2 Kings 25:12

The captain of the guard left the poor.

A remnant of the nation was left in Judea, principally the poor tillers of the soil. To these were assigned certain fields and vineyards (Jeremiah 39:10). Some of other classes also remained, Jeremiah of his own free choice (Jeremiah 40:6); Gedaliah, the grandson of Shaphan the scribe, who was appointed governor, and various officers and men who hid themselves until the Chaldeans were gone (see verse 23). But the temple was gone, the city walls destroyed, the city. desolation, and the land almost. wilderness. After. splendid history of 400 years as the Jewish capital, Jerusalem was. waste, and in the ordinary course of human affairs would have disappeared from history, as Nineveh, Babylon, Tyre, Palmyra, Memphis, Thebes, and other ruined cities.

PRACTICAL AND SUGGESTIVE.

1. The "inevitable day" comes to cities and nations. It comes when their sins cry aloud to God. When the iniquity of the Amorites was full they were destroyed. When ten righteous could not be found in Sodom, it was turned over to destruction.

2. God is. sure defence. As long as Israel obeyed the Lord it was protected against all foes. God made his people stronger than Egypt, Philistia, or Assyria. Nebuchadnezzar would have been as clay in his hands.

3. His word is steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience will receive. just recompense of reward. The fate of Judah was what Moses and the prophets had declared should be the result of disobedience.

4. Sin exiles from the favor of God and the heavenly Canaan. As the Jews were driven exiles into. far-off land on account of sin, so still the impenitent sinner becomes an eternal exile. There is no place for him in the heavenly Jerusalem.

5. The Chaldean armies could never have destroyed the temple had not idolatry, division and sins prepared the way. The temple was the type of the church. Satan and infidelity would assail it in vain if all within were pure and holy. The temple is too often made. desolation by the divisions and idolatry of the worshippers.

6. There is nothing more terrible than exile. John Howard Payne, when far away, wrote, "Home, Sweet Home." Swiss soldiers abroad have often died on account of longing for their native mountains. The Jews in Babylon could not sing because they remembered Jerusalem. But if we should be banished from the heavenly home forever! Sin exiled Israel from Judah to Babylon; the sin of rejecting Christ. second time destroyed Jerusalem and sent the people into captivity. Sin, too, may exile us from the New Jerusalem forever. Nothing unclean can enter the pearly gates.