And he brought up [against] them the king of the Chaldees, and slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and spared not young man nor maiden, old man nor him of hoary head he gave [them] all into his hand.
The last chapter of 2 Chronicles records the moment when God's long patience with Judah ran out. The verse names the agent He used: the king of the Chaldeans, the Babylonian power under Nebuchadnezzar. Two questions follow. Why did it come to this? And who stood behind the sword that spared neither young nor old?
The verse opens with "therefore," so the reason lies in what came just before. One writer shows how long God waited:
In infinite patience the Lord still waited for the return of His people. Judgment is His strange work, but He delights in mercy. Because He had compassion, He sent them messengers who urged them and brought God's messages. But they mocked the messengers. They despised God's gracious offers and misused His prophets, till there was no remedy. An awful statement. Apostasy and defiance of God increased to such an extent, till there was no remedy. The threatening clouds of judgment broke at last, and the people were carried away into captivity.
One thing tipped the scale under Zedekiah, Judah's last king. He had sworn loyalty to Nebuchadnezzar in the name of Israel's God, and then broke that oath:
He brings the disasters of Jerusalem to their last crisis. He was the one put under the oath of Jehovah, and he broke it. So he showed the world a shocking sight: a pagan had more respect for the name of Jehovah than the king of Judah. Nebuchadnezzar trusted that that name, at least, would carry moral weight. Zedekiah feared it less than Nebuchadnezzar did. So God could not leave such a stain on the throne and the house of David. Destruction came in full.
The most shocking detail is where the killing happened — inside the sanctuary itself. One writer notes that the invaders treated the temple as Judah had already treated it:
This proud refusal of both God's goodness and His authority brought on the final attack of the king of the Chaldeans. He killed their young men even in the house of their sanctuary (v. 17). They had no regard for the holiness of the place. But Judah had been guilty of showing contempt for God's house. How could they expect anything better from godless nations? The invaders killed young men and virgins, the aged and the weak.
The verse does not say Babylon rose; it says God brought Babylon up. The conquerors themselves had no idea whose errand they were running:
Despite the unbelief of man, the work of God goes on, whether in grace or in government. So, in his own day, God told the prophet that He had raised up the Babylonians to carry out His work of government. The Babylonians never guessed why God had lifted them to the height of power. They were simply an instrument in His hand, to chastise His people and hold back the evils of the nations.
Being used by God gave the conqueror no protection:
God uses the pride and sin of the wicked to chastise His people. Afterwards He destroys the instrument.
That closing clause marks more than one nation's defeat. Authority over the earth changed hands:
He was the man in whom God set up the Gentiles. The house of David, the throne of Judah, had corrupted itself. The measure of the people's sin was full, and God's long patience had run out in Nebuchadnezzar's day. So the Lord uses him as the rod of His anger against Jerusalem, and as the hand that takes from Him the sword of rule and judgment in the earth.
Commentators see the same order — delay, then judgment — in other places:
This, we believe, is always God's way. He does not act in judgment until the evil has come out in full. It was so with the Amorite nations, as shown in Genesis 15:16. It was so with the kings and people in Jerusalem, as testified in 2 Chronicles 36:11-20. It will be so again in the sad history of Christendom, as predicted in Revelation 17 and 18.
- Patience — God waited and sent messenger after messenger, because He had compassion. Judgment is His strange work.
- No remedy — They mocked His messengers and misused His prophets. The wrath came only when warning had nothing left to offer.
- Measure for measure — Judah despised God's house first. So the sword reached them inside it.
- The rod — Babylon rose only as an instrument in God's hand, and never knew it. Afterwards God destroys the instrument.
- The transfer — God gave the people into Nebuchadnezzar's hand, and the sword of rule passed from Jerusalem to the Gentiles. The same long patience before judgment now hangs over Christendom.
And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of Jehovah, and the treasures of the king and of his princes, he brought all to Babylon.
Babylon's army emptied both the temple and the palace and carried everything east. Two questions follow: why did God let holy things fall into pagan hands, and did they ever come back?
The looting was only the first blow:
Also, all the treasures of the house of God, large and small, and the treasures of Zedekiah and his nobles were taken to Babylon (v. 18). The Chaldeans also burned the house of God, a terrible insult for Judah to have to bear. They broke down the wall of Jerusalem, burned its palaces, and destroyed everything of value in the city (v. 19).
A century earlier King Hezekiah had shown his treasure to visitors from Babylon. God's word to him then is what this verse carries out:
"Behold," says He, "the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the LORD. And some of your own sons ... shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon." Here, I say, Hezekiah was led to see the end of his kingdom, of his house and himself. All was to go to that very Babylon whose ambassadors had ensnared him. Everything in which his poor heart might boast before the men of this world must go to ruin. He had shown his treasures to the world, and the world was about to carry those very treasures away. But the "peace and truth" — in other words, the treasures he had in God — the world could neither give nor take away. That was "a better and an enduring substance" because it was "in heaven."
Why do the 70 years of captivity count from the first deportation, the least damaging of the three?
This matter of the vessels is extremely important. There had been three deportations... The last of these three was the most significant one in terms of the damage done. The temple was burnt, and very large numbers led captive. But the 70 years of captivity count from the first deportation — the one we would call minor. Why was this first one the important one in God's eyes? Well, it's because of the vessels. Nebuchadnezzar had taken the vessels of the Temple to Babylon, and even put them in the house of his idols. Such a thing had never happened before. True, some kings had taken silver from the treasure, and even from the temple doors, to buy off the king of Assyria. Ahaz and Hezekiah did this. But the holy vessels had never been touched.
Losing the vessels meant more than losing property. The same writer brings the loss into our own day:
Without vessels, it was impossible to bring sacrifices as prescribed. No vessels, no worship! This is the tragedy. Does it not remind us of a sad fact? Much of the Christian world has lost the whole idea of worship, above all worship together. Concerts, performances, and all kinds of things have taken the place of meetings for worship.
In pagan hands the vessels lost their place. One writer insists they did not lose their standing with God:
The holy vessels were holy still in God's eyes, however polluted they had been by the sins of His kings and priests. They had served in the house where He had put His name for ever, and where His eyes and His heart would always be (1 Kings 9:3). True, in judgment He had let them share in the captivity of His people. But He could not let the Gentile king and his immoral companions defile them. That would go against all that He was and all that He purposed.
The story does not end in Babylon. One writer notes what came back, and what did not:
The holy vessels were counted and restored, as far as was fitting, for Jehovah's house in Jerusalem. The ark, the centre, the highest in value, the nearest to the glory, was not there. Alas! the glory itself had withdrawn. But in the day that the salvation of Israel comes out of Zion, the glory will return, no more to leave.
- Warned — What Babylon carried away, God's word had already named: nothing left. Judgment kept an appointment made a century before.
- Displayed — Hezekiah paraded his treasure before the world, and the world came back for it. The world cannot loot what you keep in God.
- Silenced — The vessels were not ornaments but working tools. No vessels, no sacrifices; no sacrifices, no worship — the deepest loss in the list.
- Holy — Captivity changed the vessels' address, not their ownership. God let them go down with His people, but He would not let a pagan king defile them.
- Counted — The vessels came home, counted one by one. The ark was missing and the glory gone; both wait for the day God restores them for good.
And they burned the house of God, and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, and burned all the palaces thereof with fire, and all the precious vessels thereof were given up to destruction.
Babylon's army burns God's house, pulls down the city wall, and destroys Jerusalem's treasures. This is the last page of the kingdom of Judah, and it raises the chapter's hardest question: why did God let His own house go up in flames?
The fire did not fall early. Commentators point out that God let the evil run its full course first, and that this is His settled way of acting.
This, we believe, is always God's way. He does not act in judgment until the evil is fully shown. It was so with the Amorite nations, as shown in Genesis 15:16. It was so with the kings and people in Jerusalem, as testified in 2 Chronicles 36:11-20. It will be so again in the sad history of Christendom, as predicted in Revelation 17 and 18.
Foreign soldiers treated the sanctuary as common ground. Judah had treated it that way first.
This proud refusal of both God's goodness and His authority brought on the final attack of the king of the Chaldeans. He killed their young men even in the house of their sanctuary (v. 17). They had no regard for the holiness of the place. But after all, Judah had been guilty of showing contempt for God's house: how could they expect anything better from ungodly nations?
God had put His honour in that temple. While it stood, He had to defend the people who held it. Its fall said what no lesser punishment could say.
This is not a simple treading down of the people by God's permission, as chastisement for their sins. For it to be more than that, the temple is allowed to be thrown down, as it was at the time of the captivity of Babylon. This must happen, so that God may show He has completely abandoned His people to the fruit of their ways. While He owns His honour there, He must stand up in their defence, even while He chastises them. But if that house is destroyed and their city laid flat, then He does leave them to the ripened fruit of their sins — though He may still intend to bring them back.
Babylonian troops lit the fire. But one writer looks past them to the hand really at work.
But even this was not the worst. The ruin and disgrace of their nation were dreadful, because their outward place and blessings came from God in a way that belonged to Israel alone. But what was that compared with His degrading His own earthly dwelling among them! … It was of no use to think about the Chaldeans. It was God who brought Zion and the temple, and their feasts and fasts and sacrifices, with king and priest, to nothing.
The wall and the gates meant more than defence.
This was the fact, and Nebuchadnezzar, through his army, had been the instrument that did it… There is also another meaning. The wall is the symbol of separation, and the wall of separation between Israel and the other nations had been broken down. The gate was the place of judgment, and so its symbol. This teaches us that justice and fairness were no longer given.
More burned than timber and stone. The fire ended a whole arrangement between God and a nation.
At the taking of Jerusalem we see the judgment of God carried out on His people. The ark of the covenant is taken. The house of God is burnt. Royal authority is taken from the family of David, and this until the coming of the true son of David. The Urim and the Thummim of the priesthood are lost. The throne of God is removed from off the earth, and sovereign authority is placed in the hands of the Gentiles.
The ruin had a limit. Its length even settled an old account.
So God fulfilled the word He spoke through Jeremiah. The land of Israel would lie desolate and enjoy the sabbaths it had not enjoyed for years. The people had been greedy: they wanted crops in the seventh year as well as in the six years God had allotted them. God had told them the land would stay desolate for 70 years — the length of Judah's captivity in Babylon (Jer. 25:9-12).
This fire was not the last of its kind.
Corrupt Christendom will be judged no less than corrupt Judaism was… When the truth is falsified and true godliness is gone, what can come but judgment from God? That is all the more true if this false thing bears His holy Name.
- Patience first. God does not strike until evil is fully shown; the fire came at the end of a long delay, not at the start.
- Contempt returned. Judah dishonoured God's house first. Its enemies only acted out what Judah had taught them.
- Sanctuary surrendered. While the temple stood, God defended His people. Its fall showed He had left them to the fruit of their own ways.
- God's hand, not Babylon's. Babylon was only the tool. God Himself brought temple, feasts, king and priest to nothing, and the throne on earth passed to Gentile hands.
- Measured ruin. The land rested as long as the sabbaths it had been denied. God's judgment kept to His word, and that standard still stands over anything that carries His name.