And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth of the month, [that] Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and encamped against it; and they built turrets against it round about.
This verse dates Judah's last chapter to a single day: Babylon's whole army camped against Jerusalem and built siege works. Why did God let an enemy surround the city that held His own house, and why does the record name the very day?
The siege began with Zedekiah's rebellion, not with Babylon's ambition. One writer shows why that rebellion was so serious.
"Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon" (2 Kings 24:20). This act was disgraceful and sacrilegious in the eyes of the Lord. Here is why: Nebuchadnezzar "had made him take an oath by God" (2 Chronicles 36:13). Adding this to all his other sins, this king was breaking an oath made in the name of the Lord. Doing this in front of the idol-worshipping nations, he showed them that he had no regard for the God he claimed to belong to.
Politically the revolt made sense, since everyone hated Babylon's rule. That case collapses once you see whose hand put Babylon there.
Zedekiah's revolt might have had believable political motives in the eyes of the world. As happens today too, it won the sympathy of everyone who chafed under Babylon's yoke. But this yoke was according to God. The Lord announced it in a visible way through the prophet Jeremiah, who walked through the city carrying a wooden yoke on his neck. The king of Judah should have known and remembered this, if he had the least concern to serve the Lord.
The army outside the walls was not God's last word. Prophets kept speaking while the enemy dug in.
You must read the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel to have the complete history — the inner history of the spirit of the people and of the king. It is the history of the condition that drew down the judgment. It is also the history of God's patience. Right up to the taking of the city He kept sending them the most moving calls to repentance — and all in vain. And the times of the Gentiles began.
Even with the siege wall up, God named one way out. The king refused it, and not for military reasons.
Jeremiah told Zedekiah, by the word of the Lord, that if he surrendered to the king of Babylon, he would live and the city would not be burned with fire. If he would not surrender, the city would be burned and he himself would not escape (Jeremiah 38:17-18). But because Zedekiah was afraid of the Jews, he would not surrender.
The same date reached a prophet hundreds of miles away in Babylon, on the day it happened.
The exact date is given by the prophet. It was the tenth day of the tenth month in the ninth year. What happened on that date we find recorded in 2 Kings 25:1... How did Ezekiel know all this? It was the Lord who gave him this information and led him to record the date. That is the statement of the second verse: "Son of man, write down the name of this day, this very day. The king of Babylon has laid siege to Jerusalem this very day."
The fall of one more city to Babylon looked ordinary. It was not.
It was a sad day for many faithful hearts when Jerusalem surrendered to Nebuchadnezzar, and a sadder one when the king's officer destroyed the temple a month later. Both days were kept as fasts for long afterwards. No doubt Nebuchadnezzar had devastated many cities and temples, but the overthrow of Jerusalem was not in the same class with them. Jerusalem was the chosen resting place of the Lord, its sanctuary was His house, and the throne of David was His throne. So handing these over to the enemy meant giving up a divine purpose, at least for a season... But God will be no partner with wrongdoing. He could therefore do no less than discipline His people when their ways became utterly corrupt before Him.
Yet loss is not the last word. God takes the wreckage as an occasion for grace.
The temple is burned. The walls of Jerusalem are broken down. The Gentiles trample the seat of the Lord's throne. What a sorrowful result of His having entrusted His glory to men among whom He had placed His throne!... On the other hand, God will take this as an occasion to display His infinite goodness. In sovereign grace He will restore the very thing man threw down to be profaned.
- Oath. The siege began with a broken promise. Zedekiah swore it to Nebuchadnezzar in God's name, then broke it in full view of the nations.
- Yoke. God set Babylon's rule over Judah, and Jeremiah pictured it by wearing a wooden yoke. Shaking it off was not politics but defiance of the Lord.
- Mercy. Even with the siege wall built, God offered life: surrender and the city stands. Zedekiah refused, held back by fear of men rather than fear of God.
- Day. God gave Ezekiel the exact date in Babylon on the day it happened and told him to write it down. The news came by revelation, not rumour.
- Throne. What fell was not just a city. It was the place God chose for His house and His throne, and Gentile powers took it over — the times of the Gentiles began. Yet grace will restore the very thing man threw down.
And the city was besieged until the eleventh year of king Zedekiah.
From Zedekiah's ninth year to his eleventh, Babylon's army ringed Jerusalem and no one could get out. Those two years show how God warns, waits, and then acts.
The prophet Ezekiel wrote down the exact day the siege began. One writer asks how he could have known it:
The prophet gives the exact date. It was the tenth day of the tenth month in the ninth year... How did Ezekiel know about all this? It was the Lord who gave him this information and led him to record the date. This is what the Lord told him to write: "Son of man, write down the name of this day, this very day. The king of Babylon has laid siege to Jerusalem this very day."
Zedekiah had sworn loyalty to Nebuchadnezzar in God's own name. One writer lists the four charges against him:
"Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon." This was an outrageous and sacrilegious act in the eyes of the Lord. Here is why. Nebuchadnezzar "made him swear by God." And Ezekiel tells us that he "made a covenant with him, putting him under oath." So to all his other sins this king was adding the breaking of an oath made in the name of the Lord. He did this in front of nations that worshipped idols. So he showed them that he had no regard for the God he claimed to belong to. Chronicles records four reasons for the judgment of this king: He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. He did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke to him on the Lord's behalf. He revolted against Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God. He stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against returning to the Lord.
The world had one reading of Zedekiah's revolt. God had another:
Zedekiah's revolt might have had plausible political motives in the eyes of the world. As happens today too, it won the sympathy of all those who chafed under Babylon's yoke. But this yoke was from God. The Lord showed this in a visible way through the prophet Jeremiah, who walked through the city wearing a wooden yoke on his neck. The king of Judah ought to have known and remembered this, if he had the least concern to serve the Lord. But deep down this man, so brave to revolt, was full of terror. He was afraid of compromising himself before the leading men of the people.
The two years were not unbroken. An Egyptian army marched north, and for a moment the siege lifted:
Meanwhile the siege continued, without hope of relief... At length a gleam of hope appeared. An Egyptian army advanced through Phoenicia under their King Hophra, the grandson of Necho. It forced the Chaldeans to lift the siege of Jerusalem. You can imagine the excitement and reaction in Jerusalem. Probably for that reason Jeremiah, who still predicted disaster, was thrown into prison. But the relief of Jerusalem was brief. The Egyptian army had to retreat. The Chaldeans resumed the siege of Jerusalem, and conditions for those inside grew even worse.
Surrender was still open, and it came with a promise:
In the ninth year of Zedekiah's reign Nebuchadnezzar came and besieged Jerusalem. He built a wall around it. Jeremiah told Zedekiah, by the word of the Lord, that if he surrendered to the king of Babylon, he would live and the city would not be burned with fire. But if he refused to surrender, the city would be burned and he would not escape. Yet because Zedekiah was afraid of the Jews, he would not surrender.
The siege was not one more military defeat. It closed an era:
God's patience still waited with the kingdom of Judah. It waited until the sin of David's house made it impossible for Him to bear with them any longer. Jerusalem was taken; the temple was destroyed; and the Jews were carried away captive to Babylon. The throne of God no longer existed at Jerusalem. Power was given into the hands of the Gentiles, and has remained with them until now.
- Dated. God had a prophet record the day the siege began, on the very day it began. This judgment was no accident.
- Deserved. Four charges stood against Zedekiah, including breaking an oath he had sworn in God's own name.
- Refused. Babylon's yoke came from God. Shaking it off looked brave to the world, but it was rebellion against the Lord.
- Delayed. Two years of siege, and a brief Egyptian rescue, gave Zedekiah room to surrender and live. He feared men instead, and used none of it.
- Decided. When God's patience ran out, the throne left Jerusalem and world power passed to the Gentile nations.
On the ninth of the [fourth] month the famine prevailed in the city, and there was no bread for the people of the land.
In Zedekiah's eleventh year, after months of siege, Jerusalem's food ran out. This verse marks the day hunger turned deadly — and it asks how a city chosen by God came to this.
The date in this verse is the end of a slow process, not a sudden blow.
The siege continued for one and a half years, till the 11th year of Zedekiah's reign (v.2). Their food supply ran out (v.3), and at that time the city was broken through.
Hunger was not the only thing at work inside the walls.
It was a terrible siege, lasting eighteen months; famine and pestilence prevailed. Mothers boiled and ate their own children (Lamentations 4:10). At midnight the Babylonians broke into the city and captured the fleeing king.
Zedekiah could have stopped this. God gave him a clear choice through the prophet Jeremiah. Fear of his own people decided it.
Jeremiah told Zedekiah, by the word of the Lord, that if he surrendered to the king of Babylon he would live, and the city would not be burned with fire. If he refused, the city would be burned and Zedekiah himself would not escape (Jeremiah 38:17-18). But Zedekiah feared the Jews, so he would not surrender.
The famine was not an accident of war. Moses had warned Israel that this would come, long before they entered the land.
In Jerusalem's distress, the terrible predictions Moses made (Deuteronomy 28:56-57; Leviticus 26:29) came true again. They had come true several times before as well (2 Kings 6:26-29). When "the hands of the compassionate women" could reach out like this against their own starving children, the famine had clearly done its worst.
Hunger reached the youngest child and the richest noble alike.
The nursing baby's tongue sticks to the roof of its mouth from thirst; little children ask for bread, and no one breaks any for them. That was the pitiful state of children, from the tiniest babies upward. Were the adults any better off? "Those who ate fine food now die in the streets; those who grew up in scarlet now lie on ash heaps." Parents and other adults were starving to death.
Ironside draws a lesson from the same scenes for God's people in any age:
Only in fellowship with God do His people find peace and plenty. Away from Him unrest and famine must result.
The bread was running out for everyone. Yet Zedekiah answered the prophet's plea and had him fed.
Zedekiah, in answer to Jeremiah's plea, does not send him back to the prison cells. He has him put in the court of the guard: "and they gave him daily a loaf of bread ... until all the bread in the city was gone."
The fourth month, named in this verse, became one of Israel's four days of fasting. God's last word about those days is not mourning.
Besides the two fasts mentioned in the previous chapter, we now have the one in the fourth month. In that month the famine took hold and Jerusalem was broken into, as Jeremiah 52:6 records... Now we learn that the day would come when these four fasts would become feasts of rejoicing.
- Bread refused. God offered Zedekiah life and a spared city if he surrendered; fear of men made him say no, and the famine followed.
- Bread foretold. Moses warned Israel of this starvation long before it came. It was a warning fulfilled, not an accident.
- Bread gone. After eighteen months of siege, children begged for bread and no one had any. The rich died in the streets.
- Bread kept. The one man who had spoken God's word received a loaf a day, right up until the city had none left.
- Bread restored. The month became a national fast, and God promised that this very day of mourning will one day be a feast of joy.
And the city was broken into; and all the men of war [fled] by night, by the way of the gate between the two walls, which [leads] to the king's garden (now the Chaldeans were by the city round about); and they went the way toward the plain.
The siege had run eighteen months and the bread was gone. Then the wall of Jerusalem gave way, and the king and his soldiers slipped out by night through a gate near the garden. Two questions hang over that night. Where did they think they could go? And why did the king run, when God had offered him terms?
Verse 4 is the moment the defence collapses. One writer sets the flight directly against the alternative the king had, and then points out how hopeless the plan was:
The siege continued for a year and a half, until the eleventh year of Zedekiah's reign (v.2). Their supply of food ran out (v.3), and at that time the enemy broke into the city. But they would not surrender to the king of Babylon. Instead, all the men of war and Zedekiah tried to escape at night through a gate between two walls (v.4). How did they expect to escape when the army of the Chaldeans surrounded the city?
The gate between the two walls and the king's garden mark a real route out of the city, aimed at the Jordan valley. The enemy already held the other end:
On the ninth day of the fourth month, in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the enemy took the northern suburb. Before the middle gate the Babylonian captains held a council of war. Then the king and all the regular army sought safety in flight during the darkness of the night. Since the Chaldeans held the northern part of the city, they fled southwards. They went between the two walls, out through the "fountain-gate," and past the king's garden, hurrying to reach the Jordan.
This flight was not the king's only option. God had already named the terms, and they were generous:
Jeremiah told Zedekiah, by the word of the Lord, that if he surrendered to the king of Babylon he would live, and the city would not be burned with fire. If he would not surrender, the city would be burned and he would not escape (Jer. 38:17-18). But because of Zedekiah's fear of the Jews, he would not surrender.
Fear ruled this king. He was never in charge of his own capital:
Zedekiah himself persecutes Jeremiah and shuts him up in the court of the prison (Jer. 32:2-3), but in fact it is the king who is the captive of his captains and his princes, and he does not dare resist them. In reality he did not hate Jeremiah. The fear of men pressed him, instead of the fear of the Lord, whom he had despised and dishonoured (Jer. 38:24-28).
This is more than one man's panic. Warnings ignored for years arrive at last, and bold men break:
Hopes founded on man are vain, most of all for God's people when He is morally judging. Unbelief is rich in nothing but devices to fend off submission to God — even more than it fends off conviction. But in the end the moment comes to fulfil the warning they ignored for so long. Then the stout-hearted become cowards, all the more because they have a guilty conscience.
The escape did not defeat God's word. It carried it out — including two predictions that seem to cancel each other:
Both prophets implied that, though he might try to escape, he would be taken. Both affirmed that he must go to Babylon. But Ezekiel predicted, "yet he shall not see it, though he shall die there." Jeremiah predicted, "your eyes shall behold the eyes of the king of Babylon, and he shall speak with you mouth to mouth." … The fugitive king was pursued and overtaken before he crossed the Jordan. At Riblah the king of Babylon judged the matter. He had Zedekiah's sons killed before their guilty father's eyes, then put out Zedekiah's eyes, bound him with chains and carried him to Babylon. So he did not see Babylon, though he went there. Yet he did see the eyes of the angry conqueror, who spoke with him face to face. No word of the Lord falls to the ground.
Not everyone in Jerusalem ran. Those who did the opposite of verse 4 came out alive:
Only a small remnant had their lives saved — those who had received the Lord's message and had handed themselves over to the Chaldeans (2 Kings 25:11). They were the good figs of Jeremiah 24.
- Word given. Jeremiah brought Zedekiah the terms: surrender and live; refuse, and the city burns and you will not escape.
- Word refused. He would not surrender. Fear of his own princes held him, not the fear of the Lord.
- Word evaded. When the wall broke he fled by night through the king's garden. With the enemy ringed around the city, where could he go?
- Word fulfilled. They caught him before the Jordan. He saw the king of Babylon's eyes, then lost his own — and so never saw Babylon. Two prophecies, both true.
- Word obeyed. Those who gave themselves up, as God had said, kept their lives. Obedience, not escape, was the way out.
And the army of the Chaldeans pursued after the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered from him.
The Chaldean army has Jerusalem surrounded, and King Zedekiah slips out of the city by night toward the Jordan. Verse 5 tells what happened next: the chase, the capture near Jericho, and an army that scattered from its king.
The king ran rather than surrender. One writer asks the obvious question about that choice:
But instead of surrendering to the king of Babylon, all the men of war and Zedekiah sought to escape at night by way of a gate between two walls. How did they expect to escape when the army of the Chaldeans surrounded the city? At least, Zedekiah and his sons were caught, though others of his men were scattered from him.
Zedekiah was not running blind. The prophet had already told him how to save his life, his house and the city.
Had not the prophet given Zedekiah this promise? If he went out to the king of Babylon's princes, he and his house would live, and the city would not be burned with fire. Sadly, this is one of the effects of the evil heart that turns away from the living God. It always seems to forget the word just when the word is needed most. It feels the force of that word only after it has taken up some new plan of its own, as disappointing as all the ones before. How bitter to remember too late that everything the heart clung to must be given up to vengeance and the enemy! The ruin about to follow is the fruit of one's own folly.
His dealings with the prophet followed a pattern. He asked for prayer, he asked for prophecy, then refused what came back:
He was hypocritical also. He pretended to want the prophet's prayers, saying, "Please pray to the LORD our God for us." At times he also pretended to trust Jeremiah's prophecies: "Inquire of the LORD for us." But when those prophecies came, he refused to heed or believe them.
The Chaldean army caught him. Long before, Ezekiel had described that capture as God's own act.
Ezekiel says: "And the prince who is among them shall lift his baggage upon his shoulder at dusk, and shall go out. They shall dig through the wall to bring him out through it. He shall cover his face, that he may not see the land with his eyes. And I will spread My net over him, and he shall be taken in My snare. And I will bring him to Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans, yet he shall not see it, and he shall die there."
Two prophecies about Zedekiah's end look like they clash.
Ezekiel foretold that he would not see Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans, though he would die there. Jeremiah foretold that his eyes would see the eyes of the king of Babylon. To a shallow reader this might look hard to reconcile, even a contradiction. But such a thought would only be ignorance, and irreverence too. Each prophet gave out from God beforehand what the events themselves fulfilled. The Chaldeans pursued the fleeing king and overtook him before he crossed the Jordan. At Riblah the king of Babylon judged his case. He had Zedekiah's sons killed in front of their guilty father's eyes, then put out Zedekiah's eyes, bound him with chains and carried him to Babylon. So he did not see Babylon, though he went there; yet he did see the eyes of the angry conqueror, who spoke with him face to face. No word of the Lord falls to the ground.
The capture cost more than a battle. It took away the man the people had expected to live under.
The Babylonians had captured the king, despite his effort to escape with a few loyal attendants. "The breath of our nostrils, the LORD's anointed, was captured in their pits, of whom we said, 'Under his shadow we shall live among the nations.'" Not until the true Anointed of the Lord comes will there be a ruler under whose shadow His people can live in perfect security.
Even here, the sentence had a limit.
Only, according to the word of the prophet, he does not die a violent death. The Lord takes notice of the least sign of turning in this poor king. Zedekiah had shown a moment of pity for the servant of the Lord and had listened to his word. Yet he lacked the courage to follow that word, and the faith to humble himself before God.
- Word refused. Zedekiah asked Jeremiah for prayer and for prophecy. Then he refused the answer. That refusal put him on the road to Jericho.
- Word forgotten. A heart turned from God forgets the promise just when it would have saved. Zedekiah ran from the one surrender that would have spared his life and his house.
- Word enacted. The Chaldean pursuit was God's net, spread beforehand in Ezekiel's picture of the prince taken in a snare.
- Word verified. Two sayings that look opposed came true in one event. Zedekiah met the eyes of Babylon's king at Riblah, and never saw Babylon itself.
- Word tempered. The capture cost Judah its shelter. Yet Zedekiah did not die a violent death, and the shelter the people longed for still waits for the true Anointed.
And they took the king, and brought him up to the king of Babylon unto Riblah; and they pronounced judgment upon him,
The last king in David's line ends his reign as a prisoner. He stands in an enemy war camp far from Jerusalem, waiting for a Gentile king to sentence him. Two questions run through the chapter: why did it come to this, and whose judgment did Riblah really carry out?
The march to Riblah began with a broken promise. Zedekiah had sworn a covenant with Nebuchadnezzar. One writer ties the ruin to the king's contempt for that oath:
"Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon." He had no real faith in Jehovah, Israel's covenant-keeping God, and so he had no scruples about breaking his covenant with Nebuchadnezzar. But how dearly he paid for violating his oath!
The same writer names what Zedekiah leaned on, and where his captors took him:
The occasion of this rebellion was Zedekiah's hope of help from the king of Egypt (see Ezekiel 17:11-21)… He was brought, with his sons, to Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah. That was "on the high road between Palestine and Babylon, where the Babylonian kings stayed while directing the operations of their armies in Palestine and Phoenicia."
"They passed sentence upon him" describes something formal. The king of Judah was tried:
But their flight could not go unnoticed. They were pursued and overtaken in the plains of Jericho. The soldiers scattered in various directions. But the king himself and his household were taken captive and carried to the headquarters at Riblah, where Nebuchadnezzar himself was at the time. Here Zedekiah was formally charged and sentenced.
Two prophecies about Zedekiah seem to clash. One had him meeting the king of Babylon face to face. The other said he would never see Babylon. Riblah is where both came true:
Even more remarkable, another prophet was given this word to prophesy: that Zedekiah's eyes would be put out, and that he would not see Babylon. "And I will bring him to Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans, yet he shall not see it, and he shall die there." (Ezekiel 12:13.) Both are true. His eyes did not see the king of Babylon in Babylon. He was taken prisoner in "the plains of Jericho." From there they brought him to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath.
Jeremiah had offered Zedekiah a way out, and he took his own way instead. The same writer shows how such a heart acts in a crisis:
A spirit that has given in to man's thoughts against God's word remembers very little in the moment of greatest need. It is solemn to see how it forgets what might even then have saved city, people and prince alike. Had not the prophet assured Zedekiah that if he went out to the king of Babylon's princes, he and his house would live, and the city would not be burned with fire? Sadly, this is one of the effects of the evil heart that turns away from the living God: it always seems to forget the word just when the word is needed most… How bitter to remember too late that everything the heart clung to must be handed over to vengeance and the enemy. The destruction soon to follow is the fruit of one's own folly.
Riblah was more than one man's downfall. One writer treats the fall of Jerusalem as a turning point:
Nebuchadnezzar overthrew Jerusalem and carried Judah away captive. After that, everything changed. Royal authority did not pass from the house of David to some other family in Israel, as it had passed from Saul and his house to David and his descendants. No; the covenant with David and his descendants is not broken. Far from it. The captivity was part of the chastening promised in the covenant if David's children failed to walk in his steps. But there was a transfer of power, a transfer from Israel altogether to the Gentiles.
Even in a sentence this severe, one commentator finds a possible mercy in the words "until I visit him" (Jeremiah 32:5):
It is more fitting to take the expression to mean that God in mercy would visit him with repentance and a true knowledge of Himself, as He did with Manasseh before him. How often God has used the stern hand of His government to break down the pride and rebellion of the heart! Through such a "visitation" He secures for the repentant soul the truest liberty of all — deliverance from the bondage of sin. So his soul would be set free, though his body stayed in chains.
- Sentence earned — Zedekiah stood at Riblah because he broke a sworn covenant while leaning on Egypt instead of God.
- Sentence formal — his captors did not cut him down in flight; they charged him and judged him, a king tried in a foreign camp.
- Sentence foretold — the trial fulfilled both prophecies at once: he saw the king of Babylon's face, yet never saw Babylon.
- Sentence avoidable — Jeremiah had promised life if he surrendered; the ruin was the fruit of his own choice.
- Sentence larger than one man — power passed from Israel to the Gentiles. Yet God's covenant with David stood, and even the blinded king might still meet God's mercy.
and slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him with chains of brass, and carried him to Babylon.
Zedekiah's last moment as a seeing man was also the last moment of the kingdom of Judah. One verse ends the line of kings that began with David. Did God's promise to David end with it?
Zedekiah faced a trial before the sentence fell, and his daughters went free.
They took the king himself and his household captive and carried them to the headquarters at Riblah, where Nebuchadnezzar was at the time. Here Zedekiah faced a formal trial, and the sentence went against him. They set his daughters free, but killed his sons in front of him. It was the last sight the king saw. They put out his eyes, bound him hand and foot with double chains of brass, and carried him to Babylon.
Another writer gives the literal force of the words: his eyes were "dug" out of their sockets (C. Knapp).
This was not random Babylonian cruelty. Zedekiah had sworn an oath by God and then broken it.
While David's throne stood, it was still "the throne of the LORD," however weak and shameful its kings might be. The last king, Zedekiah, brought on the ruin by his treachery. Nebuchadnezzar "made him swear by God" (2 Chronicles 36:13), but he "despised the oath by breaking the covenant" (Ezekiel 17:17-18). Nothing was sacred in his eyes.
Jeremiah said Zedekiah would look the king of Babylon in the eye. Ezekiel said he would go to Babylon but never see it. This verse is where both come true at once.
Both prophets implied that he would be caught, even if he tried to escape. Both said he must go to Babylon. Ezekiel predicted that he would not see it, though he would die there. Jeremiah predicted that his eyes would see the eyes of the king of Babylon, and that the king would speak with him face to face. At first glance the two look hard to square, even contradictory... So he did not see Babylon, though he went there; yet he did see the eyes of the angry conqueror who spoke with him face to face. No word of the Lord falls to the ground.
Zedekiah stayed in prison until he died. Yet Jeremiah had also said "until I visit him," and commentators read hope into that phrase.
It fits better to take the words this way: God in mercy would visit him with repentance and a true knowledge of Himself, as He did with Manasseh before him. How often God has used the stern hand of His government to break down the pride and rebellion of the heart! Through such a "visitation" He gives the repentant soul the truest liberty of all — deliverance from the bondage of sin. So his soul would go free, though his body stayed in prison.
The same mercy shows in how he died. God spared Zedekiah a violent death. One writer sees the Lord "paying heed to the least bit of evidence of turning in this poor king." Zedekiah "had shown a moment of pity for the servant of the Lord and had listened to his word, although he lacked the courage to follow it" (H. L. Rossier).
The physical blinding of the last king carries a wider meaning.
How solemn a judgment for a king of Judah! But it is a picture of Israel's eyes being blinded today because of unbelief (Romans 11:7-8). That spiritual blindness has lasted ever since their scattering among the Gentiles.
God had told David his throne would stand for ever. This verse seems to bury that word in chains.
The last king of Judah was taken captive to Babylon. He was blinded, bound in brass chains and carried in disgrace to that city. Was God's promise overthrown? It was not. If the record of David's seed ended in total failure, then another seed of David must come. Only then can God's promise to David be fulfilled. That Seed has surely come.
God emptied the throne on purpose, not by accident.
Every other hand has proved unfit to hold this sceptre, which God is taking from the line of David for a time. But there is One who has the right, and He will press His claim to it... How we forget that the overturning is not against His right — it has His right in view.
- Oath — Zedekiah swore by God to Babylon and then broke his word. The throne he sat on was the Lord's, so his treachery struck at God before it struck at Nebuchadnezzar.
- Sight — the death of his sons was the last thing his eyes ever saw. The sentence fell in the exact shape the prophets had described.
- Word — Jeremiah and Ezekiel sounded like they contradicted each other. Riblah made both true to the letter. No word of the Lord falls to the ground.
- Mercy — even here God noted the little good in this king. He spared him a violent death, and one writer reads His promise to "visit him" as repentance that frees the soul while the body stays in chains.
- Throne — David's seat was not destroyed but emptied. The overturning waits for the One whose right it is, and God's promise to David is fulfilled in Him.
And in the fifth month, on the seventh of the month, which was in the nineteenth year of king Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, Nebuzar-adan, captain of the body-guard, servant of the king of Babylon, came unto Jerusalem;
The date in this verse is exact: a month, a day, a named officer, and a foreign king's year on the throne. What arrived in Jerusalem that day was not just an army. It was the end of a warning God had repeated for generations.
One commentator traces what happened next, and notes that the day was never forgotten:
After the flight and capture of the king, the city could not long hold out. A month later, on the seventh day of the fifth month (Ab), Nebuzar-adan ("Nebo gave posterity") forced his way into the city. The temple was set on fire, and the king's palace with it. The whole city became ruins and ashes, and the walls that had defended it came down. After three days the work of destruction was finished. Ever afterwards the people mourned the 10th (9th) of Ab as the fatal day of Jerusalem's fall.
Years earlier, Jeremiah had warned that God would do to the temple what He once did to Shiloh. One writer points to this day as the moment those words came true:
Again, the temple worship seemed to be flourishing on the outside. But the Lord had laid Shiloh waste, the place where He first set His Name. So, said the prophet, it would be done to this house too, because of their wickedness (Jer. 7:11–14). This too came to pass (2 Kings 25:8–17).
Could the building itself keep God committed to them? One writer answers from what had already happened to Shiloh:
What was Shiloh now? God had profaned it: and God would do the very same thing where the ark was now placed, where the sanctuary was in Jerusalem. God could never bind Himself to maintain an empty form. The temple was a beautiful picture of His truth, but He would hold it up no longer, since the state of the people and of the priests was the most offensive evil under the sun in His eyes.
Nebuzaradan came as an officer of Babylon. One writer points to the hand behind him, and to a departure that happened before any torch was lit:
The glory was leaving, not coming to live there. Jehovah is leaving the seat He chose for Himself — not leaving it for ever, for He has chosen it for ever. But for now the sins of His own people, and their turning away from Him, drive Him out... Whatever He might do at other times, it was clearly Jehovah who directed the sweeping destruction of His own city and sanctuary.
The glory was already gone. What Babylon seized was an empty shell:
The temple is void; the glory has departed from it! The golden cherubim spread their wings over a forsaken mercy-seat and over a broken law, but it was all in vain. The One who had filled that throne of glory until a short time before had now left it. Nebuchadnezzar could take possession of the temple the way a man takes possession of a corpse.
The fire closed one chapter and opened another that is still running:
At the taking of Jerusalem, then, we see the judgment of God carried out on His people. The ark of the covenant taken. The house of God burnt. Its royal authority 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 lost. The throne of God removed from off the earth. And sovereign authority placed in the hands of the Gentiles.
Nebuchadnezzar had a reason for burning the temple. One writer turns that reason into a question for readers today:
He saw that the Jews must have no centre to gather around, so the temple, built in such splendour in the time of Solomon, was destroyed by fire. What is there in Christendom that would answer to this? God's true Centre in the Church is Christ Himself. But is this realised today in the professing church?
- Warned. God had said through Jeremiah that He would do to this house what He did to Shiloh. He did it.
- Emptied. The glory left the house before any torch was lit. Babylon laid hold of the temple the way a man lays hold of a corpse.
- Directed. Nebuzaradan held the torch, but it was Jehovah who "directed the sweeping destruction of His own city and sanctuary."
- Directed. Nebuzaradan held the torch, but it was Jehovah who "directed the sweeping destruction of His own city and sanctuary."
- Applied. No building, however grand, keeps God present. He will not "maintain an empty form." The true centre is Christ Himself.
and he burned the house of Jehovah, and the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; and every great [man's] house he burned with fire.
The siege of Jerusalem ends in fire, not in a surrender deal. Nebuzaradan, an officer of the king of Babylon, burns the temple, the royal palace, and every great house in the city. The hardest question is why God let His own house — the place where He had set His name — go up in flames.
Babylon lit the fire, but commentators read the event as God's own act of giving the city up. Writing on Jeremiah's warning to Zedekiah, William Kelly says that fighting back was useless. The real opponent was not Babylon:
The Lord then told him to speak to Zedekiah king of Judah, on His own behalf. He assured him that He would "give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire." To fight it out was to resist the Lord Himself. Nebuchadnezzar was not the only one taking Jerusalem. The LORD was giving up the city and their king of the house of David — a most solemn sign of His displeasure.
Kelly also notes the title God gives the conqueror in Jeremiah. It had belonged to Judah's own king:
It was no longer Zedekiah, My servant, but Nebuchadnezzar, My servant. The children of Israel and of Judah were about to lose their special place as His nation, too. Being His servant was now no longer a special honour; it simply meant being used in God's control of events. Nebuchadnezzar, the idol-worshipping Gentile, could be His servant in that way as much as anyone else.
This burning was not a sudden stroke:
Here was the carrying out of God's judgment, which He had foretold long before and long delayed in His patience.
H. J. Vine points out how unlikely the prediction must have sounded when it was made, with temple worship still running smoothly — and that the fire matched the word exactly:
On the surface, everything about the temple worship seemed to be flourishing. But the Lord had laid Shiloh waste, the first place where He set His Name. The prophet said He would do the same to this house, because of their wickedness (Jer. 7:11-14). This too came to pass (2 Kings 25:8-17).
The people treated the sanctuary as a guarantee of safety. Kelly describes what they trusted, and the terms God offered instead:
Danger was closing in, and they were trusting neither in God nor in His word. They trusted lying words of their own: that the outward forms would be enough to hold back the Gentile invader. "Do not trust in these deceptive words: 'This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.' For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another… then I will let you dwell in this place."
The verse names the house of the LORD first, before the palace and the great houses. That order matters:
Judgment must begin at the house of God. It always begins there. The greater the privilege, the greater the responsibility. Being outwardly near to God while the heart is far away only invites judgment all the more.
The fire took the great houses too — the homes of the city's officials. Leslie Grant sees a deliberate plan in the choice of targets, and applies it to the church today:
Nebuchadnezzar seems to have had no more hope that Judah would be subject to him. So he sent his servant Nebuzaradan to Jerusalem to burn the house of the Lord, the king's house and all the houses of the officials (v.9). He realised the Jews must have no centre of gathering. So fire destroyed the temple, that splendid building from Solomon's day. What is there in Christendom that would answer to this? God's true Centre in the Church is Christ Himself.
The verse ends a history, but not God's dealings with the people:
Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the temple, burning it to the ground and carrying away its golden vessels to Babylon, with the people. In mercy, after seventy years of captivity, God brings a remnant of the people back to Jerusalem, and they rebuild the temple.
- Privilege — Judah stood nearest to God. Nearness raises responsibility; it never lowers it.
- Presumption — They leaned on the building, not on God. They repeated "the temple of the LORD" as if stone could stop an army.
- Patience — God foretold this judgment long before, and He held it back long, before the fire ever touched the roof.
- Purging — Judgment began at the sanctuary and worked outward. It left the people no centre to gather around.
- Pardon — Seventy years later a remnant returned and rebuilt the house. The fire ended a building, not God's mercy.
And all the army of the Chaldeans that were with the captain of the body-guard broke down the walls of Jerusalem round about.
Jerusalem's siege ends with demolition, not battle: soldiers pull down the city wall on every side. Two questions follow — whose hand was behind it, and what is left for a people with no walls?
Losing the wall left the city with no defence. One writer sees the same loss in the church today:
Besides this, the army of the Chaldeans broke down the walls of Jerusalem all around, so that the city would have no protection from raiders (v.10). In the same way today, in the professing church, the wall of separation has been broken down, so that unbelievers have easily come in to do damage.
The Chaldeans swung the hammers. One writer names another hand behind theirs, and finds comfort in it:
The prophet insists that it was the Lord who had done the work of destruction, because of His people's sin. The nations might boast of their power over Jerusalem, but the work was His. "The Lord has done what He purposed; He has carried out His word, which He commanded long ago; He has thrown down without pity; He has made the enemy rejoice over you and exalted the might of your foes." Sorrowful, most sorrowful, that His hand had done it all. Yet it is a comfort to faith, for this is the hand that can and will build up again for His name's sake.
The army that broke the wall belonged to Nebuchadnezzar. The title he now carried had once belonged to Judah's own king:
This last is a remarkable word. It was no longer Zedekiah, My servant, but Nebuchadnezzar, My servant. The children of Israel and of Judah were about to lose their special place as His nation too. It was now a question, not of being His servant as a special honour, but merely in providence. Nebuchadnezzar, the idol-worshipping Gentile, could be His servant in this way as much as anyone else.
The ruin was foretold while Jerusalem still looked safe. One writer asks how such a prediction would sound today:
In Josiah's day, things looked very prosperous at Jerusalem. Still, the prophet announced over the city "disaster from the north, and great destruction" (Jer. 4:6). This was exactly fulfilled, but we tend to overlook how miraculous it was. Suppose someone insisted today that enemies would capture and destroy a great capital city. Most people would smile and dismiss the idea. If it then happened, their doubt would only make the fulfilment more striking.
The warning ran back further than Jeremiah:
This was no hasty chastening. From the earliest days the Lord had threatened and predicted through Moses what Jeremiah sets out in his Lamentations. Compare Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28.
The stones were not the whole story. One writer draws out what a wall and a gate stood for:
"The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire." This was the fact, and Nebuchadnezzar had been the instrument, through his army, to bring it about. There is, however, another meaning. The wall is the symbol of separation; and, as we have seen, the wall of separation between Israel and the nations had been broken down. The gate was the place, and so the emblem, of judgment; and we are taught by this that no one was administering justice and fairness any more.
The gates burned as well. One writer asks whether ruined walls and gates can be repaired now:
The gates stand for the principles of truth: they let in what should be in and keep out what should be out. What a picture, then, of those gates burned — that is, deliberately destroyed! Do we see such things in professing Christendom today? Sadly, it is true almost everywhere. Can we repair these walls and gates? Certainly not in all of Christendom; but we can do so in whatever small sphere of responsibility the Lord may give us.
- Wall — the stones around Jerusalem were its whole defence. Once they fell, the city lay open to anyone.
- Hand — the Chaldeans did the breaking, but Scripture assigns the work to the Lord, doing what He had said long before.
- Servant — the title once carried by Judah's king passed to Nebuchadnezzar; Judah's special place went with it.
- Warning — the prophets named this ruin while the city still looked prosperous, and it came just as they said.
- Rebuilt — the hand that threw the wall down can build it again. Our own repair work starts in whatever small sphere the Lord gives us.
And Nebuzar-adan the captain of the body-guard carried away captive the rest of the people that were left in the city, and the deserters that had deserted to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the multitude.
Jerusalem has fallen, the temple is ash, and Nebuzaradan, commander of the Babylonian guard, marches the last of its people off to Babylon. Among them are the deserters who had already gone over to the enemy — and they are the ones who lived.
One commentator describes the city's last days and names who was taken:
The Babylonians set the temple on fire, and the king's palace too. They reduced the whole city to ruins and ashes and broke down the walls that had defended it (2 Kings 25:9, 10). Three days later the work of destruction was complete. Ever after, people mourned the 10th (9th) of Ab as the fatal day of Jerusalem's fall (Jer. 52:12; Zech. 7:3, 5, 8:19). … We can hardly be wrong to see these captives as most of the civilian population of Jerusalem and Judah.
The deserters did not simply run. They had heard something first:
Only a small remnant who had received the Lord's message and had delivered themselves over to the Chaldeans had their lives saved (2 Kings 25:11). They were the excellent figs of Jeremiah 24.
That message came at a price. The city's officials wanted the man who preached it dead:
"Thus says the Lord: He who stays in this city shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence. But he who goes out to the Chaldeans shall live; he shall have his life as a prize of war, and live." … So the officials said to the king, "Let this man be put to death. He weakens the hands of the soldiers who remain in this city, and the hands of all the people, by speaking such words to them. This man does not seek the welfare of this people, but harm."
Walking out to the besieging army looked like betraying your own nation. The same writer explains why it was the opposite:
The Lord meant their exile to be for their eventual good. In a day of ruin faith always recognises the chastening of God and bows to it. Unbelief always resists, and counts it patriotism or perhaps religion to oppose. For this reason Jeremiah seemed, in the eyes of the men of Judah, a very false Jew. He always advised them to submit to the king of Babylon. They thought themselves much better Jews, because they were willing to fight against the king of Babylon.
Emptying the land served a purpose. It reached back to a command Israel had ignored: let the farmland rest every seventh year.
So God's word through Jeremiah came true. The land of Israel would be left empty, to enjoy the sabbaths it had not enjoyed for years. The people were greedy and wanted crops in the seventh year as well as in the six years God had allotted them. So God had told them through Jeremiah that the land would stay empty for 70 years — the length of Judah's captivity in Babylon (Jer. 25:9-12).
This deportation did more than end a kingdom. It moved the seat of authority on earth:
God still waited patiently with the kingdom of Judah. Then the sin of David's house made it impossible for Him to bear with either any longer. Jerusalem fell, the temple was destroyed, and the Jews were carried captive to Babylon. The throne of God no longer existed at Jerusalem. Power passed into the hands of the Gentiles, and it has stayed with them until now. With Nebuchadnezzar, the times of the Gentiles began, and so did the captivity and scattering of the Jews.
The chapter reads like an ending. One writer sees it closing man's story, not God's:
The people are carried away to Babylon. The priests and those who had helped with the resistance die a violent death at Riblah. The last traces of Judah's power and wealth disappear after this attack. Even the two pillars of the temple are broken in pieces and carried to Babylon, along with all the brass, the gold and the silver of the house of God. … So ends the history of man, placed under responsibility before God. God must give him up — but His promises are not withdrawn. He will re-establish the reign of His anointed upon these two marvellous pillars, and this reign will be unshakeable.
- Sin. Real guilt emptied the land. Israel had ignored God's command to let the ground rest, and the seventy years abroad collected that unpaid rest.
- Sentence. Everyone left in the city went to Babylon. Most were ordinary civilians, taken after the temple and the walls had fallen.
- Surrender. The deserters lived because they believed a warning: stay and die, go out to the Chaldeans and live. Obedience, not the city wall, was the safe place.
- Shift. This captivity ended God's throne at Jerusalem. Authority passed to the Gentile powers, and it has stayed there ever since.
- Sureness. Man's record under responsibility ends in ruin here. God's promise does not end, and the reign He will set up cannot be shaken.
But the captain of the body-guard left of the poor of the land for vinedressers and husbandmen.
Judah's capital lay in ruins, and its leading citizens were gone. Why did the captain of the guard leave a handful of the poorest to work the land, and what does that say about God's dealings with His people?
The verse closes a national collapse. King, temple and city were gone. Only the poorest layer of society stayed.
The temple was burned to the ground. Only a miserable remnant of the nation was left in the land — "the poor" — to be vinedressers and plowmen (2 Kings 25:12). Rebellion arose even among these. In fear of the Chaldeans they fled to the land of Egypt, only to perish miserably there, as Jeremiah had faithfully warned them, with tears.
Even the survivors did not survive well.
Commentators point to this moment as the start of a long period in which Israel no longer holds power over itself.
The end of 2 Kings tells how Nebuchadnezzar's captain of the guard destroyed Solomon's temple and razed Jerusalem to the ground. He broke down its walls and burned its palaces and houses. He deported all the Jews, except for leaving a few of "the poorest of the land to be vinedressers and plowmen" (2 Kings 25:12). It was then that the Times of the Gentiles began — the time when the Jewish nation came under Gentile domination.
Another writer weighs what that handover cost: a nation given every advantage, and pardoned once before.
So the history of Israel's downfall ends in mercy — but in a mercy that recognises that power has passed into the hands of the Gentiles. This was the downfall of a people placed in the most favourable circumstances. God could say to them, "What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it?" They were a people who had already been pardoned once... The long-suffering of God, the restoration He had granted them, the establishment of the house of David in grace, all was fruitless.
The parallel account in Jeremiah gives more detail, and one writer reads the selection of the poor as something more than military calculation.
The poorest are permitted to remain and were treated mercifully. God remembers the poor and they are spared. As far as we know, these poor people, who had nothing, were the godly ones, those who wept over the conditions and who cried to God for help. Their prayer, the prayer of the needy, was answered.
Commentators differ here: Knapp, above, sees the same group rebelling soon after.
The Babylonian officer thought he was tidying up a conquest. Another writer sees a promise buried in the arrangement, noting that Jeremiah's version adds that these landless people were actually given the vineyards and fields.
Still, the clearance was not complete. The poor did not fail in the land; some were left in it. They were a pledge — little as the foreigner thought it — of the return of a poor remnant, and of a nation yet to be poor in spirit. That will be when God brings back the captivity of His people, and Jacob shall rejoice and Israel shall be glad.
Those left behind were placed under a governor and told to work the land in submission to Babylon. One writer treats that submission as the right response, and draws a lesson from it.
It was God who had put them in that position because of Judah's previous guilt, and faith could only bow to it... rebellion would have been rebellion against God. So too in Christendom, because of the sad failure in testimony, God has allowed confusion (the meaning of Babylon) to take possession of the church publicly, and it is only right that we bow to the shame of our confusion.
A quiet season followed the collapse.
For this poor remnant there was a respite of several months. They gathered wine and summer fruits in great abundance (Jer. 40:12). People even seem to have honoured the worship of the Lord again, at a time when the temple lay completely destroyed and ruined.
- Emptied — the temple burned, the city fell, and only a miserable remnant stayed to tend vines and fields.
- Transferred — the Times of the Gentiles begin here. Power over Jerusalem passes to the Gentiles, after long patience and by mercy.
- Remembered — God remembered the poor, who had nothing, and spared them; one writer reads them as the godly who cried to Him.
- Pledged — the poor left in the land were a hidden pledge: a poor remnant will return, and a nation will yet be poor in spirit.
- Bowed — God had put them under Babylon for Judah's guilt. Faith could only bow; rebellion here would have been rebellion against God.
And the brazen pillars that were in the house of Jehovah, and the bases, and the brazen sea that was in the house of Jehovah, the Chaldeans broke in pieces, and carried the brass thereof to Babylon.
This verse reads like a list of scrap metal. Yet each item named had stood at Solomon's temple for centuries, and each one carried meaning. So why did God let the Chaldeans smash His own furnishings and haul them off? And did anything they stood for survive?
The two bronze pillars had names, and the names were promises. One writer notes that those promises were never meant to describe the state of things at the time:
The pillars were named Jachin (on the right) and Boaz (on the left) of the entry. Jachin means "He shall establish." This is a promise that God will one day establish His house, because He was not establishing it then. Israel's unfaithfulness later brought that house down, but God's promise for the future remains. Boaz means "in Him is strength." Israel's weakness led to ruin and failure, but the Lord Jesus is still the strong One who will do the will of God perfectly.
The pillars did not fall by accident:
Even the two pillars of the temple are broken in pieces and carried away to Babylon. So is all the bronze, the gold and the silver of the house of God. The Lord had been despised. What did Jachin and Boaz still have to do at Jerusalem? Judah's unfaithfulness had driven away the strength that was in the Lord. God had destroyed it instead of establishing it. So ends the history of man, placed under responsibility before God. God must give him up — but His promises do not change. He will re-establish the reign of His anointed on these two marvellous pillars. That reign will be unshakeable.
The bronze sea was a huge basin, and both its stand and its use carried meaning:
The Sea matches the washing basin of the tabernacle, but how much greater! It was about 15 feet across and 7½ feet high. Twelve bronze oxen carried it, all facing outward, three toward each point of the compass. In this way they stood for the 12 tribes of Israel. The oxen speak of lowly, patient service. The priests washed in the Sea, symbolising the moral cleansing necessary for carrying out their service.
The verse names the metal three times. Bronze carried its own meaning, tied to where it was used:
Bronze is the symbol of the righteousness of God, showing on earth what He is for sinful man. The temple furniture was gold. The furniture of the court was bronze, cast in the earth.
Where the bronze ended up matters too, and one writer draws a line to our own day:
The bronze pillars and the bronze sea were broken in pieces to be taken to Babylon… There was so much bronze in these many articles that it was beyond measure. All these things were God's property, and they picture what only faith can truly take hold of. But when they went to Babylon (which means "confusion"), they were put in connection with idol worship. Today too, false religion has taken for itself what belongs to God and uses it for its own unholy profit.
The plunder of the temple ended one era and began another:
In time the terrible day came. The Lord could no longer put up with the evil nation, and He gave everything up to destruction. With sorrow of heart the inspired writer tells how the famous pillars Jachin and Boaz were broken up, along with the bases, the cast metal sea and the twelve bronze bulls. All of it was then loaded up as scrap in a dismal convoy of wagons and carried off to Babylon! This is how "the times of the Gentiles" began, and they are not ended yet. Israel still bleeds, and the nations of the earth find no rest. Oh, the folly of sin against God!
What went to Babylon did not stay there. Later a Persian king sent the temple articles back, counted out one by one:
More important still, King Cyrus acted over the articles that Nebuchadnezzar had taken from Jerusalem. He had them brought out of the temple of his idols, to send them back to their rightful place. He knew that Babylon's idols were not God. The Persian treasurer, Mithredath, counted these out to Sheshbazzar the prince of Judah. The record of them was faithfully kept… The total number of gold and silver articles was 5,400.
- Establish — Jachin meant "He shall establish." It was a promise about the future, not a picture of Israel at that time. So the pillar could fall and the promise still stand.
- Strength — Boaz meant "in Him is strength." Judah's unfaithfulness drove that strength away, and God destroyed the pillars instead of establishing them.
- Confusion — the pillars, stands and sea were God's property, yet they ended up in Babylon among idols. One writer applies this to false religion that still profits from what belongs to God.
- Gentiles — the convoy of broken bronze opened the times of the Gentiles, a period writers say is not yet over.
- Counted — Cyrus brought the vessels out of the idol temple and had them counted back to Judah. God's last word is the pillars' word: He will yet establish the reign of His anointed.
The cauldrons also and the shovels and the knives and the cups, and all the vessels of copper wherewith they ministered, they took away.
Verse 14 reads like an inventory clerk's list of small metal objects, all carried off to Babylon. Why does Scripture record such small items at all? And what does it mean that the tools of God's own service ended up in pagan hands?
These were not the temple's golden showpieces. The metal they were made of shows where they were used.
Verse 11 mentions pots, shovels and bowls, and verse 16 tells us they were made of polished bronze (or copper). So they were used outside the temple, with the sacrifices and the fire provided for the sacrifices. The furniture inside the temple was either solid gold or covered with gold.
The vessels shared the people's captivity, and one writer sees the sting in that.
The Babylonians carried the vessels away into captivity. How moving it is to think that things once dedicated to the service of God were now in the grip of the pagans, held for the sinister religion of Babylon.
Several deportations stripped Jerusalem. One writer asks which of them counted most in God's reckoning.
Three deportations took place, and the last of them did the most damage. The temple was burnt, and very large numbers were led captive. But the 70 years of captivity count from the first deportation — the one we would call relatively unimportant. Why was this first one the important one in God's eyes? It's because of the vessels. Nebuchadnezzar had taken the vessels of the Temple to Babylon, and even put them into the house of his idols. Such a thing had never happened before. True, some kings had taken silver from the treasury, and even from the door panels of the temple, to buy off the king of Assyria. But no one had ever touched the holy vessels.
Captivity did not change what these things were in God's eyes. One writer explains why a Babylonian king's drinking party became a direct insult to God.
The crowning sin of this drinking party was the direct insult Belshazzar offered to the God of Israel, the God of heaven. The holy vessels were still holy in God's eyes, however much the sins of His kings and priests had polluted them. They had been used in the house where He had put His name for ever, the house where His eyes and His heart were always to be. True, in judgment He had let them share the captivity of His people. But He could not let the Gentile king and his immoral companions defile them. That would have gone against everything He was and everything He purposed.
One writer sees the same pattern at work today.
All these things were God's property. They are pictures of what only faith can truly take hold of. But when they were carried to Babylon — a name that means "confusion" — they were put in connection with idol worship. False religion does the same today. It takes over what belongs to God and uses it for its own unholy profit.
The raid also broke up the temple's two great pillars, Jachin and Boaz. One writer reads their fall as the end of one story — but not of God's promises.
Even the two pillars of the temple are broken in pieces and carried away to Babylon, along with all the brass, the gold and the silver of the house of God. The Lord had been despised. What was left for Jachin and Boaz to do at Jerusalem? Judah's unfaithfulness had driven away the strength that was in the Lord, and God had destroyed it instead of establishing it. So ends the history of man, placed under responsibility before God. God must give him up — but He never takes back His promises. He will set up again the reign of His anointed on these two wonderful pillars, and that reign will never be shaken.
- Ordinary. The pots, shovels and snuffers were plain bronze tools of the altar, not golden showpieces. Scripture still lists them one by one.
- Stolen. Tools dedicated to God's service ended up serving the religion of Babylon.
- Decisive. Earlier kings had raided the temple treasury, but no one had touched the holy vessels. God started counting the seventy years from the day Nebuchadnezzar took them.
- Still His. Exile never cancelled their holiness. God let them share His people's captivity, but He would not let a pagan king defile them.
- Restored. Judah's unfaithfulness left God tearing down instead of establishing. Yet He never takes back a promise. He will set up the reign of His anointed on those pillars, never to be shaken.
And the censers and the bowls, that which was of gold in gold, and that which was of silver in silver, the captain of the body-guard took away.
The Babylonian officer stripped the temple before he burned it, and verse 15 reaches the small implements — weighed out as plain gold and silver. Why record the inventory of a looted building, and what did Judah lose when these objects left Jerusalem?
The word behind "fire pans" belongs to the service of incense. A dictionary entry traces it across the Old Testament:
A small metal vessel, made to hold burning coals from the altar. The priest sprinkled incense on the coals, so that a cloud of incense might rise from it (Lev. 10:1; Lev. 16:12). Solomon made some of gold (1 Kings 7:50; 2 Chr. 4:22; Heb. 9:4; Rev. 8:3, 5)... The same Hebrew word is translated 'fire-pan' in Ex. 27:3; Ex. 38:3; 2 Kings 25:15; Jer. 52:19.
One commentator dates this stripping to the days just before the fire:
Evidently verses 13-17 refer to what took place before Nebuzaradan burned the temple... The firepans, basins and things of solid gold and solid silver were also taken (vv.14-15).
These objects had an owner, and it was not Judah. The same writer follows them into Babylon:
All these things were God's property. They stand for what only faith can take hold of. But when they were carried to Babylon — a name that means 'confusion' — they were put in connection with idol worship. Today false religion does the same: it takes what really belongs to God and uses it for its own unholy profit.
Changing hands did not change what these objects were. Another writer says God still counted them holy in a Gentile king's hands:
The holy vessels were still holy in God's eyes, however much the sins of His kings and priests had polluted them. They had served in the house where He had put His name for ever, and where His eyes and His heart were to be always (1 Kings 9:3). True, in judgment He had let them share the captivity of His people. But He could not let the Gentile king and his immoral friends defile them. That would not fit with all that He was, or with all that He purposed. It was not only that the king, his princes, his wives and his concubines drank from them; they drank wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone.
These were working tools, not ornaments. One writer carries the loss through to the present day:
Without vessels, it was impossible to bring the sacrifices God had prescribed. No vessels, no worship! This is the tragedy. Does it not remind us of a sad fact? Wide parts of Christendom have lost the whole idea of worship, above all worship together. Concerts, performances, and all sorts of things have taken the place of meetings for worship... The Father seeks one thing: worshippers.
Judah's real loss was not metal. One writer reads the smashing and carrying off of the temple's structures and treasures as God undoing what He had once set up:
Even the two pillars of the temple are broken in pieces and carried away to Babylon. So is all the brass, the gold, and the silver of the house of God. The Lord had been despised. What use were Jachin and Boaz, those two pillars, at Jerusalem now? The strength that was in the Lord had departed through Judah's unfaithfulness, and God had destroyed it instead of establishing it.
The story does not end in Babylon. One commentator counts what came back:
The dominant feature at the beginning of these 70 years is that the glory of the temple was itself taken away captive — the glory of the service of the worship of the Lord... At the time of Judah's restoration, all these objects came back, 5400 of them (Ezra 1:9-11). This was even the most characteristic feature of the exodus that was to bring the remnant of the people back to their land.
- Vessels named. The fire pans held burning coals from the altar, so that a cloud of incense could rise. The same Hebrew word is also translated "censer."
- Vessels owned. Everything on the list was God's property. In Babylon it was tied to idol worship — and false religion still takes what belongs to God for its own profit.
- Vessels still holy. Captivity did not cancel their holiness. They had served in the house where God put His name, and He would not let a foreign king defile them.
- Vessels missing. No vessels meant no sacrifices. The tragedy of the chapter is lost worship, not lost gold.
- Vessels restored. God pulled down what Judah's unfaithfulness had emptied out. Yet He counted every article, and the return of all 5,400 marked the remnant's homecoming.
The two pillars, the one sea, and the bases which Solomon had made for the house of Jehovah for the brass of all these vessels there was no weight.
Jerusalem has fallen, and the account ends not with the ruins but with an inventory of temple metal. Why does the record stop to name the beautiful things Babylon broke up, and add that their bronze was past weighing?
The order of events matters. This list belongs to the days before the temple was set on fire.
Clearly verses 13-17 refer to what happened before Nebuzaradan burned the temple. Babylon's men broke the bronze pillars and the bronze sea in pieces to carry them away. There was so much bronze in these many articles that no one could measure it. All these things were God's property. They stand for what only faith can take hold of. But when they were carried to Babylon — a name that means "confusion" — they were brought into connection with the worship of idols. Today too, false religion has taken for itself what really belongs to God, and uses it for its own unholy profit.
The two pillars were not decoration. They stood at the front of the temple, and their names carried a message to every worshipper.
The bronze pillars stood in front of the porch of the temple, and they caught the eye at once. They put the principles of the kingdom on open display. As we have already said, the temple has no other pillar. Their names were Jachin (He shall establish) and Boaz (in Him is strength). These were the two great truths pictured for everyone who shared in the blessed reign of Solomon. Everything came from Him; in Him, in His own person, there is strength. He holds Himself up and needs no help from outside. His strength establishes others; it never needs establishing.
The same writer asks what Jachin and Boaz still had to do in Jerusalem. He answers on two sides: judgment now, and promise later.
Even the two pillars of the temple are broken in pieces and carried off to Babylon, along with all the bronze, the gold, and the silver of the house of God. The people had despised the Lord. What did Jachin and Boaz still have to do in Jerusalem? The strength that was in the Lord had gone, because Judah was unfaithful, and God had broken it down instead of establishing it. So ends the story of man under responsibility before God. God must give him up — but He never takes back His promises. He will set up the reign of His anointed again on those two wonderful pillars, and that reign will never be shaken.
Bronze past weighing was not new to this house. The same abundance marked it from the day it was built.
The temple had many bronze vessels. Before David died, the leaders of Israel gave 18,000 talents of bronze, on top of what they gave in gold, silver, and iron (1 Chron. 29:7). And that was not all. "Solomon left all these vessels unweighed, because there were so many of them; the weight of the bronze was not ascertained" (1 Kings 7:47).
None of this caught Judah by surprise. Jeremiah had already warned the men in charge of worship about these very vessels.
Jeremiah also speaks to the priests — the men responsible for the religious life of the nation. He warns them in particular about "the vessels of the LORD's house" (27:16). The false prophets promised that these vessels would soon come back from Babylon. They would not. Instead, the vessels still left in the temple would be carried away too. Such a sad outlook should have brought the men in charge of God's worship to repentance. But they did not care.
The pillars were not the only loss. The sea, the stands and the bulls went with them, and their leaving marked a turn in world history.
With a sad heart the inspired historian tells us how they broke up the famous pillars Jachin and Boaz, the stands, the cast-bronze sea, the twelve bronze bulls and the rest — and loaded it all up as "scrap" in a grim train of wagons for Babylon! "The bronze of all these things was beyond weight" (Jer. 52:20). This is how "the times of the Gentiles" began, and they have not ended yet. Israel still bleeds, and the nations of the earth find no rest. Oh, the folly of sin against God!
- Given — The bronze was past weighing from the start. Solomon built the house out of that abundance.
- Named — Two pillars preached two truths: He will establish, and in Him is strength.
- Warned — Jeremiah told the priests that the rest of the vessels would go to Babylon. They should have repented. They did not care.
- Broken — Judah was unfaithful, so the strength was gone. God broke down what He had once built, and the beautiful things left as scrap.
- Restored — God never takes back His promises. The reign of His anointed will yet stand on those same two pillars, and nothing will shake it.
The height of one pillar was eighteen cubits, and the capital upon it was brass, and the height of the capital three cubits; and the network and the pomegranates, upon the capital round about, all of brass and similarly for the second pillar with the network.
Verse 17 stops in the middle of a demolition report to measure what Babylon's soldiers had just smashed: the bronze pillars, their crowns, their latticework, their pomegranates. Why does a record of ruin dwell on beauty that no longer exists?
The two pillars in view had names, and the names were a promise about God's kingdom.
BOAZ and JACHIN were the names given to two pillars in the porch of the temple Solomon built. JACHIN means "He will establish," and BOAZ, "in Him is strength." This implies that God will establish the kingdom in strength and in peace, under the rule of Christ. So the names picture the coming age. There seems to be a reference to these pillars in Revelation 3:12, where the overcomer is made a "pillar" in the temple of God.
reason: verse's "eighteen cubits" never explained — depth gap
In 1 Kings 7:16 the capitals — or crowns, as the Hebrew word Cotharoth means — are five cubits high. Verse 19 gives the lily work as four cubits. And 2 Kings 25:17 says, "The height of the capital was three cubits." I take it that each of these capitals had four parts:
1. a square ledge on top, half a cubit thick, on which were the pomegranates; 2. a similar ledge at the bottom; 3. a bowl one cubit deep (1 Kings 7:41); 4. a bulge of three cubits (1 Kings 7:20).
The last two together, covered with LILY WORK, would make FOUR cubits, and the two ledges would complete the height of FIVE cubits.
The pomegranates here also appear on the robe of Israel's high priest, paired with bells.
In the Word the pomegranate seems to be the image of fruit borne for God. The hem of the high priest's garment was trimmed with bells and pomegranates one after the other (Ex. 28:31-35). The bells represent the testimony, the pomegranates, the fruit… Our fruit should bear the character of Christ and be worthy of Him. It should also match our testimony, just as the pomegranates were the same in number as the golden bells. One often finds Christians with more bells than pomegranates, more words than fruit!
The pillars promised that God would establish the kingdom in His strength. Their fall was His own doing, not an accident.
Even the two pillars of the temple are broken in pieces and carried away to Babylon. So are all the brass, the gold, and the silver of the house of God. The Lord had been despised. What did Jachin and Boaz still have to do at Jerusalem? Judah's unfaithfulness had driven away the strength that was in the Lord. God had destroyed it instead of establishing it.
That is the answer to the puzzle of this verse — a loving inventory inside a demolition report.
David's royal house has forfeited everything by unfaithfulness; but Christ will restore it all in the day of His power. Meanwhile, Solomon's famous pillars have been broken up as scrap, and carried to Babylon (Jer. 27:19-22; Jer. 52:17-23). The Holy Spirit dwells mournfully upon their beauty while recording their destruction.
Where the bronze ended up mattered too. One writer draws a present-day parallel:
All these things were God's property. They stand for what only faith can truly take hold of. But when they were carried to Babylon — a name that means "confusion" — they were placed in connection with idol worship. Today also false religion has taken for itself what really belongs to God and uses it for its own unholy profit.
Fire could melt the bronze. It could not touch what the bronze declared.
But even if the material pillars have disappeared, the moral pillars remain. The day will come when the Lord in whom is strength will show everyone that He has established in righteousness a kingdom which will never be moved.
- Named — the pillars meant "He will establish" and "in Him is strength": a kingdom held up under the rule of Christ.
- Adorned — the capital, latticework and pomegranates were beauty by measure. As on the high priest's robe, the fruit matched the testimony.
- Broken — the Lord had been despised, so the pillars had nothing left to say in Jerusalem. God pulled them down instead of holding them up.
- Removed — God's own bronze ended up serving idols in Babylon. False religion still takes God's things for its own gain.
- Re-established — the pillars are gone, but their promise stands. The kingdom He establishes will never be moved.
And the captain of the body-guard took Seraiah the high priest, and Zephaniah the second priest, and the three doorkeepers.
Jerusalem has fallen. Babylon's soldiers have burned the temple. Now their commander turns to the men who served at the house of God: the chief priest, his deputy, and the three who kept the doors. Why does the list of prisoners begin with the priests, and does the priestly line die with them?
Seraiah heads the list. One reference work gives his family line and his end:
He was the son of Azariah, and high priest in the reign of Zedekiah. When Nebuchadnezzar took Jerusalem, he was carried to Riblah and put to death there. 2 Kings 25:18; 1 Chr. 6:14; Jer. 52:24.
He was not seized alone. The soldiers also took the doorkeepers, army officers and the king's advisers. One commentator follows the list to its end:
Verse 19 then lists the men whom the captain of the guard found in the city: Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the second priest, three doorkeepers … and sixty others. Nebuzaradan took all of these captive and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah (v.20). Nebuchadnezzar let none of them live; by his order they were all put to death (v.21). This completed the captivity of Judah and the desolation of Jerusalem.
The priests fell with the nation, not instead of it. One writer ties king, priest and people together:
When humiliation comes, it is no use blaming others, this one or that one. The blame belongs to God's people as a whole — to ourselves — especially if we carry the chief responsibility to act. Here the king had an immense place, and of course the priests also. If the king was righteous, the Lord always blessed the people for his sake alone. If the king was godless, his evil brought discipline on the people. Sadly, where there was a godless king, there was a godless people too. We may say, Like people, like king; and not only "Like people, like priest."
The deputy priest taken here is not a stranger to the book of Jeremiah:
Son of Maaseiah and 'second' priest in the reign of Zedekiah; he was carried captive to Nebuchadnezzar and slain at Riblah. 2 Kings 25:18; Jer. 21:1; Jer. 29:25, 29; Jer. 37:3; Jer. 52:24.
Twice this man carried the king's errand to Jeremiah. On one of those visits the request was for prayer, at a moment when the siege had briefly lifted and things looked hopeful:
This was the time of patience which the Lord usually gives, when evil men have not yet declared themselves openly and fully. Appearances favour the false against the true for a while, and so faith is tested more fully. The prophet was not yet openly despised or persecuted. The king was still seeking his prayers through one of the priestly house of Aaron, as well as through a minister of the government.
The death of the priests was part of a larger stripping. One writer finds the point of the whole scene in the temple's two pillars, Jachin and Boaz:
The people are carried away to Babylon; the priests and those who had helped with the resistance die a violent death at Riblah. … Even the two pillars of the temple are broken in pieces and carried away to Babylon. So are all the brass, the gold, and the silver of the house of God. The Lord had been despised. What place was left for Jachin and Boaz at Jerusalem? … So ends the history of man, placed under responsibility before God. God must give him up — but He never takes back His promises. He will re-establish the reign of His anointed upon these two marvelous pillars, and this reign will be unshakeable.
Seraiah died, but his family line did not end at Riblah. The high priest of the returning exiles was his own grandson:
Joshua is mentioned several times in Zechariah. He was the first high priest after the captivity… He and Zerubbabel are prophetic types of our Lord as the King-Priest. Joshua was the son of Josedech (Jehozadak), the high priest whom the Babylonians carried into captivity (1 Chron. 6:15). He was the grandson of Seraiah, whom Nebuchadnezzar put to death at Riblah after the capture of Jerusalem.
- Named: The prisoner list opens with the priests — Seraiah, Jerusalem's last high priest of the old order, and Zephaniah his deputy.
- Warned: Zephaniah himself carried the king's plea for prayer to Jeremiah. He stood near the prophet's word, and still died at Riblah.
- Shared: Judgment did not fall on priests apart from the nation — "like people, like king," and "like people, like priest."
- Stripped: The priests died at Riblah, and even the temple pillars were broken up. So ends the story of man under responsibility.
- Preserved: God's promises hold where man's office fails. Seraiah's own grandson Joshua served as high priest for the returned remnant, and the reign of God's anointed will stand unshaken.
And out of the city he took a chamberlain that was set over the men of war, and five men of them that were in the king's presence, who were found in the city, and the scribe of the captain of the host, who enrolled the people of the land; and sixty men of the people of the land that were found in the city.
Jerusalem has fallen, and the commander of Babylon's guard now walks the ruins arresting the men who had run the city. Why does Scripture pause to list their offices, and what became of them?
One writer sets out the whole group the captain of the guard collected, and what happened to them next.
Verse 19 then lists many men whom the captain of the guard found in the city. They were Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the second priest, three doorkeepers, an officer in charge of the men of war, five men of the king's close associates, the chief recruiting officer of the army, and sixty others who were found in the city. Nebuzaradan took all of these captive and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah (v.20). None of them were allowed to live. Nebuchadnezzar ordered them all put to death (v.21). This completed the captivity of Judah and the desolation of Jerusalem.
Jeremiah 52 records the same round-up a second time, and its list does not match the one in Kings. One writer weighs the difference.
It is remarkable that among the prisoners listed in verse 25, we have seven men here who correspond to five men in 2 Kings 25:19. I take it that two more were added. This inspired account notices them, in addition to the more general description given in the history. There were five, but this does not prevent the addition of two more in an account of greater detail.
The arrests reached every office that held the nation together. One writer sets these deaths beside the stripping of the temple.
The people are carried away to Babylon; the priests and those who had helped with the resistance die a violent death at Riblah. The last traces of the power and prosperity of Judah disappear after this attack. Even the two pillars of the temple are broken in pieces and carried away to Babylon. All the bronze, the gold, and the silver of the house of God go with them. The Lord had been despised. What use were Jachin and Boaz still at Jerusalem? The strength that was in the Lord had gone through Judah's unfaithfulness. God destroyed it instead of establishing it. So ends the history of man, placed under responsibility before God. God must give him up — but His promises cannot be taken back. He will set up again the reign of His anointed on these two wonderful pillars, and that reign will never be shaken.
Jachin and Boaz were the temple's two great pillars. Their names spoke of God establishing and strengthening, and God still keeps the promise those pillars carried.
These men were not just losers in a local war. The king they were brought to begins something the world has not seen the end of.
In 2 Kings 24 the mighty king of Babylon first comes before us — Nebuchadnezzar, the one destined to begin the great imperial system that we have not finished with yet. The world is still to see the last phase of the imperial power that began at this very time, or shortly after. This gives deep interest to what we are now looking at. Here we find the last phase of Jerusalem's sorrowful history — the last group of Jews carried down into captivity.
With the officials dead and the people deported, the land lay empty. That emptiness had a fixed length and a reason.
The seventy-year captivity had begun. The word of the Lord through Jeremiah was that the land would enjoy its Sabbaths: "All the days that it lay desolate it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years" (2 Chron. 36:21).
- Taken — the men. Judah lost the men who ran it: a court officer, the commander of the soldiers, five royal advisers, the recruiting officer, and sixty citizens.
- Taken — to Riblah. Nebuzaradan brought them to the king of Babylon, who put them all to death. That finished the captivity of Judah and the desolation of Jerusalem.
- Taken — counted twice. Jeremiah 52 lists seven men where Kings lists five. The prophecy gives the fuller detail, the history the more general description.
- Taken — the props. Priests, fighters, advisers and even the temple pillars went together. Judah's strength was in the Lord, and unfaithfulness had sent it away.
- Taken — not forever. The emptied land kept its Sabbaths for seventy years, and God promised to set up the reign of His anointed again on those same two pillars.
And Nebuzar-adan the captain of the body-guard took them and brought them to the king of Babylon to Riblah;
Jerusalem has fallen, and Nebuzaradan, the commander of Babylon's guard, marches one last group of prisoners north to the king. Who were these men, and why were they taken so far?
Riblah was not a random spot on the map. Judah's last king, Zedekiah, had already been dragged there with his sons.
He was brought, with his sons, to Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah. It stood on the high road between Palestine and Babylon, where the Babylonian kings stayed while they directed the operations of their armies in Palestine and Phoenicia.
These prisoners were not ordinary citizens. They ran the temple and the army, and every one of them met the same end.
Verse 19 lists the men whom the captain of the guard found in the city. They were Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the second priest, three doorkeepers, an officer in charge of the men of war, five of the king's close associates, the chief recruiting officer of the army, and sixty others. Nebuzaradan took all of these captive and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah (v.20). None of them were allowed to live. Nebuchadnezzar ordered them all put to death (v.21). This completed the captivity of Judah and the desolation of Jerusalem.
Two things died at Riblah: the priesthood and the resistance. One writer sets this beside the breaking up of the temple's two great pillars, Jachin and Boaz.
The people are carried away to Babylon. The priests and those who had helped with the resistance die a violent death at Riblah. The last traces of the power and prosperity of Judah disappear after this attack. Even the two pillars of the temple are broken in pieces. They are carried to Babylon, along with all the bronze, the gold, and the silver of the house of God. The Lord had been despised. What did Jachin and Boaz still have to do at Jerusalem? The strength that was in the Lord had departed through Judah's unfaithfulness. God had destroyed it instead of establishing it.
The same writer does not stop at the ruin. The pillars still have a future.
So ends the history of man, placed under responsibility before God. God must give him up — but He never takes back His promises. He will re-establish the reign of His anointed upon these two marvellous pillars. That reign will be unshakeable.
Jeremiah's account of the same deportation counts the prisoners differently. One commentator explains why.
It is remarkable that among the prisoners listed in verse 25, we have seven men here who answer to five men in 2 Kings 25:19. I assume that two more were added. This inspired account notices them in addition to the more general description given in the history. There were five, but this does not prevent the addition of two more in a notice of greater detail.
The executions at Riblah were not a sudden stroke. God had gone on warning Judah to the last day.
To have the complete history, you must read the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel. They give the inner history of the spirit of the people, and of the king. They show the condition that drew down the judgment. They also show the patience of God, who kept sending them deeply moving calls to repentance, even until the very taking of the city — alas, in vain. And the times of the Gentiles began.
That last phrase marks a turn in world history. Something left Jerusalem that had been with Israel since Egypt.
The symbol of God's presence had never left them since their redemption out of Egypt, except for a little while in Samuel's day. Now it departed entirely, and Jerusalem was no longer the place of the Lord's throne. The whole order of things that depended on His dwelling at Jerusalem was set aside. Universal supremacy now went to Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, the first great chief of the Gentiles. It was with him that "the times of the Gentiles" began.
- Patience — God kept calling Judah back through Jeremiah and Ezekiel until the day the city fell. Riblah came after long patience, not sudden anger.
- Place — Riblah sat on the high road between Palestine and Babylon. Babylon's kings ran their campaigns from there, so the prisoners were marched to the king.
- People — the chief priest, the second priest, doorkeepers, army officers, the king's advisers. Worship and defence fell together, and no one survived.
- Pillars — Jachin and Boaz were broken up and carried off. Judah's strength was in the Lord, and it left them when they were unfaithful.
- Promise — man under responsibility had to be given up, but God never takes back His promises. He will yet set up the reign of His anointed on those same pillars, and it will be unshakeable.
and the king of Babylon smote them and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. Thus Judah was carried away captive out of his land.
This chapter closes like a gravestone over a nation. The king, the temple, the city and the people are gone. Babylon's king kills Judah's last officials far from home. Two questions press on any reader. Why did God let it come to this, and does the story stop here?
The verse completes a list of prisoners taken from the ruined city. Not one of them survived.
Verse 19 lists the men whom the captain of the guard found in the city. They were Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the second priest and three doorkeepers. With them were an officer over the men of war, five of the king's close associates, the chief recruiting officer of the army, and sixty others. Nebuzaradan took all of these captive and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah (v.20). Nebuchadnezzar allowed none of them to live, but ordered them all put to death (v.21). This completed the captivity of Judah and the desolation of Jerusalem.
Riblah was not new to Judah's story. An earlier foreign king had already used it to deal with a king of Judah.
A city in the land of Hamath. There Pharaoh-necho imprisoned Jehoahaz. From there the king of Babylon carried Zedekiah away, after killing Zedekiah's sons and the priests and chief men of Judah. 2 Kings 23:33; 2 Kings 25:6-7, 20, 21.
This ruin was not sudden. God had been appealing to them for a long time.
In all their past history the patience of God rises above their sin. Still they turned a deaf ear and refused His correction. Jehovah "sent to them by His messengers, rising up early and sending, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place." But they mocked His messengers, despised His words, and misused the prophets. So the wrath of Jehovah rose against His people till there was no remedy. Therefore He brought upon them the king of the Chaldeans, until Cyrus arose — a picture of their Messiah, Who will bring about a greater and final restoration.
The land they lost was not just theirs. It was God's, and they held it on terms.
God will not let His people forget that the land of Canaan is His in a special way, and so were the people He gave it to. This was one of their special favours. Israel was His people as no other nation could be then. Their land too was His, so that He might secure it to them for ever, unless they turned away from Him. Because they did turn away, He drove them out. He made them the slave and target of their enemies' malice and contempt. So it was for their idolatry when the mother of idols led the Jew captive, as Assyria led away Ephraim long before.
The law gave the land a rest one year in seven. Israel never gave it that rest, and now the empty land took it back.
There is no record of the Sabbatical year and the year of Jubilee ever being kept. Leviticus 26:34-35 predicts what would happen if the Israelites did not let the land keep the sabbaths. It reads almost like a prophecy: the land should lie desolate "because it did not rest in your sabbaths." Jeremiah 25:11-12, Jeremiah 29:10 and Daniel 9:2 put the actual desolation at seventy years. The land was to have rested one year in every seven. So the 70 years answer to 70 × 7 = 490 years... In this, as in everything else, it seems they failed to obey. But God will make the Jubilee good to them in grace when they own their Messiah.
Judah's removal also changed God's dealings with the whole earth. The word "Gentiles" here means the nations.
From their redemption out of Egypt, the symbol of the divine presence had never left them, except for a little while in Samuel's day. Now it departed completely, and Jerusalem ceased to be the place of Jehovah's throne. The whole order of things that flowed from His dwelling at Jerusalem was set aside. Universal supremacy passed to Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, the first great chief of the Gentiles. It was with him that the "times of the Gentiles" began.
The verse reads like a full stop, but the book itself does not end there.
Someone has rightly remarked that the book of Kings gives the history of man in responsibility. The book of Chronicles gives the history of God's purpose. Man's history had been sad. Yet 2 Kings closes (2 Kings 25:28) with a hint that God's mercy will lift man to a seat of honour. Man's history would have ended in judgment that could never be reversed, if God had not stepped in with sovereign mercy, for His own glory and man's blessing.
- Patience — out of compassion God sent messenger after messenger. The collapse came only after Judah mocked every warning, until there was no remedy.
- Privilege — the land was God's own gift, held on one condition. Turning away from Him is what drove them out.
- Price — Judah's last leaders died at Riblah in Hamath, far from home. That finished the captivity and left Jerusalem desolate.
- Pause — the empty land at last took the rest years Israel never gave it: seventy of them, for about 490 years of neglect.
- Purpose — Jerusalem was no longer the seat of God's throne, and rule passed to Babylon. Yet Kings closes not in judgment but in a gleam of mercy.
And [as for] the people that remained in the land of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had left behind, over them he appointed Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan.
Jerusalem lies in ruins, the temple is stripped, and Judah's leaders are dead. Yet the land is not left empty. Babylon puts one of Judah's own men over the few who remain. What should a ruined people do with the small mercy God has left them?
Gedaliah was not a stranger to Jeremiah's story. His own father had already saved the prophet's life.
Nebuchadnezzar sets Gedaliah the son of Ahikam over the people left in the land to work the vineyards and the fields. This Ahikam had saved Jeremiah in the days of Jehoiakim, when Jeremiah, like the prophet Urijah, had prophesied against Jerusalem. No doubt this had its influence on the king of Babylon, who respected and protected Jeremiah. Gedaliah lived at Mizpah, a strong city that Asa, king of Judah, had built with stones from Ramah. Jeremiah went there. So did all those from the surrounding regions who had escaped, along with the poor people who were left. They came to seek the protection of Gedaliah, this noble officer of the king of Babylon. He reassured the people, swearing to them that they had nothing to fear in accepting their subjection to the Babylonians.
Judah keeps an administration but loses its monarchy. Commentators differ on who made the appointment. The verse names Nebuchadnezzar; Grant credits his officer Nebuzaradan.
No king was allowed to rule over Judah. But the country still needed some form of government to keep order. So Nebuzaradan appointed a descendant of the kings, Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, to be governor of the people left in the land.
Gedaliah's policy was submission to Babylon, and he bound the returning officers to it by oath. That looks like defeat. Grant calls it wisdom, and turns it on God's people today.
Gedaliah meant to stay in the land and to be subject to the king of Babylon. He took an oath to that before these men, and required them to serve Nebuchadnezzar too. This was the wise thing to do, for God had brought them down and rebellion would have been rebellion against God. It is the same in the Christian world today. Because of the sad failure in testimony, God has allowed confusion — that is what the name Babylon means — to take public possession of the church. It is only right that we bow to the shame of our confusion, and never expect to return to the bright early days of the church at Pentecost.
Nothing about this group was impressive. What mattered was where it stood, and others came to join it.
Despite all that had happened, this feeble remnant were in their right place in the Lord's land. Many were drawn to them, sought them out, joined the remnant, and received much blessing.
Babylon offered Jeremiah comfort. He turned it down and stayed in the ruined land.
But Jeremiah had no heart for Chaldea, whatever attractions it might appear to offer. He chose to suffer in the land with the lowliest people that men had left behind. … Staying in the place of their humiliation was love, and it was a pledge of restoration.
After Gedaliah's death the survivors faced a choice. Stay in the ruined land, or run to Egypt.
If they would stay, this would be their salvation. Blessing always comes with accepting God's judgment, when the soul submits in humility and, despite everything, counts on Him to bless. To go down to Egypt, where they thought they would find security, would be to walk on into certain judgment.
Gedaliah's rule ended in murder. His killer, Ishmael, belonged to Judah's royal line — the very family that should have protected him.
Normally, and with good reason, this would have guaranteed help to a governor, and support and shelter to the people. But God was forgotten. His judgments and His will counted for nothing, and human corruption ran its course where it least belonged. The ruin of Israel was complete when a man of the royal line sank to the lowest kind of cunning, treachery, and murder — and this against the best of their own people.
- Left — the poor stayed in the land as farm workers, with a governor set over them. No king was allowed, yet God did not leave His people without order.
- Given — Gedaliah came from the family that had once saved Jeremiah. Under his protection, scattered Jews came home from every direction.
- Bowed — his oath to serve Babylon was wisdom. God had brought Judah down, and fighting that would have been fighting God.
- Blessed — the weak remnant stood in the right place, and those who joined it were blessed. Jeremiah chose that shame over comfort in Babylon.
- Lost — a royal kinsman's sword, and then the flight to Egypt, undid it all. Staying would have been salvation; going meant judgment.
And all the captains of the forces, they and their men, heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah, and they came to Gedaliah to Mizpah, namely, Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and Seraiah the son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, and Jaazaniah the son of a Maachathite, they and their men.
Jerusalem lies burned, and Babylon has carried off its king. Babylon has put Gedaliah in charge of the few people left in the land. This verse records what happens next. The army officers who had scattered into the countryside come out of hiding. They gather to the new governor at Mizpah. It looks like the start of recovery. It is not.
One writer describes the town Gedaliah lived in, and who came to him there:
Gedaliah lived at Mizpah, a strong city that Asa, king of Judah, had built with the stones of Ramah (1 Kings 15:22). Jeremiah went there too. The people from the surrounding regions who had escaped came there as well. So did the poor people who were left. They came to seek the protection of Gedaliah, this noble officer of the king of Babylon. He reassured the people. He swore to them that they had nothing to fear if they accepted having to serve the Chaldeans.
The town's name has a meaning of its own:
Mizpah — Watch-tower
Gedaliah made the officers swear to serve Babylon. One commentator calls this the wise choice, and says why:
Word spread that Gedaliah had been made Governor. So the officers of the armies and their men, who had scattered from Judah, came to Mizpah, where Gedaliah lived. Among these were some prominent men, especially Ishmael and Johanan (v. 23). Gedaliah planned to stay in the land and to be subject to the king of Babylon. He took an oath to this effect before these men, and required them to serve Nebuchadnezzar too. This was the wise thing to do, for God had brought them down, and rebellion would have been rebellion against God.
Another writer reads the same scene very differently. He notes who swore to whom:
Everything, however, was out of order. The return of the scattered captains and their forces counted for nothing, because the Lord was not in their thoughts at all. And there is a strange reversal here: the governor swore to them, not they to him... The governor's words could not have been friendlier, and his ways could not have been more sincere. He was willing to do his duty to the conqueror while the land lay in distress, and yet also to serve the people as far as he was able.
The first name in the verse is Ishmael. Someone else had sent him:
The captains of the forces that remained gathered around Gedaliah. At their head was Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, a member of the royal family. This man, however, came with evil purposes. Baalis, the king of the Ammonites, had sent him, and his own ambition no doubt pushed him on. Johanan, one of the captains, warned Gedaliah that treachery was being planned. Gedaliah refused to believe it, and refused to take any part in killing Ishmael. Ishmael struck him down in a cowardly way. He also killed the governor's followers and the Chaldean soldiers who were there... Johanan and the captains of the forces went after him, defeated him near the waters of Gibeon, and took the captives back from him.
One writer sets two of the names in the verse side by side:
Johanan, whose name means "Jehovah is a gracious giver," saw clearly that Ishmael was a traitor who had come to kill Gedaliah. He warned Gedaliah against Ishmael, but Gedaliah did not believe him. Gedaliah, being governor, symbolises the government of God, and Johanan, God's grace... Johanan (grace) was a true friend of government (Gedaliah). But sadly, Ishmael deceived Gedaliah. Ishmael could agree to a covenant, then break it very soon after and murder the governor he had come to serve!
The story does not end with Gedaliah's murder. Those who escaped still had one decision to make:
These rescued captives were full of fear and wanted to go to Egypt. They consulted the Lord through Jeremiah to get an answer that suited their own wishes. In fact they had already decided to disobey if the answer did not suit their purpose. The prophet warned them solemnly. If they would stay, this would be their salvation. Blessing always follows the accepting of God's judgment, when the soul humbly submits and still counts on Him to bless despite everything. To go down to Egypt, where they thought they would find security, would be to go on to inevitable judgment (Jer. 42).
- Gather — The scattered officers came to Gedaliah at Mizpah, a strong town whose name means watch-tower. Refugees and the poor of the land came too.
- Bow — Serving Babylon was the wise choice. God had brought Judah down, so rebelling against the conqueror would have been rebelling against God.
- Blind spot — Commentators differ here. One sees a wise submission to God's hand. Another sees a gathering where the Lord had no place in anyone's thoughts.
- Betray — Ishmael stood first in the list and led the captains. A foreign king had sent him to kill. Gedaliah would not believe the warning, and it cost him his life.
- Beyond — The survivors chose Egypt instead of staying. Staying would have saved them. Blessing follows the soul that accepts God's judgment and still counts on Him.
And Gedaliah swore unto them and to their men, and said to them, Fear not to be servants of the Chaldeans dwell in the land, and serve the king of Babylon, and it shall be well with you.
Babylon had burned Jerusalem and carried its people away. Nebuchadnezzar left Gedaliah as governor over the poor who remained, and the scattered army captains came to him at Mizpah. His oath to them raises the hardest question of that hour: can accepting defeat ever be the path of faith?
Gedaliah was not a random choice. His father had once saved the prophet Jeremiah, and that may be why Babylon trusted the family.
Nebuchadnezzar puts Gedaliah the son of Ahikam over the people left in the land, to work as vine-growers and labourers. This Ahikam had saved Jeremiah in the days of Jehoiakim, when Jeremiah, like the prophet Urijah, had prophesied against Jerusalem (Jer. 26:24). No doubt this act had its influence on the king of Babylon, who respected and protected Jeremiah. Gedaliah lived at Mizpah, a strong city that Asa, king of Judah, had built with the stones of Ramah (1 Kings 15:22). Jeremiah went there. So did everyone from the surrounding regions who had escaped, along with the poor people who were left, to seek the protection of Gedaliah, this noble officer of the king of Babylon. He reassured them, swearing that they had nothing to fear in becoming servants of the Chaldeans.
Notice who swears. A governor would expect oaths of loyalty, not give them.
Everything, however, was out of order. The return of the scattered captains and their forces counted for nothing, because the Lord was not in their thoughts at all. And here is a strange reversal: the governor swears to them, not they to him… Nothing could be friendlier than the governor's words, nor more sincere than his ways. In the distress of the land he was content to do his duty to the conqueror, and to serve the people with all his power.
Serving Babylon sounds like simple surrender. The Chaldeans in the verse are the Babylonians, and one writer explains why bowing to them was wisdom.
Gedaliah intended to stay in the land and to submit to the king of Babylon. He took an oath to this effect before these men, and required them to serve Nebuchadnezzar too. This was the wise thing to do, for God had brought them down and rebellion would have been rebellion against God.
The same test still divides people, and not always in the way you would expect.
In a day of ruin, faith always recognises God's chastening and bows to it. Unbelief always resists, and counts its opposition patriotism, or perhaps religion. This is why the men of Judah saw Jeremiah as a false Jew. He always advised them to submit to the king of Babylon. They thought themselves much better Jews, because they were willing to fight against him.
Gedaliah's oath ends with a promise: it shall be well with you. The same promise met the survivors later, when the choice was to stay in the land or run to Egypt.
The prophet warned them solemnly. If they stayed, this would be their salvation. Blessing always goes with accepting God's judgment, when the soul humbly submits and, despite everything, counts on Him to bless. Going down to Egypt, where they thought they would find safety, would only lead to certain judgment (Jer. 42).
In the end the survivors fled to Egypt, driven by the very fear Gedaliah told them to drop. One writer weighs that fear against open rebellion.
Fear is proof of unbelief just as surely as bold or treacherous rebellion, even if it is not as obvious. The prophet had warned them to submit to the king of Babylon, not to flee into Egypt. This disobedience flowed from distrust. How good it is for the believer that he may trample on his fears, and trust the word of the Lord without anxiety!
One writer draws the same lesson for the church.
It is the same in the Christian world today. Because of the sad failure in testimony, God has allowed confusion — which is what the name Babylon means — to take hold of the church in public view. It is only right that we bow to the shame of our confusion, and never expect a return to the bright days of Pentecost… Some proudly think their heroic efforts will bring in another Pentecost. Fighting for that cause, they sadly persuade themselves that they are really achieving something.
- Bow, don't fight. God had brought Judah down. Rebelling against Babylon would have been rebellion against God, and Gedaliah's oath put that into words.
- Bowing is faith. Faith recognises God's chastening and bows. Unbelief resists, and calls its resistance patriotism or religion.
- Bowing brings blessing. Blessing follows when the soul accepts God's judgment and still counts on Him. That is why the oath ends with a promise of well-being.
- Refusing to bow looks like fear. Fear proves unbelief as surely as open rebellion does. The flight to Egypt was disobedience born of distrust.
- Bow today. Where testimony has failed, own the confusion. Do not stage a heroic recovery of better days.
And it came to pass in the seventh month, that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, of the royal seed, came, and ten men with him, and smote Gedaliah, that he died, and the Jews and the Chaldeans that were with him at Mizpah.
Two months after Jerusalem fell, ten men killed the governor Babylon had left in charge of the ruined land. The murderer was Ishmael, a man of Judah's own royal family, and the commentators ask how the king's line sank that far.
after
The verse records Ishmael's family line. One writer says that detail is there on purpose.
The Holy Spirit adds a description to Ishmael's name and family, and it means something: "of the royal family." Normally, and by right, this should have been a guarantee of help to a governor, a support and shelter to the people. But they forgot God and slighted His judgments as well as His will. Human corruption takes its course where it fits least of all. The ruin of Israel was complete when the royal line sank into the lowest form of cunning, treachery, and murder — and this against the best of their own people.
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Gedaliah did not die unwarned. Johanan told him exactly what was coming, and the plot traced back to a foreign king who wanted no peace in Judah.
But sin ruins everything everywhere. Ambition and intrigue, treachery and violence can work in crushed Judea just as well as in victorious Babylon, and they hurt more there. Evil men find nothing harder to bear than good men, and sometimes how much they owe a good man only makes their plan worse... A wicked Jew lends himself to the plans of a pagan neighbour, who resents any order or easing of sorrow in the land.
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Ishmael ate at the governor's table before he killed him. And the killing did not stop with Gedaliah.
This murder took place right after Ishmael had eaten with Gedaliah, pretending to be his friend. In fact, on the second day after this happened, 80 men came from Shechem, Shiloh and Samaria wanting to meet with Gedaliah.
after Ishmael met them, weeping, and guided them into the city, where Ishmael and his men killed them, except for ten men who bribed Ishmael to let them live.
One writer weighs what drove Ishmael, and finds the obvious motives too small.
It was not only jealousy of the good man who fell without suspicion at his own table, where he had welcomed these evil messengers as guests. It was not only plain rebellion against the conquering king of Babylon, which then broke out against the local governor and the foreign soldiers at Mizpah. This royal criminal had tasted blood and would carry on his desperate course, not caring whom he killed or why.
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There is another way to read the death of good men at the hands of a bad one.
Who can doubt that it pleased God to take Gedaliah away from the evil to come, and with him those who grieved over the ruins of Israel? It was mercy to them. It was also a further chastening on the guilty people, high or low, that those who acted and felt most rightly should be swept away — and swept away by their own countrymen's hands.
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The murder terrified the survivors, and the next verse records their flight to Egypt. They asked Jeremiah what to do — but the asking was not honest.
Johanan and others with him asked Jeremiah to enquire of the Lord what they ought to do now that Gedaliah was gone. This should not have been difficult, for they had accepted the oath of Gedaliah to remain in the land. Now they told Jeremiah that whatever the Lord said, they would obey. However, Jeremiah told them the Lord had plainly said they would be blessed if they stayed in the land under the rule of Babylon. He also told them they had been hypocritical in saying they would obey the Lord. They had already decided to go to Egypt, and were only hoping God would confirm it.
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Staying would have been their safety: "blessing always accompanies the accepting of God's judgment when the soul humbly submits."
Centuries later, this murder was still being marked on the calendar — and God questioned the marking.
In His answer through Zechariah, God joined to the fast they asked about another one in the seventh month. It seems to have remembered the murder of Gedaliah and others, and the flight into Egypt of the remnant left in the land... The people kept these tragedies with fasting and tears through the seventy years of captivity. As far as we can tell, God gave no direct answer to the question they raised. Instead He raised another question with them.
after Did they have the Lord before their minds in their observances, or only themselves?
- Position. Ishmael's royal descent should have made him a shelter for the people; instead it made his treachery the proof that "the ruin of Israel was complete."
- Plot. The scheme came from outside. A pagan neighbour resented any order or relief in the land, and a wicked Jew lent himself to the plan.
- Table. Ishmael killed the governor right after eating at his table, then killed eighty men who had come in peace.
- Mercy. God took the mourners "from the evil to come" — kindness to them, and a further chastening for the guilty left behind.
- Flight. The survivors asked God what to do with their minds already made up. The blessing lay in staying in the land; they went to Egypt instead.
And all the people, both small and great, and the captains of the forces, arose and came to Egypt; for they were afraid of the Chaldeans.
Jerusalem had fallen, and Babylon left a few people in the land under a governor named Gedaliah. Then Gedaliah was murdered, and the last of Judah fled to Egypt — the one place the prophet had told them not to go.
The book of Jeremiah fills in the detail. As one writer shows, the people had already made up their minds. Only then did they ask God what to do.
Verse 26 (of 2 Kings 25) tells how all those people who had come to Gedaliah decided to go to Egypt, because they feared the Chaldeans, or Babylonians. Johanan and others with him asked Jeremiah to ask the Lord what they ought to do now that Gedaliah was gone (Jer. 42:1-3)... However, Jeremiah told them the Lord clearly declared that they would be blessed if they stayed in the land under Babylon's rule. He also told them they had been hypocritical in saying they would obey the Lord. They had already decided to go to Egypt, and were only hoping that God would confirm this.
The verse gives their motive: they were afraid of the Babylonians. One commentator sets that fear beside open rebellion. He finds the two are not far apart.
Fear is proof of unbelief just as surely as bold or treacherous rebellion is, even if it is less obvious. The prophet had warned them to submit to the king of Babylon, not to flee into Egypt... How blessed for the believer! He has every right to trample on fears, and to trust the word of the Lord without anxiety.
Babylon had already carried another group of Jews away. Their story ran the opposite way.
This short history holds a special interest. The story of this remnant stands in complete contrast to the story of the remnant at Babylon. These go down into Egypt, against the word of the Lord, and sword and famine and disease will consume them. Those at Babylon have peace and prosperity and plenty promised to them for the time being... God at the beginning redeemed the people out of Egypt, but Babylon became the place of their captivity when they had turned away from the Lord. To return to Egypt therefore was fatal, but from Babylon there was deliverance.
Egypt was not their only option. If they had submitted to Babylon, the land would have stayed theirs. Instead, the danger they ran from caught up with them.
Still, if at this last hour this remnant had submitted to Nebuchadnezzar's yoke, peace would have reigned in the land. The few who remained would have kept it. But some revolt, and the others fear the consequences of their folly. There is no thought of trusting in Jehovah. They consult Jeremiah, but refuse to obey the word of the Lord from his mouth. They take refuge in Egypt to escape Nebuchadnezzar. But they only fall under the sword that would have spared them in Judea, if they had stayed there under the king.
They went to Egypt for safety. But their old sin went with them.
These wretched people begin again to serve other gods in the land of Egypt to which they had fled. God describes their condition in these words: "They have not humbled themselves even to this day, nor have they feared, nor walked in my law and my statutes that I set before you and before your fathers" (Jer. 44:10). So God declares that of all those who had gone down to Egypt, none of the remnant should "escape or survive or return to the land of Judah" (Jer. 44:14). Only a very small company would escape (v. 28).
Egypt was the place God had rescued Israel from at the very start. That history is what made leaning on Egypt an insult. The same lesson reaches us today.
This reliance upon Egypt was specially offensive to God, since from that very people He had delivered them by His judgments at the start of their national history. It is just as offensive to God when a Christian goes back to the world-system. God has delivered him from that system and from the judgment coming on it. Yet he leans on its power or its wisdom, instead of finding his resource in God when emergencies arise.
- Fear — They left because they dreaded Babylon's revenge. Fear proves unbelief as surely as open rebellion does.
- Pretence — They had already chosen Egypt before they asked Jeremiah for God's answer. They only wanted it confirmed.
- Refuge — Egypt looked like shelter. The sword they ran from struck them there, and staying would have spared them.
- Relapse — In their chosen refuge they took up idol worship again, unhumbled to the end.
- No return — Babylon's captives had a way home. Almost none in Egypt would come back. Accept God's discipline and there is a road back; run from it and there is none.