah640–609 BC609 BC · three months609–598 BC597–587/586 BC598–597 BC · three monthshis sonshis sonJerusalem fallsDeportation to Babylon587/586 BCThree sons of Josiah and one grandson — the whole collapse happens inside one family, in twenty-three years.Numbers give the order of reign, not the order of birth.

King Also called Reign What happened Scripture
1 Josiah — 640–609 BC The last good king. He found the book of the law and reformed the nation, then went out against Pharaoh Necho at Megiddo and was killed. 2 Kings 22–23
2 Jehoahaz Shallum 609 BC · three months Son of Josiah, made king by the people of the land. Necho deposed him within three months and took him to Egypt, where he died. 2 Kings 23:31–34 · Jeremiah 22:10–12
3 Jehoiakim Eliakim 609–598 BC Son of Josiah, put on the throne by Egypt and renamed. He burned Jeremiah’s scroll, became Babylon’s vassal, and then rebelled. 2 Kings 23:34–24:7 · Jeremiah 36
4 Jehoiachin Jeconiah · Coniah 598–597 BC · three months Son of Jehoiakim. He surrendered the city and was carried to Babylon with the craftsmen and the treasure. Thirty-seven years later he was released and ate at the king’s table. 2 Kings 24:8–17 · 2 Kings 25:27–30
5 Zedekiah Mattaniah 597–587/586 BC Son of Josiah and uncle of the king he replaced, installed by Nebuchadnezzar and renamed. He rebelled, watched his sons killed, was blinded and taken to Babylon. 2 Kings 24:17–25:7
● Jerusalem falls — 587/586 BC The wall is broken down, the temple burned, and Judah carried away. 2 Kings 25:8–21
  • 1. Josiah — 640–609 BC
    The last good king. He found the book of the law and reformed the nation, then went out against Pharaoh Necho at Megiddo and was killed. 2 Kings 22–23
  • 2. Jehoahaz also called Shallum — 609 BC · three months
    Son of Josiah, made king by the people of the land. Necho deposed him within three months and took him to Egypt, where he died. 2 Kings 23:31–34 · Jeremiah 22:10–12
  • 3. Jehoiakim also called Eliakim — 609–598 BC
    Son of Josiah, put on the throne by Egypt and renamed. He burned Jeremiah’s scroll, became Babylon’s vassal, and then rebelled. 2 Kings 23:34–24:7 · Jeremiah 36
  • 4. Jehoiachin also called Jeconiah · Coniah — 598–597 BC · three months
    Son of Jehoiakim. He surrendered the city and was carried to Babylon with the craftsmen and the treasure. Thirty-seven years later he was released and ate at the king’s table. 2 Kings 24:8–17 · 2 Kings 25:27–30
  • 5. Zedekiah also called Mattaniah — 597–587/586 BC
    Son of Josiah and uncle of the king he replaced, installed by Nebuchadnezzar and renamed. He rebelled, watched his sons killed, was blinded and taken to Babylon. 2 Kings 24:17–25:7
  • Jerusalem falls — 587 or 586 BC
    The wall is broken down, the temple burned, and Judah carried away. 2 Kings 25:8–21

Two of the four who followed Josiah lasted three months. Two were put on the throne by a foreign king, who renamed them as he did it — which is what it looks like when a nation has stopped governing itself.

The old class handout printed “(Mattaniah)” beside Jehoiakim. Mattaniah was Zedekiah’s name before Nebuchadnezzar changed it (2 Kings 24:17); Jehoiakim’s earlier name was Eliakim (2 Kings 23:34). Corrected here.

Yahweh Tsidkenu — the LORD our righteousness

This is spoken at what could fairly be called the funeral of a nation. Jeremiah has been sent to preach it, and in the middle of that service he announces a day when the Lord Our Righteousness will be revealed.

How a nation got here

To feel the weight of the name you have to know what it was said over.

The nation began at Mount Sinai. Before that they were a family. At the mountain they were made something else “So now then, if you will indeed listen to My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My treasured possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” (Exodus 19:5-6).

Notice both halves. All the earth is Mine — and yet in a particular way, this is God’s people. The older word for it is a peculiar possession: not odd, but personal — the pocket money a man keeps separate from the household accounts because it is his own.

And the covenant had two directions: a unique relationship with God, and a relationship of love toward the neighbour. Israel sat in the middle of a dark and violent world, and their job was to hold up God’s righteousness in front of the nations. They had a message.

They were never asked to be perfect. That is what the sacrifices were for. They were to see their faults clearly and then turn to God for forgiveness. Righteousness was to be their hallmark — not their achievement, but the thing they were known for.

What actually happened

They did not keep it. Read Judges and you will see the pattern set early: they wanted to be like all the nations around them.

  • Saul stood head and shoulders above everyone — the people’s choice. The covenant went on through David, God’s choice.
  • Solomon followed David; Rehoboam followed Solomon, and under his heavy hand the nation split.
  • The ten northern tribes kept the name Israel; the two southern tribes became Judah. The covenant line runs on through Judah.
  • Israel went its own way entirely, and God sent Hosea to say the unsayable: “You are no longer my people, and I am no longer your God” (Hosea 1:9). Assyria came, and they were gone.

Judah was not doing much better. Manasseh took the nation into the pits — he “misled Judah… so that they did more evil things than the nations that the LORD had destroyed” (II Chronicles 33:9). Josiah brought revival, and there was never a king like him for turning to God (II Kings 23:25) — but it did not go deep enough, and Manasseh’s seed grew back.

So God sent Jeremiah to preach Judah’s funeral. And He put the case in a single devastating line “Judah saw that I sent unfaithful Israel away because of her adultery and that I gave Israel her divorce papers.” (Jeremiah 3:8).

Israel is already dead. And what about Judah?

The last king, and the name he could not carry

Nebuchadnezzar came, took the nation into captivity — Daniel and Ezekiel among those carried off — and back in Jerusalem Jeremiah watched the end.

The final king of Judah was Mattaniah, a weak man whose name meant gift of Yahweh. And the conquering king did what conquerors did: he renamed his vassal.

The king of Babylon made King Jehoiakin’s Uncle Mattaniah king in his place and changed Mattaniah’s name to Zedekiah.

II Kings 24:17  ·  God’s Word

Zedekiah means the righteousness of Yahweh. The last king of Judah sat on the throne wearing that name while the city burned around him. It reads like a sentence passed: you were supposed to be the righteousness of God — look at you.

Renaming a vassal was an act of ownership, and Scripture records the pattern: Pharaoh renamed Eliakim to Jehoiakim (II Kings 23:34), and Babylon renamed Daniel and his friends (Daniel 1:7). The irony in Zedekiah’s case is worth noticing, but it is irony, not intent — Zedekiah was an ordinary Judahite name, and Nebuchadnezzar kept it Yahwistic rather than imposing a Babylonian one.

And into that, the promise

Jeremiah is not finished. He announces that God Himself will be the Shepherd, that He will gather the remnant, and that He will raise up a Righteous Branch:

“Behold, the days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “When I will raise up for David a righteous Branch; And He will reign as king and prosper And do justice and righteousness in the land… And this is His name by which He will be called, ‘Yahweh our righteousness.’”

Jeremiah 23:5–6  ·  Legacy Standard Bible

The next King will not merely enforce righteousness. He will be it. No longer a law pointing at righteousness — the King of Righteousness comes and is righteousness for them and in them. He enters into them. The Spirit of righteousness comes to dwell in us.

The Branch. The Hebrew is tsemach — a shoot springing from a stump. The picture is new growth from a tree that has been cut down, which is exactly what the house of David had just become. The same word carries the promise in Jeremiah 33:15, Zechariah 3:8 and Zechariah 6:12 — Branch as King, as Servant, and as the Man who builds the temple.

So in the very act of declaring the covenant broken and finished, Jeremiah is announcing a new one “Behold, days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “when I will cut a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah…” (Jeremiah 31:31-34).

A covenant that wipes out sin, and writes the law where the failure was — in the heart.

They waited

They waited. They went into captivity. They waited. They remembered the word of Jeremiah. And then Jesus was born, a descendant of David on both sides of His family.

And Jesus said the Spirit would be righteousness to us — “to show the world what has God’s approval” (John 16:8–11).

Here is the difference, and it is the whole difference.

Every other religion says: I will change, so that I can be accepted by God.

Christianity says: Christ IS our righteousness. God says, I will accept you — and then I will change you.

Righteousness imputed, and then righteousness imparted.

he saved us, but not because of anything we had done to gain his approval. Instead, because of his mercy he saved us through the washing in which the Holy Spirit gives us new birth and renewal.

Titus 3:5  ·  God’s Word

And so the name Jeremiah announced over a burning city turns out to be a name we are given: “Jesus has become our wisdom sent from God, our approval, our holiness, and our ransom from sin” (I Corinthians 1:30).

Where to go from here

Read the text itself: Jeremiah 23:1–8 in the Legacy Standard, where the covenant name is printed. Three minutes.

Read next: Names of God for the other covenant names, and Jeremiah for the book this comes from.

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