This is what Jehovah has said, ‘Write down this man as childless, as an able-bodied man who will not have any success in his days; for from his offspring not a single one will have any success, sitting upon the throne of David and ruling anymore in Judah.’”​—Jeremiah 22:24-30.

Eighty years later, in 537 B.C.E., Jehoiachin’s grandson, Zerubbabel, is released from exile in Babylon and is made governor of the Persian province of Judah, to govern from Jerusalem. (Ezra 1:1 to 4:3) Was that not a contradiction of what Jehovah had said to Zerubbabel’s grandfather in Jeremiah 22:30? No, the captive Jehoiachin continued “childless” as far as having any of his sons to sit upon David’s throne at Jerusalem. In fact, his uncle, Mattaniah, whose name was changed to Zedekiah, succeeded him upon David’s throne, only to lose the throne in 607 B.C.E., at Jerusalem’s destruction by the Babylonians. David’s throne was overturned, never to be set up again in literal earthly Jerusalem. (Ezekiel 21:25-27) The 2,520 years of the Gentile Times began there, in 607 B.C.E., for Jerusalem or the Messianic kingdom of God that it symbolized to be trampled upon by the Gentile nations. True to prophecy, none of Jehoiachin’s several sons sat on Jehovah’s throne in Jerusalem as David’s royal descendant. His grandson Zerubbabel sat, not on David’s royal throne, but in the seat of a governor appointed by King Cyrus.