17 So he sent against them the king of the Chaldaeans, who put their young men to death with the sword in the house of their holy place, and had no pity for any, young man or virgin, old man or white-haired: God gave them all into his hands.
I have let their widows be increased in number more than the sand of the seas: I have sent against them, against the mother and the young men, one who makes waste in the heat of the day, causing pain and fears to come on her suddenly. The mother of seven is without strength; her spirit is gone from her, her sun has gone down while it is still day: she has been shamed and overcome: and the rest of them I will give up to the sword before their haters, says the Lord.
Now some people who were there at that time, gave him an account of how the blood of some Galilaeans had been mixed by Pilate with their offerings. And he, in answer, said to them, Are you of the opinion that these Galilaeans were worse than all other Galilaeans, because these things were done to them?
And to these he said in my hearing, Go through the town after him using your axes: do not let your eyes have mercy, and have no pity: Give up to destruction old men and young men and virgins, little children and women: but do not come near any man who has the mark on him: and make a start at my holy place. So they made a start with the old men who were before the house. And he said to them, Make the house unclean, make the open places full of dead: go forward and send destruction on the town.
Look! O Lord, see to whom you have done this! Are the women to take as their food the fruit of their bodies, the children who are folded in their arms? are the priest and the prophet to be put to death in the holy place of the Lord? The young men and the old are stretched on the earth in the streets; my virgins and my young men have been put to the sword: you have sent death on them in the day of your wrath, causing death without pity. As in the day of a holy meeting you have made fears come round me on every side, and no one got away or was kept safe in the day of the Lord's wrath: those who were folded in my arms, whom I took care of, have been sent to their destruction by my hater.
Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king; he was king for eleven years in Jerusalem: and his mother's name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. And he did evil in the eyes of the Lord, as Jehoiakim had done. And because of the wrath of the Lord this came about in Jerusalem and Judah, till he had sent them away from before him: and Zedekiah took up arms against the king of Babylon. And in the ninth year of his rule, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, came against Jerusalem with all his army and took up his position before it, building earthworks all round it. So the town was shut in by their forces till the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. In the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, the store of food in the town was almost gone, so that there was no food for the people of the land. Then an opening was made in the wall of the town, and all the men of war went in flight out of the town by night through the doorway between the two walls which was by the king's garden; (now the Chaldaeans were stationed round the town:) and they went by the way of the Arabah. And the Chaldaean army went after King Zedekiah and overtook him on the other side of Jericho, and all his army went in flight from him in every direction. Then they made the king a prisoner and took him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath to be judged. And the king of Babylon put the sons of Zedekiah to death before his eyes: and he put to death all the rulers of Judah in Riblah. And he put out Zedekiah's eyes; and the king of Babylon, chaining him in iron bands, took him to Babylon, and put him in prison till the day of his death. Now in the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month, in the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, a servant of the king of Babylon, came into Jerusalem. And he had the house of the Lord and the king's house and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great house, burned with fire: And the walls round Jerusalem were broken down by the Chaldaean army which was with the captain. Then Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, took away as prisoners the rest of the people who were still in the town, and those who had given themselves up to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the workmen. But Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, let the poorest of the land go on living there, to take care of the vines and the fields. And the brass pillars which were in the house of the Lord, and the wheeled bases and the great brass water-vessel in the house of the Lord, were broken up by the Chaldaeans, who took all the brass away to Babylon. And the pots and the spades and the scissors for the lights and the spoons, and all the brass vessels used in the Lord's house, they took away. And the cups and the fire-trays and the basins and the pots and the supports for the lights and the spoons and the wide basins; the gold of the gold vessels, and the silver of the silver vessels, the captain of the armed men took away. The two pillars, the great water-vessel, and the twelve brass oxen which were under it, and the ten wheeled bases, which King Solomon had made for the house of the Lord: the brass of all these vessels was without weight. And as for the pillars, one pillar was eighteen cubits high, and twelve cubits measured all round, and it was as thick as a man's hand: it was hollow. And there was a crown of brass on it: the crown was five cubits high, circled with a network and apples all of brass; and the second pillar had the same. There were ninety-six apples on the outside; the number of apples all round the network was a hundred. And the captain of the armed men took Seraiah, the chief priest, and Zephaniah, the second priest, and the three door-keepers; And from the town he took the unsexed servant who was over the men of war, and seven of the king's near friends who were in the town, and the scribe of the captain of the army, who was responsible for getting the people of the land together in military order, and sixty men of the people of the land who were in the town. These Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, took with him to the king of Babylon at Riblah. And the king of Babylon put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was taken prisoner away from his land. These are the people whom Nebuchadrezzar took away prisoner: in the seventh year, three thousand and twenty-three Jews: And in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar he took away as prisoners from Jerusalem eight hundred and thirty-two persons: In the twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, took away as prisoners seven hundred and forty-five of the Jews: all the persons were four thousand and six hundred. And in the thirty-seventh year after Jehoiachin, king of Judah, had been taken prisoner, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-fifth day of the month, Evil-merodach, king of Babylon, in the first year after he became king, took Jehoiachin, king of Judah, out of prison. And he said kind words to him and put his seat higher than the seats of the other kings who were with him in Babylon. And his prison clothing was changed, and he was a guest at the king's table every day for the rest of his life. And for his food, the king gave him a regular amount every day till the day of his death, for the rest of his life.
And it came about, that when Jerusalem was taken, (in the ninth year of Zedekiah, king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, with all his army, came against Jerusalem, shutting it in on every side; In the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, the town was broken into:) All the captains of the king of Babylon came in and took their places in the middle doorway of the town, Nergal-shar-ezer, ruler of Sin-magir, the Rabmag, and Nebushazban, the Rab-saris, and all the captains of the king of Babylon. And when Zedekiah, king of Judah, and all the men of war saw it, they went in flight from the town by night, by the way of the king's garden, through the doorway between the two walls: and they went out by the Arabah. But the Chaldaean army went after them and overtook Zedekiah in the lowlands of Jericho: and they made him a prisoner and took him up to Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, to Riblah in the land of Hamath, to be judged by him. Then the king of Babylon put the sons of Zedekiah to death before his eyes in Riblah: and the king of Babylon put to death all the great men of Judah. And more than this, he put out Zedekiah's eyes, and had him put in chains to take him away to Babylon. And the Chaldaeans put the king's house on fire, as well as the houses of the people, and had the walls of Jerusalem broken down. Then Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, took away to Babylon as prisoners, all the rest of the workmen who were still in the town, as well as those who had given themselves up to him, and all the rest of the people. But Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, let the poorest of the people, who had nothing whatever, go on living in the land of Judah, and gave them vine-gardens and fields at the same time. Now Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, gave orders about Jeremiah to Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, saying, Take him and keep an eye on him and see that no evil comes to him; but do with him whatever he says to you. So Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, sent Nebushazban, the Rab-saris, and Nergal-shar-ezer, the Rabmag, and all the chief captains of the king of Babylon, And they sent and took Jeremiah out of the place of the watchmen, and gave him into the care of Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, to take him to his house: so he was living among the people. Now the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah while he was shut up in the place of the armed watchmen, saying, Go and say to Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: See, my words will come true for this town, for evil and not for good: they will come about before your eyes on that day. But I will keep you safe on that day, says the Lord: you will not be given into the hands of the men you are fearing. For I will certainly let you go free, and you will not be put to the sword, but your life will be given to you out of the hands of your attackers: because you have put your faith in me, says the Lord.
But if you do not give ear to me, and do not keep all these my laws; And if you go against my rules and if you have hate in your souls for my decisions and you do not do all my orders, but go against my agreement; This will I do to you: I will put fear in your hearts, even wasting disease and burning pain, drying up the eyes and making the soul feeble, and you will get no profit from your seed, for your haters will take it for food. And my face will be turned from you, and you will be broken before those who are against you, and your haters will become your rulers, and you will go in flight when no man comes after you. And if, even after these things, you will not give ear to me, then I will send you punishment seven times more for your sins. And the pride of your strength will be broken, and I will make your heaven as iron and your earth as brass; And your strength will be used up without profit; for your land will not give her increase and the trees of the field will not give their fruit. And if you still go against me and will not give ear to me, I will put seven times more punishments on you because of your sins. I will let loose the beasts of the field among you, and they will take away your children and send destruction on your cattle, so that your numbers will become small and your roads become waste. And if by these things you will not be turned to me, but still go against me; Then I will go against you, and I will give you punishment, I myself, seven times for all your sins. And I will send a sword on you to give effect to the punishment of my agreement; and when you come together into your towns I will send disease among you and you will be given up into the hands of your haters. When I take away your bread of life, ten women will be cooking bread in one oven, and your bread will be measured out by weight; you will have food but never enough. And if, after all this, you do not give ear to me, but go against me still, Then my wrath will be burning against you, and I will give you punishment, I myself, seven times for your sins. Then you will take the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters for food; And I will send destruction on your high places, overturning your perfume altars, and will put your dead bodies on your broken images, and my soul will be turned from you in disgust. And I will make your towns waste and send destruction on your holy places; I will take no pleasure in the smell of your sweet perfumes; And I will make your land a waste, a wonder to your haters living in it. And I will send you out in all directions among the nations, and my sword will be uncovered against you, and your land will be without any living thing, and your towns will be made waste. Then will the land take pleasure in its Sabbaths while it is waste and you are living in the land of your haters; then will the land have rest. All the days while it is waste will the land have rest, such rest as it never had in your Sabbaths, when you were living in it. And as for the rest of you, I will make their hearts feeble in the land of their haters, and the sound of a leaf moved by the wind will send them in flight, and they will go in flight as from the sword, falling down when no one comes after them; Falling on one another, as before the sword, when no one comes after them; you will give way before your haters. And death will overtake you among strange nations, and the land of your haters will be your destruction. And those of you who are still living will be wasting away in their sins in the land of your haters; in the sins of their fathers they will be wasting away. And they will have grief for their sins and for the sins of their fathers, when their hearts were untrue to me, and they went against me; So that I went against them and sent them away into the land of their haters: if then the pride of their hearts is broken and they take the punishment of their sins, Then I will keep in mind the agreement which I made with Jacob and with Isaac and with Abraham, and I will keep in mind the land. And the land, while she is without them, will keep her Sabbaths; and they will undergo the punishment of their sins, because they were turned away from my decisions and in their souls was hate for my laws. But for all that, when they are in the land of their haters I will not let them go, or be turned away from them, or give them up completely; my agreement with them will not be broken, for I am the Lord their God. And because of them I will keep in mind the agreement which I made with their fathers, whom I took out of the land of Egypt before the eyes of the nations, to be their God: I am the Lord. These are the rules, decisions, and laws, which the Lord made between himself and the children of Israel in Mount Sinai, by the hand of Moses.
They have given the bodies of your servants as food to the birds of the air, and the flesh of your saints to the beasts of the earth. Their blood has been flowing like water round about Jerusalem; there was no one to put them in their last resting-place.
Now in the ninth year of his rule, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came against Jerusalem with all his army and took up his position before it, building earthworks all round the town. And the town was shut in by their forces till the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. Now on the ninth day of the fourth month, the store of food in the town was almost gone, so that there was no food for the people of the land. So an opening was made in the wall of the town, and all the men of war went in flight by night through the doorway between the two walls which was by the king's garden; (now the Chaldaeans were stationed round the town:) and the king went by the way of the Arabah. But the Chaldaean army went after the king, and overtook him in the lowlands of Jericho, and all his army went in flight from him in every direction. And they made the king a prisoner and took him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah to be judged. And they put the sons of Zedekiah to death before his eyes, and then they put out his eyes, and chaining him with iron bands, took him to Babylon. Now in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem; And he had the house of the Lord and the king's house and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great house, burned with fire; And the walls round Jerusalem were broken down by the Chaldaean army which was with the captain. And the rest of the people who were still in the town, and all those who had given themselves up to the king of Babylon, and all the rest of the workmen, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, took away as prisoners; But he let the poorest of the land go on living there, to take care of the vines and the fields. And the brass pillars in the house of the Lord, and the wheeled bases, and the great brass water-vessel in the house of the Lord, were broken up by the Chaldaeans, who took the brass to Babylon. And the pots and the spades and the scissors for the lights and the spoons, and all the brass vessels used in the Lord's house, they took away. And the fire-trays and the basins; the gold of the gold vessels and the silver of the silver vessels, were all taken away by the captain of the armed men. The two pillars, the great water-vessel and the wheeled bases, which Solomon had made for the house of the Lord: the brass of all these vessels was without weight. One of the pillars was eighteen cubits high, with a crown of brass on it; the crown was three cubits high, circled with a network and apples all of brass; and the second pillar had the same. And the captain of the armed men took Seraiah, the chief priest, and Zephaniah, the second priest, and the three door-keepers; And from the town he took the unsexed servant who was over the men of war, and five of the king's near friends who were in the town, and the scribe of the captain of the army, who was responsible for getting the people of the land together in military order, and sixty men of the people of the land who were in the town. These Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, took with him to the king of Babylon at Riblah. And the king of Babylon put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was taken away prisoner from his land. As for the people who were still living in the land of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, did not take away, he made Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, ruler over them. Now the captains of the armed forces, hearing that the king of Babylon had made Gedaliah ruler, came with their men to Gedaliah at Mizpah; Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, and Johanan, the son of Kareah, and Seraiah, the son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, and Jaazaniah, the son of the Maacathite, came with all their men. Then Gedaliah gave his oath to them and their men, saying, Have no fear because of the servants of the Chaldaeans; go on living in the land under the rule of the king of Babylon, and all will be well. But in the seventh month, Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, of the king's seed, came with ten men and made an attack on Gedaliah, causing his death and the death of the Jews and the Chaldaeans who were with him at Mizpah. Then all the people, small and great, and the captains of the forces, got up and went away to Egypt, for fear of the Chaldaeans. And in the thirty-seventh year after Jehoiachin, king of Judah, had been taken prisoner, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, Evil-merodach, king of Babylon, in the first year of his rule, took Jehoiachin, king of Judah, out of prison; And said kind words to him, and put his seat higher than the seats of the other kings who were with him in Babylon. And his prison clothing was changed, and he was a guest at the king's table every day for the rest of his life. And for his food, the king gave him a regular amount every day for the rest of his life.
And the Lord sent against him bands of the Chaldaeans and of the Edomites and of the Moabites and of the children of Ammon; sending them against Judah for its destruction, as he had said by his servants the prophets. Only by the word of the Lord did this fate come on Judah, to take them away from before his face; because of the sins of Manasseh and all the evil he did;
But Jeshurun became fat and would not be controlled: you have become fat, you are thick and full of food: then he was untrue to the God who made him, giving no honour to the Rock of his salvation. The honour which was his they gave to strange gods; by their disgusting ways he was moved to wrath. They made offerings to evil spirits which were not God, to gods who were strange to them, which had newly come up, not feared by your fathers. You have no thought for the Rock, your father, you have no memory of the God who gave you birth. And the Lord saw with disgust the evil-doing of his sons and daughters. And he said, My face will be veiled from them, I will see what their end will be: for they are an uncontrolled generation, children in whom is no faith. They have given my honour to that which is not God, moving me to wrath with their false worship: I will give their honour to those who are not a people, moving them to wrath by a foolish nation, For my wrath is a flaming fire, burning to the deep parts of the underworld, burning up the earth with her increase, and firing the deep roots of the mountains. I will send a rain of troubles on them, my arrows will be showered on them. They will be wasted from need of food, and overcome by burning heat and bitter destruction; and the teeth of beasts I will send on them, with the poison of the worms of the dust. Outside they will be cut off by the sword, and in the inner rooms by fear; death will take the young man and the virgin, the baby at the breast and the grey-haired man. I said I would send them wandering far away, I would make all memory of them go from the minds of men: But for the fear that their haters, uplifted in their pride, might say, Our hand is strong, the Lord has not done all this. For they are a nation without wisdom; there is no sense in them.
And the Lord said to Moses, Now you are going to rest with your fathers; and this people will be false to me, uniting themselves to the strange gods of the land where they are going; they will be turned away from me and will not keep the agreement I have made with them. In that day my wrath will be moved against them, and I will be turned away from them, veiling my face from them, and destruction will overtake them, and unnumbered evils and troubles will come on them; so that in that day they will say, Have not these evils come on us because our God is not with us? Truly, my face will be turned away from them in that day, because of all the evil they have done in going after other gods.
So that there may not be among you any man or woman or family or tribe whose heart is turned away from the Lord our God today, to go after other gods and give them worship; or any root among you whose fruit is poison and bitter sorrow; If such a man, hearing the words of this oath, takes comfort in the thought that he will have peace even if he goes on in the pride of his heart, taking whatever chance may give him: The Lord will have no mercy on him, but the wrath of the Lord will be burning against that man, and all the curses recorded in this book will be waiting for him, and the Lord will take away his name completely from the earth. He will be marked out by the Lord, from all the tribes of Israel, for an evil fate, in keeping with all the curses of the agreement recorded in this book of the law. And future generations, your children coming after you, and travellers from far countries, will say, when they see the punishments of that land and the diseases which the Lord has sent on it; And that all the land is a salt and smoking waste, not planted or giving fruit or clothed with grass, but wasted like Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, on which the Lord sent destruction in the heat of his wrath: Truly all the nations will say, Why has the Lord done so to this land? what is the reason for this great and burning wrath? Then men will say, Because they gave up the agreement of the Lord, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he took them out of the land of Egypt: And they went after other gods and gave them worship, gods who were strange to them, and whom he had not given them: And so the wrath of the Lord was moved against this land, to send on it all the curse recorded in this book: Rooting them out of their land, in the heat of his wrath and passion, and driving them out into another land, as at this day.
But if you do not give ear to the voice of the Lord your God, and take care to do all his orders and his laws which I give you today, then all these curses will come on you and overtake you: You will be cursed in the town and cursed in the field. A curse will be on your basket and on your bread-basin. A curse will be on the fruit of your body, and on the fruit of your land, on the increase of your cattle, and the young of your flock. You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out. The Lord will send on you cursing and trouble and punishment in everything to which you put your hand, till sudden destruction overtakes you; because of your evil ways in which you have been false to me. The Lord will send disease after disease on you, till you have been cut off by death from the land to which you are going. The Lord will send wasting disease, and burning pain, and flaming heat against you, keeping back the rain till your land is waste and dead; so will it be till your destruction is complete. And the heaven over your heads will be brass, and the earth under you hard as iron. The Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust, sending it down on you from heaven till your destruction is complete. The Lord will let you be overcome by your haters: you will go out against them one way, and you will go in flight before them seven ways: you will be the cause of fear among all the kingdoms of the earth. Your bodies will be meat for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth; there will be no one to send them away. The Lord will send on you the disease of Egypt, and other sorts of skin diseases which nothing will make well. He will make your minds diseased, and your eyes blind, and your hearts wasted with fear: You will go feeling your way when the sun is high, like a blind man for whom all is dark, and nothing will go well for you: you will be crushed and made poor for ever, and you will have no saviour. You will take a wife, but another man will have the use of her: the house which your hands have made will never be your resting-place: you will make a vine-garden, and never take the fruit of it. Your ox will be put to death before your eyes, but its flesh will not be your food: your ass will be violently taken away before your face, and will not be given back to you: your sheep will be given to your haters, and there will be no saviour for you. Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people, and your eyes will be wasted away with looking and weeping for them all the day: and you will have no power to do anything. The fruit of your land and all the work of your hands will be food for a nation which is strange to you and to your fathers; you will only be crushed down and kept under for ever: So that the things which your eyes have to see will send you out of your minds. The Lord will send a skin disease, attacking your knees and your legs, bursting out from your feet to the top of your head, so that nothing will make you well. And you, and the king whom you have put over you, will the Lord take away to a nation strange to you and to your fathers; there you will be servants to other gods of wood and stone. And you will become a wonder and a name of shame among all the nations where the Lord will take you. You will take much seed out into the field, and get little in; for the locust will get it. You will put in vines and take care of them, but you will get no wine or grapes from them; for they will be food for worms. Your land will be full of olive-trees, but there will be no oil for the comfort of your body; for your olive-tree will give no fruit. You will have sons and daughters, but they will not be yours; for they will go away prisoners into a strange land. All your trees and the fruit of your land will be the locust's. The man from a strange land who is living among you will be lifted up higher and higher over you, while you go down lower and lower. He will let you have his wealth at interest, and will have no need of yours: he will be the head and you the tail. And all these curses will come after you and overtake you, till your destruction is complete; because you did not give ear to the voice of the Lord your God, or keep his laws and his orders which he gave you: These things will come on you and on your seed, to be a sign and a wonder for ever; Because you did not give honour to the Lord your God, worshipping him gladly, with joy in your hearts on account of all your wealth of good things; For this cause you will become servants to those whom the Lord your God will send against you, without food and drink and clothing, and in need of all things: and he will put a yoke of iron on your neck till he has put an end to you. The Lord will send a nation against you from the farthest ends of the earth, coming with the flight of an eagle; a nation whose language is strange to you; A hard-faced nation, who will have no respect for the old or mercy for the young: He will take the fruit of your cattle and of your land till death puts an end to you: he will let you have nothing of your grain or wine or oil or any of the increase of your cattle or the young of your flock, till he has made your destruction complete. Your towns will be shut in by his armies, till your high walls, in which you put your faith, have come down: his armies will be round your towns, through all your land which the Lord your God has given you. And your food will be the fruit of your body, the flesh of the sons and daughters which the Lord your God has given you; because of your bitter need and the cruel grip of your haters. That man among you who is soft and used to comfort will be hard and cruel to his brother, and to his dear wife, and to of those his children who are still living; And will not give to any of them the flesh of his children which will be his food because he has no other; in the cruel grip of your haters on all your towns. The most soft and delicate of your women, who would not so much as put her foot on the earth, so delicate is she, will be hard-hearted to her husband and to her son and to her daughter; And to her baby newly come to birth, and to the children of her body; for having no other food, she will make a meal of them secretly, because of her bitter need and the cruel grip of your haters on all your towns. If you will not take care to do all the words of this law, recorded in this book, honouring that name of glory and of fear, THE LORD YOUR GOD; Then the Lord your God will make your punishment, and the punishment of your seed, a thing to be wondered at; great punishments and cruel diseases stretching on through long years. He will send on you again all the diseases of Egypt, which were a cause of fear to you, and they will take you in their grip. And all the diseases and the pains not recorded in the book of this law will the Lord send on you till your destruction is complete. And you will become a very small band, though your numbers were like the stars of heaven; because you did not give ear to the voice of the Lord your God. And as the Lord took delight in doing you good and increasing you, so the Lord will take pleasure in cutting you off and causing your destruction, and you will be uprooted from the land which you are about to take as your heritage. And the Lord will send you wandering among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other: there you will be servants to other gods, of wood and stone, gods of which you and your fathers had no knowledge. And even among these nations there will be no peace for you, and no rest for your feet: but the Lord will give you there a shaking heart and wasting eyes and weariness of soul: Your very life will be hanging in doubt before you, and day and night will be dark with fears, and nothing in life will be certain: In the morning you will say, If only it was evening! And at evening you will say, If only morning would come! Because of the fear in your hearts and the things which your eyes will see. And the Lord will take you back to Egypt again in ships, by the way of which I said to you, You will never see it again: there you will be offering yourselves as men-servants and women-servants to your haters for a price, and no man will take you.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on 2 Chronicles 36
Commentary on 2 Chronicles 36 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
The Last Kings of Judah; the Destruction of Jerusalem; Judah Led Away Captive; and the Babylonian Exile - 2 Chronicles 36
As the kingdom of Judah after Josiah's death advanced with swift steps to its destruction by the Chaldeans, so the author of the Chronicle goes quickly over the reigns of the last kings of Judah, who by their godless conduct hastened the ruin of the kingdom. As to the four kings who reigned between Josiah's death and the destruction of Jerusalem, he gives, besides their ages at their respective accessions, only a short characterization of their conduct towards God, and a statement of the main events which step by step brought about the ruin of the king and the burning of Jerusalem and the temple.
The reign of Jehoahaz . Cf. 2 Kings 23:30-35. - After Josiah's death, the people of the land raised his son Jehoahaz (Joahaz), who was then twenty-three years old, to the throne; but he had been king in Jerusalem only three months when the Egyptian king (Necho) deposed him, imposed upon the land a fine of 100 talents of silver and one talent of gold, made his brother Eliakim king under the name Jehoiakim, and carried Jehoahaz, who had been taken prisoner, away captive to Egypt. For further information as to the capture and carrying away of Jehoahaz, and the appointment of Eliakim to be king, see on 2 Kings 23:31-35.
The reign of Jehoiakim . Cf. 2 Kings 23:36-24:7. - Jehoiakim was at his accession twenty-five years of age, reigned eleven years, and did that which was evil in the eyes of Jahve his God.
2 Chronicles 36:6-8
“Against him came Nebuchadnezzar (in inscriptions, Nabucudurriusur, i.e., Nebo coronam servat; see on Dan. S. 56) the king of Babylon, and bound him with brazen double fetters to carry him to Babylon.” This campaign, Nebuchadnezzar's first against Judah, is spoken of also in 2 Kings 24 and Daniel 1:1-2. The capture of Jerusalem, at which Jehoiakim was put in fetters, occurred, as we learn from Daniel 1:1, col. c. Jeremiah 46:2 and Jeremiah 36:7, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim's reign, i.e., in the year 606 b.c.; and with it commence the seventy years of the Chaldean servitude of Judah. Nebuchadnezzar did not carry out his purpose of deporting the captured king Jehoiakim to Babylon, but allowed him to continue to reign at Jerusalem as his servant (vassal). To alter the infin. להוליכו into the perf., or to translate as the perf., is quite arbitrary, as is also the supplying of the words, “and he carried him away to Babylon.” That the author of the Chronicle does not mention the actual carrying away, but rather assumes the contrary, namely, that Jehoiakim continued to reign in Jerusalem until his death, as well known, is manifest from the way in which, in 2 Chronicles 36:8, he records his son's accession to the throne. He uses the same formula which he has used in the case of all the kings whom at their death their sons succeeded, according to established custom. Had Nebuchadnezzar dethroned Jehoiakim, as Necho deposed Jehoahaz, the author of the Chronicle would not have left the installation of Jehoiachin by the Chaldean king unmentioned. For the defence of this view against opposing opinions, see the commentary on 2 Kings 24:1 and Daniel 1:1; and in regard to 2 Chronicles 36:7, see on Daniel 1:2. The Chronicle narrates nothing further as to Jehoiakim's reign, but refers, 2 Chronicles 36:8, for his other deeds, and especially his abominations, to the book of the kings of Israel and Judah, whence the most important things have been excerpted and incorporated in 2 Kings 24:1-4. עשׂה אשׁר תּועבותיו Bertheau interprets of images which he caused to be prepared, and עליו הנּמצא of his evil deeds; but in both he is incorrect. The passages which Bertheau cites for his interpretation of the first words, Jeremiah 7:9. and Ezekiel 8:17, prove the contrary; for Jeremiah mentions as תּועבות of the people, murder, adultery, false swearing, offering incense to Baal, and going after other gods; and Ezekiel, loc. cit. , uses תּועבות עשׂות of the idolatry of the people indeed, but not of the making of images - only of the worship of idols, the practice of idol-worship. The abominations, consequently, which Jehoiakim committed are both his evil deeds and crimes, e.g., the shedding of innocent blood (2 Kings 24:4), as well as the idolatry which he had practised. עליו הנּמצא , “what was found upon him,” is a comprehensive designation of his whole moral and religious conduct and attitude; cf. 2 Chronicles 19:3. Jehoiakim's revolt from Nebuchadnezzar after three years' servitude (2 Kings 24:1) is passed over by the author of the Chronicle, because the punishment of this crime influenced the fate of the kingdom of Judah only after his death. The punishment fell upon Jehoiachin; for the detachments of Arameans, Moabites, and Ammonites, which were sent by Nebuchadnezzar to punish the rebels, did not accomplish much.
The reign of Jehoiachin . Cf. 2 Kings 24:8-17. - Jehoiachin's age at his accession is here given as eight years, while in 2 Kings 24:8 it is eighteen. It is so also in the lxx and Vulg.; but a few Hebr. codd., Syr., and Arab., and many manuscripts of the lxx, have eighteen years in the Chronicle also. The number eight is clearly an orthographical error, as Thenius also acknowledges. Bertheau, on the contrary, regards the eight of our text as the original, and the number eighteen in 2 Kings as an alteration occasioned by the idea that eighteen years appeared a more fitting age for a king than eight years, and gives as his reason, “that the king's mother is named along with him, and manifestly with design, 2 Kings 24:12, 2 Kings 24:15, and Jeremiah 22:26, whence we must conclude that she had the guardianship of the young king.” A perfectly worthless reason. In the books of Kings the name of the mother is given in the case of all the kings after their accession has been mentioned, without any reference to the age of the kings, because the queen-mother occupied a conspicuous position in the kingdom. It is so in the case of Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin, 2 Kings 23:36 and 2 Kings 24:8. On account of her high position, the queen-mother is mentioned in 2 Kings 24:12 and 2 Kings 24:15, and in Jeremiah, among those who submitted to Nebuchadnezzar and were carried away to Babylon. The correctness of the number eighteen is, however, placed beyond doubt by Ezekiel 19:5-9, where the prophet portrays Jehoiachin as a young lion, which devoured men, and knew widows, and wasted cities. The knowing of widows cannot apply to a boy of eight, but might well be said of a young man of eighteen. Jehoiachin ruled only three months and ten days in Jerusalem, and did evil in the eyes of Jahve. At the turn of the year, i.e., in spring, when campaigns were usually opened (cf. 1 Kings 20:22; 2 Samuel 11:1), Nebuchadnezzar sent his generals (2 Kings 24:10), and brought him to Babylon, with the goodly vessels of the house of Jahve, and made his (father's) brother Zedekiah king in Judah. In these few words the end of Jehoiachin's short reign is recorded. From 2 Kings 24:10-16 we learn more as to this second campaign of Nebuchadnezzar against Jerusalem, and its issues for Judah; see the commentary on that passage. Zidkiyah (Zedekiah) was, according to 2 Kings 24:17, not a brother, but דּוד , uncle or father's brother, of Jehoiachin, and was called Mattaniah, a son of Josiah and Hamutal, like Jehoahaz (2 Kings 24:18, cf. 2 Kings 23:31), and is consequently his full brother, and a step-brother of Jehoiakim. At his appointment to the kingdom by Nebuchadnezzar he received the name Zidkiyah (Zedekiah). אהיו , in 2 Chronicles 36:10, is accordingly to be taken in its wider signification of blood-relation.
The reign of Zedekiah; the destruction of Jerusalem, and Judah carried away into exile . Cf. 2 Kings 24:18-25:21. - Zedekiah, made king at the age of twenty-one years, reigned eleven years, and filled up the measure of sins, so that the Lord was compelled to give the kingdom of Judah up to destruction by the Chaldeans. To that Zedekiah brought it by the two main sins of his evil reign, - namely, by not humbling himself before the prophet Jeremiah, from the mouth of Jahve (2 Chronicles 36:12); and by rebelling against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had caused him to swear by God, and by so hardening his neck (being stiff-necked), and making stout his heart, that he did not return to Jahve the God of Israel. Zedekiah's stiffness of neck and hardness of heart showed itself in his refusing to hearken to the words which Jeremiah spoke to him from the mouth of God, and his breaking the oath he had sworn to Nebuchadnezzar by God. The words, “he humbled himself not before Jeremiah,” recall Jeremiah 37:2, and the events narrated in Jer 37 and 38, and 21:4-22:9, which show how the chief of the people ill-treated the prophet because of his prophecies, while Zedekiah was too weak and languid to protect him against them. The rebellion against Nebuchadnezzar, to whom he had sworn a vassal's oath of fidelity, is mentioned in 2 Kings 24:20, and Ezekiel 17:13. also, as a great crime on the part of Zedekiah and the chief of the people; see the commentary on both passages. In consequence of this rebellion, Nebuchadnezzar marched against Judah with a powerful army; and after the capture of the fenced cities of the land, he advanced to the siege of Jerusalem, which ended in its capture and destruction, 2 Kings 25:1-10. Without further noticing these results of this breach of faith, the author of the Chronicle proceeds to depict the sins of the king and of the people. In the first place, he again brings forward, in 2 Chronicles 36:13 , the stiffness of neck and obduracy of the king, which manifested itself in the acts just mentioned: he made hard his neck, etc. Bertheau would interpret the words וגו ויּקשׁ , according to Deuteronomy 2:30, thus: “Then did God make him stiff-necked and hardened his heart; so that he did not return to Jahve the God of Israel, notwithstanding the exhortations of the prophets.” But although hardening is not seldom represented as inflicted by God, there is here no ground for supposing that with ויּקשׁ the subject is changed, while the bringing forward of the hardening as an act of God does not at all suit the context. And, moreover, ערף הקשׁה , making hard the neck, is nowhere ascribed to God, it is only said of men; cf. 2 Kings 17:14; Deuteronomy 10:16; Jeremiah 19:15, etc. To God only את־לב הקשׁה or את־רוּח is attributed, Exodus 7:3; Deuteronomy 2:30.
“And all princes of the priests and the people increased faithless transgressions, like to all the abominations of the heathen, and defiled the house of the Lord which He had consecrated in Jerusalem.” Bertheau would refer this censure of their idolatry and the profanation of the temple to the guilt incurred by the whole people, especially in the time of Manasseh, because, from all we know from the book of Jeremiah, the reproach of idolatry did not at all, or at least did not specially, attach to the princes of the priests and the people in the time of Zedekiah. But this reason is neither tenable nor correct; for from Ezek 8 it is perfectly manifest that under Zedekiah, not only the people, but also the priesthood, were deeply sunk in idolatry, and that even the courts of the temple were defiled by it. And even though that idolatry did not take its rise under Zedekiah, but had been much practised under Jehoiakim, and was merely a revival and continuation of the idolatrous conduct of Manasseh and Amon, yet the reference of our verse to the time of Manasseh is excluded by the context; for here only that which was done under Zedekiah is spoken of, without any reference to earlier times.
Meanwhile God did not leave them without exhortation, warning, and threatening. - 2 Chronicles 36:15. Jahve sent to them by His messengers, from early morning onwards continually, for He spared His people and His dwelling-place; but they mocked the messengers of God, despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets. בּיד שׁלח , to send a message by any one, to make a sending. The object is to be supplied from the verb. ושׁלוח השׁכּם exactly as in Jeremiah 26:5; Jeremiah 29:19. For He spared His people, etc., viz., by this, that He, in long-suffering, again and again called upon the people by prophets to repent and return, and was not willing at once to destroy His people and His holy place. מלעיבים is ἁπ. λεγ. , in Syr. it signifies subsannavit ; the Hithp. also, מתּעתּעים (from תּעע ), occurs only here as an intensive: to launch out in mockery. The distinction drawn between מלאכים (messengers) and נביאים (prophets) is rhetorical, for by the messengers of God it is chiefly prophets who are meant; but the expression is not to be confined to prophets in the narrower sense of the word, for it embraces all the men of God who, by word and deed, censured and punished the godless conduct of the idolaters. The statement in these two verses is certainly so very general, that it may apply to all the times of gradually increasing defection of the people from the Lord their God; but the author of the Chronicle had primarily in view only the time of Zedekiah, in which the defection reached its highest point. It should scarcely be objected that in the time of Zedekiah only Jeremiah is known as a prophet of the Lord, since Ezekiel lived and wrought among the exiles. For, in the first place, it does not hence certainly follow that Jeremiah and Ezekiel were the only prophets of that time; then, secondly, Jeremiah does not speak as an individual prophet, but holds up to the people the witness of all the earlier prophets (cf. e.g., 2 Chronicles 26:4-5), so that by him all the former prophets of God spoke to the people; and consequently the plural, His messengers, His prophets, is perfectly true even for the time of Zedekiah, if we always keep in mind the rhetorical character of the style. וגו עלות עד , until the anger of Jahve rose upon His people, so that there was no healing (deliverance) more.
When the moral corruption had reached this height, judgment broke upon the incorrigible race. As in 2 Chronicles 36:12-16 the transgressions of the king and people are not described according to their historical progression, but are portrayed in rhetorical gradation; so, too, in 2 Chronicles 36:17-21 the judgment upon the sinful people and kingdom is not represented in its historical details, but only rhetorically in its great general outlines. “Then brought He upon them the king of the Chaldeans, who slew their young men with the sword in their sanctuary, and spared not the youth and the maiden, the old man and the grey-headed; he gave everything into his hand.” Prophetic utterances form the basis of this description of the fearful judgment, e.g., Jeremiah 15:1-9; Jeremiah 32:3., Ezekiel 9:6; and these, again, rest upon Deuteronomy 32:25. The subject in the first and last clause of the verse is Jahve. Bertheau therefore assumes that He is also the subject of the intermediate sentence: “and God slew their young men in the sanctuary;” but this can hardly be correct. As in the expansion of the last clause, “he gave everything into his hand,” which follows in 2 Chronicles 36:18, not Jahve but the king of Babylon is the subject; so also in the expansion of the first clause, which וגו ויּהרג introduces, the king of the Chaldeans is the subject, as most commentators have rightly recognised. By מקדּשׁם בּבית the judgment is brought into definite relationship to the crime: because they had profaned the sanctuary by idolatry (2 Chronicles 36:14), they themselves were slain in the sanctuary. On נתן ב הכּל , cf. Jeremiah 27:6; Jeremiah 32:3-4. הכּל includes things and persons, and is specialized in 2 Chronicles 36:18-20.
All the vessels of the house of God, the treasures of the temple, and of the palace of the king and of the princes, all he brought to Babylon.
They burnt the house of God; they pulled down the walls of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces of the city with fire, and all the costly vessels were devoted to destruction. On להשׁחית , cf. 2 Chronicles 12:12.
He who remained from the sword, i.e., who had not been slain by the sword, had not fallen and died in war, Nebuchadnezzar carried away to Babylon into captivity; so that they became servants to him and to his sons, as Jeremiah (Jeremiah 27:7) prophesied, until the rise of the kingdom of the Persians. These last words also are an historical interpretation of the prophecy, Jeremiah 27:7. All this was done (2 Chronicles 36:21) to fulfil ( מלּאת instead of מלּא , as in 1 Chronicles 29:5), that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, he having prophesied ( Jeremiah 25:11., 2 Chronicles 29:10) the seventy years' duration of Judah's desolation and the Babylonian captivity, while the king and people had not regarded his words (2 Chronicles 36:12). This period, which according to 2 Chronicles 36:20 came to an end with the rise of the kingdom of the Persians, is characterized by the clause וגו רצתה עד as a time of expiation of the wrong which had been done the land by the non-observance of the sabbath-years, upon the basis of the threatening (Leviticus 26:34), in which the wasting of the land during the dispersion of the unrepentant people among the heathen was represented as a compensation for the neglected sabbaths. From this passage in the law the words are taken, to show how the Lord had inflicted the punishment with which the disobedient people had been threatened as early as in the time of Moses. רצתה עד is not to be translated, “until the land had made up its years of rest;” that signification רצה has not; but, “until the land had enjoyed its sabbath-years,” i.e., until it had enjoyed the rest of which it had been deprived by the non-observance of the sabbaths and the sabbath-years, contrary to the will of its Creator; see on Leviticus 26:34. That this is the thought is placed beyond doubt by the succeeding circumstantial clause, taken word for word from Leviticus 26:34 : “all days (i.e., the whole time) of its desolation did it hold it” ( שׁבתה , it kept sabbath). “To make full the seventy years;” which Jeremiah, ll. cc. , had prophesied.
This connecting of Jeremiah's prophecy with the declaration in Leviticus 26:34 does not justify us in supposing that the celebration of the sabbath-year had been neglected seventy times, or that for a period of 490 years the sabbath-year had not been observed. Bertheau, holding this view, fixes upon 1000 b.c., i.e., the time of Solomon, or, as we cannot expect any very great chronological exactitude, the beginning of the kingly government in Israel, as the period after which the rest-years ceased to be regarded. He is further of opinion that 2 Chronicles 35:18 harmonizes with this view; according to which passage the passover was not celebrated in accordance with the prescription of the law until the end of the period of the judges. According to this chronological calculation, the beginning of this neglect of the observance of the sabbath-year would fall in the beginning of the judgeship of Samuel.
(Note: The seventy years ' exile began in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, i.e., in the year 606 b.c., or 369 years after the division of the kingdom; see the Chronol. Tables at 1 Kings 12 (ii. 3, S. 141), to which the eighty years of the reigns of David and Solomon, and the time of Saul and Samuel, must be added to make up the 490 years (see the comment. on Judges).)
But this is itself unlikely; and still more unlikely is it, that in the time of the judges the sabbath-year had been regularly observed until Samuel; and that during the reigns of the kings David, Solomon, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and Josiah, this celebration remained wholly in abeyance. But even apart from that, the words, that the land, to make full the seventy years prophesied by Jeremiah, kept the whole time of the desolation holy, or enjoyed a sabbath rest such as Moses had proclaimed in Leviticus 26:34, do not necessarily involve that the land had been deprived of its sabbath rest seventy times in succession, or during a period of 490 years, by the sin of the people. The connection between the prophecy of Jeremiah and the provision of the law is to be understood theologically, and does not purport to be calculated chronologically. The thought is this: By the infliction of the punishment threatened against the transgressors of the law by the carrying of the people away captive into Babylon, the land will obtain the rest which the sinful people had deprived it of by their neglect of the sabbath observance commanded them. By causing it to remain uncultivated for seventy years, God gave to the land a time of rest and refreshment, which its inhabitants, so long as they possessed it, had not given it. But that does not mean that the time for which this rest was granted corresponded to the number of the sabbath-years which had not been observed. From these theological reflections we cannot calculate how often in the course of the centuries, from the time of Joshua onwards till the exile, the sabbath-year had not been observed; and still less the time after which the observation of the sabbath-year was continuously neglected. The passage 2 Chronicles 35:8 has no bearing on this question, because it neither states that the passover had been held according to the precepts of the law till towards the end of the time of the judges, nor that it was no longer celebrated in accordance with the precept from that time until Josiah; it only contains the thought that such a passover as that in Josiah's reign had not been held since the time of the judges: see on the passage.
To point out still further how exactly God had fulfilled His word by the mouth of the prophet Jeremiah, it is in conclusion briefly mentioned that God, in the first year of Coresh king of Persia, stirred up the spirit of this king to cause a command to go forth in all his kingdom, that Jahve, the God of heaven, who had given him all the kingdoms of the earth, had commanded him to build again His temple in Jerusalem, and that whoever belonged to the people of God might go up to Jerusalem. With this comforting prospect for the future, the author of the Chronicle closes his consideration of the prae-exilic history of the people of God without completely communicating the contents of the royal edict of Cyrus, since he purposed to narrate the history of the restoration of Judah to their own land in a separate work. This we have in the book of Ezra, which commences by giving us the whole of the edict of Cyrus the king of the Persians (Ezra 1:1-3), and then narrates the return of a great part of the people to Jerusalem and Judah, the rebuilding of the temple, and the re-settlement in the land of their fathers of those who had returned.