'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 gave 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 Nebuzar-adan, captain 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 fugitives that fell away to the king of Babylon,
with the remnant of the multitude, did Nebuzar-adan, the captain of
the guard, carry away. 12. But the captain of the guard left of the
poor of the land to be vine-dressers and husbandmen.'--2 KINGS xxv.
1-12.
Eighteen months of long-drawn-out misery and daily increasing famine
preceded the fall of the doomed city. The siege was a blockade. No
assaults by the enemy, nor sorties by the inhabitants, are narrated,
but the former grimly and watchfully drew their net closer, and the
latter sat still in their despair. The passionless tone of the
narrative here is very remarkable. Not a word escapes the writer to
show his feelings, though he is telling his country's fall. We must
turn to Lamentations for sighs and groans. There we have the emotions
of devout hearts; here we have the calm record of God's judgment. It
is all one long sentence, for in the Hebrew each verse begins with
'and,' clause heaped on clause, as if each were a footstep of the
destroying angel in his slow, irresistible march.
The narrative falls into two principal parts--the fate of the king and
that of the city. It is unnecessary to dwell on the details. The
confusion of counsels, the party strife, the fierce hatred of God's
prophet, the agony of famine, are all suppressed here, but painted
with terrible vividness in the Book of Jeremiah. At last the fatal day
came. On the north side a breach was made in the wall, and through it
the fierce besiegers poured--the 'princes of the king of Babylon,'
with their idolatrous and barbarous names, 'came in, and sat in the
middle gate.' It was night. The sudden appearance of the conquerors in
the heart of the city shot panic into the feeble king and his 'men of
war' who had never struck one blow for deliverance; and they hurried
under cover of darkness, and hidden between two walls, down the ravine
to the king's garden, once the scene of pleasure, but waste now, and
thence, as best they could, round or over Olivet to the road to
Jericho. The king's flight by night had been foretold by Ezekiel far
away in captivity (Ezek. xii. 12); and the same prophet received on
that very day a divine message announcing the fall of the city, and
bidding him 'write thee the name of the day, even of this selfsame
day,' as that on which the king of Babylon 'drew close unto Jerusalem'
(Ezek. xxiv. 1 _et seq._).
Down the rocky road went the flying host, with 'their shaftless,
broken bows' closely followed by the avenging foe with 'red pursuing
spear.' Where Israel had first set foot on its inheritance, the last
king of David's line was captured and his monarchy shattered. The
scene of the first victory, when Jericho fell before unarmed men
trusting in God, was the scene of the last defeat. The spot where the
covenant was renewed, and the reproach of Israel rolled away, was the
spot where the broken covenant was finally avenged and abrogated. The
end came back to the beginning, and the cradle was the coffin.
Away up to Riblah, in the far north, under the shadow of Lebanon, the
captive was dragged to meet the conqueror. The name of each is a
profession of belief. The one means 'Jehovah is righteousness'; the
other, 'Nebo, protect the crown.' The idol seemed to have overcome,
but the defeat of the unbelieving confessor of the true God at the
hands of the idolater is really the victory of the righteousness which
the name celebrated and the bearer of the name insulted. His murdered
sons were the last sight which he saw before he was blinded, according
to the ferocious practice of the East. It was ingenuity of cruelty to
let him see for so long, and then to give him that as the last thing
seen, and therefore often remembered. Note how the enigma of Ezekiel's
prophecy (Ezek. xii. 13) and its apparent contradiction of Jeremiah's
(Jer. xxxii. 4; xxxiv. 3) are reconciled, and learn how easily the
fact, when it comes, clears the riddles of prophecy, and how easily,
probably, the whole facts, if we knew them, would clear the
difficulties of Scripture history. The blinded king was harmless, but
according to Jewish tradition, was set to work in a mill (though that
is probably only an application of Samson's story), and according to
Jeremiah (Jer. lii. 11), was kept in prison till his death. So ended
the monarchy of Judah.
The fate of the city was not settled for a month, during which, no
doubt, there was much consultation at Riblah whether to garrison or
destroy it. The king of Babylon did not go in person, but despatched a
force commanded by a high officer, to burn palace, Temple, the more
important houses (the poorer people would probably be lodged in huts
not worth burning), and to raze the fortifications. In accordance with
the practice of the great Eastern despotisms, deportation followed
victory--a clever though cruel device for securing conquests. But some
were left behind; for the land, if deserted, would have fallen out of
cultivation, and been profitless to Babylon. The bulk of the people of
Jerusalem, the fugitives who had joined the invaders during the siege,
and the mass of the general population, were carried off, in such a
long string of misery as we may still see on the monuments, and a
handful left behind, too poor to plot, and stirred to diligence by
necessity. So ended the possession by Israel of its promised
inheritance.
Now this fall of Jerusalem is like an object-lesson to teach
everlasting truth as to the retributive providence of God. What does
it say?
It declares plainly what brings down God's judgments. The terms on
which Israel prospered and held its land were obedience to God's law.
We cannot directly apply the principles of God's government of it to
modern nations. The present analogue of Israel is the Church, not the
nation. But when all deductions have been made, it is still true that
a nation's religious attitude is a most potent factor in its
prosperous development. It is not accidental that, on the whole,
stagnant Europe and America are Roman Catholic, and the progressive
parts Protestant. Nor was it causes independent of religion that
scattered a decaying Christianity in the lands of the Eastern Church
before the onslaught of wild Arabs, who, at all events, did believe in
Allah. So there are abundant lessons for politics and sociology in the
story of Jerusalem's fall.
But these lessons have direct application to the individual and to the
Christian Church. All departure from God is ruin. We slay ourselves by
forsaking Him, and every sinner is a suicide. We live under a moral
government, and in a system of things so knit together as that even
here every transgression receives its just recompense--if not visibly
and palpably in outward circumstances, yet really and punctually in
effects on mind and heart, which are more solemn and awful. 'Behold
the righteous shall be recompensed in the earth: much more the wicked
and the sinner.' Sin and sorrow are root and fruit.
Especially does that crash of Jerusalem's fall thunder the lesson to
all churches that their life and prosperity are inseparably connected
with faithful obedience and turning away from all worldliness, which
is idolatry. They stand in the place that was made empty by Israel's
later fall. Our very privileges call us to beware. 'Because of
unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith.' That great
seven-branched candlestick was removed out of its place, and all that
is left of it is its sculptured image among the spoils on the
triumphal arch to its captor. Other lesser candlesticks have been
removed from their places, and Turkish oppression brings night where
Sardis and Laodicea once gave a feeble light. The warning is needed
to-day; for worldliness is rampant in the Church. 'If God spared not
the natural branches, take heed lest He also spare not thee.' The fall
of Jerusalem is not merely a tragic story from the past. It is a
revelation, for the present, of the everlasting truth, that the
professing people of God deserve and receive the sorest chastisement,
if they turn again to folly.
Further, we learn the method of present retribution. Nebuchadnezzar
knew nothing of the purposes which he fulfilled. 'He meaneth not so,
neither doth his heart think so.' He was but the 'axe' with which God
hewed. Therefore, though he was God's tool, he was also responsible,
and would be punished even for performing God's 'whole work upon
Jerusalem,' because of 'the glory of his high looks.' The retribution
of disobedience, so far as that retribution is outward, needs no
'miracle.' The ordinary operations of Providence amply suffice to
bring it. If God wills to sting, He will 'hiss for the fly,' and it
will come. The ferocity and ambition of a grim and bloody despot,
impelled by vainglory and lust of cruel conquest, do God's work, and
yet the doing is sin. The world is full of God's instruments, and He
sends punishments by the ordinary play of motives and circumstances,
which we best understand when we see behind all His mighty hand and
sovereign will. The short-sighted view of history says 'Nebuchadnezzar
captured Jerusalem B.C. so and so,' and then discourses about the
tendencies of which Babylonia was exponent and creature. The deeper
view says, God smote the disobedient city, as He had said, and
Nebuchadnezzar was 'the rod of His anger.'
Again, we learn the Divine reluctance to smite. More than four hundred
years had passed since Solomon began idolatry, and steadily, through
all that time, a stream of prophecy of varying force and width had
flowed, while smaller disasters had confirmed the prophets' voices.
'Rising up early and sending' his servants, God had been in earnest in
seeking to save Israel from itself. Men said then, 'Where is the
promise of His coming?' and mocked His warnings and would none of His
reproof; but at last the hour struck and the crash came. 'As a dream
when one awaketh; so, O Lord! when Thou awakest, Thou shalt despise
their image.' His judgment seems to slumber, but its eyes are open,
and it remains inactive, that His long-suffering may have free scope.
As long as His gaze can discern the possibility of repentance, He will
not strike; and when that is hopeless, He will not delay. The
explanation of the marvellous tolerance of evil which sometimes tries
faith and always evokes wonder, lies in the great words, which might
well be written over the chair of every teacher of history: 'The Lord
is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness; but
is long-suffering to us-ward.' Alas, that that divine patience should
ever be twisted into the ground of indurated disobedience! 'Because
sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the
heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.'
God's reluctance to punish is no reason for doubting that He will.
Judgment is His 'strange work,' less congenial, if we may so
paraphrase that strong word of the prophet's, than pure mercy, but it
will be done nevertheless. The tears over Jerusalem that witnessed
Christ's sorrow did not blind the eyes like a flame of fire, nor stay
the outstretched hand of the Judge, when the time of her final fall
came. The longer the delay, the worse the ruin. The more protracted
the respite and the fuller it has been of entreaties to return, the
more terrible the punishment. 'Behold, therefore, the goodness and
severity of God: towards them which fell, severity; but toward thee,
goodness, if thou continue in His goodness: otherwise thou also shalt
be cut off.'