In his days Nebuchadnezzar, etc. In glancing through these chapters there are two objects that press on our attention.

1. A national crisis. The peace, the dignity, the wealth, the religious privileges of Judah are converging to a close. Israel has already been carried away by a despot to a foreign land, and now Judah is meeting the same fate. All nations have their crises - they have their rise, their fall, their dissolution.

2. A terrible despot. The name of Nebuchadnezzar comes for the first time under our attention. Who is he? He is a prominent figure in the histories and the prophecies of the old Scriptures. He was the son and successor of Nabopolassar, who, having revolted from Assyria and helped to destroy Nineveh, brought Babylon at once into pre-eminence. The victories of Nebuchadnezzar were stupendous and many. Egypt, Syria, Phoenicia, Palestine, all bowed to his triumphant arms. He made Babylon, his capital, one of the most wonderful cities of the world. The walls with which he fortified it contained, we are told, no less than five hundred million tons of masonry. He was at once the master and the terror of the age he lived in, which was six hundred years before Christ. There is no character in all history more pregnant with practical suggestions than his - a mighty fiend in human form. We have in these two chapters a view of

(1) the wickedness of man;

(2) the retribution of Heaven;

(3) and the supremacy of God. Here we have -

I. THE WICKEDNESS OF MAN. The wickedness here displayed is marked:

1. By inveteracy. It is here said of Jehoiachin, "He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father had done." In ver. 19 the same is also said of Zedekiah: "He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that Jehoiakim had done." This has, indeed, been said of many kings of Judah, as of all the kings of Israel. What a hold, then, had wickedness taken on the Jewish people! It had so deeply struck its roots into their very being that neither the mercies nor the judgments of Heaven could uproot it. It was a cancer transmitted from sire to son, poisoning their blood and eating up their nature. Thus, then, from generation to generation the wickedness of the Jewish people seemed to be a disease hereditary, ineradicable, and incurable.

2. By tyranny. "At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon came up against Jerusalem, and the city was besieged. And Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon came against the city, and his servants did besiege it." This is seen in the conduct of Nebuchadnezzar. What right had Nebuchadnezzar to leave his own country, invade Judah, plunder it of its wealth, and bear away by violence its population? None whatever. It was tyranny of the worst kind, an outrage on every principle of humanity and justice. Sin is evermore tyrannic. We see it everywhere. On all hands do we see men and women endeavoring to bring others into subjection - masters their servants, employers their employees, rulers their subjects. Tyranny everywhere is the evidence, the effect, and the instrument of wickedness.

3. By inhumanity. "And the King of Babylon... carried out thence all the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king's house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solomon King of Israel had made in the temple of the Lord, as the Lord had said. And he carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valor, even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and smiths: none remained, save the poorest sort of the people of the land. And he carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, and the king's mother, and the king's wives, and his officers, and the mighty of the land, those carried he into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon. And all the men of might, even seven thousand, and craftsmen and smiths a thousand, and all that were strong and apt for war, even them the King of Babylon brought captive to Babylon." He rifled the country of its people and its property, and inflicted untold misery on thousands. Thus wickedness transforms man into a fiend, and turns society into a pandemonium.

4. By profanity. We read here that Nebuchadnezzar carried away all the treasures of the house of the Lord, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solomon had made in the temple thereof. We also read here that "he burnt the house of the Lord.... And the pillars of brass that were in the house of the Lord, and the bases, and the brazen sea that was in the house of the Lord, did the Chaldees break in pieces, and carried the brass of them to Babylon. And the pots, and the shovels, and the snuffers, and the spoons, and all the vessels of brass wherewith they ministered, took they away. The two pillars, one sea, and the bases which Solomon had made for the house of the Lord; the brass of all these vessels was without weight." Thus this ruthless despot, becoming a scourge in God's hands, desecrated the most holy things in the city of Jerusalem and in the memory of millions. He reduced the magnificent pile of buildings to ashes, and rifled it of its sacred and priceless treasures. Wickedness is essentially profane. It has no reverence; it crushes every sentiment of sanctity in the soul. O sin, what hast thou done? Thou hast quenched the divinest instincts in human nature, and poisoned the fountain of religious and social sympathies, substituted cruelty for love, tyranny for justice, blind superstition and blasphemous profanity for devotion.

II. THE RETRIBUTION OF HEAVEN.

III. THE SUPREMACY OF GOD. - D.T.

It had been predicted that the final blow on Judah would be delivered, not by the Assyrians, but by the Chaldeans. "The days come, that all that is in thine house... shall be carried into Babylon: nothing shall be left" (2 Kings 20:17; cf. Micah 4:10). That prediction now hasted to its accomplishment. Babylon had emerged as the successor to Assyria in the undisputed possession of imperial power. Its second king was Nebuchadnezzar, God's chosen instrument for the chastisement of Judah and surrounding nations (Jeremiah 27.).

I. JEHOIAKIM'S SUBMISSION.

1. The defeat of Nechoh. It was through Pharaoh-Nechoh, as previously stated, that Nebuchadnezzar was brought into relations with Judah, which did not end till the final ruin of the latter state. Nechoh had advanced to Carchemish on the Euphrates, when Nebuchadnezzar, finding his hands free, met him in battle, and completely defeated him ( B.C. 605). All the country between Egypt and the Euphrates, which Nechoh had conquered, thus fell under the power of Babylon (ver. 7). Egypt might intrigue, but was thereafter powerless to help. Wonderful are the combinations of circumstances by which, in providence, God works out his ends.

2. Nebuchadnezzar's adduce on Jerusalem. It was now the fourth year of Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 25:1), and, as Nechoh's vassal, he had probably contributed his contingent to the defeated Egyptian army. Nebuchadnezzar speedily came against him. We learn from other passages (2 Chronicles 36:6, 7; Daniel 1:1, 2) that Jerusalem actually was besieged, and Jehoiakim bound in fetters, with the intention of being sent to Babylon. The king saved himself by submission; but the temple was plundered of its sacred vessels, and certain princes, among them Daniel, were taken away captive. This is the beginning of the seventy years' captivity (Jeremiah 25:11).

3. The three years servitude. For three years Jehoiakim bore the heavy yoke of the King of Babylon, as before he had borne that of Nechoh. During that period his character underwent no improvement. He still proved himself the tyrant and oppressor of his people, was obstinate and headlong in his courses, and sought the life of God's prophets. He built magnificent palaces by forced labor (Jeremiah 22:13-17). When Jeremiah's roll was read to him, he cut it up with his penknife, and threw it in the fire (Jeremiah 36:20-23). He slew Urijah the prophet, and would have put Jeremiah also to death if he had dared (Jeremiah 26:12-24). Under his reign heathenism underwent a great revival, and the moral condition of the people rapidly deteriorated. Judah, like Israel of former days, had become a hopelessly corrupt carcass, and nothing remained but to remove it from the face of the earth.

II. JEHOIAKIM'S REBELLION.

1. Its motives. Three years Jehoiakim served the King of Babylon, then "he turned and rebelled against him" Not much light is thrown on the motives of this rebellion beyond the fact that Nebuchadnezzar was at this time at a distance, and Jehoiakim may have thought he might assert his independence with impunity. Pharaoh-Nechoh was still intriguing to stir up disaffection; plots were always hatching to get the subject-nations to combine against their common oppressor (cf. Jeremiah 27:3: on this occasion, however, Moab and Ammon were on the side of Nebuchadnezzar, ver. 2); and false prophets were never wanting to predict success (cf. Jeremiah 28.). Jeremiah gave a steady voice to the contrary, but it was unheeded. The proverb was again to be fulfilled - whom the gods wish to destroy, they first madden. Jehoiakim was given up to the delusions of his own vain and foolish notions, and the people cherished extravagant hopes based on their possession of the temple and the Law (Jeremiah 7:4; Jeremiah 8:8). But neither temple nor Law will avail those who refuse to "thoroughly amend" their "ways' and their "doings" (Jeremiah 7:5).

2. Human instruments of punishment. "And the Lord sent against him bands of the Chaldees, and bands of the Syrians," etc. Nebuchadnezzar could not at the time attend to Jehoiakim in person; but he could lay his commands on neighboring peoples, and these were ordered to keep up a galling and harassing attack on Judah by means of marauding bands. Detachments of his own Chaldeans were assisted by Syrians, Moabites, and Ammonites, and gave Jehoiakim no peace. God's heritage is compared by Jeremiah to "a speckled bird, the birds round about are against her" (Jeremiah 12:9). Troubles rise on every side against those who forsake God.

3. God over all. It was the "Lord" who sent these hostile bands "against Judah to destroy it" - "surely at the commandment of the Lord came this upon Judah, to remove them out of his sight." In sacred history everything is looked at from the standpoint of Divine providence. From second causes it mounts invariably to the supreme cause. Nebuchadnezzar is God's "servant - his instrument for the chastisement of the nations" (Jeremiah 27:4-7); and what, from the purely historical point of view, seems a lawless play of forces, is, from the Divine point of view, a scene full of meaning, interest, and purpose. The rejection of Judah is again in these verses connected with the sin of Manasseh, only, however, as before shown, because people and rulers made these sins their own, and would not depart from them. Heathenism was again rampant (cf. Ezekiel 8.), and Jehoiakim, like Manasseh, was shedding "innocent blood" (Jeremiah 22:17). Scripture knows no fatalism beyond that which springs from the incorrigibleness of a people wedded to their sins. Neither is there any sin which, if sincerely repented, of, God will not pardon, though its temporal effects may still have to be endured. But there is the awful possibility of getting beyond pardon through our own obduracy. Both sides of the truth are seen in Jeremiah - on the one hand exhortations to repentance, with assurances of forgiveness. (Jeremiah 18:7-10; Jeremiah 26:1-3;. 35. .15); and on the other declarations that the time for pardon was past (Jeremiah 7:15-16, 27, 28; Jeremiah 11:11-14; Jeremiah 15:1; Jeremiah 18:11, 12; Jeremiah 36:16, 17, etc.). It was not because the fathers had eaten sour grapes that the children's teeth were set on edge (Ezekiel 18:2); but the children had walked in the fathers' ways.

III. JEHOIAKIM'S SON.

1. Jehoiakim's end. Like so many other wicked kings, Jehoiakim came to a miserable end, for there is no reason to doubt that Jeremiah's prophecy was fulfilled regarding him, "He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem" (Jeremiah 22:18, 19). The circumstances are unknown.

2. Jehoiachin's character. Jehoiachin succeeded to the throne of his father, but, like Jehoahaz, he only held it for three months. Of him, too, the record is borne that he "did evil." He is, perhaps, the "young lion" of Ezekiel 19:5-9, whom the nations took in their net, and brought to the King of Babylon. There seem to have been some elements of nobleness in his nature, and, after a long captivity, he became the friend and companion of the Babylonian king who succeeded Nebuchadnezzar (2 Kings 25:27-30). - J.O.

Some captives had been taken to Babylon on occasion of Nebuchadnezzar's first advance against Jerusalem (Daniel 1:1, 2). The full storm of predicted judgment was now, however, to descend. What prophets had so long foretold amidst the scoffing and incredulity of their godless contemporaries was now at length to be accomplished. The final tragedy fails into two parts, of which the first is before us.

I. JEHOIACHIN MAKES SURRENDER.

1. The city besieged. The attacks of the Chaldeans, Syrians, Moabites, etc., mentioned in ver. 2, had served an immediate purpose in weakening the strength and exhausting the resources of Judah. The great king, whose fame was already equaling that of a Sargon or a Sennacherib, was now able to send his main army against the city, and soon after appeared upon the scene in person. Again, as in the days of Hezekiah, the city was closely invested; but this time there was no Isaiah to hurl back scorn for scorn, and assure the trembling king of the complete discomfiture of the enemy. Neither was there a king of Hezekiah's stamp to lay the blasphemous messages of the invader before the Lord, and entreat his interposition (2 Kings 19:14-19). It was another kind of message Jeremiah the prophet had to bear to king and people. The day for mercy was past; and in default of a general repentance, which was not to be expected, there remained nothing but "a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation" (Hebrews 10:27). The day of final reckoning surely comes for every sinner. It had come for Israel a hundred and twenty years before; it was now come for Israel's sister Judah.

2. Jehoiachin's voluntary surrender. Seeing resistance to be hopeless, Jehoiachin did what, on the most favorable interpretation of his conduct, was a noble thing. The city could not hold out; but if he and the other members of the royal house went and made voluntary surrender of themselves to Nebuchadnezzar, the worst horrors might be spared. This, indeed, was what Jeremiah always counseled. Jehoiachin accordingly went forth, with Nehushta his mother, and his servants, princes, and officers, and delivered themselves up to the Babylonian king. He might feel, with the lepers of Samaria, "If they save us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall but die" (2 Kings 7:4). Or he may have been actuated by the nobler impulse to save the people, and may have thought, "It is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not" (John 11:50). His submission did avert the worst from the nation. His own life was spared, though he was led away a prisoner; the city was not sacked and burned, as afterwards; and no massacre of the inhabitants took place. A tender tone pervades Jeremiah's references to this unfortunate king (Jeremiah 22:24-30). Ezekiel likens him to "the highest branch of the cedar," which the "great eagle, with great wings, long-winged, full of feathers, which had divers colors," crops off (Ezekiel 17:3, 4); and again (according to some) to "a young lion," who had "learned to catch the prey, and devoured men," but "the nations set against him on every side," and "he was taken in their pit" and put in chains, and brought to the King of Babylon (Ezekiel 19:5-9). We may share with Jeremiah in his sympathy for the unhappy young king in his exile (Jeremiah 22:28). Had his circumstances been more favorable, better things might have been hoped of him. The nobility of self-sacrifice redeems a character from many faults.

II. THE CITY DESPOILED. If Jehoiachin's surrender saved the people from slaughter, it could not save the city from plunder, nor its inhabitants from captivity. Nebuchadnezzar was no kid-gloved conqueror; where his mailed hand fell, he let it be felt. This city had rebelled against him, and he would effectually cripple its power to rebel again by impoverishing, degrading, and weakening it to the utmost. Nebuchadnezzar was intent only on his own ends, yet unconsciously he was carrying out to the letter the predictions which God's prophets had been dinning into the people's ears with so little result during all the years of their backsliding. The city was despoiled:

1. Of its wealth and sacred vessels. "He carried out thence all the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king's house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solomon... had made," etc. Jehoiakim had saved his treasures at the expense of exactions from the people, and his "covetousness" had doubtless filled them still more (Jeremiah 22:17). These ill-gotten gains were now carried away, and with them such of the temple vessels as were made of, or plated with, gold, the "cutting to pieces" being probably confined to the latter, with such large articles as the golden candlestick, etc. Of the smaller articles some few were spared (2 Kings 25:15), and the rest were preserved in Babylon, and restored on the return (Ezra 1:7-11). Judgment thus again began at the house of God. As, with the wealth of the city, the wealth-producers were also taken (ver. 14), it is easy to see to what poverty it was reduced.

2. Of its royal family and nobles. "And he carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, and the king's mother, and the king's wives," etc. The land was thus deflowered of its king and aristocracy. The nobles, indeed, had proved no source of strength to the nation, but had set an example of luxury, oppression, corruption, and idolatry. Still, they were the representatives of its old hereditary families; they had high social position and great influence; and they ought to have been, if they were not, patrons and examples of everything good and great. Those who have rank, fortune, and leisure may be of the highest service to a state, if only they devote their powers to its true welfare. They contribute elements of refinement, culture, and wealth to it, which cannot be lost without impoverishment. If, however, they abuse their opportunities, and grow luxurious, idle, and wicked, they have generally to suffer severely in the end.

3. Of its artisans and warriors. "And all the men of might, even seven thousand, and craftsmen and smiths a thousand, all that were strong and apt for war," etc. Besides removing from the city the wealth that enriched it, and the nobles who adorned it, Nebuchadnezzar took away the skilful hands that did its work, and the strong arms that fought for it. He left none "save the poorest sort of the people of the land." This was to drain the city dry of every element of its prosperity. The middle classes of a nation - its wealth-producers and skilled laborers - even more than its aristocracy - are the source of its strength. By them is created the capital of the country; through them that capital undergoes constant renewal and increase; they supply the wants of every other class; without them the nobles would be helpless, and on them "the poorest sort of people" - too often the unfortunate, the shiftless, the inefficient classes - depend for casual employment and support. Nebuchadnezzar looked well to his own interests when he deported these classes, and not the poor, the less able, leas thrifty, to Babylon. But their departure was ruinous to Jerusalem, and this also Nebuchadnezzar intended. It was, indeed, an irretrievable, crushing blow, which had fallen on the nation, nonetheless ruinous and terrible that it had been so long predicted, and was so richly deserved. Piety tends to the enrichment and strengthening of a nation, as of an individual, even temporally; but a course of ungodliness ends in the loss of temporal and spiritual possessions together.

III. ZEDEKIAH MADE KING.

1. Accession of Zedekiah. Jehoiachin was a man of spirited character, and Nebuchadnezzar seems to have thought that he would be better served by putting a weaker man upon the throne. The person chosen was an uncle of the young king's, a brother of Jehoiakim, whose name, Mattaniah, Nebuchadnezzar changed to Zedekiah - "the Righteousness of Jehovah." There was little honor now in being King of Judah; but at least the city and temple still stood; the priesthood had not been carried away; there were a few nobles left to grace the court; and by degrees new artisans and soldiers might have been got in, and the state again Built up. It was the last chance, and was given only to show clearly how hopeless the moral condition of the people was. For if anything could have sobered them, and convinced. them of the truth of the words of the prophets, it was such a catastrophe as had descended upon them. Deaf to all warnings, however, whether of mercy or judgment, the people only went on from bad to worse.

2. His weak character. The outstanding feature in Zedekiah's character was weakness - lack of courage and strength of will He was not without good impulses. He showed a friendly disposition to Jeremiah; on various occasions he sought his advice and intercession (Jeremiah 21:1, 2; Jeremiah 37:3; Jeremiah 38:14-17); at Jeremiah's instigation he made a covenant with the people of Jerusalem, pledging them to give liberty to their bondmen (Jeremiah 34:8, 11), and once at least he refrained from entering into a proposed league against Nebuchadnezzar (Jeremiah 27:3). But his timid, faithless, unstable nature reveals itself at every turn. He was like Herod, who did many things at the bidding of John the Baptist, and heard him gladly, yet at last beheaded him to please a wicked woman (Mark 6:20). Zedekiah knew what was fight, but did not do it (Jeremiah 37:2); he weakly allowed himself to be overruled by his nobles - when they broke through his covenant he had no power to resist (Jeremiah 34:11); when they urged him to put Jeremiah to death, he consented, saying, "Behold, he is in your hand: for the king is not he that can do anything against you" (Jeremiah 38:4, 5); then, when Ebed-Melech pleaded for the prophet, he gave orders for his deliverance (ver. 10); he disobeyed Jeremiah in throwing off his allegiance to Nebuchadnezzar, and in seeking an alliance with Egypt; and when Nebuchadnezzar again came up against him, he sought Jeremiah's counsel, but did not take it when it was given (Jeremiah 38:14-28), etc. Meanwhile idolatry had firmly established itself in the holy city, and within the very precincts of the temple (Ezekiel 8.). Fitly, therefore, is the reign of this last king described, like the rest, as "evil." His weakness and vacillation, his unfaithfulness to his own best convictions, his sinful yielding to others in what he knew to be wrong, were his ruin. He was in a hard and difficult position, and he had no strength of mind to cope with it.

3. His rebellion. At length, yielding to the solicitations of his nobles, and hopeful of help from Egypt (Ezekiel 17:15), he broke his oath of allegiance to Nebuchadnezzar, an act which Ezekiel strongly condemns (Ezekiel 17:16-19). The cup was full, and the Lord left him thus far to himself, that the nation might be destroyed. Men who will not follow light, lose light. A blindness, as from heaven, falls upon them. They are left to the bent of their own hearts, and their own counsel is their ruin. Sin is the supreme folly, as righteousness is the supreme wisdom. - J.O.