the first first year of Zedekiah

2 Chronicles 36:5-6 Jehoiakim was twenty and five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem; and he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, his God. Against him came up Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and bound him in fetters, to carry him to Babylon.

Daniel 1:1-2 In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, came Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, unto Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God, which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he brought the vessels into the treasure house of his god.

If the people of Jerusalem did not know how long Jehoiakim would be in Babylon, they would have kept his throne vacant pending his return. I am guessing that in what would have been Jehoiakim's fourth year, they decided to make Zedekiah king. That would have made the remainder of what would have been Jehoiakim's fourth year the beginning of Zedekiah's reign and what would have been Jehoiakim's fifth year the first year of Zedekiah. Only two months after the first year of Zedekiah had begun, Jehoiakim returned to Jerusalem (Jeremiah 36: 19-32), rendering Zedekiah's reign in the fourth and fifth years of Jehoiakim null and void. The regnal year of Judah's kings began in the seventh month of the sacred year. Therefore, Jehoiakim's return to Jerusalem, in the ninth month of his fifth year, was only two months after the commencement of the first first year of Zedekiah. So Lehi was called to be a prophet just prior to the return of Jehoiakim to Jerusalem. Evidence that the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah was in the fourth year of Jehoikim exists. Jeremiah's prophecies to the nations in chapters 46-51 can be dated in the fourth year of Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 46:2). As the introduction to the Jewish Publication Society's 1973 edition of The Book of Jeremiah states: "... the oracles against the foreign nations, which in the Hebrew text are grouped near the end of the book (chapters 46-51) are located in the Greek [Septuagint] after 25:13." Jeremiah chapter 25 describes events in the fourth year of Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 25:1). Within the prophecies to the nations is a clear reference to the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah.

Jeremiah 49:34 The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah the prophet against Elam in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah.

Jeremiah 27 begins "In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim." Yet in verses 3 and 12, it is stated that Zedekiah was the king at that time. The Jewish Publication Society's 1985 translation points out that in a few manuscripts and in the Syriac version, Jeremiah 27 begins "In the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah." I think that "Zedekiah" was intended, because chapter 28 begins "And it came to pass the same year, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fourth year [of Jehoiakim], and in the fifth month..." I think that the words I have added in brackets are justified. For how can "the beginning of the reign," which preceded the first year of a king, also be the fourth year? It cannot, unless the situation was as I have shown, with Zedekiah acting as king while Jehoiakim was in Babylon. Since Jehoiakim was a killer of prophets (Jeremiah 26:20-24), while Zedekiah was not (Jeremiah 38:14-16), Lehi and his followers might have preferred to reference the first year of Zedekiah instead of the fifth year of Jehoiakim, even after Jehoiakim's return to Jerusalem. The superscription of 3 Nephi states that Lehi "came out of Jerusalem in the first year of Zedekiah," even though Jehoiakim had replaced Zedekiah as king prior to Lehi's departure from Jerusalem. Since the first first year of Zedekiah was the same as the fifth year of Jehoiakim, during which Lehi came out of Jerusalem, the imprisonment of Jeremiah, mentioned by Lehi's son Nephi (The Book of Mormon RLDS 1 Nephi 2:22 LDS 1 Nephi 7:14), occurred in the fifth year of Jehoiakim. In that year (Jeremiah 36:9), King Jehoiakim, after he had cut up and burned a roll of Jeremiah's prophecies (Jeremiah 36:22-25), ordered the arrest of Jeremiah and his scribe Baruch (Jeremiah 36:26). God prevented the arrest until after Jeremiah and Baruch had created a new roll of Jeremiah's prophecies to replace the one that the king had destroyed (Jeremiah 36:27-32). Perhaps the stolen 116 pages of Joseph Smith's translation from the Book of Lehi contained an account of the Jehoiakim-Zedekiah situation. If so, neither Joseph Smith, nor the scribes he dictated to, mentoned it. See The Lost 116 Pages (2019) by Don Bradley. Nor did Joseph Smith's new translation of the Bible make significant changes to the book of Jeremiah, which in my opinion has some internal conflicts that might be resolved when the plates of brass hidden in Hill Cumorah (Cerro Rabon) in Mexico are found and translated. See the sealed portion of The Book of Mormon. Until then, it may be foolish to be rattled that the accepted first year of Zedekiah occurred too late to have been 600 years before the birth of Christ. There must have been two first years of Zedekiah, and it was from the first first year of Zedekiah that the 600 years should be counted. According to the table of chronology in Pyramidolody Book III (1966) by Adam Rutherford, the fifth year of Jehoiakim, which was also the first first year of Zedekiah, began in the Autumn of 602 B.C. and ended in the Autumn of 601 B.C. So Lehi "came out of Jerusalem in the first year of Zedekiah" (3 Nephi superscription) 600 standard solar years prior to the birth of Jesus Christ, which occurred on the equivalent of April 6th, 1 B.C.

Times and Seasons 3:928-929 In this manner did the Lord continue to give us instructions from time to time, concerning the duties which now devolved upon us, and among many other things of the kind, we obtained of him the following, by the spirit of prophecy and revelation; which not only gave us much information, but also pointed out to us the precise day upon which, according to his will and commandment, we should proceed to organize his church once again, here upon the earth. The rise of the church of Christ in these last days, being one thousand eight hundred and thirty years since the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the flesh, it being regularly organized and established agreeably to the laws of our country, by the will and commandments of God in the fourth month, and on the sixth day of the month which is called April ...

Evidence that Nephite years were standard solar years is found in The Book of Mormon RLDS Alma 21:75-76 LDS Alma 46:40: "And there were some who died with fevers, which at some seasons of the year was very frequent in the land — but not so much so with fevers because of the excellent qualities of the many plants and roots which God had prepared to remove the cause of diseases which was subsequent to man by the nature of the climate" (The Book of Mormon: the Earliest Text). Since there were "seasons of the year," each year began at the same point in a standard solar year. According to The Book of Mormon, in the first month of the 34th year after a sign of Christ's birth was shown in Mesoamerica, three hours of destroying judgments, corresponding to the three hours that Jesus was suffering on a cross at Jerusalem, were followed by three days of darkness, corresponding to the three days that the body of Jesus was in a tomb. On Wednesday, March 24 (Julian), in A.D. 34, Jesus was suffering on a cross at Jerusalem from about noon to 3 PM (Matthew 27:45; Mark 15:33; Luke 23:44), at which time he died (Matthew 27:46-50; Mark 15:34-37; Luke 23:45-46). His body was removed from the cross prior to the beginning of the Jewish Passover at sunset (John 19:31). The three nights and three days his body lay in a tomb (Matthew 12:40) ended on Saturday, March 27 (Julian) at sunset, at which time his body was resurrected, restored from all mutilations except for five: four holes in hands and feet and one in his side. The women bringing burial spices very early on Sunday, March 28, found that the large stone closing his tomb had been rolled away. Angels were present. His tomb was empty except for some burial garments.