In the preceding chapter, the young king Jehoiachin (he was 18 years of age) gave himself up a prisoner to Nebuchadnezzar, king of BabyIon (verse 11), and all but the poor of Jerusalem (verse 12) were carried away with Jehoiachin and his court to Babylon. It was then, no doubt, that the youthful Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah (Daniel 1, etc.) were taken to Babylon.
Mattaniah, uncle of king Jehoiachin, was made king in his stead, his name being changed by Nebuchadnezzar to Zedekiah. In the ninth year Zedekiah rebelled against the Babylonian rule, as his brother Jehoiakim had done shortly before his death, and Nebuchadnezzar came again to Jerusalem, and besieged it for over a year. Famine resulted and the king and his army at last fled by night, but were overtaken; the sons of the king were put to death before his eyes, and the wretched man's eyes were then put out, and he was carried away to Babylon.
Jerusalem was now reduced almost to ruins, the magnificent temple of Solomon being burned with the king's, and all the other great houses in the city, and the city walls were broken down. The remaining people of Jerusalem were carried away captives, and there were left only the poor of the land, to be vinedressers and farmers. The costly pillars of brass, the brass sea, and the other things of whose making 1 Kings 7 tells, were carried away by the Chaldean army to Babylon. And as a final act of vengeance, no doubt allowed of God because of the wickedness of the leaders of Judah, both of priests and people, of which we are briefly told in 2 Chronicles 36:14,14Moreover 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. (2 Chronicles 36:14) the chief priest, the second priest, and various others in the temple, and in the city were carried away to Nebuchadnezzar and slain.
Nebuchadnezzar put Gadaliah over the people that were left, but ten months afterward he and the Jews and Chaldeans that were with him, were killed by Ishmael, a member of the king's family. Afraid now of severe punishment for the act, all the people fled to Egypt. See Jeremiah 41-44 for most interesting details of this period.
The Second Book of Kings closes this history, with the mention of a gracious act on the part of Nebuchadnezzar's successor, Evil-Merodach in the year that he began to reign, toward Jehoiachin the long imprisoned king of Judah, now about 55 years of age. "He spoke kindly to him," set his throne above that of the kings with him in Babylon, changed his prison garments and allowed him to eat before him the rest of his life. This event took place in B. C. 561; twenty five years yet remained of the seventy years captivity of Judah (Jer. 25:1212And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the Lord, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desolations. (Jeremiah 25:12); Ezra 1).
We have completed our examination of the outward history of Israel and Judah, down to the removal of the earthly people of God from the land He gave them; the ten tribes known as the kingdom of Israel had been removed by the Assyrians in B. C. 722, soon thereafter to disappear from the world's view, and today unknown, but at the word of God, they will reappear (Ezekiel 37). Much that tells of the true state of the people leading to the captivity of the twelve tribes will be found in the books of Jonah, Joel, Amos, Hosea, Micah, Isaiah, Nahum, Zephaniah, Habakkuk, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel and Obadiah, which cover a period of about 250 years, and we may learn much of the moral history of this people from the two books of Chronicles.