Into Exile

KEY VERSE: “Jerusalem and Judah so angered the LORD that in the end he banished them from his sight.” —II Kings 24:20, NEB

SELECTED SCRIPTURE: II Kings 25:1-12

WE NOW come to the sorry end of God’s typical kingdom. Of each of the last three rulers of Judah it is recorded that “he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord.” The last was Zedekiah, whose evil reign Jehovah God brought to an end “because … it came to the point in Jerusalem and Judah that he cast them out from his presence.”—II Kings 24:20, RSV

We are given details of the evil conditions that existed in the nation in another account, where we are told that Zedekiah “hardened his heart from turning unto the Lord God of Israel. 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. And the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, … 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. 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.”—II Chron. 36:13-17

For sixteen awful months Jerusalem was besieged by the Chaldeans, when the walls were finally breached and the wretched inhabitants fled from the city. They were overtaken near Jericho, and the king and his followers taken before Nebuchadnezzar. Zedekiah’s children were killed before his eyes, and he himself was blinded and carried captive to Babylon, where he died. Subsequently Nebuchadnezzar sent his chief marshal back to Jerusalem, who plundered the Temple, destroyed the king’s house, and carried the inhabitants away captive to Babylon.

Henceforth, they were never again a sovereign nation under Jehovah God, and as a nation they were no longer his covenant people and his “peculiar treasure above all people.” (Exod. 19:3) But God had foreknown this outcome from the beginning. He had told Moses, “I will hide my face from them. … They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities; and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.”—Deut. 31:16-29; 32:19-21

God’s holy prophets also foretold this loss by Israel of her preeminent place in God’s favor as his special people. Hosea quotes Jehovah as saying, “I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God.” And Isaiah wrote, “I [God] am sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name.”—Hos. 2:23; Isa. 65:1

When we come to the New Testament we learn specifically to whom Jehovah God offers this place of special favor that was lost by Israel. It is the church of the Gospel Age, composed of individual believing Jews and Gentiles, who, having faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ, offer themselves to the Lord and follow daily in their Master’s steps. The Apostle Paul wrote, “What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction the Jewish nation]: and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? As he saith also in Hosea, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved. And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God.” And the Apostle Peter adds his own inspired confirmation in his letter to the church.—Rom. 9:22-26; 10:19-21; I Pet. 2:9,10; Acts 15:14

What a precious prize was lost by an idolatrous, stiff-necked nation! And what a glorious and honored place in Christ’s coming kingdom as kings and priests is being offered—even this very day—to all who give themselves wholly to the Lord, and follow in Jesus’ steps!—Rev. 20:4,6

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