Mattaniah

Mattaniah is a name borne by several distinct figures in the Old Testament. The best known is the Davidic prince whose name was changed to Zedekiah when Nebuchadnezzar set him on the throne of Judah; the rest are Levites, temple musicians and treasurers, and laymen of the post-exilic restoration. The threads converge in two settings — the court of Jerusalem under Babylonian pressure, and the choirs and treasuries of the Second-Temple community.

The King Whose Name Was Changed

The first Mattaniah is the youngest surviving son of Josiah and uncle of the deposed king Jehoiachin. After Babylon carried Jehoiachin into exile, Mattaniah was installed as a vassal king and given a throne-name: "And the king of Babylon made Mattaniah, [Jehoiachin's] father's brother, king in his stead, and changed his name to Zedekiah" (2Ki 24:17). The renaming marks the start of the reign that ends in Jerusalem's fall.

Under his Zedekiah-name the figure dominates the closing chapters of the kingdom of Judah. He came to the throne young and ruled badly: "Zedekiah was twenty and one 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 Yahweh his God; he didn't humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet [speaking] from the mouth of Yahweh. And he also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God: but he stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart against turning to Yahweh, the God of Israel" (2Ch 36:11-13). Jeremiah summarises the genealogy and accession in the same terms: "And Zedekiah the son of Josiah reigned as king, instead of Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, whom Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon made king in the land of Judah" (Jer 37:1).

His revolt against Babylon brought the besieging army back: "So the city was besieged to the eleventh year of King Zedekiah" (2Ki 25:2). During the siege he imprisoned Jeremiah for the prophet's blunt message that Yahweh would hand the city over to Nebuchadnezzar (Jer 32:3). The Mattaniah-Zedekiah of 2Ki 24:17 is to be distinguished from the false prophet Zedekiah son of Chenaanah, who pushed Ahab to war against the Syrians (1Ki 22:11; 2Ch 18:10-23), and from the Zedekiah whom the Babylonians "roasted in the fire" alongside Ahab as a curse-byword among the Judean exiles (Jer 29:22) — different men sharing the throne-name.

A Levite of the Sons of Asaph

A second Mattaniah belongs to the Levitical line of Asaph, the chief musician David appointed for the ark and the tabernacle service (1Ch 15:17; 1Ch 16:5; 1Ch 25:1; Neh 12:46). This Mattaniah is named in the genealogy of Jahaziel, the Levite on whom the Spirit of Yahweh fell during Jehoshaphat's crisis: "Then on Jahaziel the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mattaniah, the Levite, of the sons of Asaph, came the Spirit of Yahweh in the midst of the assembly" (2Ch 20:14). He surfaces again in the post-exilic register of returned Levites, where a Mattaniah leads the thanksgiving choir: "Moreover the Levites: Jeshua, Binnui, Kadmiel, Sherebiah, Judah, [and] Mattaniah, who was over the thanksgiving, he and his brothers" (Neh 12:8).

Son of Heman, Ninth of the Musical Divisions

A third Mattaniah is one of the fourteen sons of Heman, the Kohathite singer who, with Asaph and Jeduthun, was set apart by David to "prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals" (1Ch 25:1; cf. 1Ch 6:33; 1Ch 16:41; 1Ch 25:5). The roster of Heman's sons names him in order: "Of Heman; the sons of Heman: Bukkiah, Mattaniah, Uzziel, Shebuel, and Jerimoth, Hananiah, Hanani, Eliathah, Giddalti, and Romamti-ezer, Joshbekashah, Mallothi, Hothir, Mahazioth" (1Ch 25:4). When the courses of singers were assigned by lot, his came up ninth: "the ninth to Mattaniah, his sons and his brothers, twelve" (1Ch 25:16). The earlier Heman of 1Ch 2:6 and 1Ki 4:31 — the Ezrahite of proverbial wisdom — is a different figure.

A Descendant of Asaph at Hezekiah's Cleansing of the Temple

A fourth Mattaniah appears among the Levites who answered Hezekiah's summons to sanctify and purify the house of Yahweh: "and of the sons of Elizaphan, Shimri and Jeuel; and of the sons of Asaph, Zechariah and Mattaniah" (2Ch 29:13). Whether or not he is the same man as the Asaphite of 2Ch 20:14 and Neh 12:8, he stands in the same Asaphite stream that returns repeatedly to the work of the Levites — a tribe set apart from inheritance for the service of the sanctuary, taken by Yahweh "instead of all the firstborn among the sons of Israel" (Num 8:18; cf. Num 1:50; Num 3:6; Num 18:3), whose "portion and inheritance is Yahweh, In the midst of the children of Israel" (Sir 45:22).

Four Israelites of the Restoration Who Put Away Foreign Wives

In Ezra's list of those who "had taken foreign wives" and dismissed them, the name Mattaniah appears four times, each in a different family. Of the sons of Elam: "Mattaniah, Zechariah, and Jehiel, and Abdi, and Jeremoth, and Elijah" (Ezra 10:26). Of the sons of Zattu: "Elioenai, Eliashib, Mattaniah, and Jeremoth, and Zabad, and Aziza" (Ezra 10:27). Of the sons of Pahath-moab: "Adna, and Chelal, Benaiah, Maaseiah, Mattaniah, Bezalel, and Binnui, and Manasseh" (Ezra 10:30). And among the sons of Bani: "Mattaniah, Mattenai, and Jaasu" (Ezra 10:37). The repetition of the name across four clans shows how common it was in the restoration generation, and how the same naming pattern that produced the Levitical singers also turned up in the lay tribes.

A Levite, Father of Zaccur

A sixth Mattaniah is the grandfather of one of Nehemiah's treasurers. When Nehemiah reorganised the temple revenues, he placed faithful men over the storehouses: "And I made treasurers over the treasuries, Shelemiah the priest, and Zadok the scribe, and of the Levites, Pedaiah: and next to them was Hanan the son of Zaccur, the son of Mattaniah; for they were counted faithful, and their business was to distribute to their brothers" (Neh 13:13). His grandson Hanan, with Zaccur for father, distributes the tithes from a Levitical line that bore the same name carried by kings, singers, and laymen alike.