2 Chronicles 36:11 - Meaning and Application

Here we have an account of the destruction of the kingdom of Judah and the city of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, that is, the Babylonians. Abraham, God’s friend, was once called out of that land, from Ur of the Chaldees, when God brought him into covenant and fellowship with himself. Now his unfaithful descendants were carried back into that same land, showing that they had lost the special kindness they had received for Abraham’s sake, and the blessing of that covenant to which he was called. All was now undone again.

The sins that brought this ruin are first set before us. Zedekiah, the king in whose days it came, brought it on himself through his own folly, because he acted badly toward God and toward the king of Babylon. If he had made God his friend, the disaster might have been avoided. Jeremiah brought him messages from God, and if he had listened, he could have had peace for a longer time. But he did not humble himself before Jeremiah (2 Chronicles 36:12). It was expected that this great king, high as he was, would humble himself before a poor prophet speaking from the Lord. He should have accepted the prophet’s warnings, followed his counsel, and submitted to the power of God’s word in his mouth. Because he would not make himself a servant of God, he was made a slave to his enemies. God will find some way to humble those who refuse to humble themselves.

Jeremiah, as a prophet, had been set over nations and kingdoms (Jeremiah 1:10). Though he seemed a weak man, anyone who would not humble himself before him did so at great risk. Zedekiah also broke his covenant with the king of Babylon. He had sworn to be a faithful subject, but he rebelled against him and broke his word (2 Chronicles 36:13). This was what moved the king of Babylon to deal so harshly with him. In every nation, an oath was treated as a sacred thing, and those who dared to break it were seen as the worst sort of people, abandoned by God and hated by mankind. So if Zedekiah proved false after giving his hand in promise, he would not escape (Ezekiel 17:18). Even though Nebuchadnezzar was a heathen and an enemy, Zedekiah would still learn that there is a God to whom vengeance belongs.

What ruined Zedekiah was not only that he failed to turn to the Lord God of Israel. He also hardened himself against turning. He stiffened his neck and hardened his heart, meaning he stubbornly refused to come back to God. He would not bow his neck under God’s yoke or let his heart be shaped by God’s word. In effect, he chose not to be healed, and therefore not to live.

The great sin that brought this destruction was idolatry. The priests and the people followed the disgusting practices of the heathen. They abandoned the pure worship of God for the filthy rites of pagan religion, and so they polluted the house of the Lord (2 Chronicles 36:14). Even the priests, the leaders who should have resisted idolatry, were leaders in it. A place is very near ruin when its religion is already ruined.

The greatest increase of guilt, and the thing that filled up the measure of their sin, was the abuse they gave to God’s prophets, who were sent to call them to repentance (2 Chronicles 36:15, 16). This shows God’s tender compassion. He sent prophets because he was the God of their fathers, still in covenant with them, and still their God, even though this sinful generation had forsaken him. He sent his messengers early and often, to convict them of their sin and warn them of the ruin they were bringing on themselves. This means he did it with great care and concern, as a person rises early to attend to important work. It also means that as soon as they began to drift toward idols, God quickly sent his messengers to reprove them.

God gave them early warning of both their duty and their danger. That should stir us to seek God early, since he rises early to send to us. The prophets who were sent also rose early to speak to the people. They were diligent and faithful, wasting no time and missing no chance to deal with them. The more effort ministers put into their work, the more people are answerable if they still ignore it. God did this because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place, and he wanted to prevent their ruin by these means. His efforts to reclaim sinners by his word, by ministers, by conscience, and by providences are all signs of his compassion and his unwillingness that any should perish.

Their own response was shameful and ungrateful. They mocked God’s messengers, which was a direct insult to the one who sent them. They despised God’s word spoken through them, and then treated the prophets themselves as enemies (2 Chronicles 36:16). The abuse they gave Jeremiah, who lived at that time and whose book tells much of it, is one example. This showed strong hatred toward God and a firm resolve to keep on sinning. It brought wrath on them without remedy, because they were sinning against the very remedy God had provided.

Nothing angers God more than abuse directed at his faithful ministers, because what is done against them he counts as done against himself. “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Persecution was the sin that later brought final destruction on Jerusalem by the Romans. See Matthew 23:34-37. Those who mock God’s faithful ministers, make them look contemptible, or vex and mistreat them to keep others from listening, should remember that harming an ambassador is treated as harming the ruler who sent him. They should also remember that a day is coming when they will wish they had never done it, for hell is deeper and more terrible.

The desolation itself followed, along with some of its particular horrors, which are described more fully elsewhere (2 Kings 25:1). Many were put to the sword, even in the house of their sanctuary, where they had fled for safety, hoping the holiness of the place would protect them (2 Chronicles 36:17). But how could they expect that, when they themselves had polluted that very place with their abominations (2 Chronicles 36:14)? Those who cast off the rule of true religion lose the comfort and benefit of it. The Chaldeans showed no respect for the sanctuary, and no natural pity either to the young women or to the elderly.

They had forsaken God, who had shown them mercy (2 Chronicles 36:15), and they wanted nothing to do with him. It was only right, then, that they were handed over to cruel men, since they had shown no mercy to young men or young women.

All the remaining temple vessels, both great and small, along with all the treasures, sacred and ordinary, the treasures of God’s house and those of the king and his officials, were taken and carried to Babylon (2 Chronicles 36:18). The temple was burned, Jerusalem’s walls were torn down, and the houses, called here the palaces because they were so grand, rich, and beautiful (Psalm 48:3), were reduced to ashes. All the fine furnishings, called here the goodly vessels, were destroyed too (2 Chronicles 36:19). Let us see what terrible ruin sin brings, and, if we value the comfort and stability of our possessions, let us guard against the sin that destroys them.

The rest of the people who escaped the sword were taken as captives to Babylon (2 Chronicles 36:20). There they were poor, enslaved, mocked, and exposed to all the misery that comes not only from living in a foreign land, but in an enemy’s land, where those who hated them were in charge. They served those kings, and no doubt were ruled harshly for as long as that kingdom lasted. There they sat by the rivers of Babylon, and with those waters they mixed their tears (Psalm 137:1). It seems they were healed of idolatry there, but as Ezekiel shows, they were not yet cured of mocking the prophets.

The land lay desolate while they were captives in Babylon (2 Chronicles 36:21). That fertile land, once the glory of all lands, was turned into a wilderness, left untilled and uncared for. The pastures were no longer covered with flocks, and the valleys were no longer filled with grain. All of it was neglected.

We may look at this as the just punishment for how they had misused the land. They had used the produce of the land to serve Baal, a false god; so the ground was cursed because of them. Now the land enjoyed its sabbaths (2 Chronicles 36:21), just as God had warned through Moses (Leviticus 26:34), and the reason given there is that the land had not rested on their sabbaths because they had not kept the sabbatical year. Many times they plowed and sowed in the seventh year when the land should have rested, and now it lay unplowed and unsown for seventy years.

God will not lose his honor in the end because of human disobedience. If the due is not paid, he will recover it by force, as he says (Hosea 2:9). If they would not let the land rest, God would make it rest whether they wanted to or not. Some think they had ignored seventy sabbatical years in all, and that the land now enjoyed those same seventy years in return. If fewer years had been missed, it was still fitting that the law should be fully satisfied, even with added interest. We also find that one of God’s complaints against them at this time was that they had broken another law tied to the seventh year, the release of servants (Jeremiah 34:13, etc.).

Yet this also gives some hope that, in time, they would return to the land again. If others had come and settled it, they might have lost all hope of getting it back. But while it lay desolate, it was, as it were, waiting for them and refusing to acknowledge any other owners.