'Zedekiah was one and twenty years old when he began to reign, and
reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. 12. And he did that which was evil
in the sight of the Lord his God, and humbled not himself before
Jeremiah the prophet speaking from the mouth of the Lord. 13. And he
also rebelled against king Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by
God: but he stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart from turning
unto the Lord God of Israel. 14. Moreover all the chief of the
priests, and the people, transgressed very much after all the
abominations of the heathen; and polluted the house of the Lord which
he had hallowed in Jerusalem. 15. And the Lord God of their fathers
sent to them by His messengers, rising up betimes, and sending;
because He had compassion on His people, and on His dwelling-place:
16. But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised His words, and
misused His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against His
people, till there was no remedy. 17. Therefore he brought upon them
the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in
the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or
maiden, old man, or him that stooped for age: he gave them all into
his hand. 18. And all the vessels of the house of God, great and
small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures
of the king, and of his princes; all these he brought to Babylon. 19.
And they burnt the house of God, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem,
and burnt all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the
goodly vessels thereof. 20. And them that had escaped from the sword
carried he away to Babylon; where they were servants to him and his
sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia: 21. To fulfil the word
of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her
sabbaths; for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil
threescore and ten years.'--2 CHRON. xxxvi 11-21.
Bigness is not greatness, nor littleness smallness. Nebuchadnezzar's
conquest of Judah was, in his eyes, one of the least important of his
many victories, but it is the only one of them which survives in the
world's memory and keeps his name as a household word. The Jews were a
mere handful, and their country a narrow strip of land between the
desert and the sea; but little Judaea, like little Greece, has taught
the world. The tragedy of its fall has importance quite
disproportioned to its apparent magnitude. Our passage brings together
Judah's sin and Judah's punishment, and we shall best gather the
lessons of its fall by following the order of the text.
Consider the sin. There is nothing more remarkable than the tone in
which the chronicler, like all the Old Testament writers, deals with
the national sin. Patriotic historians make it a point of pride and
duty to gloss over their country's faults, but these singular
narrators paint them as strongly as they can. Their love of their
country impels them to 'make known to Israel its transgression and to
Judah its sin.' There are tears in their eyes, as who can doubt? But
there is no faltering in their voices as they speak. A higher feeling
than misguided 'patriotism' moves them. Loyalty to Israel's God forces
them to deal honestly with Israel's sin. That is the highest kind of
love of country, and might well be commended to loudmouthed 'patriots'
in modern lands.
Look at the piled-up clauses of the long indictment of Judah in verses
12 to 16. Slow, passionless, unsparing, the catalogue enumerates the
whole black list. It is like the long-drawn blast of the angel of
judgment's trumpet. Any trace of heated emotion would have weakened
the impression. The nation's sin was so crimson as to need no
heightening of colour. With like judicial calmness, with like
completeness, omitting nothing, does 'the book,' which will one day be
opened, set down every man's deeds, and he will be 'judged according
to the things that are written in this book.' Some of us will find our
page sad reading.
But the points brought out in this indictment are instructive. Judah's
idolatry and 'trespass after all the abominations of the heathen' is,
of course, prominent, but the spirit which led to their idolatry,
rather than the idolatry itself, is dwelt on. Zedekiah's doing 'evil
in the sight of the Lord' is regarded as aggravated by his not
humbling himself before Jeremiah, and the head and front of his
offending is that 'he stiffened his neck and hardened his heart from
turning unto the Lord.' Similarly, the people's sin reaches its climax
in their 'mocking' and 'scoffing' at the prophets and 'despising'
God's words by them. So then, an evil life has its roots in an
alienated heart, and the source of all sin is an obstinate self-will.
That is the sulphur-spring from which nothing but unwholesome streams
can flow, and the greatest of all sins is refusing to hear God's voice
when He speaks to us.
Further, this indictment brings out the patient love of God seeking,
in spite of all their deafness, to find a way to the sinners' ears and
hearts. In a bold transference to Him of men's ways, He is said to
have 'risen early' to send the prophets. Surely that means earnest
effort. The depths of God's heart are disclosed when we are bidden to
think of His compassion as the motive for the prophet's messages and
threatenings. What a wonderful and heart-melting revelation of God's
placableness, wistful hoping against hope, and reluctance to abandon
the most indurated sinner, is given in that centuries-long conflict of
the patient God with treacherous Israel! That divine charity suffered
long and was kind, endured all things and hoped all things.
Consider the punishment. The tragic details of the punishment are
enumerated with the same completeness and suppression of emotion as
those of the sin. The fact that all these were divine judgments brings
the chronicler to the Psalmist's attitude. 'I was dumb, I opened not
my mouth because Thou didst it.' Sorrow and pity have their place, but
the awed recognition of God's hand outstretched in righteous
retribution must come first. Modern sentimentalists, who are so
tenderhearted as to be shocked at the Christian teachings of judgment,
might learn a lesson here.
The first point to note is that a time arrives when even God can hope
for no amendment and is driven to change His methods. His patience is
not exhausted, but man's obstinacy makes another treatment inevitable.
God lavished benefits and pleadings for long years in vain, till He
saw that there was 'no remedy.' Only then did He, as if reluctantly
forced, do 'His work, His strange work.' Behold, therefore, the
'goodness and severity' of God, goodness in His long delay, severity
in the final blow, and learn that His purpose is the same though His
methods are opposite.
To the chronicler God is the true Actor in human affairs.
Nebuchadnezzar thought of his conquest as won by his own arm. Secular
historians treat the fall of Zedekiah as simply the result of the
political conditions of the time, and sometimes seem to think that it
could not be a divine judgment because it was brought about by natural
causes. But this old chronicler sees deeper, and to him, as to us, if
we are wise, 'the history of the world is the judgment of the world.'
The Nebuchadnezzars are God's axes with which He hews down fruitless
trees. They are responsible for their acts, but they are His
instruments, and it is His hand that wields them.
The iron band that binds sin and suffering is disclosed in Judah's
fall. We cannot allege that the same close connection between
godlessness and national disaster is exemplified now as it was in
Israel. Nor can we contend that for individuals suffering is always
the fruit of sin. But it is still true that 'righteousness exalteth a
nation,' and that 'by the soul only are the nations great,' in the
true sense of the word. To depart from God is always 'a bitter and an
evil thing' for communities and individuals, however sweet draughts of
outward prosperity may for a time mask the bitterness. Not armies nor
fleets, not ships, colonies and commerce, not millionaires and trusts,
not politicians and diplomatists, but the fear of the Lord and the
keeping of His commandments, are the true life of a nation. If
Christian men lived up to the ideal set them by Jesus, 'Ye are the
salt of the land,' and sought more earnestly and wisely to leaven
their nation, they would be doing more than any others to guarantee
its perpetual prosperity.
The closing words of this chapter, not included in the passage, are
significant. They are the first words of the Book of Ezra. Whoever put
them here perhaps wished to show a far-off dawn following the stormy
sunset. He opens a 'door of hope' in 'the valley of trouble.' It is an
Old Testament version of 'God hath not cast away His people whom He
foreknew.' It throws a beam of light on the black last page of the
chronicle, and reveals that God's chastisement was in love, that it
was meant for discipline, not for destruction, that it was
educational, and that the rod was burned when the lesson had been
learned. It was learned, for the Captivity cured the nation of
hankering after idolatry, and whatever defects it brought back from
Babylon, it brought back a passionate abhorrence of all the gods of
the nations.