2 Chronicles 36:21

As long as she lay desolate, she kept sabbath, &c.— God had commanded them to let their land rest every seventh year; and because the Jews had violated this, as well as other precepts, God gave their land a long sabbath or rest, for no less than ten times seven years, which Jeremiah threatened. If it be true that they had neglected this law for the space of 490 years, having ploughed their ground in the seventh, as well as in other years, then the judgment of God upon them was very remarkable, in causing their ground to rest, and be free from tillage, just as long as it should have been if they had observed his law. For in those 490 years, says Procopius Gazaeus, when they were under the government of kings, there were seventy years to be kept as sabbaths, which, that the land might enjoy its sabbath, were spent in the captivity of Babylon. Their punishment too was made the more remarkable in this particular, if it be true, as some have observed, that both the kingdom of Samaria and the kingdom of Judah were destroyed in a sabbatical year; and that, immediately after a jubilee, the city and temple were destroyed by Titus, according to Scaliger's computation. See Patrick and Calmet.

REFLECTIONS.—1st, The short and evil reigns recorded in this chapter were the forerunners of the kingdom's ruin.

1. Jehoahaz, set up by the people, was quickly dethroned, and carried captive into Egypt, by Necho, provoked at his father's opposition. He reigned but three months, yet long enough to give a sufficient specimen of his evil conduct.
2. Jehoiakim, the tributary of the king of Egypt, continued eleven years governor of the impoverished country, yet more abundantly weakened by his wickedness, when he fell into the hands of the king of Babylon, and died in chains, after seeing Jerusalem and the temple plundered, and the sacred vessels taken away.
3. His son, who succeeded him, shewed, though young, the evil which was in his heart; and after a short reign of three months and ten days, was deposed by the king of Babylon; and Zedekiah, the last of the kings of Judah, advanced to the throne. Thus did the nation hastily change her kings; and, not being admonished by the repeated warnings, vengeance came upon them to the uttermost.
2nd, Behold the desolations of Zion! the beautiful temple lies in ruins, the line of confusion is stretched over the palaces of Jerusalem: O sin, what a bitter and evil thing art thou! We have here,
1. Zedekiah's rebellion against the king of Babylon. Though he had solemnly sworn to serve him, he perfidiously violated his engagements, and obstinately refused submission, notwithstanding all Jeremiah's warnings and entreaties. Note; (1.) Oaths are sacred things; God will not suffer them to be broken with impunity. (2.) They who will not bow, must break.

2. He rebelled also against God, and neither paid regard to the admonitions of Jeremiah, nor humbled himself before the Lord. We need not mind who is our enemy, if God be our friend; but who ever hardened his heart against him and prospered?
3. The priests and people universally fell into idolatry; they who should have been the first to restrain others, were the ringleaders in the wickedness; and even in the temple their abominations were set up. In vain the compassionate Lord God of their fathers, unwilling that they should perish, sent them repeated warnings, and his prophets with diligence and zeal rose up early to testify against their sins; they mocked at his counsel, and despised his reproof; his prophets they treated with scorn and contempt; and the hand of the priests was chief in the transgression. Note; (1.) God abandons not the sinner, till all the methods of his grace have been ineffectual, and his wilful heart refuses to be reformed. (2.) God's true prophets are earnest and assiduous in their word; woe to those against whom they complain, all day long have we stretched out our hands to a disobedient and gainsaying people. (3.) When God visits for sin, no charge will lie heavier than that of a slighted gospel. (4.) God's ministers, when employed in the kindest offices, are often grievously misused; but let them not be discouraged; they shall be glorious, though Israel be not gathered. (5.) Worldly and wicked priests in every age have been the most inveterate enemies of God's faithful prophets and preachers. (6.) They who ill-use the ministers of God, seeking to render their labours ineffectual, and their persons contemptible, know not what wrath they treasure up against their souls.

4. The consequence of this conduct was utter ruin. After a terrible siege, see 2 Kings 25 the city was taken by storm, and sacked; no sanctuary protected young or old; even the temple was filled with the carcases of the slain; the sacred house was stripped of all its ornaments, the palaces were plundered, the temple was burnt, the city razed to its foundations, the few that were left from the sword were enslaved and insulted, and dragged to Babylon to weep in vain over the mournful remembrance of their part and present miseries; their country was ravaged and desolate, and left to enjoy those sabbaths which they profanely refused to observe: and seventy years the iron bondage lasted, till the kingdom of Persia rose upon the ruins of their conquerors, and the daughter of Babylon, wasted with misery, drank of the cup of wrath which she had put into the hands of the nations. Note; (1.) The more we see of the miseries that sin produces, the more should we fear to provoke a holy God. (2.) When the rod has done its office, it will be broken or burned. God, though he afflicts his people, will not be wroth for ever.

Thus have we arrived at the end of the books of the Chronicles, which we would advise always to be read in harmony with the books of Kings; for then they will mutually throw light upon each other, and the difficulties found in either will be more easily removed. We conclude our observations with some general reflections on the moral causes of the Babylonish captivity, and the propriety of that dispensation, from Dr. Taylor's ingenious work, intitled, "The Scheme of Scripture Divinity."

The whole Jewish nation, both Judah and Israel, had all along a strong and strange propensity to idolatry; and their morals were as corrupt as their religion. What their peculiar temptations were, we know not; but all the endeavours of good kings, and all the preaching of holy prophets, sent by special commission from God, were ineffectual to produce a reformation. See 2 Chronicles 36:14; 2 Chronicles 36:23. They were, therefore, carried away captive into Babylon. This dreadful calamity came upon them gradually; but gradual punishment effected no amendment of the religion or morals of the nation. Zedekiah, the last king, was as bad as his predecessor; therefore the whole land of Judea was reduced to an utter desolation for the sins thereof.

The propriety of this dispensation will appear, if we reflect: I. That the lenity of God appeared in bringing this terrible overthrow upon them so gradually, after a succession of judgments from less to greater, for the space of twenty-two years, which should have been a warning to them, and by experience have convinced them, that the threatenings denounced by the prophets would certainly be executed.

II. That it was a just punishment of their sins, particularly of their idolatry, whereby they forsook God, and therefore God justly forsook them, and delivered them into the hands of their enemies, as Moses had foretold, Leviticus 26:30.

III. This dreadful calamity was the most effectual means to work their reformation, which was the end proposed by the divine wisdom. Now in their captive, disconsolate state, they had time, and their calamities had a natural tendency to give them a disposition, to reflect upon the long series of iniquity and perverseness which had brought them under the heaviest of God's judgments. Now their own wickedness corrected them, and their back-slidings reproved them; now they must know and see that it was an evil thing and bitter, that they had forsaken the Lord their God, and that his fear had not been in them. Isaiah 2:19. In the land of their captivity, the sermons of the prophets, declaiming with the highest authority against their profane and vicious practices, would be still sounding in their ears, and their abject, wretched condition, the consequence of such practices, would sink them deep into their hearts, and surety give them an utter detestation of what they very well knew was the cause of all their grievous sufferings.

IV. The law of God, written by Moses as the rule of their conduct in all affairs civil and religious, and the ground of their happiness, they had so far neglected, that once it was almost unknown and lost among them, 2 Kings 22:8. Against this contempt of the divine law, the prophets had frequently and strongly protested, Isaiah 5:24; Isaiah 30:9. Jeremiah 6:19; Jeremiah 8:8; Jeremiah 9:13.Hosea 8:12. Amos 2:4 and in other places; and publicly declared that it would be their ruin. In their ruined state, this must have been remembered as the primary reason of all their sufferings; and they must have been thoroughly sensible, that a due regard to the law of God was the only way to recover his favour and their own prosperity, and accordingly must have been disposed to be attentive to it; which was really the case. Here was another good effect of this dispensation; and it may justly be given as one good reason of their being so strongly fixed against idolatry ever after the Babylonish captivity.

V. This dispensation was also calculated to produce good effects among the nations whither they were carried into captivity. For, wherever they were dispersed in the eastern countries, they would bring with them the knowledge of the true God, now seriously impressed upon their hearts. Divine Providence, by such signal circumstances of his interposition as were published and known over all the vast extent of the eastern empire, raised some of the captive Jews to the highest posts of dignity and power in the courts of Assyria and Persia, Daniel 1:19 insomuch that the most haughty monarchs openly confessed the living and true God, as the only and supreme God, (Daniel 2:47; Daniel 4:34; Daniel 4:37.) and made decrees, which were published throughout their spacious dominions, in favour of the profession and worship of him, Daniel 3:29; Daniel 6:25; Daniel 6:28. From all this it is clear, that the Jews, notwithstanding their depravity in their own country during the captivity of seventy years, must have been a burning and shining light all over the eastern countries. And thus, in this dispensation also, God, the Father and Governor of mankind, was working for the reformation and improvement of the world, in that which is the true excellency of their nature, and the only foundation of their happiness.