2 Kings 25:1-30
1 And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he, and all his host, against Jerusalem, and pitched against it; and they built forts against it round about.
2 And the city was besieged unto the eleventh year of king Zedekiah.
3 And on the ninth day of the fourth month the famine prevailed in the city, and there was no bread for the people of the land.
4 And the city was broken up, and all the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between two walls, which is by the king's garden: (now the Chaldees were against the city round about:) and the king went the way toward the plain.
5 And the army of the Chaldees pursued after the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho: and all his army were scattered from him.
6 So they took the king, and brought him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah; and they gavea judgment upon him.
7 And they slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him with fetters of brass, and carried him to Babylon.
8 And in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, which is the nineteenth year of king Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, came Nebuzaradan, captainb of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, unto Jerusalem:
9 And he burnt the house of the LORD, and the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, and every great man's house burnt he with fire.
10 And all the army of the Chaldees, that were with the captain of the guard, brake down the walls of Jerusalem round about.
11 Now the rest of the people that were left in the city, and the fugitivesc that fell away to the king of Babylon, with the remnant of the multitude, did Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carry away.
12 But the captain of the guard left of the poor of the land to be vinedressers and husbandmen.
13 And the pillars of brass that were in the house of the LORD, and the bases, and the brasen sea that was in the house of the LORD, did the Chaldees break in pieces, and carried the brass of them to Babylon.
14 And the pots, and the shovels, and the snuffers, and the spoons, and all the vessels of brass wherewith they ministered, took they away.
15 And the firepans, and the bowls, and such things as were of gold, in gold, and of silver, in silver, the captain of the guard took away.
16 The two pillars, oned sea, and the bases which Solomon had made for the house of the LORD; the brass of all these vessels was without weight.
17 The height of the one pillar was eighteen cubits, and the chapiter upon it was brass: and the height of the chapiter three cubits; and the wreathen work, and pomegranates upon the chapiter round about, all of brass: and like unto these had the second pillar with wreathen work.
18 And the captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest, and Zephaniah the second priest, and the three keepers of the door:e
19 And out of the city he took an officerf that was set over the men of war, and five men of them that were in the king's presence, which were found in the city, and the principal scribe of the host, which mustered the people of the land, and threescore men of the people of the land that were found in the city:
20 And Nebuzaradan captain of the guard took these, and brought them to the king of Babylon to Riblah:
21 And the king of Babylon smote them, and slew them at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was carried away out of their land.
22 And as for the people that remained in the land of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had left, even over them he made Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, ruler.
23 And when all the captains of the armies, they and their men, heard that the king of Babylon had made Gedaliah governor, there came to Gedaliah to Mizpah, even Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and Johanan the son of Careah, and Seraiah the son of Tanhumeth the Netophathite, and Jaazaniah the son of a Maachathite, they and their men.
24 And Gedaliah sware to them, and to their men, and said unto them, Fear not to be the servants of the Chaldees: dwell in the land, and serve the king of Babylon; and it shall be well with you.
25 But it came to pass in the seventh month, that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, of the seed royal,g came, and ten men with him, and smote Gedaliah, that he died, and the Jews and the Chaldees that were with him at Mizpah.
26 And all the people, both small and great, and the captains of the armies, arose, and came to Egypt: for they were afraid of the Chaldees.
27 And it came to pass in the seven and thirtieth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, that Evilmerodach king of Babylon in the year that he began to reign did lift up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah out of prison;
28 And he spake kindlyh to him, and set his throne above the throne of the kings that were with him in Babylon;
29 And changed his prison garments: and he did eat bread continually before him all the days of his life.
30 And his allowance was a continual allowance given him of the king, a daily rate for every day, all the days of his life.
2 Kings 25:18. Seraiah, the father of Ezra, was put to death with the nobles for rebellion; but many of those who thus suffered had also made a false covenant with the Lord; and their sins found them out. Jeremiah 34:18.
REFLECTIONS.
Standing now on the ruins of a burned and desecrated temple, what is the history of the Hebrew nation for nine hundred years, since the emancipation from Egypt, but a sea of troubles. After the intervals of sunshine and calm, storms more furious seem to arise in succession. It commenced and closed in a state of captivity; its condition from first to last, corresponded to its obedience or disobedience to the principles on which it was first founded. A state in which the Almighty, the great Creator, vouchsafed to become their supreme governor and king; and as such, both showed himself present by a visible appearance, and gave them counsels by a divine voice, intelligible to their hearing, or by men raised up on purpose, and wholly actuated by his extraordinary influence. This is the great distinguishing characteristic of the Jewish state: the more we consider it the more we shall be astonished, and the more shall we be affected by it. Considered in this light, the history of the old testament will no longer appear merely a relation of the transactions of a worthless people, in which we have no concern, but as the oracles of God, in which we are most intimately concerned as men, and without which a chaos of darkness with regard to God would for ever remain. To know nothing of God but from the appearance of things, to have no knowledge of his ever having made himself known to men, or taken any account of them, would be a miserable state of darkness: nor would even the new testament afford us all the satisfaction we might wish on this head; for we should naturally cast our reflections on the ages past, and be staggered that God should, as it were just now, reveal himself to men, when the many ages before had never heard of any such thing. Our doubts and scruples would arise at this inexplicable difficulty; we should think it strange that the Creator and Sovereign of the world, if indeed the nature of things permitted it, and he was disposed to make himself known to men, should so long have left his world without manifesting himself in it. But by the sacred writings of the old testament all these doubts are removed. We learn from them, that ever since man was placed on the earth, God hath from time to time shown his majesty to man, and declared his right as the universal Creator and Lord. The scriptures of the old testament embrace a series of historical facts relative to this important point. And not this only, but to put it still more beyond doubt, and that it might not rest solely upon the single testimony of individuals, or transitory appearances, the holy scriptures inform us that God selected a whole nation, and appeared visible among them for many ages, by a shechinah or visible glory, which was such as plainly indicated it to be the symbol of the divine presence. This too was supported by wonderful facts attending the presence of this shechinah, and such declarations were audibly made from it as more and more confirmed the truth, that it was indeed the representative of the Lord, the Sovereign of the universe. For so were the affairs of this people, among whom God placed this visible symbol of his presence, ordered; so did things happen, that the presence of the true God residing among men, and taking account of the things of the earth, was thereby made known to the ends of the world, and his name went forth into all the earth.
“In a word, in the various occurrences of the Jewish state, God's sovereign superintendance over mankind, together with his unbounded power over all things, was fully manifested. So wonderful is the series of facts, so placed are the prophecies relating to them, so surpassing all human power the wondrous things recorded, so plain, regular, and with such apparent marks of truth, the relation also corroborated by the existence of the same people to this very day, still separated from all others, that we could scarce be more affected, nor scarce be more convinced of God's unbounded power, and of his ordering the affairs of the earth, by having the divine shechinah with us and seeing a series of miracles, than we may be by attentively and seriously perusing the records of the Jewish state in the writings of the old testament.
“If we only cast back our reflections on what we have read in the foregoing page; what a series of wonderful events lie before us. The formation of the earth, the creation of man, the appearance of God to him in the early ages of the world, the destruction and renovation of the earth, the evident demonstration that human nature may be removed into another state, by the translation of Enoch; the calling of Abraham from his kindred and country to preserve him from idolatry, and thereby to keep alive the knowledge of the true God in the world, and the right worship of him. The promise given to Abraham that his seed should inherit a particular country pointed out to him, in which he had not then so much as a single foot of property, though they were first to be strangers without any inheritance, and serve other people for four hundred years. The exact accomplishment of these remarkable particulars, the settling of the descendants of Abraham in that very country which had been declared to him for their inheritance four hundred years before; their perfect establishment therein, and the glory they arrived to; the many great signs and wonders which were done amongst them, the prophets that were raised up, mighty in deed and in word, and evidently actuated by more than human influence. The prosperity and adversity of the state, from first to last, through a succession of ages, exactly corresponding to what had been promised and threatened at the first settling of it, according to their obedience or disobedience; their entire removal out of the land into captivity, exactly agreeing with the prophetic denunciation declared long before; and their surprising restoration to their own land again, as exactly agreeing to prophetic promises, if they would repent and turn again to the Lord. When we attentively consider all these particulars, we cannot but be struck with admiration and reverence at the greatness of the things, and feel as it were that the hand of God was in them; and that the holy scriptures are indeed the authentic records of God's dealings with the children of men, and his manifestations to them.
“It deserves farther to be remarked, that before the fall of the Jewish state, when ten parts out of twelve were no more to be a people, or return into their own land, that God was pleased to raise up two prophets, endued with a most extraordinary power, Elijah and Elisha, whose acts are recorded in the foregoing books. It seems highly consistent with the most consummate wisdom, that at a time when the house of Israel was diverging into the grossest idolatry, and the house of Judah following their example, that some great effort should be made if possible to reclaim and save them, or at least to inculcate the most important truths; which though not having an immediate influence, did perhaps afterwards keep alive the remembrance of the true God, and inspire notions of the greatest importance. In the days of Elijah and Elisha we find miracles were multiplied: they were exerted frequently, and upon many occasions, to testify the unbounded power of God, but in particular that he could raise men from the dead. Thus both Elijah and Elisha seem to have been brought into such circumstances by providence, as to give them occasion to restore the dead to life. This, with the wonderful translation of Elijah, and the dead man restored to life by the touch of Elisha's bones, could not but in some degree inculcate the important truth, that the human nature might be translated to a happier state in the heavens. It is not improbable that at this time, the hopes of being restored to life after death were almost entirely extinguished, and the memory of Enoch's translation nearly effaced. It was therefore highly necessary that the hopes of human nature should again be raised with respect to this important point; and therefore these two prophets were enabled to raise the dead, and one of them was taken up alive into heaven. How long the memory of these great things was retained by the ten tribes in the countries they were carried into we know not; but it is highly probable they might reflect upon them with more attention than they had done in their own country, and by this means propagate these important truths in all the countries where they were carried to. This we know, that the captivity of Judah, which seemed as it were to put an end to all God's purposes in his election of the Hebrew nation, was the means of not only fixing them for ever after, more steadily in the worship, but also of spreading the knowledge, of Him and his almighty power through a great part of the world.”