The document discusses the reigns of the last four kings of Judah, focusing on the brief reign of Jehoahaz, son of Josiah, who was made king by the people for a mere three months before being deposed by Pharaoh Necho of Egypt. Jehoiakim, Jehoahaz's brother, was placed on the throne by Necho and ruled under Egyptian dominance, leading to increasing idolatry and the eventual downfall of Judah. The narratives emphasize the moral decline of these kings and the consequences of their actions leading to the destruction of Jerusalem.

1. 2 CHRO ICLES 36 COMME TARY
EDITED BY GLE PEASE
1 And the people of the land took Jehoahaz son of
Josiah and made him king in Jerusalem in place
of his father.
BAR ES, "The narrative runs parallel with 2 Kings (marginal reference) as far as
2Ch_36:13. The writer then emits the events following, and substitutes a sketch in which
the moral and didactic element preponderates over the historical.
CLARKE, "Took Jehoahaz - It seems that after Necho had discomfited Josiah, he
proceeded immediately against Charchemish, and in the interim, Josiah dying of his
wounds, the people made his son king.
GILL 1-13, "Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah,....
Of whose reign, and of the three following, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah, and
the account of them, from hence to the end of 2Ch_36:13, what needs explanation or
reconciliation; see Gill on 2Ki_23:31, 2Ki_23:32, 2Ki_23:33, 2Ki_23:34, 2Ki_23:35,
2Ki_23:36, 2Ki_23:37, 2Ki_24:5, 2Ki_24:6, 2Ki_24:8, 2Ki_24:10, 2Ki_24:17, 2Ki_
24:18
HE RY 1-10, "The destruction of Judah and Jerusalem is here coming on by
degrees. God so ordered it to show that he has no pleasure in the ruin of sinners, but had
rather they would turn and live, and therefore gives them both time and inducement to
repent and waits to be gracious. The history of these reigns was more largely recorded in
the last three chapters of the second of Kings. 1. Jehoahaz was set up by the people
(2Ch_36:1), but in one quarter of a year was deposed by Pharaoh-necho, and carried a
prisoner to Egypt, and the land fined for setting him up, 2Ch_36:2-4. Of this young
prince we hear no more. Had he trodden in the steps of his father's piety he might have
reigned long and prospered; but we are told in the Kings that he did evil in the sight of
the Lord, and therefore his triumphing was short and his joy but for a moment. 2.
Jehoiakim was set up by the king of Egypt, an old enemy to their land, gave what king he
pleased to the kingdom and what name he pleased to the king! 2Ch_36:4. He made
Eliakim king, and called him Jehoiakim, in token of his authority over him. Jehoiakim
did that which was evil (2Ch_36:5), nay, we read of the abominations which he did
(2Ch_36:8); he was very wild and wicked. Idolatries generally go under the name of

2. abominations. We hear no more of the king of Egypt, but the king of Babylon came up
against him (2Ch_36:6), seized him, and bound him with a design to carry him to
Babylon; but, it seems, he either changed his mind, and suffered him to reign as his
vassal, or death released the prisoner before he was carried away. However the best and
most valuable vessels of the temple were now carried away and made use of in
Nebuchadnezzar's temple in Babylon (2Ch_36:7); for, we may suppose, no temple in the
world was so richly furnished as that of Jerusalem. The sin of Judah was that they had
brought the idols of the heathen into God's temple; and now their punishment was that
the vessels of the temple were carried away to the service of the gods of the nations. If
men will profane God's institutions by their sins, it is just with God to suffer them to be
profaned by their enemies. These were the vessels which the false prophets flattered the
people with hopes of the return of, Jer_27:16. But Jeremiah told them that the rest
should go after them (Jer_27:21, Jer_27:22), and they did so. But, as the carrying away
of these vessels to Babylon began the calamity of Jerusalem, so Belshazzar's daring
profanation of them there filled the measure of the iniquity of Babylon; for, when he
drank wine in them to the honour of his gods, the handwriting on the wall presented him
with his doom, Dan_5:3, etc. In the reference to the book of the Kings concerning this
Jehoiakim mention is made of that which was found in him (2Ch_36:8), which seems to
be meant of the treachery that was found in him towards the king of Babylon; but some
of the Jewish writers understand it of certain private marks or signatures found in his
dead body, in honour of his idol, such cuttings as God had forbidden, Lev_19:28. 3.
Jehoiachin, or Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, attempted to reign in his stead, and
reigned long enough to show his evil inclination; but, after three months and ten days,
the king of Babylon sent and fetched him away captive, with more of the goodly vessels
of the temple. He is here said to be eight years old, but in Kings he is said to be eighteen
when he began to reign, so that this seems to be a mistake of the transcriber, unless we
suppose that his father took him at eight years old to join with him in the government, as
some think.
JAMISO , "2Ch_36:1-4. Jehoahaz, succeeding, is deposed by Pharaoh.
the people of the land took Jehoahaz — Immediately after Josiah’s overthrow
and death, the people raised to the throne Shallum (1Ch_3:15), afterwards called
Jehoahaz, in preference to his older brother Eliakim, from whom they expected little
good. Jehoahaz is said (2Ki_23:30) to have received at Jerusalem the royal anointing - a
ceremony not usually deemed necessary, in circumstances of regular and undisputed
succession. But, in the case of Jehoahaz, it seems to have been resorted to in order to
impart greater validity to the act of popular election; and, it may be, to render it less
likely to be disturbed by Necho, who, like all Egyptians, would associate the idea of
sanctity with the regal anointing. He was the youngest son of Josiah, but the popular
favorite, probably on account of his martial spirit (Eze_19:3) and determined opposition
to the aggressive views of Egypt. At his accession the land was free from idolatry; but
this prince, instead of following the footsteps of his excellent father, adopted the
criminal policy of his apostatizing predecessors. Through his influence, directly or
indirectly used, idolatry rapidly increased (see 2Ki_23:32).
K&D 1-4, "The reign of Jehoahaz. Cf. 2Ki_23:30-35. - After Josiah's death, the
people of the land raised his son Jehoahaz (Joahaz), who was then twenty-three years
old, to the throne; but he had been king in Jerusalem only three months when the
Egyptian king (Necho) deposed him, imposed upon the land a fine of 100 talents of

3. silver and one talent of gold, made his brother Eliakim king under the name Jehoiakim,
and carried Jehoahaz, who had been taken prisoner, away captive to Egypt. For further
information as to the capture and carrying away of Jehoahaz, and the appointment of
Eliakim to be king, see on 2Ki_23:31-35.
BE SO , ". The people of the land took Jehoahaz, &c. — The principal contents of
this chapter are explained in the notes on 2 Kings 23:31, and 24., and 25., to which
the reader is referred. What is peculiar to this chapter shall be noticed here.
ELLICOTT, "THE REIG OF JEHOAHAZ (2 Chronicles 36:1-4). (Comp. 2 Kings
23:30-35; 3 Esdr. 1:32-36.)
(1) Then.—And.
The people of the land took Jehoahaz.—Comp. 2 Chronicles 26:1; 2 Chronicles
33:25. Jehoahaz or Shallum was not the firstborn (1 Chron. iii 15). See otes on 2
Kings 23:30, with which this verse agrees.
GUZIK, "A. The last four kings of Judah.
1. (2 Chronicles 36:1-4) The short reign of King Jehoahaz.
Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and made him king in
his father’s place in Jerusalem. Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he
became king, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. ow the king of Egypt
deposed him at Jerusalem; and he imposed on the land a tribute of one hundred
talents of silver and a talent of gold. Then the king of Egypt made Jehoahaz’s
brother Eliakim king over Judah and Jerusalem, and changed his name to
Jehoiakim. And echo took Jehoahaz his brother and carried him off to Egypt.
a. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, anointed him, and
made him king in his father’s place: “The regular succession to the throne of Judah
ceased with the lamented Josiah. Jehoahaz was not the eldest son of the late king.
Johanan and Jehoiakim were both older than he (1 Chronicles 3:15). He was made
king by popular choice: it was the preference of the multitude, not the appointment
of God.” (Knapp)
i. “It seems that after echo had discomfited Josiah, he proceeded immediately
against Charchemish, and in the interim, Josiah dying of his wounds, the people
made his son king.” (Clarke)
ii. “His name is omitted from among those of our Lord’s ancestors in Matthew 1. . . .
which may imply that God did not recognize Jehoahaz, the people’s choice, as being
in a true sense the successor.” (Knapp)

4. iii. 2 Kings 23:32 tells us, he did evil in the sight of the LORD. The reforms of King
Josiah were wonderful, but they were not a long-lasting revival. His own son
Jehoahaz did not follow in his godly ways.
iv. “Jehoahaz (‘Yahweh has seized’) was probably a throne name, for his personal
name as Shallum (Jeremiah 22:11; 1 Chronicles 3:15). The practice of
primogeniture was overridden in view of his older brother (Eliakim) showing anti-
Egyptian tendencies.” (Wiseman)
b. echo took Jehoahaz his brother and carried him off to Egypt: After the defeat of
King Josiah in battle, Pharaoh was able to dominate Judah and make it effectively a
vassal kingdom and a buffer against the growing Babylonian Empire. He imposed
on the land a tribute and put on the throne of Judah a puppet king, a brother of
Jehoahaz (Eliakim, renamed Jehoiakim).
2. (2 Chronicles 36:5-8) The reign and captivity of Jehoiakim.
PULPIT, "One short chapter now brings to a conclusion the work, in so many
aspects remarkable, called 'The Chronicles.' And thirteen verses sum the contents of
the four last pre-Captivity kings of the line of Judah. The words of Keil, in opening
this last chapter in his commentary, are not unworthy of note. He says, "As the
kingdom of Judah after Josiah's death advanced with swift steps to its destruction
by the Chaldeans, so the author of the Chronicle goes quickly over the reigns of the
last kings of Judah, who by their godless con-duet hastened the ruin of the kingdom.
As to the four kings remaining, who reigned between Josiah's death and the
destruction of Jerusalem, he gives, besides their ages at their respective accessions,
only a short characterization of their conduct towards God, and a statement of the
main events which, step by step, brought about the ruin of the king and the burning
of Jerusalem and the temple."
This chapter, then, contains, first, very brief accounts of the four reigns of Jehoahaz
(2 Chronicles 36:1-4), Eliakim or Jehoiakim (2 Chronicles 36:4-8), Jehoiachin (2
Chronicles 36:9, 2 Chronicles 36:10), and Zedekiah (2 Chronicles 36:10-13); next,
general remarks on the iniquity that heralded the destruction of the nation and the
punishment of it by the Chaldean captivity (2 Chronicles 36:14-17); thirdly, the
methods of that destruction and captivity (2 Chronicles 36:17-21); and lastly, the
restoring proclamation of Cyrus King of Persia.
2 Chronicles 36:1
The people of the land took Jehoahaz (see parallel, 2 Kings 23:30). The form of
expression may indicate the hearty zeal of the nation for this chosen son of Josiah,
who seems to have been not the eldest. In the next verse, as Revised Version, he is
called Joahaz. In 1 Chronicles 3:15, as in the affecting passage Jeremiah 22:10-12,
his name appears as Shallum. His mother's name was Hamutal, while the name of

5. the mother of his immediate sue-cessor was Zebudah (2 Kings 23:31 and 2 Kings
23:36).
HAWKER, "The very short reign of Jehoahaz furnished but little subject of
observation. The time was now hastening when Judah, like Israel, should cease to be a
kingdom. Here is the Egyptian king triumphing over Judah, putting down one king and
setting up another, and changing his name at his pleasure. Is this God’s Judah? alas!
what hath sin wrought! Here Jeremiah’s account appears to have been marked with
truth when he said, The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron. Jer_17:1.
Jehoahaz King of Judah
2 Jehoahaz[a] was twenty-three years old when he
became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three
months.
JAMISO , "he reigned three months in Jerusalem — His possession of
sovereign power was of but very brief duration; for Necho determined to follow up the
advantage he had gained in Judah; and, deeming it expedient to have a king of his own
nomination on the throne of that country, he deposed the popularly elected monarch
and placed his brother Eliakim or Jehoiakim on the throne, whom he anticipated to be a
mere obsequious vassal. The course of events seems to have been this: on receiving
intelligence after the battle of the accession of Jehoahaz to the throne, and perhaps also
in consequence of the complaint which Eliakim brought before him in regard to this
matter, Necho set out with a part of his forces to Jerusalem, while the remainder of his
troops pursued their way at leisure towards Riblah, laid a tribute on the country, raised
Eliakim (Jehoiakim) as his vassal to the throne, and on his departure brought Jehoahaz
captive with him to Riblah. The old expositors mostly assumed that Necho, after the
battle of Megiddo, marched directly against Carchemish, and then on his return came to
Jerusalem. The improbability, indeed the impossibility, of his doing so appears from
this: Carchemish was from four hundred to five hundred miles from Megiddo, so that
within “three months” an army could not possibly make its way thither, conquer the
fenced city of Carchemish, and then march back a still greater distance to Jerusalem,
and take that city [Keil].

6. PULPIT, "Put him down; Hebrew, ‫הוּ‬ ֵ‫ִיר‬‫ס‬ְ‫י‬ַ‫ו‬ ; i.e. deposed him (Revised Version). At
Jerusalem. In something more than three months Pharaoh- echo seems to have
been returning, and in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem. The parallel (2 Kings
23:31) tells us that he put Jahoahaz "in bands" at "Riblath in the land of Hamath"
(Ezekiel 19:4). And condemned the land; i.e. inflicted a fine on the land; Hebrew,
‫ֲנשׁ‬‫ע‬ַ‫יּ‬ַ‫ו‬ . From this time nothing further is heard of Jehoahaz or Shallum.
3 The king of Egypt dethroned him in Jerusalem
and imposed on Judah a levy of a hundred talents
[b] of silver and a talent[c] of gold.
CLARKE, "The king of Egypt put him down - He now considered Judah to be
conquered, and tributary to him and because the people had set up Jehoahaz without his
consent, he dethroned him, and put his brother in his place, perhaps for no other reason
but to show his supremacy. For other particulars, see the notes on 2Ki_23:31-35 (note).
JAMISO , "an hundred talents of silver — about $170,000.
and a talent of gold — about $25,000; total amount of tribute, $195,000.
ELLICOTT, "(3) And the king of Egypt put him down at Jerusalem.—Rather,
removed him. 3 Esdr. adds “from reigning,” which is almost demanded by the
context. The LXX. follows the reading of 2 Kings 23:33 : “And Pharaoh-necho
bound him in Riblah, in the land of Hamath, from reigning (i.e., so that he reigned
not) in Jerusalem “; but the Syriac and Vulg. support the existing Hebrew text. The
LXX. begins the verse thus: “And he did the evil before the Lord, according to all
that his fathers had done; “and adds, after the clause about the fine, “and the king
took him away to Egypt.”
Condemned the land in.—Fined the land.—So Kings: “laid a fine upon the land.”
Riblah was in Syria, on the river Orontes. echo may have ordered or enticed
Jehoahaz to meet him there.

7. 4 The king of Egypt made Eliakim, a brother of
Jehoahaz, king over Judah and Jerusalem and
changed Eliakim’s name to Jehoiakim. But echo
took Eliakim’s brother Jehoahaz and carried him
off to Egypt.
JAMISO , "carried him — Jehoahaz.
to Egypt — There he died (Jer_22:10-12).
K&D, "
COFFMA , "Joahaz mentioned in 2 Chronicles 36:4 is only the abbreviated name
of the deposed king Jehoahaz. At this point, eco was master of Judah and
Jerusalem, and God's people were merely vassals of Egypt.
ELLICOTT, "(4) And the king of Egypt made Eliakim.—The verse agrees with 2
Kings 23:34.
Carried him to Egypt.—Made him come. Kings, “and he came to Egypt, and died
there.” Comp. Jeremiah 22:10-12. The LXX. adds: and the silver and the gold he
gave to the Pharaoh. Then the land began to be assessed, in order to give the money
into the mouth of Pharaoh. And each according to ability used to demand the silver
and the gold from the people of the land to give to Pharaoh-necho.”
PULPIT, "Eliakim. The meaning of the word is "God sets up;" the meaning of
Jehoiakim is "Jehovah sets up." An Egyptian king knew and recognized the word
"God," but possibly meant to taunt the "Jehovah" of the Jew
Jehoiakim King of Judah

8. 5 Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he
became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eleven
years. He did evil in the eyes of the Lord his God.
JAMISO , "2Ch_36:5-8. Jehoiakim, reigning ill, is carred into Babylon.
Jehoiakim ... did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord — He followed
the course of his idolatrous predecessors; and the people, to a great extent, disinclined to
the reforming policy of his father, eagerly availed themselves of the vicious license which
his lax administration restored. His character is portrayed with a masterly hand in the
prophecy of Jeremiah (Jer_22:13-19). As the deputy of the king of Egypt, he departed
further than his predecessor from the principles of Josiah’s government; and, in trying
to meet the insatiable cupidity of his master by grinding exactions from his subjects, he
recklessly plunged into all evil.
K&D, "The reign of Jehoiakim. Cf. 2 Kings 23:36-24:7. - Jehoiakim was at his accession
twenty-five years of age, reigned eleven years, and did that which was evil in the eyes of
Jahve his God.
ELLICOTT, "THE REIG OF JEHOIAKIM (2 Chronicles 36:5-8). (Comp. 2
Kings 23:36 to 2 Kings 24:7; 2 Kings 3 Esdr. 1:37-41; Jeremiah 25:26)
(5) Jehoiakim . . . in Jerusalem.—2 Kings 23:36, adding the mother’s name. here. So
LXX.
And he did . . . the Lord.—2 Kings 23:37, which adds “according to all that his
fathers had done.” So LXX.
ebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.— abium-kudurri-uçur (“ ebo guard the crown!
“) son of abopalassar, who had founded this dynasty by successful revolt against
Assyria. His extant inscriptions chiefly relate to palace and temple building.
Schrader gives a short inscription from a brick now in the Zürich Museum. “ abû-
Kudurri-uçur, king of Babylon, restorer of Esagili and Ezida [two famous temples],
son of abû-abala-uçur, King of Babylon am I.” o really historical inscription is
known except a fragment relating to his Egyptian campaign in his 37th year (568
B.C. ), and an illegible one on the rocks of ahr-el-Kelb near Beirut. The LXX. here
interpolates the account of Jehoiakim’s three years of vassalage, and his revolt
against ebuchadnezzar, and the other events and reflections contained in 2 Kings

9. 24:1-4. The LXX. makes Jehoiakim, instead of Manasseh, “fill Jerusalem with
innocent blood,” contrary to the Hebrew text.
And bound him in fetters.—Two bronze (chains), as in 2 Chronicles 33:11.
To carry him to Babylon.—To make him go. It is not said that this intention was
carried out. (Comp. 2 Chronicles 33:11, “and carried him to Babylon.”)
ebuchadnezzar, who, according to Jeremiah 46:2, had defeated echo in a great
battle at Carchemish, in the 4th year of Jehoiakim, appears to have left the king of
Judah to reign as a vassal-king, after inflicting upon him a severe humiliation. (The
LXX., 3 Esdr., Vulg., and Arabic, but not the Syriac, read: “and carried him to
Babylon.”) Thenius says this must be the right reading, and then denies its claim to
credibility. He further asserts that, “in order to allow ample scope for the fulfilment
of the prophecy of Jeremiah” (see ote on 2 Chronicles 36:8), the chronicler has
represented Jehoiakim as carried alive to Babylon in the last year of his reign. This
statement rests not upon objective historical grounds, but upon subjective
prejudices against the chronicler.
Daniel 1:1, by a transcriber’s error, puts this first capture of Jerusalem by
ebuchadnezzar in the third year of Jehoiakim; whereas ebuchadnezzar only
became king in the fourth of Jehoiakim. (2 Kings 25:8; Jeremiah 25:1.)
GUZIK, "2. (2 Chronicles 36:5-8) The reign and captivity of Jehoiakim.
Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven
years in Jerusalem. And he did evil in the sight of the LORD his God.
ebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against him, and bound him in bronze
fetters to carry him off to Babylon. ebuchadnezzar also carried off some of the
articles from the house of the LORD to Babylon, and put them in his temple at
Babylon. ow the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, the abominations which he did, and
what was found against him, indeed they are written in the book of the kings of
Israel and Judah. Then Jehoiachin his son reigned in his place.
a. Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king: Jehoiakim was
nothing more than a puppet king presiding over a vassal kingdom under the
Egyptians. He imposed heavy taxes on the people and paid the money to the
Egyptians, as required (2 Kings 23:35).
i. “ echoh had placed him there as a viceroy, simply to raise and collect his taxes.”
(Clarke)
ii. “Yet at the same time Jehoiakim was wasting resources on the construction of a
new palace by forced labour (Jeremiah 22:13-19).” (Wiseman)
b. He did evil in the sight of the LORD: Jehoiakim, like his brother Jehoahaz, did
not follow the godly example of his father Josiah.

10. i. Jeremiah 36:22-24 describes the great ungodliness of Jehoiakim - how he even
burned a scroll of God’s word. In response to this, Jeremiah received this message
from God: And you shall say to Jehoiakim king of Judah, “Thus says the LORD:
‘You have burned this scroll, saying, “Why have you written in it that the king of
Babylon will certainly come and destroy this land, and cause man and beast to cease
from here?”‘ Therefore thus says the LORD concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah:
‘He shall have no one to sit on the throne of David, and his dead body shall be cast
out to the heat of the day and the frost of the night.’” (Jeremiah 36:29-30)
ii. “To all his former evils he added this, that he slew Urijah the prophet (Jeremiah
26:20; Jer_26:23).” (Trapp)
c. ebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up: ebuchadnezzar, king of the
Babylonian Empire, was concerned with Judah because of its strategic position in
relation to the empires of Egypt and Assyria. Therefore it was important to him to
conquer Judah and make it a subject kingdom (his vassal), securely loyal to
Babylon.
i. ebuchadnezzar came against Jerusalem because the Pharaoh of Egypt invaded
Babylon. In response the young prince ebuchadnezzar defeated the Egyptians at
Charchemish, and then he pursued their fleeing army all the way down to the Sinai.
Along the way (or on the way back), he subdued Jerusalem, who had been loyal to
the Pharaoh of Egypt.
ii. This happened in 605 B.C. and it was the first (but not the last) encounter
between ebuchadnezzar and Jehoiakim. There would be two later invasions (597
and 587 B.C.).
iii. This specific attack is documented by the Babylonian Chronicles, a collection of
tablets discovered as early as 1887, held in the British Museum. In them,
ebuchadnezzar’s 605 B.C. presence in Judah is documented and clarified. When
the Babylonian chronicles were finally published in 1956, they gave us first-rate,
detailed political and military information about the first 10 years of
ebuchadnezzar’s reign. L.W. King prepared these tablets in 1919; he then died,
and they were neglected for four decades.
iv. Excavations also document the victory of ebuchadnezzar over the Egyptians at
Carchemish in May or June of 605 B.C. Archaeologists found evidences of battle,
vast quantities of arrowheads, layers of ash, and a shield of a Greek mercenary
fighting for the Egyptians.
v. This campaign of ebuchadnezzar was interrupted suddenly when he heard of
his father’s death and raced back to Babylon to secure his succession to the throne.
He traveled about 500 miles in two weeks - remarkable speed for travel in that day.
ebuchadnezzar only had the time to take a few choice captives (such as Daniel), a
few treasures and a promise of submission from Jehoiakim.

11. d. Bound him in bronze fetters to carry him off to Babylon: According to 2 Kings
24:1-7 this happed because Jehoiakim rebelled against ebuchadnezzar. God did
not bless this rebellion because though Jehoiakim was a patriot of the kingdom of
Judah, but not a man submitted to God. These sins were among those things that
were found against him.
i. 2 Chronicles 36:6 tells us that ebuchadnezzar intended to take Jehoiakim to
Babylon, bound in bronze fetters. Yet Jeremiah 22:19 tells us that he would be
disgracefully buried outside of Jerusalem.
ii. “The closing formulae make no reference to the burial of Jehoiakim, whose death
occurred about December 598 before the first capture of Jerusalem by
ebuchadnezzar. 2 Chronicles 36:7 implies that he was taken to Babylon, but
Jeremiah 22:19 tells how he was thrown unmourned outside Jerusalem, perhaps by
a pro-Babylonian group who gave him the unceremonial burial of ‘an ass’.”
(Wiseman)
iii. “2 Chronicles 36:6 states that ebuchadnezzar ‘bound him in fetters, to carry
him to Babylon.’ It does not say he was taken there. He may have been released
after promising subjection to his conqueror.” (Knapp)
6 ebuchadnezzar king of Babylon attacked him
and bound him with bronze shackles to take him
to Babylon.
CLARKE, "Came up Nebuchadnezzar - See the notes on 2Ki_24:1.
Archbishop Usher believes that Jehoiakim remained three years after this tributary to
the Chaldeans, and that it is from this period that the seventy years’ captivity, predicted
by Jeremiah, is to be reckoned.
JAMISO , "Against him came up Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon — This
refers to the first expedition of Nebuchadnezzar against Palestine, in the lifetime of his
father Nabopolassar, who, being old and infirm, adopted his son as joint sovereign and
dispatched him, with the command of his army, against the Egyptian invaders of his
empire. Nebuchadnezzar defeated them at Carchemish, drove them out of Asia, and

12. reduced all the provinces west of the Euphrates to obedience - among the rest the
kingdom of Jehoiakim, who became a vassal of the Assyrian empire (2Ki_24:1).
Jehoiakim at the end of three years threw off the yoke, being probably instigated to
revolt by the solicitations of the king of Egypt, who planned a new expedition against
Carchemish. But he was completely vanquished by the Babylonian king, who stripped
him of all his possessions between the Euphrates and the Nile (2Ki_24:7). Then
marching against the Egyptian’s ally in Judah, he took Jerusalem, carried away a portion
of the sacred vessels of the temple, perhaps in lieu of the unpaid tribute, and deposited
them in the temple of his god, Belus, at Babylon (Dan_1:2; Dan_5:2). Though Jehoiakim
had been taken prisoner (and it was designed at first to transport him in chains to
Babylon), he was allowed to remain in his tributary kingdom. But having given not long
after some new offense, Jerusalem was besieged by a host of Assyrian dependents. In a
sally against them Jehoiakim was killed (see on 2Ki_24:2-7; also Jer_22:18, Jer_22:19;
Jer_36:30).
K&D, "The reign of Jehoiakim. Cf. 2 Kings 23:36-24:7. - Jehoiakim was at his
accession twenty-five years of age, reigned eleven years, and did that which was evil in
the eyes of Jahve his God.
2Ch_36:6-8
“Against him came Nebuchadnezzar (in inscriptions, Nabucudurriusur, i.e., Nebo
coronam servat; see on Dan. S. 56) the king of Babylon, and bound him with brazen
double fetters to carry him to Babylon.” This campaign, Nebuchadnezzar's first against
Judah, is spoken of also in 2 Kings 24 and Dan_1:1-2. The capture of Jerusalem, at
which Jehoiakim was put in fetters, occurred, as we learn from Dan_1:1, col. c. Jer_46:2
and Jer_36:7, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim's reign, i.e., in the year 606 b.c.; and with
it commence the seventy years of the Chaldean servitude of Judah. Nebuchadnezzar did
not carry out his purpose of deporting the captured king Jehoiakim to Babylon, but
allowed him to continue to reign at Jerusalem as his servant (vassal). To alter the infin.
‫ּו‬‫כ‬‫י‬ ִ‫ּול‬‫ה‬ ְ‫ל‬ into the perf., or to translate as the perf., is quite arbitrary, as is also the
supplying of the words, “and he carried him away to Babylon.” That the author of the
Chronicle does not mention the actual carrying away, but rather assumes the contrary,
namely, that Jehoiakim continued to reign in Jerusalem until his death, as well known,
is manifest from the way in which, in 2Ch_36:8, he records his son's accession to the
throne. He uses the same formula which he has used in the case of all the kings whom at
their death their sons succeeded, according to established custom. Had Nebuchadnezzar
dethroned Jehoiakim, as Necho deposed Jehoahaz, the author of the Chronicle would
not have left the installation of Jehoiachin by the Chaldean king unmentioned. For the
defence of this view against opposing opinions, see the commentary on 2Ki_24:1 and
Dan_1:1; and in regard to 2Ch_36:7, see on Dan_1:2. The Chronicle narrates nothing
further as to Jehoiakim's reign, but refers, 2Ch_36:8, for his other deeds, and especially
his abominations, to the book of the kings of Israel and Judah, whence the most
important things have been excerpted and incorporated in 2Ki_24:1-4. ‫ה‬ ָ‫שׂ‬ ָ‫ע‬ ‫ר‬ ֶ‫שׁ‬ ֲ‫א‬ ‫יו‬ ָ‫ּות‬‫ב‬ ֲ‫ּוע‬
Bertheau interprets of images which he caused to be prepared, and ‫יו‬ ָ‫ל‬ ָ‫ע‬ ‫א‬ ָ‫צ‬ ְ‫מ‬ִ ַ‫ה‬ of his evil
deeds; but in both he is incorrect. The passages which Bertheau cites for his
interpretation of the first words, Jer_7:9. and Eze_8:17, prove the contrary; for
Jeremiah mentions as ‫ּות‬‫ב‬ ֲ‫ּוע‬ of the people, murder, adultery, false swearing, offering

13. incense to Baal, and going after other gods; and Ezekiel, loc. cit., uses ‫ּות‬‫ב‬ ֵ‫ּוע‬ ‫ּות‬‫שׂ‬ ֲ‫ע‬ of the
idolatry of the people indeed, but not of the making of images - only of the worship of
idols, the practice of idol-worship. The abominations, consequently, which Jehoiakim
committed are both his evil deeds and crimes, e.g., the shedding of innocent blood (2Ki_
24:4), as well as the idolatry which he had practised. ‫יו‬ ָ‫ל‬ ָ‫ע‬ ‫א‬ ָ‫צ‬ ְ‫מ‬ִ ַ‫,ה‬ “what was found upon
him,” is a comprehensive designation of his whole moral and religious conduct and
attitude; cf. 2Ch_19:3. Jehoiakim's revolt from Nebuchadnezzar after three years'
servitude (2Ki_24:1) is passed over by the author of the Chronicle, because the
punishment of this crime influenced the fate of the kingdom of Judah only after his
death. The punishment fell upon Jehoiachin; for the detachments of Arameans,
Moabites, and Ammonites, which were sent by Nebuchadnezzar to punish the rebels, did
not accomplish much.
BE SO , "2 Chronicles 36:6. And bound him in fetters to carry him to Babylon —
But he did not carry him thither, for ebuchadnezzar altered his mind, and
permitted him to reign at Jerusalem as his tributary, though he carried away, as it
follows, some of the vessels of the temple, and also certain principal persons, as we
read in the first of Daniel.
PULPIT, "Against him came up ebuchadnezzar King of Babylon. Our mere
allusions in this and the following verse to ebuchadnezzar's relations to Jehoiakim
and Judah are strange in comparison with the graphic account furnished by the
parallel (2 Kings 24:1-6). The name is the same with abokodrosoros, is written in
the Assyrian monuments ebu-kuduri-utzur, and meaning, " ebo (Isaiah 46:1),
protector from ill," or "protects the crown." In Jeremiah (Jeremiah 49:28) we have
the name written ebuchadrezzar, as also in Ezekiel. ebuchadnezzar, second King
of Babylon, was the son of abopolassar, who took ineveh B.C. 625, and reigned
above forty years. Though we are here told he bound Jehoiakim in chains, to take
him to Babylon, for some reason or other he did not carry out this intention, and
Jehoiakim was put to death at Jerusalem (Jeremiah 12:1-17 :18, 19; Jeremiah 36:30;
Ezekiel 19:8, Ezekiel 19:9). The expedition of ebuchadnezzar was B.C. 605-4
(Daniel 1:1; Jeremiah 25:1), and during it, his father dying, he succeeded to the
throne.
7 ebuchadnezzar also took to Babylon articles
from the temple of the Lord and put them in his
temple[d] there.

14. BAR ES, "In his temple - Compare “the house of his god” Dan_1:2.
Nebuchadnezzars inscriptions show him to have been the special votary of Merodach,
the Babylonian Mars. His temple, which the Greeks called the temple of Behus, was one
of the most magnificent buildings in Babylon. Its ruins still remain in the vast mound,
called Babil, which is the loftiest and most imposing of the “heaps” that mark the site of
the ancient city.
ELLICOTT, "(7) ebuchadnezzar also carried.—And of the vessels of the house . . .
did ebuchadnezzar bring. ot mentioned in Kings, but confirmed by Daniel 1:2.
In his temple.—The temple of “Mercdach, my Lord” (Bilu, i.e., Bel), whom his
inscriptions so frequently mention. The great temple of Belus (Bel Merodach),
which ebuchadnezzar built, was one of the wonders of the world to Herodotus
(Herod, i. 181 seq.)
PULPIT, "(Comp. Daniel 2:2.) The temple here called his temple was, no doubt, the
temple of Belus, or in the vernacular "Merodach," the Babylonian god of war. This
rifling of the sacred vessels of Jerusalem's temple for Babylon's temple was the
significant beginning of the end for Judah now at last, after many a warning.
8 The other events of Jehoiakim’s reign, the
detestable things he did and all that was found
against him, are written in the book of the kings
of Israel and Judah. And Jehoiachin his son
succeeded him as king.
BAR ES, "His abominations which he did - See Jer_7:9, Jer_7:30-31; Jer_
19:3-13; Jer_25:1 etc.; Jehoiakim appears to have restored all the idolatries which Josiah
his father had swept away.

15. BE SO , "2 Chronicles 36:8. That which was found in him — That crime of
rebellion against the king of Babylon, which for a time he kept in his own breast,
but when he saw fit, discovered it and was convicted of it.
ELLICOTT, "(8) ow the rest of the acts.—(Comp. 2 Kings 24:5.)
And his abominations which he did.—His crimes against God and man, i.e.,
probably acts of idolatry and tyranny. (Comp. Jeremiah 25:6; Jeremiah 7:5-11;
Jeremiah 22:13-19; covetousness, shedding innocent blood, &c. charged against
him.)
That which was found in him.—2 Chronicles 19:3. His general character and
conduct.
As in the case of Anion (2 Chronicles 33:25), the last particulars about Jehoiakim
are omitted in this flying notice of his reign, which was only memorable because of
the invasion of ebuchadnezzar. The LXX., however, gives instead of this verse 2
Kings 24:5-6, interpolating in the latter “and was buried with his fathers in the
garden of Uzza” ( ἐν γανοζαῆ or γανοζάν; see 2 Kings 21:26). Thenius says “these
words certainly (!) stood in the original text,” but were omitted by the chronicler
and the editor of Kings, because they conflict with the prophecy of Jeremiah
(Jeremiah 22:18-19, Jeremiah 36:30)—which is apparently the reason why he is so
sure of their genuineness.
JEHOIACHI (2 Chronicles 36:9-10). (Comp. 2 Kings 24:8-17; 3 Esdr. 1:41-44;
Jeremiah 22:24-30; Ezekiel 19:5-9.)
PULPIT, "The rest of the acts of Jehoiakim. As our compiler has literally told us
none at all, we need but note his expression here as a convenient formula, indicating
his own intentional brevity, and the fact that he was privy to all in the original
sources, which he nevertheless now omitted; yet see Jeremiah 7:9; Jeremiah 19:13,
etc. The telling expression, what was found in him, is too readily to be filled up from
the parallel, in its Jeremiah 19:3, Jeremiah 19:4. Jehoiachin his son. In 1 Chronicles
3:16 he is called Jeconiah, and in Jeremiah 22:24 he is called Coniah
Jehoiachin King of Judah

16. 9 Jehoiachin was eighteen[e] years old when he
became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three
months and ten days. He did evil in the eyes of the
Lord.
BAR ES, "Eight years old - Rather, eighteen (see the marginal reference).
Jehoiachin had several wives and (apparently) at least one child Jer_22:28, when, three
months later, he was carried captive to Babylon.
CLARKE, "Jehoiachin was eight - See on 2Ki_24:6-15 (note).
JAMISO , "Jehoiachin was eight years old — called also Jeconiah or Coniah
(Jer_22:24) - “eight” should have been “eighteen,” as appears from 2Ki_24:8, and also
from the full development of his ungodly principles and habits (see Eze_19:5-7). His
reign being of so short duration cannot be considered at variance with the prophetic
denunciation against his father (Jer_36:30). But his appointment by the people gave
umbrage to Nebuchadnezzar, who, “when the year was expired” (2Ch_36:10) - that is, in
the spring when campaigns usually began - came in person against Jerusalem, captured
the city, and sent Jehoiachin in chains to Babylon, removing at the same time all the
nobles and most skillful artisans, and pillaging all the remaining treasures both of the
temple and palace (see on 2Ki_24:8-17).
K&D 9-10, "The reign of Jehoiachin. Cf. 2Ki_24:8-17. - Jehoiachin's age at his
accession is here given as eight years, while in 2Ki_24:8 it is eighteen. It is so also in the
lxx and Vulg.; but a few Hebr. codd., Syr., and Arab., and many manuscripts of the lxx,
have eighteen years in the Chronicle also. The number eight is clearly an orthographical
error, as Thenius also acknowledges. Bertheau, on the contrary, regards the eight of our
text as the original, and the number eighteen in 2 Kings as an alteration occasioned by
the idea that eighteen years appeared a more fitting age for a king than eight years, and
gives as his reason, “that the king's mother is named along with him, and manifestly
with design, 2Ki_24:12, 2Ki_24:15, and Jer_22:26, whence we must conclude that she
had the guardianship of the young king.” A perfectly worthless reason. In the books of
Kings the name of the mother is given in the case of all the kings after their accession has
been mentioned, without any reference to the age of the kings, because the queen-
mother occupied a conspicuous position in the kingdom. It is so in the case of Jehoiakim
and Jehoiachin, 2Ki_23:36 and 2Ki_24:8. On account of her high position, the queen-
mother is mentioned in 2Ki_24:12 and 2Ki_24:15, and in Jeremiah, among those who

17. submitted to Nebuchadnezzar and were carried away to Babylon. The correctness of the
number eighteen is, however, placed beyond doubt by Eze_19:5-9, where the prophet
portrays Jehoiachin as a young lion, which devoured men, and knew widows, and
wasted cities. The knowing of widows cannot apply to a boy of eight, but might well be
said of a young man of eighteen. Jehoiachin ruled only three months and ten days in
Jerusalem, and did evil in the eyes of Jahve. At the turn of the year, i.e., in spring, when
campaigns were usually opened (cf. 1Ki_20:22; 2Sa_11:1), Nebuchadnezzar sent his
generals (2Ki_24:10), and brought him to Babylon, with the goodly vessels of the house
of Jahve, and made his (father's) brother Zedekiah king in Judah. In these few words the
end of Jehoiachin's short reign is recorded. From 2Ki_24:10-16 we learn more as to this
second campaign of Nebuchadnezzar against Jerusalem, and its issues for Judah; see the
commentary on that passage. Zidkiyah (Zedekiah) was, according to 2Ki_24:17, not a
brother, but ‫ּוד‬ , uncle or father's brother, of Jehoiachin, and was called Mattaniah, a son
of Josiah and Hamutal, like Jehoahaz (2Ki_24:18, cf. 2Ki_23:31), and is consequently
his full brother, and a step-brother of Jehoiakim. At his appointment to the kingdom by
Nebuchadnezzar he received the name Zidkiyah (Zedekiah). ‫יו‬ ִ‫ה‬ፎ, in 2Ch_36:10, is
accordingly to be taken in its wider signification of blood-relation.
BE SO , "2 Chronicles 36:9. Jehoiachin was eight years old — See the note on 2
Kings 24:8, in which it is said that he was eighteen years old when he began to reign,
which is probably the right reading.
ELLICOTT, "(9) Jehoiachin was eight years old.—2 Kings 24:8 has correctly
“eighteen;” and so some MSS., LXX. (Alex.), Syriac, Arabic. What the prophet
Ezekiel says of him could not apply to a boy of eight. (The difference turns on the
omission of the smallest Hebrew letter, namely, yod, which as a numeral represents
ten.)
Three months and ten days.—Kings, “three months;” Syriac and Arabic here have
“one hundred days,” i.e., three months and ten days. Thenius thinks the ten days
were added, in order that the catastrophe of Jehoiachin’s reign might fall on a tenth
day of the month, like the investment of Jerusalem and the fall of the city under
Zedekiah (2 Chronicles 25:1; 2 Chronicles 25:8).
He did that which was evil.—2 Kings 24:9. (See also the above-cited passages of
Jeremiah and Ezekiel.) According to the latter prophet, Jehoiachin “devoured men,
and forced widows, and wasted cities.”
GUZIK, "3. (2 Chronicles 36:9-10) The reign of Jehoiachin and his recall to
Babylon.
Jehoiachin was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem
three months and ten days. And he did evil in the sight of the LORD. At the turn of
the year King ebuchadnezzar summoned him and took him to Babylon, with the

18. costly articles from the house of the LORD, and made Zedekiah, Jehoiakim’s
brother, king over Judah and Jerusalem.
a. Jehoiachin was eight years old when he became king: 2 Kings 24:8 tells us that
Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king. The difference between
these two accounts is probably due to the error of a copyist in Chronicles.
i. “2 Chronicles 36:9 makes him eight years old at the beginning of his reign . . . But
some Hebrew MSS., Syriac, and Arabic, read ‘eighteen’ in Chronicles’ so ‘eight’
must be an error of transcription.” (Knapp)
ii. Jehoiachin “Was probably the throne-name of Jeconiah, abbreviated also to
Coniah.” (Wiseman)
b. And he did evil in the sight of the LORD: He carried on in the tradition of the
wicked kings of Judah.
i. “Jeremiah said of Jehoiakim, (Jehoiachin’s father) ‘He shall have none to sit upon
the throne of David’ (Jeremiah 26:30). The word ‘sit’ here means to ‘firmly sit,’ or
‘dwell’; and Jehoiachin’s short three months’ reign was not that surely. And
Zedekiah, Jehoiachin’s successor, was Jehoiakim’s brother, not his son.” (Knapp)
ii. “That he was a grievous offender against God, we learn from Jeremiah 22:24,
which the reader may consult; and in the man’s punishment, see his crimes.”
(Clarke)
c. King ebuchadnezzar summoned him and took him to Babylon: The previous
king of Judah (Jehoiakim) led a rebellion against ebuchadnezzar. ow the king of
Babylon came with his armies against Jerusalem, and Jehoiachin hoped to appease
ebuchadnezzar by submitting himself, his family, and his leaders to the
Babylonian king. God allowed Jehoiachin to be taken as a bound captive back to
Babylon.
i. “His presence in Babylon is attested by tablets listing oil and barley supplies to
him, his family and five sons in 592-569 B.C. and naming him as ‘Yaukin king of the
Judeans.’” (Wiseman)
d. With costly articles from the house of the LORD: On this second attack against
Jerusalem, ebuchadnezzar took whatever valuables remained in the temple or in
the royal palaces of Jerusalem.
i. “The fall of Jerusalem didn’t come about in one cataclysmic battle; it occurred in
stages.” (Dilday)
· ebuchadnezzar’s initial subjugation of the city about 605 B.C.
· Destruction from ebuchadnezzar’s marauding bands, 601 to 598 B.C.

19. · The siege and fall of Jerusalem under ebuchadnezzar’s main army on 16
March, 597 B.C.
· ebuchadnezzar returns to completely destroy and depopulate Jerusalem in
the summer of 586 B.C.
10 In the spring, King ebuchadnezzar sent for
him and brought him to Babylon, together with
articles of value from the temple of the Lord, and
he made Jehoiachin’s uncle,[f] Zedekiah, king
over Judah and Jerusalem.
BAR ES, "When the year was expired - literally, as in the margin, i. e. at the
return of the season for military expeditions. The expedition against Jehoiakim took
place probably late in the autumn of one year, that against Jehoiachin early in the spring
of the next.
Strictly speaking, Zedekiah was uncle to Jehoiachin, being the youngest of the sons of
Josiah (marginal note and reference). He was nearly of the same age with Jehoiachin,
and is called here his “brother” (compare Gen_14:14).
CLARKE, "Made Zedekiah - king - His name was at first Mattaniah, but the king
of Babylon changed it to Zedekiah. See 2Ki_24:17 (note), and the notes there.
BE SO , "2 Chronicles 36:10. When the year was expired — Hebrew, At the
return of the year. At the beginning of the next year, according to the sacred
account of the Hebrews, at the spring of the year, the time when kings go forth to
battle, as is elsewhere said, when ebuchadnezzar, among others, went forth to
settle and enlarge his conquests. His brother — Largely so called, for this was his
uncle, or his father’s brother, being the son of Josiah.

20. ELLICOTT, "(10) And when the year was expired.—See margin. “At the return of
the year” means in spring, when kings usually went forth to war. (2 Samuel 11:1; 1
Kings 20:22.) Kings gives a full account of the siege and surrender of Jerusalem, and
the deportation to Babylon of the king and all his princes and men of war, by “the
servants of ebuchadnezzar.”
With the goodly vessels.—2 Chronicles 32:27. “Some of the vessels” had already
been carried off (2 Chronicles 36:7). (See 2 Kings 24:13 and Jeremiah 27:18-22.)
Zedekiah his brother.—Zedekiah was uncle of Jehoiachin, being a son of Josiah,
and brother of Jehoiakim. Perhaps “brother” is equivalent to “kinsman” here, as
elsewhere. (Comp. 1 Chronicles 3:15, where Zedekiah appears as a son of Josiah;
and 2 Kings 24:17.) The versions read “his father’s brother”—a correction. Thenius
thinks the word for “uncle” had become illegible in the MS. here used by the
chronicler.
PULPIT, "When the year was expired; i.e. at the beginning of the new year, in
spring (2 Chronicles 24:23). It appears, from 2 Kings 25:27-30, that the captivity of
Jehoia-chin, which thus began, lasted thirty-seven years, till b.c. 561, past the end of
ebuchadnezzar's reign, and that he was thenceforward kindly treated by Evil-
Merodach. Compare particularly with this verse the parallel in its 2 Kings 25:10-16.
Zedekiah his brother; i.e. not adopting the very generic usage of the terms of
relationship, so common in Old Testament language, his uncle. His mother
(Hamutal, 2 Kings 25:18 of parallel) was the same with the mother of Jehoahaz. Ten
years old evidently when Jehoiakim began his reign, he must have been thirteen
years younger than his whole brother Je-hoahaz. Zedekiah's name was before Mat-
taniah. The account of Zedekiah in the parallel (which see) is very much more full.
Zedekiah King of Judah
11 Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he
became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eleven
years.
HE RY 11-13, "We have here an account of the destruction of the kingdom of Judah

21. and the city of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans. Abraham, God's friend, was called out of
that country, from Ur of the Chaldees, when God took him into covenant and
communion with himself; and now his degenerate seed were carried into that country
again, to signify that they had forfeited all that kindness wherewith they had been
regarded for the father's sake, and the benefit of that covenant into which he was called;
all was now undone again. Here we have,
I. The sins that brought this desolation.
1. Zedekiah, the king in whose days it came, brought it upon himself by his own folly;
for he conducted himself very ill both towards God and towards the king of Babylon. (1.)
If he had but made God his friend, that would have prevented the ruin. Jeremiah
brought him messages from God, which, if he had given due regard to them, might have
secured a lengthening of his tranquillity; but it is here charged upon him that he
humbled not himself before Jeremiah, 2Ch_36:12. It was expected that this mighty
prince, high as he was, should humble himself before a poor prophet, when he spoke
from the mouth of the Lord, should submit to his admonitions and be amended by them,
to his counsels and be ruled by them, should lay himself under the commanding power
of the word of God in his mouth; and, because he would not thus make himself a servant
to God, he was made a slave to his enemies. God will find some way or other to humble
those that will not humble themselves. Jeremiah, as a prophet, was set over the nations
and kingdoms (Jer_1:10), and, as mean a figure as he made, whoever would not humble
themselves before him found that it was at their peril. (2.) If he had but been true to his
covenant with the king of Babylon, that would have prevented his ruin; but he rebelled
against him, though he had sworn to be his faithful tributary, and perfidiously violated
his engagements to him, 2Ch_36:13. It was this that provoked the king of Babylon to
deal so severely with him as he did. All nations looked upon an oath as a sacred thing,
and on those that durst break through the obligations of it as the worst of men,
abandoned of God and to be abhorred by all mankind. If therefore Zedekiah falsify his
oath, when, lo, he has given his hand, he shall not escape, Eze_17:18. Though
Nebuchadnezzar was a heathen, an enemy, yet if, having sworn to him, he be false to
him, he shall know there is a God to whom vengeance belongs. The thing that ruined
Zedekiah was not only that he turned not to the Lord God of Israel, but that he stiffened
his neck and hardened his heart from turning to him, that is, he as obstinately resolved
not to return to him, would not lay his neck under God's yoke nor his heart under the
impressions of his word, and so, in effect, he would not be healed, he would not live.
JAMISO , "2Ch_36:11-21. Zedekiah’s reign.
Zedekiah — Nebuchadnezzar appointed him. His name, originally Mattaniah, was,
according to the custom of Oriental conquerors, changed into Zedekiah. Though the son
of Josiah (1Ch_3:15; Jer_1:2, Jer_1:3; Jer_37:1), he is called the brother of Jehoiachin
(2Ch_36:10), that is, according to the latitude of Hebrew style in words expressing
affinity, his relative or kinsman (see 2Ki_24:18; 2Ki_25:1-21).
K&D 11-13, "The reign of Zedekiah; the destruction of Jerusalem, and Judah
carried away into exile. Cf. 2 Kings 24:18-25:21. - Zedekiah, made king at the age of
twenty-one years, reigned eleven years, and filled up the measure of sins, so that the
Lord was compelled to give the kingdom of Judah up to destruction by the Chaldeans.
To that Zedekiah brought it by the two main sins of his evil reign, - namely, by not
humbling himself before the prophet Jeremiah, from the mouth of Jahve (2Ch_36:12);

22. and by rebelling against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had caused him to swear by God,
and by so hardening his neck (being stiff-necked), and making stout his heart, that he
did not return to Jahve the God of Israel. Zedekiah's stiffness of neck and hardness of
heart showed itself in his refusing to hearken to the words which Jeremiah spoke to him
from the mouth of God, and his breaking the oath he had sworn to Nebuchadnezzar by
God. The words, “he humbled himself not before Jeremiah,” recall Jer_37:2, and the
events narrated in Jer 37 and 38, and 21:4-22:9, which show how the chief of the people
ill-treated the prophet because of his prophecies, while Zedekiah was too weak and
languid to protect him against them. The rebellion against Nebuchadnezzar, to whom he
had sworn a vassal's oath of fidelity, is mentioned in 2Ki_24:20, and Eze_17:13. also, as
a great crime on the part of Zedekiah and the chief of the people; see the commentary on
both passages. In consequence of this rebellion, Nebuchadnezzar marched against Judah
with a powerful army; and after the capture of the fenced cities of the land, he advanced
to the siege of Jerusalem, which ended in its capture and destruction, 2Ki_25:1-10.
Without further noticing these results of this breach of faith, the author of the Chronicle
proceeds to depict the sins of the king and of the people. In the first place, he again
brings forward, in 2Ch_36:13, the stiffness of neck and obduracy of the king, which
manifested itself in the acts just mentioned: he made hard his neck, etc. Bertheau would
interpret the words ‫וגו‬ ‫שׁ‬ ֶ‫ק‬ֶ ַ‫,ו‬ according to Deu_2:30, thus: “Then did God make him stiff-
necked and hardened his heart; so that he did not return to Jahve the God of Israel,
notwithstanding the exhortations of the prophets.” But although hardening is not
seldom represented as inflicted by God, there is here no ground for supposing that with
‫שׁ‬ ֶ‫ק‬ֶ ַ‫ו‬ the subject is changed, while the bringing forward of the hardening as an act of God
does not at all suit the context. And, moreover, ‫ף‬ ֶ‫ּר‬‫ע‬ ‫ה‬ ָ‫שׁ‬ ְ‫ק‬ ִ‫,ה‬ making hard the neck, is
nowhere ascribed to God, it is only said of men; cf. 2Ki_17:14; Deu_10:16; Jer_19:15,
etc. To God only ‫ב‬ ֵ‫ת־ל‬ ֶ‫א‬ ‫ה‬ ָ‫שׁ‬ ְ‫ק‬ ִ‫ה‬ or ַ‫ת־רוּח‬ ֶ‫א‬ is attributed, Exo_7:3; Deu_2:30.
COFFMA , "This is only a tiny summary of the wickedness of Israel during the
reign of Zedekiah. Jeremiah reveals much of that wickedness. (See pp. 237,381,
414,423, 431,432, 449,553-559 in our Commentary on Jeremiah. Also, Ezekiel
describes the pollution of the temple, discussed in pp. 87-97 of our Commentary on
Ezekiel; also see p. 123 (in that commentary) for the "Contradiction" Zedekiah
thought he found in the words of God's prophets. Also, Second Kings, chapter 25,
gives additional details.)
ELLICOTT, "ZEDEKIAH A D THE FI AL CATASTROPHE (2 Chronicles
36:11-21). (Comp. 2 Kings 24:18 to 2 Kings 25:21; Jeremiah 39, 52; Jeremiah 3
Esdr. 1:44-55.)
(11) Zedekiah was one and twenty.—So 2 Kings 24:18, adding his mother’s name
(Hamutal, who was also mother of Jehoahaz).
Before Jeremian . . . mouth of the Lord.— ot in Kings. (Comp. Jeremiah 21,
Jeremiah 22:1-10, Jeremiah 27, 28, 32-34, 37, 38)

23. Two special sins of Zedekiah are mentioned in this and the next verse—viz., his
disregard of Jeremiah’s counsel, and his perjury to ebuchadnezzar.
GUZIK, "4. (2 Chronicles 36:11-14) The reign of Zedekiah and his rebellion against
Babylon.
Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven
years in Jerusalem. He did evil in the sight of the LORD his God, and did not
humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke from the mouth of the
LORD. And he also rebelled against King ebuchadnezzar, who had made him
swear an oath by God; but he stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against
turning to the LORD God of Israel. Moreover all the leaders of the priests and the
people transgressed more and more, according to all the abominations of the
nations, and defiled the house of the LORD which He had consecrated in Jerusalem.
a. Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king: Since ebuchadnezzar
had completely humbled Judah, he put a king on the throne whom he thought
would submit to Babylon. He chose this uncle of Jehoiachin, who was also a brother
to Jehoiakim.
i. “This king (597-587 B.C.) inherited a much reduced Judah, for the egeb was lost
(Jeremiah 13:18-19) and the land weakened by the loss of its experienced personnel.
There were both a pro-Egyptian element and false prophets among the survivors
(Jeremiah 28-29; Jeremiah 38:5).” (Wiseman)
ii. 2 Kings 24:17 tells us that the name of Zedekiah was originally Mattaniah. The
name Zedekiah means, The Lord is Righteous. The righteous judgment of God
would soon be seen against Judah.
b. He did evil in the sight of the LORD: His evil was especially shown in that he did
not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet. Instead of listening to Jeremiah or
other messengers of God they instead mocked and disregarded the message.
i. “Zedekiah first disregarded Jeremiah’s messages (Jeremiah 34:1-10); he came in
time to direct his inquiries to this same prophet (Jeremiah 21); and he finally pled
with him for help (Jeremiah 37). But at no point did he sincerely submit to the
requirements of the Lord that Jeremiah transmitted to him.” (Payne)
c. He also rebelled against King ebuchadnezzar: Jeremiah tells us that there were
many false prophets in those days who preached a message of victory and triumph
to Zedekiah, and he believed them instead of Jeremiah and other godly prophets
like him. Therefore, he rebelled against King ebuchadnezzar.
i. For example, Jeremiah 32:1-5 tells us that Jeremiah clearly told Zedekiah that he
would not succeed in his rebellion against Babylon. Zedekiah arrested Jeremiah and
imprisoned him for this, but the prophet steadfastly stayed faithful to the message

24. God gave him.
ii. “Through acts of infidelity toward his imperial master, he unwisely touched off
the final revolt that brought down the vengeance of the Babylonians on Judah and
Jerusalem; and thus both the state and the city were destroyed.” (Payne)
d. Moreover all the leaders of the priests and the people transgressed more and
more: These last kings of Judah were all wicked and deserving of judgment; but
they were not alone in their sin and rejection of God. The leaders, the priests, and
the people also transgressed more and more, pushing both God and
ebuchadnezzar to the limit.
PULPIT, "Zedekiah; or the fall of Judah.
I. A EXAMPLE OF I SE SATE WICKED ESS. (2 Chronicles 36:11-16.)
1. On the part of the king. Seemingly the third (1 Chronicles 3:15), but in reality the
fourth, son of Josiah (cf. 2 Kings 23:31, 2 Kings 23:36), and the full brother of
Jehoahaz, or Shallum (2 Kings 23:31; 2 Kings 24:18). but the half-brother of
Jehoiakim (2 Kings 23:36), Mattanias, or Jehovah s gift, as he was originally called,
ascended the throne of Judah in his twenty-first year, by the favour of
ebuchadnezzar his overlord (2 Chronicles 36:10). With his superior's consent, like
Jehoiakim, he adopted of his own accord, or had chosen for him by others (Cheyne),
a special throne-name. Zedekiah, Zidkiah, meaning "Jehovah is righteous," or
"Justice of Jehovah," had been the name of a former sovereign of Ascalon, whom
Sennacherib had subdued; and whatever may have been the object of Mattanias or
his princes in selecting this as the designation of Judah's last king, it is hardly
possible not to be struck with its singular propriety. To a people who were
frequently instructed by "signs" it was a double symbol—first by way of contrast of
the utter corruption of the nation, both prince and people; and second by way of
prediction of coming doom for the kingdom. So far as the king was concerned, it
was a grim satire on holy things to designate a creature like him Zedekiah. If his
person and character were remarkable for anything, it was for the absence of
righteousness.
2. On the part of the people. Hardly second to their monarch were the priests, the
princes, and the people.
(a) an image of Asherah;
(b) totemistic animal-emblems on the wall of a temple-chamber;
(c) weeping for 'Tammuz dearly wounded;'
II. A I STA CE OF DIVI E RETRIBUTIO . (Verses 17-21.) The moral and

25. spiritual corruption of the community in Zedekiah's time was so great that nothing
remained but to pour out upon them the vials of long-threatened wrath
(Deuteronomy 28:21, Deuteronomy 28:36, Deuteronomy 28:52; Deuteronomy 31:16-
21; Jeremiah 5:19; Jeremiah 32:28-36). In the expressive language of the
Chronicler, "there was no remedy," "no healing," more; nothing but fire and
sword. After defeating Pharaoh-Hophra, or causing him to retreat, ebuchadnezzar
returned to his head-quarters at Riblah, on the east bank of the Orontes, thirty-five
miles northeast of Baalbec, and despatched his captains, ergal-sharezer, Samgar-
nebo, Sar-sechim, Rab-saris, Rab-mag, and others to resume the siege of Jerusalem,
which, however, triumphantly withstood their assaults until the beginning of the
eleventh year, when the supply of provisions began to fail (Jeremiah 52:6). On the
ninth day of the fourth month, i.e. in July, B.C. 586, "there was no bread for the
people of the land." The starving defenders of the city could no longer hold out. The
horrors of the situation may be gathered from Lamentations 2:19; Lamentations
4:3-10; Ezekiel 5:10; Baruch 2:3. The besiegers eventually effected a breach in the
north wall, and poured in like a destroying flood. Then ensued:
1. Merciless carnage. The Chaldean soldiers butchered all and sundry, young and
old, lad and maiden, not even sparing such as had taken refuge in the temple (verse
17). The massacre was wholesale, truculent, and pitiless, eclipsed in horror only by
that which took place when Jerusalem was captured by Titus (Josephus, 'Wars' 6.9.
4).
2. Ruthless sacrilege. They completely despoiled the temple of its sacred vessels,
great and small, as well as pillaged the royal palaces, carrying off their treasures
(verse 18). Among the articles removed from the temple were the brazen and golden
utensils of service, the two pillars, the brazen sea, and the vases which Solomon had
made (2 Kings 25:13-17; Jeremiah 52:17-23).
3. Wholesale destruction. "They burnt the house of God, and brake down the wall
of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces" (verse 19); which was pure vandalism. This
appears to have been done not on the night of the city's capture (tenth day of tenth
month), but seven months after, on the tenth day of the fifth month, i.e. in February,
B.C. 587 (Jeremiah 52:12), and to have been carried out by one of
ebuchadnezzar's generals, ebuzar-adan, captain of the king's guards, or "chief of
the executioners" (cf. Genesis 39:1), despatched from Riblah for the purpose. What
happened in the interval is narrated in 2 Kings (2 Kings 25:4-7) and Jeremiah
(Jeremiah 52:7-11), viz. the capture, near Jericho, of Zedekiah with his court and
his forces, who had escaped when the city was taken, and their journey north to
Riblah, the head-quarters of ebuchadnezzar, where, after judgment held (2 Kings
25:6), Zedekiah's sons and the princes of Judah were slain, and Zedekiah himself
blinded according to an inhuman practice of the time, and cast into bonds
preparatory to being deported to Babylon. In Babylon he was cast into prison until
the day of his death (Jeremiah 52:11); according to tradition, his work in prison was
that of grinding in a mill like an ordinary slave (Ewald, 'History of Israel,' 4.273,
note 5).

26. 4. Pitiless expatriation. Those that had escaped the sword were driven off, like gangs
of slaves, to become exiles in a strange land, and servants to the kings of Babylon,
"until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths," viz. for three score and ten years (verses
20, 21). Such transplantations of conquered populations were common in the
ancient Orient. "Sargon transported the Samaritans to Gozan and Media;
Sennacherib carried off two hundred thousand Jews from Judaea; Esarhaddon
placed Elamites, Susianians, and Babylonians in Samaria. Darius Hystaspis brought
the nation of the Paeonians from Europe into Asia Minor, removed the Barcaeans to
Bactria, and the Eretrians to Ardericca near Susa"
MACLARE , "THE FALL OF JUDAH
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 ‘patriot’s in modern lands.
Look at the piled-up clauses of the long indictment of Judah in 2Ch_36:12-16. 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

27. 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

28. 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.
12 He did evil in the eyes of the Lord his God and
did not humble himself before Jeremiah the
prophet, who spoke the word of the Lord.
BAR ES, "On Zedekiah’s character, see 2Ki_24:19 note.
CLARKE, "Did that which was evil - Was there ever such a set of weak,
infatuated men as the Jewish kings in general? They had the fullest evidence that they
were only deputies to God Almighty, and that they could not expect to retain the throne
any longer than they were faithful to their Lord; and yet with all this conviction they
lived wickedly, and endeavored to establish idolatry in the place of the worship of their
Maker! After bearing with them long, the Divine mercy gave them up, as their case was
utterly hopeless. They sinned till there was no remedy.
BE SO , "2 Chronicles 36:12. And humbled not himself — By repentance for his
past errors and obedience to God’s express commands, which he would not yield to,
through the pride of his heart, as is intimated by this phrase, and expressed
Jeremiah 38:19.
PULPIT, "Humbled not himself before Jeremiah the prophet. Very numerous
passages in the Book of Jeremiah (21-51.) illustrate both this clause and generally
the feeble character and uncertain career of Zedekiah.

29. 13 He also rebelled against King ebuchadnezzar,
who had made him take an oath in God’s name.
He became stiff-necked and hardened his heart
and would not turn to the Lord, the God of Israel.
BAR ES, "The oath of allegiance was taken when he was first installed in his
kingdom. On Zedekiah’s sin in breaking his oath, see Eze_17:18-20; Eze_21:25.
JAMISO , "who had made him swear by God — Zedekiah received his crown
on the express condition of taking a solemn oath of fealty to the king of Babylon (Eze_
17:13); so that his revolt by joining in a league with Pharaoh-hophra, king of Egypt,
involved the crime of perjury. His own pride and obdurate impiety, the incurable
idolatry of the nation, and their reckless disregard of prophetic warnings, brought down
on his already sadly reduced kingdom the long threatened judgments of God.
Nebuchadnezzar, the executioner of the divine vengeance, commenced a third siege of
Jerusalem, which, after holding out for a year and a half, was taken in the eleventh year
of the reign of Zedekiah. It resulted in the burning of the temple, with, most probably,
the ark, and in the overthrow of the kingdom of Judah (see on 2Ki_25:1-7; see Eze_
12:13; Eze_17:16).
BE SO , "2 Chronicles 36:13. Who had made him swear by God — Who had
required him to swear fealty and constant obedience to him, by the true God, whom
he called upon to be a witness against him if he broke his oath. So his rebellion was
aggravated with perjury and horrid contempt of God. But he stiffened his neck, and
hardened his heart — He added obstinacy and incorrigibleness to his sins.
ELLICOTT, "(13) And he also rebelled.—2 Kings 24:20.
Who had made him swear by God.—When ebuchadnezzar appointed Zedekiah
vassal-king of Judah, he would naturally make him swear fealty to himself by the
God of his fathers. The fact is not specially recorded in Kings; but the prophet
Ezekiel makes it the point of a prophecy against the king and his grandees (Ezekiel
17:11-21; comp, especially 2 Chronicles 36:17, “mine oath that he hath despised.”)
But (and) stiffened his neck and hardened his heart.—(Comp. the like expression in
Deuteronomy 2:30; 2 Kings 17:14; Jeremiah 19:15.) Zedekiah was not personally
unfavourable to the prophet Jeremiah, and consulted him more than once; but he
was too weak and timorous to stand by the prophetic counsel, in defiance of his
princes who were intriguing with Egypt.

30. PULPIT, "He also rebelled against … ebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear
by God (Elohim). The criticism of the Prophet Ezekiel upon this oath-violation on
the part of Zedekiah is to be found Ezekiel 17:12-20; Ezekiel 21:25. Unto the Lord
God of Israel. ote here the resorting on the part of the Jew to the name, Jehovah.
It is not this name that is used at the commencement of the verse.
14 Furthermore, all the leaders of the priests and
the people became more and more unfaithful,
following all the detestable practices of the nations
and defiling the temple of the Lord, which he had
consecrated in Jerusalem.
BAR ES, "Polluted the house of the Lord - Toward the close of Zedekiah’s reign
idolatrous rites of several different kinds were intruded into the sacred precincts of the
temple (compare Eze_8:10-16).
GILL, "Moreover, the chief of the priests, and of the people, transgressed
very much after all the abominations of the Heathens,.... The priests, and even
the chief of them, who should have instructed the people in the duties of religion, and
retained them in the pure worship of God, these were the ringleaders of idolatry, who led
the people to commit all the idolatries of the Heathens round about them; and of the
people, all ranks and degrees of them were corrupted with them; this was their case in
several of the preceding reigns, and now a little before the destruction of them:
and polluted the house of the Lord, which he had hallowed in Jerusalem; the
temple dedicated to his worship there; this they defiled, by setting up idols in it.
HE RY 14-16, "2. The great sin that brought this destruction was idolatry. The
priests and people went after the abominations of the heathen, forsook the pure worship
of God for the lewd and filthy rites of the Pagan superstition, and so polluted the house
of the Lord, 2Ch_36:14. The priests, the chief of the priests, who should have opposed
idolatry, were ring-leaders in it. That place is not far from ruin in which religion is

31. already ruined.
3. The great aggravation of their sin, and that which filled the measure of it, was the
abuse they gave to God's prophets, who were sent to call them to repentance, 2Ch_36:15,
2Ch_36:16. Here we have, (1.) God's tender compassion towards them in sending
prophets to them. Because he was the God of their fathers, in covenant with them, and
whom they worshipped (though this degenerate race forsook him), therefore he sent to
them by his messengers, to convince them of their sin and warn them of the ruin they
would bring upon themselves by it, rising up betimes and sending, which denotes not
only that he did it with the greatest care and concern imaginable, as men rise betimes to
set their servants to work when their heart is upon their business, but that, upon their
first deviation from God to idols, if they took but one step that way, God immediately
sent to them by his messengers to reprove them for it. He gave them early timely notice
both of their duty and danger. Let this quicken us to seek God early, that he rises
betimes to send to us. The prophets that were sent rose betimes to speak to them, were
diligent and faithful in their office, lost no time, slipped no opportunity of dealing with
them; and therefore God is said to rise betimes. The more pains ministers take in their
work the more will the people have to answer for if it be all in vain. The reason given why
God by his prophets did thus strive with them is because he had compassion on his
people and on his dwelling-place, and would by these means have prevented their ruin.
Note, The methods God takes to reclaim sinners by his word, by ministers, by
conscience, by providences, are all instances of his compassion towards them and his
unwillingness that any should perish. (2.) Their base and disingenuous carriage towards
God (2Ch_36:16): They mocked the messengers of God (which was a high affront to him
that sent them), despised his word in their mouths, and not only so, but misused the
prophets, treating them as their enemies. The ill usage they gave Jeremiah who lived at
this time, and which we read much of in the book of his prophecy, is an instance of this.
This was an evidence of an implacable enmity to God, and an invincible resolution to go
on in their sins. This brought wrath upon them without remedy, for it was sinning
against the remedy. Nothing is more provoking to God than abuses given to his faithful
ministers; for what is done against them he takes as done against himself. Saul, Saul,
why persecutest thou me? Persecution was the sin that brought upon Jerusalem its final
destruction by the Romans. See Mat_23:34-37. Those that mock at God's faithful
ministers, and do all they can to render them despicable or odious, that vex and misuse
them, to discourage them and to keep others from hearkening to them, should be
reminded that a wrong done to an ambassador is construed as done to the prince that
sends him, and that the day is coming when they will find it would have been better for
them if they had been thrown into the sea with a mill-stone about their necks; for hell is
deeper and more dreadful.
K&D 14-16, "“And all princes of the priests and the people increased faithless
transgressions, like to all the abominations of the heathen, and defiled the house of the
Lord which He had consecrated in Jerusalem.” Bertheau would refer this censure of
their idolatry and the profanation of the temple to the guilt incurred by the whole
people, especially in the time of Manasseh, because, from all we know from the book of
Jeremiah, the reproach of idolatry did not at all, or at least did not specially, attach to
the princes of the priests and the people in the time of Zedekiah. But this reason is
neither tenable nor correct; for from Ezek 8 it is perfectly manifest that under Zedekiah,
not only the people, but also the priesthood, were deeply sunk in idolatry, and that even
the courts of the temple were defiled by it. And even though that idolatry did not take its

32. rise under Zedekiah, but had been much practised under Jehoiakim, and was merely a
revival and continuation of the idolatrous conduct of Manasseh and Amon, yet the
reference of our verse to the time of Manasseh is excluded by the context; for here only
that which was done under Zedekiah is spoken of, without any reference to earlier times.
Meanwhile God did not leave them without exhortation, warning, and threatening. -
2Ch_36:15. Jahve sent to them by His messengers, from early morning onwards
continually, for He spared His people and His dwelling-place; but they mocked the
messengers of God, despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets. ‫ד‬ַ‫י‬ ְ ‫ח‬ ַ‫ל‬ ָ‫,שׁ‬ to send a
message by any one, to make a sending. The object is to be supplied from the verb. ַ‫ּוח‬‫ל‬ ָ‫שׁ‬ְ‫ו‬
‫ם‬ ֵⅴ ְ‫שׁ‬ ַ‫ה‬ exactly as in Jer_26:5; Jer_29:19. For He spared His people, etc., viz., by this, that
He, in long-suffering, again and again called upon the people by prophets to repent and
return, and was not willing at once to destroy His people and His holy place. ‫ים‬ ִ‫יב‬ ִ‫ע‬ ְ‫ל‬ ַ‫מ‬ is
ᅋπ. λεγ., in Syr. it signifies subsannavit; the Hithp. also, ‫ים‬ ִ‫ע‬ ְ ְ‫ע‬ ַ ִ‫מ‬ (from ‫ע‬ ַ‫ע‬ ָ ), occurs only
here as an intensive: to launch out in mockery. The distinction drawn between ‫ים‬ ִ‫כ‬ፎ ְ‫ל‬ ַ‫מ‬
(messengers) and ‫ים‬ ִ‫יא‬ ִ‫ב‬ְ‫נ‬ (prophets) is rhetorical, for by the messengers of God it is
chiefly prophets who are meant; but the expression is not to be confined to prophets in
the narrower sense of the word, for it embraces all the men of God who, by word and
deed, censured and punished the godless conduct of the idolaters. The statement in
these two verses is certainly so very general, that it may apply to all the times of
gradually increasing defection of the people from the Lord their God; but the author of
the Chronicle had primarily in view only the time of Zedekiah, in which the defection
reached its highest point. It should scarcely be objected that in the time of Zedekiah only
Jeremiah is known as a prophet of the Lord, since Ezekiel lived and wrought among the
exiles. For, in the first place, it does not hence certainly follow that Jeremiah and Ezekiel
were the only prophets of that time; then, secondly, Jeremiah does not speak as an
individual prophet, but holds up to the people the witness of all the earlier prophets (cf.
e.g., 2Ch_26:4-5), so that by him all the former prophets of God spoke to the people;
and consequently the plural, His messengers, His prophets, is perfectly true even for the
time of Zedekiah, if we always keep in mind the rhetorical character of the style. ‫וגו‬ ‫ּות‬‫ל‬ ֲ‫ע‬
‫ד‬ ַ‫,ע‬ until the anger of Jahve rose upon His people, so that there was no healing
(deliverance) more.
BE SO , "2 Chronicles 36:14-15. The people transgressed very much — They
were universally corrupt, and therefore God justly brought upon them a general
destruction. Rising up betimes, and sending them — Sending them early and
diligently, as a careful householder, who rises betimes about his business. God sent
them many prophets and messages, some at the very beginning of their apostacy,
and others afterward, till the very day of their captivity.
ELLICOTT, "SI S OF THE RULI G CLASSES WHICH BROUGHT DOW
THE JUDGME T OF GOD (2 Chronicles 36:14-16). (Comp. with this passage 2
Kings 17:7-23.)
(14) The chiefs.—The princes.

33. Transgressed very much.—Committed manifold unfaithfulness.
After all the abominations . . .—See Ezekiel 8:5-18; where “the princes of the priests
and the people” are specially singled out in 2 Chronicles 36:11; 2 Chronicles 36:16.
The twenty-five men of the latter verse are the High Priest and the heads of the
twenty-four courses of priests. (Comp. also Jeremiah 32:32, sea).
His Messengers.—The prophets (2 Kings 17:13).
PULPIT, "This, with the following three verses, may be regarded as the formal and
final indictment of the people of Judah, and may be compared with that of Israel (2
Kings 17:6-23). All the chief of the priests (see 1 Chronicles 24:1, 1 Chronicles 24:3-
19). The heads of the twenty-four courses there spoken of, with the high priest
added, sum up the twenty-five men of Ezekiel 8:16, the entire of which chapter may
well be read with the present history, and its description of the culminating pitch of
wickedness of king, priests, and people.
The Fall of Jerusalem
15 The Lord, the God of their ancestors, sent
word to them through his messengers again and
again, because he had pity on his people and on
his dwelling place.
GILL, "And the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers,....
The prophets of the Lord, to admonish them of their idolatries, and to reprove them for
them, to warn them of the wrath of God that would come upon them on that account,
unless they repented and reformed; these were at the beginning of their apostasy, and
were successively continued unto this time, as Ahijah, Elijah, and others, in the first
times of it; Amos, Isaiah, and others, in the middle of it; and Jeremiah, Zephaniah, and
Ezekiel, towards the close of it:
rising up betimes, and sending; which is either to be understood of the Lord, and as

34. expressive of his care and diligence, like the master of a family, solicitous for the good of
it; or of the messengers, the prophets, who made haste to go or send their prophecies
and instructions to reclaim the people; the phrase is often to be met with in the prophecy
of Jeremiah; see Gill on Jer_11:7,
because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwellingplace; being
unwilling they should come to ruin, and perish, and their city and temple be destroyed
where they dwelt.
ELLICOTT, "(15) Rising up betimes and sending.—i.e., constantly and earnestly.
Jeremiah 25:3-4 : “The Lord hath sent all his servants, the prophets, rising early
and sending them” (comp. also Jeremiah 26:5; Jeremiah 29:19; Jeremiah 35:14-15).
He had compassion on.—He spared, was forbearing with.
Dwelling place.—Mâcôn (2 Chronicles 30:27; Psalms 26:8; comp. Jeremiah 25:6).
GUZIK, "B. The fall of Jerusalem and the Babylonian exile.
1. (2 Chronicles 36:15-17) The rejection of the message and the messengers.
And the LORD God of their fathers sent warnings to them by His messengers, rising
up early and sending them, because He had compassion on His people and on His
dwelling place. But they mocked the messengers of God, despised His words, and
scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against His people, till
there was no remedy.
a. The LORD God of their fathers sent warnings to them: God, great in mercy to
His people, sent many warnings but these warning were rejected. The greatness of
His compassion towards His people is shown by the expression rising up early and
sending them.
i. “What a touching a graphic phrase! How did God yearn over that sinful and
rebellious city! Like a man who has had a sleepless night of anxiety for his friend or
child, and rises with the dawn to send a servant on a message of inquiry, or a
message of love. How eager is God for men’s salvation.” (Meyer)
b. They mocked . . . despised . . . scoffed: This tragic triple rejection of God’s
message and messengers sealed the doom of Judah. They rejected the message until
there was no remedy and nothing could turn back the judgment of God.
i. “Three complaints are made in particular, that they were unfaithful, defiled the
temple, and laughed at the prophets. All three are frequent themes throughout
Chronicles, and it is as if the entire message of Chronicles were being summed up.”
(Selman)

35. ii. “Till there was no remedy; because the people would not repent, and God would
not pardon them.” (Poole)
iii. “Men’s sins put thunderbolts into God’s hands.” (Trapp)
iv. “The cataclysm which has been threatened since Ahaz (2 Chronicles 28:9; 2Ch_
28:13; 2Ch_28:25; 2Ch_29:8; 2Ch_29:10; 2Ch_30:8) has been held back only
because of the faith and repentance of individual leaders (cf. 2 Chronicles 29:10;
2Ch_30:8-9; 2Ch_32:25-26; 2Ch_33:6; 2Ch_34:21; 2Ch_34:25). ow there is no
remedy, a chilling phrase meaning literally ‘no healing’. It implies the cancellation
of God’s promise to heal his land and that therefore even prayer will be utterly
useless.” (Selman)
SIMEO , "FORBEARA CE OF GOD BROUGHT TO A CLOSE
2 Chronicles 36:15-16. 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: 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.
I speaking of the divine perfections, it is common to represent them all as infinite,
because they do not admit of any increase: but perhaps it would be more correct to
speak of them as limited, because they all so limit each other as to produce one
harmonious agency in all their operations; every perfection being exercised so far,
and so far only, as is consistent with the glory of the whole Deity. Justice, for
instance, never exerts itself to the disparagement of mercy; nor does mercy ever
triumph over the rights of justice: so neither does patience interpose for the
arresting of judgment, any longer than consists with the claims of holiness: as soon
as ever its protracted influence would reflect dishonour on God as the Moral
Governor of the universe, it recedes, and leaves the sword of vengeance to execute
its heavenly commission. The truth of this statement fully appears from the words
before us; from which we are naturally led to notice,
I. God’s patience exercised—
It was exercised to a most astonishing degree towards his people of old—
[The Scripture frequently speaks of God, not only as sending messengers to his
people, but as “rising early” and sending them. This intimates, that as soon as ever
they went astray, he commissioned his servants to reclaim them; yea, many hundred
years before the final execution of his judgments upon them, he forewarned them
how he would proceed, and cautioned them against driving him to such extremities
[ ote: Leviticus 26:14-39 and Deuteronomy 28:15-68.] — — — When these
warnings were disregarded, he sent them prophets, to bring these things to their

36. remembrance, and to plead with them in his name. Sometimes he raised up prophets
for particular occasions; at other times he continued them for many rears in their
office, in order by any means to turn the people from their sins. Full of “compassion
towards his people,” and averse to forsake the land which he had given them for a
“dwelling-place,” he bore with, all their frowardness and perverseness; “many a
time turning away his anger,” when he might justly have broken forth against them,
and made them monuments of his everlasting indignation [ ote: Psalms 78:38;
Psalms 106:13-48.].
But how did they requite his tender mercies? “They mocked his messengers (we are
told), and despised his words, and misused his prophets.” Even against Moses
himself did their resentment frequently burn, insomuch that on one occasion they
were ready to stone him [ ote: Exodus 17:4.]. Their prophets in every successive age
were treated with all manner of indignities, menaced, imprisoned, martyred,
according as the wrath of their rulers was permitted to prevail. “Which of the
prophets have not your fathers persecuted?” said St. Stephen [ ote: Acts 7:52.]; and
our blessed Lord, to comfort his disciples under the trials which they would meet
with, reminded them, that “so had the prophets been persecuted, who were before
them [ ote: Matthew 5:12.].”]
In like manner is it exercised in reference to us—
[God is yet sending his ambassadors to us, not merely to reprove and warn, or to
encourage us with a hope of temporal rewards, as he did to the Jews, but to offer us
redemption through the blood of his dear Son, and to beseech us to accept of
reconciliation with him [ ote: 2 Corinthians 5:18-20.] — — — And such is his
“compassion towards us,” that he cannot endure the thought of giving us up, as long
as a hope remains of converting us to himself [ ote: Ezekiel 33:11. Jeremiah 13:27.
Hosea 11:8.] — — —
And what return do we make to God? Do we not act precisely as the Jews before us
did? There is no faithful messenger that addresses us in Jehovah’s name, but we call
him an enthusiast: however temperate and kind, and reasonable his exhortations
may be [ ote: See particularly the temperate message sent by Hezekiah 2
Chronicles 30:6-10.], we mock and deride him as “a babbler [ ote: Acts 17:18.
Ezekiel 20:40.],” “a deceiver [ ote: John 7:12.],” and “a fellow that ought not to be
tolerated [ ote: Acts 22:22; Acts 24:5.].” Our blessed Lord himself; who “spake as
never man spake,” was accounted a madman and a demoniac [ ote: John 10:20.];
and every faithful servant of God, from his day even to the present hour, has been
made an object, though not of equal, yet certainly of similar, reproach. One would
suppose that men, with the sacred volume in their hands, seeing how the prophets
and Apostles were all treated, would avoid treading in the steps of former
persecutors: but the enmity of the human heart against God is the same as ever; and
the messages of God are therefore treated with the same contempt as ever. If there
be any difference as to the mode in which that enmity betrays itself, it is owing to the
excellence of our laws, and not to any superiority in us above the Jews. Our
dispositions are the same as theirs, and our abuse of God’s tender mercies is the

37. same.]
In the sequel of our text we see,
II. God’s patience exhausted—
He was at last constrained to execute upon them his threatened vengeance—
[After bearing with their frowardness many hundred years, his wrath against them
was kindled, and he gave them up into the hands of their enemies [ ote: ver. 17–
21.]. Every effort for their preservation had been tried in vain, and “no remedy now
remained:” the people therefore were sent into captivity; and both their city and
temple were destroyed.]
Thus also will he do with respect to us—
[If we go on incessantly “grieving the Holy Spirit,” we shall at last “quench” his
sacred motions [ ote: Ephesians 4:30. 1 Thessalonians 5:19]. There is a time beyond
which God will bear with us no longer [ ote: Matthew 23:37-38.]. There is a day of
grace wherein he will be found [ ote: Luke 19:41-44.]; an accepted time in which
salvation may be secured by us [ ote: 2 Corinthians 6:2. Isaiah 55:6.]. But there is a
time when he will say, “Let them alone [ ote: Hosea 4:17.];” “Let their eyes be
blinded and their hearts be hardened [ ote: Acts 28:25-27.]:” “I am weary with
repenting [ ote: Jeremiah 15:6.]:” and now, “though they cry I will not hear,
though they make many prayers I will not regard them [ ote: Proverbs 1:24-31.].”
Doubtless if a person were truly penitent, he would be heard and accepted at the last
hour: but it is God alone who can give repentance: and, if we continue obstinately to
resist his calls, he will cease to strive with us [ ote: Genesis 6:3.], and will give us
over to final impenitence [ ote: Psalms 81:11-12.]. This he has done in unnumbered
instances; and this he warns us to expect at his hands: “He that being often
reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy
[ ote: Proverbs 29:1.].”]
Address—
[God speaks to men by his word and ministers at this day, as truly as ever he did
either by Prophets or Apostles: and our word, as far as it is agreeable to the
Scriptures of Truth, is to be “received, not as the word of man, but of God [ ote: 1
Thessalonians 2:13.]:” and, if any man “despiseth it, he despiseth not man, but God
[ ote: 1 Thessalonians 4:8.].” Happy would it be if this matter were duly
considered: for certainly there are many, of a proud and contemptuous spirit, who
instead of “trembling at the word,” as they ought [ ote: Isaiah 66:2.], and
“humbling themselves before the ministers” of Jehovah [ ote: ver. 12.], make light
of all they hear [ ote: Matthew 22:5.], and turn it to derision [ ote: Jeremiah 20:7-
8.]. But to such God says, “Be ye not mockers, lest your bands be made strong
[ ote: Isaiah 28:22.].” There is great danger lest they “be holden with the cords of

38. their own sins [ ote: Proverbs 5:22.],” and be given up to their own delusions [ ote:
Isaiah 66:4. 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12.].
On the other hand, let not any imagine that an attachment to faithful ministers, or a
love to the ordinances as dispensed by them, will necessarily prove us to be in a state
of acceptance with God: for Ezekiel’s hearers were delighted with his discourses,
whilst yet they were by no means conformed to the precepts delivered by him [ ote:
Ezekiel 33:31-32.]. Inquire then whether you be really obedient to the Gospel,
receiving Christ as the gift of God to your souls, relying on him as your only hope,
rejoicing in him as your all-sufficient Saviour, and devoting yourselves to him in all
holy obedience. The tree must be judged of by its fruits alone. If your fruits be not
yet such as might be wished, apply the “remedy:” go to Christ for the remission of
your sins, and seek from him the gift of his Holy Spirit: then shall the Gospel have
its due effect, and be “the power of God to the salvation of your souls.”]
PULPIT, "His messengers. The chief of these were presumably Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Ezekiel. The marginal references (Jeremiah 25:3-7; Jeremiah 35:12-15) are very
interesting, both for this verse and the following.
BI 15-17, "And the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by is me messengers, rising
up betimes.
Presumptuous rebellion
I. We see here continued rebellion, which suggests—
1. That habits are easily commenced. There is little difficulty in forming’ habits. They
are not acquired by one mighty bound, but by a series of almost imperceptible steps.
2. That habits are readily strengthened. Every step that is taken is planted with
firmer grip. With every ripple that flows the stream becomes wider and swifter, fed
as it were with other streamlets on the way. Every time an action is repeated the
easier it becomes, and the more deeply rooted in the soul.
3. That habits are seldom eradicated. Can the Ethiopian change his skin? Yea, easier
than a man unassisted by Divine help can break away from evil habits. They become
part of the nature of the man himself.
II. We see the presumption of continued rebellion. We are constantly reminded of the
fact that God is merciful. But there is a limit to the mercy and forbearance even of God.
This is evident—
1. From the fact that it is impossible always to continue His warning and judgments
on the impenitent. If the obstinacy of one person cannot be overcome it were unjust
on that account to remove the chance of salvation from others.
2. From the inevitable progress of temporal affairs. Death comes on with his rapid
step and cuts short the life and with it the opportunities of repentance from the
obdurate spirit. Then the door of mercy must be shut for ever.
3. From the very nature of the refusal. Is it likely that He, the Lord of all, will
continue offering heavenly treasures to human swine who only trample His gifts in

39. the mire? Oh, it is a sad and an awful truth that man may presume too far even on
infinite love!
III. We see the awful end of presumptuous sin. The consequences are at the last utter
destruction and irretrievable loss. This stands to reason if we remember—
1. That God must vindicate His character.
2. That an example must be set to the world at large.
3. That the sinful must be removed out of the way. (Homilist.)
Unheeded warning
The island of Ischia was a favourite summer resort of Italians. In 1883 the sinking of
water in wells, mutterings and rumblings underground, distinctly foretold a coming
earthquake; these signs were noticed and understood, but through fear of frightening
visitors, and so losing custom, hotel-keepers and others refrained from making public
these warnings. Ruin and death ensued, involving those who knew and heeded not, and
those who, through lack of warning, had unwittingly exposed themselves to peril.
Till there was no remedy.
No remedy
These words contain three facts of great importance.
1. That there was, at least at one time, a remedy.
2. That the remedy went on, and might have been used, for a very long period.
3. That there came a time when the remedy ceased.
I. All life is a remedy. The conditions of things require it. Life a great restorative process.
1. Comes that marvellous provision of God in Jesus Christ.
2. All providences have a curative character.
3. Every one carries within himself an antidote to evil. Conscience, till silenced, a
sure antidote to evil.
II. Notice the word “till.” It shows how slow God is to take away the remedy. We may sin
ourselves into a state, not in which there is no forgiveness, but no thought or desire to
seek forgiveness. “No remedy,” not on God’s account, but your own; not in God’s want of
will to save you, but in your own incapacity to will your own salvation. (J. Vaughan,
M.A.)
16 But they mocked God’s messengers, despised
his words and scoffed at his prophets until the
wrath of the Lord was aroused against his people

40. and there was no remedy.
BAR ES, "Misused his prophets - Rather, “scoffed at his prophets.” The allusion
is to verbal mockery, not to persecution.
GILL, "But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words,....
Which was the treatment Jeremiah and Ezekiel frequently met with:
and misused his prophets; imprisoned them, as Micaiah and Jeremiah were:
until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people; which burned like fire in his
breast, and broke out to the consumption of them:
till there was no remedy; or healing of them; there was no reclaiming or recovering
of them, no bringing them to repentance, and no pardon for them.
BE SO , "2 Chronicles 36:16. But they mocked the messengers of God — Of
which see instances Ezekiel 11:3; Ezekiel 20:49. Misused his prophets —
Imprisoning and persecuting them as they did Jeremiah; or, seduced themselves by
his prophets; that is, by the prophecies of his prophets, which they perverted, or
misconstrued. An eminent instance of which we have in this, that because Jeremiah
prophesied that Zedekiah should be led to Babylon, (Jeremiah 32:5,) and Ezekiel,
that he should not see Babylon, (Ezekiel 12:13,) and therefore they believed neither,
as the Hebrew writers relate. Till there was no remedy — Because the people would
not repent, and God would not pardon them without repentance.
ELLICOTT, "(16) But they mocked.—And they were mocking, mal’îbîm; only here
(an Aramaism).
Misused.—Mitta’te’îm, only here. Derided, strictly, stammered. Another form of
this verb occurs in Genesis 27:12. (Comp. for the fact Isaiah 28:9-14; Ezekiel 33, 30;
Jeremiah 17:15; Jeremiah 20:7-8.)
Till there was no remedy.—Healing; i.e., deliverance, σωτηρία (comp. 2 Chronicles
21:18). God is said to heal, when he averts calamity (2 Chronicles 30:20).
The wrath . . . arose.—Went up (‘âlâh), like smoke (Psalms 18:8; 2 Samuel 11:20).
ISBET, "DIVI E PATIE CE EXHAUSTED
‘Till there was no remedy.’

41. 2 Chronicles 36:16
These words contain three facts, and each one is of the greatest importance. (1) That
there was—at least, at one time—a remedy. (2) That the remedy went on, and might
have been used for a very long period. (3) That there came a time when the remedy
ceased.
I. All life is remedy.—The condition of things requires it. Life is one great
restorative process. (1) First comes that marvellous provision which God has made
for our recovery in Jesus Christ. (2) Subordinate to this great remedy of the Cross
of Christ, and working with it, all providences have a curative character. (3) Every
one carries within himself an antidote to himself. Conscience, till it is silenced, is a
sure antidote for evil.
II. otice the word ‘till.’—It shows how slow God is to take away the remedy. His
mercy still holds back the arm of justice. But we may sin ourselves into a state, not
in which there is no forgiveness, but in which there will be no thought or desire to
seek for forgiveness. There is the bourn—worse than any grave—from which no
man has returned. ‘There is no remedy,’ not on God’s account, but on your own;
not in God’s want of will to save you, but in your own incapacity to will your own
salvation.
Rev. J. Vaughan.
Illustrations
(1) ‘We may say of our present state as God said of the Jewish nation: “The whole
head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head
there is no soundness in it.” Your soul is diseased. Your condition is out of order.
Therefore God has ordered everything—as a good physician would—for your
recovery. “Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? Why then is not
the health of the daughter of My people recovered?” Many things that are vast have
to be done away with; their bad effects have to be removed, or neutralised. A taint
has to be got rid of—a poison has to be eliminated out of your constitution. And to
effect this, everything in God’s government is planned. It would not be too much to
say that, from the cradle to the grave, every moment of life is a corrective process.’
(2) ‘But is it not an awful revelation of the depravity of man’s heart to find that, in
spite of the memories of Hezekiah, Manasseh, and Josiah on the one hand, and in
the very shadow of the coming eclipse on the other, the king and people still
perpetrated the worst abominations of Canaan? Zedekiah hardened his heart from
turning to the Lord. Moreover, all the chiefs of the priests and the people trespassed
very greatly after all the abominations of the heathen. Let us magnify His grace,
which makes us differ.’
PULPIT, " o remedy (comp. our 2 Chronicles 21:18; Proverbs 6:15; Proverbs 29:1;
Jeremiah 8:15; Jeremiah 14:19; Jeremiah 33:6; Malachi 4:2 [3:20]).

42. 17 He brought up against them the king of the
Babylonians,[g] who killed their young men with
the sword in the sanctuary, and did not spare
young men or young women, the elderly or the
infirm. God gave them all into the hands of
ebuchadnezzar.
BAR ES, "The fearful slaughter took place at the capture of the city, in the courts of
the temple itself (Eze_9:6-7; compare Lam_2:7, Lam_2:20).
GILL, "Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees,....
Nebuchadnezzar; and though it was the rebellion of Zedekiah which was the cause and
occasion of his coming against them, yet it was the Lord that moved him to it, and gave
him success:
who slew their young men with the sword, in the house of the sanctuary; in
the temple, where they took sanctuary, imagining that sacred place would protect them
from the rage of the enemy, but it did not:
and had no compassion on young man or maiden, old man, or him that
stooped for age; spared none on account of age or sex, but put them all to the sword,
or carried them captive:
he gave them into his hand; that is, the Lord delivered them into the hand of the
king of Babylon, for their sins.
HE RY 17-21, "II. The desolation itself, and some few of the particular so fit, which
we had more largely 2Ki_25:1. Multitudes were put to the sword, even in the house of
their sanctuary (2Ch_36:17), whither they fled for refuge, hoping that the holiness of
the place would be their protection. But how could they expect to find it so when they
themselves had polluted it with their abominations? 2Ch_36:14. Those that cast off the
dominion of their religion forfeit all the benefit and comfort of it. The Chaldeans not
only paid no reverence to the sanctuary, but showed no natural pity either to the tender
sex or to venerable age. They forsook God, who had compassion on them (2Ch_36:15),
and would have none of him; justly therefore are they given up into the hands of cruel

43. men, for they had no compassion on young man or maiden. 2. All the remaining vessels
of the temple, great and small, and all the treasures, sacred and secular, the treasures of
God's house and of the king and his princes, were seized, and brought to Babylon, 2Ch_
36:18. 3. The temple was burnt, the walls of Jerusalem were demolished, the houses
(called here the palaces, as Psa_48:3, so stately, rich, and sumptuous were they) laid in
ashes, and all the furniture, called here the goodly vessels thereof, destroyed, 2Ch_
36:19. Let us see where what woeful havock sin makes, and, as we value the comfort and
continuance of our estates, keep that worm from the root of them. 4. The remainder of
the people that escaped the sword were carried captives to Babylon (2Ch_36:20),
impoverished, enslaved, insulted, and exposed to all the miseries, not only of a strange
and barbarous land, but of an enemy's land, where those that hated them bore rule over
them. They were servants to those monarchs, and no doubt were ruled with rigour so
long as that monarchy lasted. Now they sat down by the rivers of Babylon, with the
streams of which they mingled their tears, Psa_137:1. And though there, it should seem,
they were cured of idolatry, yet, as appears by the prophet Ezekiel, they were not cured
of mocking the prophets. 5. The land lay desolate while they were captives in Babylon,
2Ch_36:21. That fruitful land, the glory of all lands, was now turned into a desert, not
tilled, nor husbanded. The pastures were not clothed as they used to be with flocks, nor
the valleys with corn, but all lay neglected. Now this may be considered, (1.) As the just
punishment of their former abuse of it. They had served Baal with its fruits; cursed
therefore is the ground for their sakes. Now the land enjoyed her sabbaths; (2Ch_
36:21), as God had threatened by Moses, Lev_26:34, and the reason there given (v. 35)
is, “Because it did not rest on your sabbaths; you profaned the sabbath-day, did not
observe the sabbatical year.” They many a time ploughed and sowed their land in the
seventh year, when it should have rested, and now it lay unploughed and unsown for ten
times seven years. Note, God will be no loser in his glory at last by the disobedience of
men: if the tribute be not paid, he will distrain and recover it, as he speaks, Hos_2:9. If
they would not let the land rest, God would make it rest whether they would or no. Some
think they had neglected the observance of seventy sabbatical years in all, and just so
many, by way of reprisal, the land now enjoyed; or, if those that had been neglected were
fewer, it was fit that the law should be satisfied with interest. We find that one of the
quarrels God had with them at this time was for not observing another law which related
to the seventh year, and that was the release of servants; see Jer_34:13, etc. (2.) Yet we
may consider it as giving some encouragement to their hopes that they should, in due
time, return to it again. Had others come and taken possession of it, they might have
despaired of ever recovering it; but, while it lay desolate, it did, as it were, lie waiting for
them again, and refuse to acknowledge any other owners.
K&D, "When the moral corruption had reached this height, judgment broke upon the
incorrigible race. As in 2Ch_36:12-16 the transgressions of the king and people are not
described according to their historical progression, but are portrayed in rhetorical
gradation; so, too, in 2Ch_36:17-21 the judgment upon the sinful people and kingdom is
not represented in its historical details, but only rhetorically in its great general outlines.
“Then brought He upon them the king of the Chaldeans, who slew their young men with
the sword in their sanctuary, and spared not the youth and the maiden, the old man and
the grey-headed; he gave everything into his hand.” Prophetic utterances form the basis
of this description of the fearful judgment, e.g., Jer_15:1-9; Jer_32:3., Eze_9:6; and
these, again, rest upon Deu_32:25. The subject in the first and last clause of the verse is

44. Jahve. Bertheau therefore assumes that He is also the subject of the intermediate
sentence: “and God slew their young men in the sanctuary;” but this can hardly be
correct. As in the expansion of the last clause, “he gave everything into his hand,” which
follows in 2Ch_36:18, not Jahve but the king of Babylon is the subject; so also in the
expansion of the first clause, which ‫וגו‬ ‫ּג‬‫ר‬ ֲ‫ה‬ַ ַ‫ו‬ introduces, the king of the Chaldeans is the
subject, as most commentators have rightly recognised. By ‫ם‬ ָ‫שׁ‬ ָ ְ‫ק‬ ִ‫מ‬ ‫ית‬ ֵ‫ב‬ ְ the judgment is
brought into definite relationship to the crime: because they had profaned the sanctuary
by idolatry (2Ch_36:14), they themselves were slain in the sanctuary. On ‫ן‬ ַ‫ת‬ָ‫נ‬ ‫ב‬ ‫ּל‬ⅴ ַ‫,ה‬ cf.
Jer_27:6; Jer_32:3-4. ‫ּל‬ⅴ ַ‫ה‬ includes things and persons, and is specialized in 2Ch_36:18-
20.
BE SO , "2 Chronicles 36:17. Therefore he brought upon them the king of the
Chaldees —
The king of the Chaldeans marched against them out of some political view; but we
are taught in the Holy Scriptures to ascribe all these events to the agency of the
Divine Providence, and therefore it is said here, not that the king of the Chaldeans
went against them, but that the Lord brought upon them the king of the Chaldeans.
Who slew their young men in the house of their sanctuary — Either in Jerusalem,
which was the dwelling- place of God’s sanctuary, or in the house which was their
sanctuary. It is probable they killed some of them in the very courts and house of
God, to which they had fled for refuge, such places being esteemed sacred and
inviolable by the heathen themselves. He gave them all into his hand — To be
carried captive into Chaldea. Abraham was called out of Ur of the Chaldees, when
God took him into covenant with himself. And now his degenerate seed are carried
into that country again, to signify that they had forfeited all that kindness
wherewith they had been loved for their father’s sake, and the benefit of the
covenant into which he was called.
COFFMA , "This was the second fall of Jerusalem to Babylon. There had also been
the captivity of Daniel, Ezekiel and others at the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah.
This second destruction of the city would probably never have happened if
Zedekiah had honored his sacred oath of loyalty to the king of Babylon.
ELLICOTT, "(17) Therefore he brought up.—And He caused to come up; alluding
to “the wrath . . . went up.”
In the house of their sanctuary.—Which they had polluted (2 Chronicles 36:14). The
scene of their sin witnessed their destruction.
Him that stooped for age.—Rather, greyheaded, hoary (yâshçsh). (Comp. Ezekiel 9,
where the horrors of the capture of Jerusalem are ascribed expressly to the Divine

45. working; see also Jeremiah 15:1-9; Deuteronomy 32:25.)
He gave them all into his hand.—Comp. Jeremiah 37:6; Jeremiah 32:3-4.
Them all.—Literally, the whole, everything, τά πάντα. “Them all” would be hullâm,
whereas the text is hakkôl. (So 2 Chronicles 36:18, “all these.”) Jerusalem was taken
588 B.C.
18 He carried to Babylon all the articles from the
temple of God, both large and small, and the
treasures of the Lord’s temple and the treasures
of the king and his officials.
GILL, "And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small,.... All that were
left; for some had been carried away in both the reigns preceding:
and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king and
of his princes; which became the spoil and booty of the soldiers:
all these he brought to Babylon; the vessels were laid up there, and restored when
Cyrus took it; but the treasures were no doubt in part tak
K&D, "All the vessels of the house of God, the treasures of the temple, and of the
palace of the king and of the princes, all he brought to Babylon.
BE SO , "2 Chronicles 36:18. And the treasures of the king, and of his princes —
The treasures of the temple, by a special providence of God, were preserved, and
restored, in the reign of Cyrus, to the house of the Lord: but the other, it is likely,
were looked upon as spoil, and spent by the king and his great men.
ELLICOTT, "(18) All the vessels . . . (the) great and (the) small.—See 2 Kings
25:13-17, for an inventory of the articles; also Jeremiah 27:19 seq.
GUZIK, "2. (2 Chronicles 36:18-19) Jerusalem is despoiled and given over to

46. destruction.
Therefore He brought against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their
young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion
on young man or virgin, on the aged or the weak; He gave them all into his hand.
And all the articles from the house of God, great and small, the treasures of the
house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king and of his leaders, all these he
took to Babylon. Then they burned the house of God, broke down the wall of
Jerusalem, burned all its palaces with fire, and destroyed all its precious
possessions.
a. He brought against them the king of the Chaldeans: Having rejected the message
and the messengers of His compassion (2 Chronicles 36:15), God turned Judah over
to a leader and a people who had no compassion upon their people.
i. “The end comes remarkably swiftly, like a bird of prey suddenly swooping down
after circling repeatedly over its victim. . . . The final collapse under Zedekiah is
therefore merely the final stage in a process that has long been inevitable.” (Selman)
b. He gave them all into his hand . . . all the articles from the house of God . . . all its
palaces . . . all its precious possession: The emphasis is on the complete nature of the
destruction the Babylonians brought to Jerusalem and its people. othing was
spared and all was destroyed.
i. “The over-all impression is of unrelieved destruction. ‘All, every’ is used fivefold
in 2 Chronicles 36:17-19, which together with young and old, large and small, and
finally (literally), ‘to destruction’ confirms that there was no respite, no escape.”
(Selman)
c. Then they burned the house of God: This was the end of Solomon’s great temple.
Solomon’s great temple was now a ruin. It would stay a ruin for many years, until it
was humbly rebuilt by the returning exiles in the days of Ezra.
i. “The Talmud declares that when the Babylonians entered the temple, they held a
two-day feast there to desecrate it; then, on the third day, they set fire to the
building. The Talmud adds that the fire burned throughout that day and the next.”
(Dilday)
ii. “Thus the temple was destroyed in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the nineteenth
of ebuchadnezzar, the first of the XLVIIIth Olympiad, in the one hundred and
sixtieth current year of the era of abonassar, four hundred and twenty-four years
three months and eight days from the time in which Solomon laid its foundation
stone.” (Clarke)
d. Broke down the wall of Jerusalem: The walls of Jerusalem - the physical security
of the city - were now destroyed. Jerusalem was no longer a place of safety and
security. The walls would remain a ruin until they were rebuilt by the returning

47. exiles in the days of ehemiah.
i. “Thus, ends the history of a people the most fickle, the most ungrateful, and
perhaps on the whole the most sinful, that ever existed on the face of the earth. But
what a display does all this give of the power, justice, mercy, and long-suffering of
the Lord! There was no people like this people, and no God like their God.”
(Clarke)
ii. “In the end, the exile came not because Israel sinned, but because they spurned
God’s offers of reconciliation.” (Selman)
19 They set fire to God’s temple and broke down
the wall of Jerusalem; they burned all the palaces
and destroyed everything of value there.
CLARKE, "They burnt the house of God - Here was an end to the temple; the
most superb and costly edifice ever erected by man.
Brake down the wall of Jerusalem - So it ceased to be a fortified city.
Burnt all the palaces - So it was no longer a dwelling-place for kings or great men.
Destroyed all the goodly vessels - Beat up all the silver and gold into masses,
keeping only a few of the finest in their own shape. See 2Ch_36:18.
GILL, "And they burnt the house of the Lord,.... The temple; of which, and what
follows in this verse; see Gill on Jer_52:13; see Gill on Jer_52:14.
K&D, "They burnt the house of God; they pulled down the walls of Jerusalem, and
burnt all the palaces of the city with fire, and all the costly vessels were devoted to
destruction. On ‫ית‬ ִ‫ח‬ ְ‫שׁ‬ ַ‫ה‬ ְ‫,ל‬ cf. 2Ch_12:12.
ELLICOTT, "(19) They burnt the house of God.—2 Kings 25:9.

48. Brake down the wall . . .—Jeremiah 39:8; 2 Kings 25:9-10.
And destroyed all the goodly vessels.—Literally, And all her delightsome vessels
were for destroying (lĕhashchîth). (Comp. Isaiah 64:11): “all our pleasant things are
laid waste.” 2 Kings 25:13 speaks of the breaking-up of the great vessels of the
Temple, for the sake of carrying off their material more easily.
Servants to him and his sons . . . kingdom Of Persia.—A fulfilment of Jeremiah’s
prophecy concerning ebuchadnezzar: “And all nations shall serve him, and his
son, and his son’s son, until the time of his own land come” (Jeremiah 27:7). Comp.
also Isaiah’s word to Hezekiah (2 Kings 20:18.)
PULPIT, "(Compare the parallel, 2 Kings 25:1-12; Jeremiah 39:1-10; Jeremiah
52:24-30.) The reign of the kingdom of Persia; i.e. the ascending on the throne of the
Persian king. The immediate successor of ebuchadnezzar was his son Evil-
Merodach
20 He carried into exile to Babylon the remnant,
who escaped from the sword, and they became
servants to him and his successors until the
kingdom of Persia came to power.
BAR ES, "Servants - Or, “slaves.” They were probably employed by
Nebuchadnezzar in the forced labor which his great works necessitated.
His sons - The word probably includes all Nebuchadnezzars successors in the
independent sovereignty of Babylon.
GILL, "And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away
captive,.... The king of Babylon, or his general by his orders, excepting some poor
persons left to till the land, see Jer_52:15,
where they were servants to him and his sons; his son Evilmerodach, and his
grandson Belshazzar; see Gill on Jer_27:7,
until the reign of the kingdom of Persia; until that monarchy began, as it did upon

49. the taking of Babylon by Cyrus king of Persia. This is the first place we meet with this
name of Persia in Scripture. The Arabic writers differ about the origin of it; some derive
it from Pars the son of Arsham (Arphaxad), the son of Shem; others from Pars the son of
Amur, the son of Japheth; and others say Pars was the son of Elam, the son of Shem, the
son of Noah (a); but Bochart (b), seems to be most correct in the derivation of the word,
who observes, from Xenophon (c), horses were very rare in this country; and very few
could ride them before the times of Cyrus, who taught his foot soldiers to ride horses;
and hence it became common, so that none of the best men of the land cared to be seen
on foot; yea, he made a law, that it should be reckoned infamous if any of those he had
taught the art of riding were seen to go on foot, though ever so little a way; from this
sudden change made in his time the people were called Persians, and the country Persia;
in the Arabic language, "pharas" signifying a horse, and "pharis" a horseman; and the
same writer observes, that hence it is that no mention is made of this country, in the
name of Persia, by Isaiah and Jeremiah; but by Ezekiel and Daniel, who were
contemporary with Cyrus; and in this book and the following historical ones, which were
wrote after the Babylonish captivity, as their history shows; and that this book was, is
clear from the preceding clause, as well as from the three last verses.
K&D 20-21, "He who remained from the sword, i.e., who had not been slain by the
sword, had not fallen and died in war, Nebuchadnezzar carried away to Babylon into
captivity; so that they became servants to him and to his sons, as Jeremiah (Jer_27:7)
prophesied, until the rise of the kingdom of the Persians. These last words also are an
historical interpretation of the prophecy, Jer_27:7. All this was done (2Ch_36:21) to
fulfil (‫ּאת‬ ַ‫מ‬ instead of ‫א‬ ֵ ַ‫,מ‬ as in 1Ch_29:5), that the word of the Lord by the mouth of
Jeremiah might be fulfilled, he having prophesied (Jer_25:11., 2Ch_29:10) the seventy
years' duration of Judah's desolation and the Babylonian captivity, while the king and
people had not regarded his words (2Ch_36:12). This period, which according to 2Ch_
36:20 came to an end with the rise of the kingdom of the Persians, is characterized by
the clause ‫וגו‬ ‫ה‬ ָ‫ת‬ ְ‫ֽצ‬ ָ‫ר‬ ‫ד‬ ַ‫ע‬ as a time of expiation of the wrong which had been done the land by
the non-observance of the sabbath-years, upon the basis of the threatening (Lev_26:34),
in which the wasting of the land during the dispersion of the unrepentant people among
the heathen was represented as a compensation for the neglected sabbaths. From this
passage in the law the words are taken, to show how the Lord had inflicted the
punishment with which the disobedient people had been threatened as early as in the
time of Moses. ‫ה‬ ָ‫ת‬ ְ‫ֽצ‬ ָ‫ר‬ ‫ד‬ ַ‫ע‬ is not to be translated, “until the land had made up its years of
rest;” that signification ‫ה‬ ָ‫צ‬ ָ‫ר‬ has not; but, “until the land had enjoyed its sabbath-years,”
i.e., until it had enjoyed the rest of which it had been deprived by the non-observance of
the sabbaths and the sabbath-years, contrary to the will of its Creator; see on Lev_26:34.
That this is the thought is placed beyond doubt by the succeeding circumstantial clause,
taken word for word from Lev_26:34 : “all days (i.e., the whole time) of its desolation
did it hold it” (‫ה‬ ָ‫ת‬ ָ‫ב‬ ָ‫,שׁ‬ it kept sabbath). “To make full the seventy years;” which Jeremiah,
ll. cc., had prophesied.
This connecting of Jeremiah's prophecy with the declaration in Lev_26:34 does not
justify us in supposing that the celebration of the sabbath-year had been neglected
seventy times, or that for a period of 490 years the sabbath-year had not been observed.
Bertheau, holding this view, fixes upon 1000 b.c., i.e., the time of Solomon, or, as we
cannot expect any very great chronological exactitude, the beginning of the kingly

50. government in Israel, as the period after which the rest-years ceased to be regarded. He
is further of opinion that 2Ch_35:18 harmonizes with this view; according to which
passage the passover was not celebrated in accordance with the prescription of the law
until the end of the period of the judges. According to this chronological calculation, the
beginning of this neglect of the observance of the sabbath-year would fall in the
beginning of the judgeship of Samuel.
(Note: The seventy years' exile began in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, i.e., in the
year 606 b.c., or 369 years after the division of the kingdom; see the Chronol. Tables
at 1 Kings 12 (ii. 3, S. 141), to which the eighty years of the reigns of David and
Solomon, and the time of Saul and Samuel, must be added to make up the 490 years
(see the comment. on Judges).)
But this is itself unlikely; and still more unlikely is it, that in the time of the judges the
sabbath-year had been regularly observed until Samuel; and that during the reigns of the
kings David, Solomon, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and Josiah, this celebration remained
wholly in abeyance. But even apart from that, the words, that the land, to make full the
seventy years prophesied by Jeremiah, kept the whole time of the desolation holy, or
enjoyed a sabbath rest such as Moses had proclaimed in Lev_26:34, do not necessarily
involve that the land had been deprived of its sabbath rest seventy times in succession,
or during a period of 490 years, by the sin of the people. The connection between the
prophecy of Jeremiah and the provision of the law is to be understood theologically, and
does not purport to be calculated chronologically. The thought is this: By the infliction of
the punishment threatened against the transgressors of the law by the carrying of the
people away captive into Babylon, the land will obtain the rest which the sinful people
had deprived it of by their neglect of the sabbath observance commanded them. By
causing it to remain uncultivated for seventy years, God gave to the land a time of rest
and refreshment, which its inhabitants, so long as they possessed it, had not given it. But
that does not mean that the time for which this rest was granted corresponded to the
number of the sabbath-years which had not been observed. From these theological
reflections we cannot calculate how often in the course of the centuries, from the time of
Joshua onwards till the exile, the sabbath-year had not been observed; and still less the
time after which the observation of the sabbath-year was continuously neglected. The
passage 2Ch_35:8 has no bearing on this question, because it neither states that the
passover had been held according to the precepts of the law till towards the end of the
time of the judges, nor that it was no longer celebrated in accordance with the precept
from that time until Josiah; it only contains the thought that such a passover as that in
Josiah's reign had not been held since the time of the judges: see on the passage.
BE SO , "2 Chronicles 36:20. Where they were servants to him and his sons —
They do not seem to have been made captives to private persons, but to have been
taken in one body, and made the servants of the king; that is, to have been employed
by him, in one way or other, to his private advantage, which we are not now
acquainted with. Until the reign of the kingdom of Persia — Until the reign of the
king of Persia, Houb. Respecting the proclamation of Cyrus, see the beginning of the
next book. From these words, we may conclude that this book was written after the
return from captivity.
COKE, "2 Chronicles 36:20. Until the reign of the kingdom of Persia— Until the

51. reign of the king of Persia. Houbigant. Respecting the proclamation of Cyrus, see
the beginning of the next book: Kennicott thinks that the two last verses of this book
belong properly to the book of Ezra.
GUZIK, "3. (2 Chronicles 36:20-21) The seventy-year Babylonian captivity.
And those who escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon, where they
became servants to him and his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill
the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her
Sabbaths. As long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.
a. Those who escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon: This was the
third major wave of captivity, taking the remaining people all except for the poor of
the land (2 Kings 25:12).
i. “Of the prominent men of Jerusalem, only Jeremiah and Gedaliah were left
behind (2 Kings 25:22; cf. Jerusalem 39:11-14). Jeremiah’s stand on the Babylonian
issue was doubtless well-known.” (Dilday)
b. Where they become servants to him and his sons: One fulfillment of this was the
taking of Daniel and his companions into captivity. Daniel was one of the king’s
descendants taken into the palace of the king of Babylon (Daniel 1:1-4).
i. “The exiles came ‘to Babylon’ where ‘they became servants’; and yet, after an
initial period of discouragement (Psalms 137) and oppressive service (cf. Isaiah 14:2-
3), at least some Jews gained favor and status (2 Kings 25:27-30; Daniel 1:19; Dan_
2:49; Dan_6:3).” (Payne)
c. Until the rule of the kingdom of Persia: The Persians (together with the Medes)
conquered the Babylonians in 539 B.C. and the Jewish people were only allowed to
return to their native lands after the Persians came to power.
i. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus relates that the Persian King Cyrus
conquered Babylon by diverting the flow of the Euphrates into a nearby swamp.
This lowered the level of the river so his troops marched through the water and
under the river-gates. They still would not have been able to enter had not the
bronze gates of the inner walls been left inexplicably unlocked. This was exactly
what God predicted in Isaiah 44:28 to Isa_45:7 and Jeremiah 51:57-58. God opened
the gates of the city of Babylon for Cyrus, and put it in writing 200 years before it
happened.
d. To fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had
enjoyed her Sabbaths: God had commanded Israel to observe a Sabbath for the
land, allowing it to rest every seven years (Exodus 23:10-11). The people of Judah
had denied the land its Sabbaths over a period of some 490 years, meaning that they
“owed” the land 70 Sabbaths, and to fulfill seventy years God took the years back

52. during the Babylonian exile.
i. This was promised to a disobedience Israel hundreds of years before: Then the
land shall enjoy its sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies’
land; then the land shall rest and enjoy its sabbaths. As long as it lies desolate it
shall rest; for the time it did not rest on your sabbaths when you dwelt in it.
(Leviticus 26:34-35)
ii. Jeremiah spoke of the 70 years of exile in two places: Jeremiah 25:11-13 and
Jeremiah 29:10.
21 The land enjoyed its sabbath rests; all the time
of its desolation it rested, until the seventy years
were completed in fulfillment of the word of the
Lord spoken by Jeremiah.
BAR ES, "See the marginal references. The 70 years of desolation prophesied by
Jeremiah, commenced in the fourth year of Jehoiakim (Jer_25:1, Jer_25:12; compare
Dan_1:1), or 605 B.C.; and should therefore have terminated, if they were fully complete,
in 536 B.C. As, however, the historical date of the taking of Babylon by Cyrus is 538 B.C.,
or two years earlier, it has been usual to suppose that the Jews reckoned “the reign of the
kingdom of Persia” as commencing two years after the capture of Babylon, on the death
or supersession of “Darius the Mede.” But the term “seventy” may be taken as a round
number, and the prophecy as sufficiently fulfilled by a desolation which lasted 68 years.
Until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths - Between the time of Moses and the
commencement of the captivity, there had been (about) 70 occasions on which the Law
of the sabbatical year Lev_25:4-7 had been violated.
CLARKE, "To fulfill the word of the Lord - See Jer_25:9, Jer_25:12; Jer_26:6,
Jer_26:7; Jer_29:12. For the miserable death of Zedekiah, see 2Ki_25:4, etc.
GILL, "To fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah,.... That is, the
Jews were so long servants in Babylon, as in the preceding verse, to accomplish

53. Jeremiah's prophecy of it, 2Ch_25:12.
until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths; the sabbatical years, or seventh year
sabbaths, which, according to the law of the land, was to rest from being tilled, Lev_
25:4, which law had been neglected by the Jews, and now, whether they would or not,
the land should have rest for want of persons to till it:
for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten
years; as threatened in Lev_26:34 on which text Jarchi observes, that at the destruction
of the first temple the law concerning the sabbath, or rest of the land had been neglected
four hundred and thirty years, in which space were sixty nine sabbatical years; and,
according to Maimonides (d), it was at the end of a sabbatic year that the city and temple
were destroyed, and so just seventy years had been neglected, and the land was tilled in
them as in other years, and now it had rest that exact number of years; but of this we
cannot be certain, though it is probable.
JAMISO , "until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths — The return of every
seventh was to be held as a sabbatic year, a season of rest to all classes, even to the land
itself, which was to be fallow. This divine institution, however, was neglected - how soon
and how long, appears from the prophecy of Moses (see on Lev_26:34), and of Jeremiah
in this passage (see Jer_25:9-12), which told that for divine retribution it was now to
remain desolate seventy years. As the Assyrian conquerors usually colonized their
conquered provinces, so remarkable a deviation in Palestine from their customary policy
must be ascribed to the overruling providence of God.
BE SO , "2 Chronicles 36:21. Until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths — “God
had commanded them to let their land rest every seventh year; and because the Jews
had violated this, as well as other precepts, God gave their land a long sabbath, or
rest, for no less than ten times seven years, which Jeremiah threatened, as in the
margin. If it be true, that they had neglected this law for the space of four hundred
and ninety years, having ploughed their ground in the seventh as well as in other
years, then the judgment of God upon them was very remarkable, in causing their
ground to rest, and be free from tillage, just as long as it should have been if they
had observed his law. For in those four hundred and ninety years, says Procopius
Gazæus, when they were under the government of kings, there were seventy years to
be kept as sabbaths, which, that the land might enjoy its sabbath, were spent in the
captivity of Babylon. Their punishment, too, was made more remarkable in this
particular, if it be true, as some have observed, that both the kingdom of Samaria
and the kingdom of Judah were destroyed in a sabbatical year; and that
immediately after a jubilee, the city and temple were destroyed by Titus, according
to Scaliger’s computation.” See Patrick, Calmet, and Dodd.
ELLICOTT, "(21) To fulfil.—lĕmalûth (an Aramaised form).
The word . . . Jeremiah.—The seventy years of Babylonian exile are predicted in

54. Jeremiah 25:11-12. (Comp. also Jeremiah 29:10 : “Thus saith the Lord, After
seventy years be accomplished for Babylon, I will visit you.”)
Until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths.—“Enjoyed” is râçĕthâh, which Gesenius
renders persolvit, “made good,” “discharged,” as a debt. The meaning is that during
the long years of the exile, the land would enjoy that rest of which it had been
defrauded by the neglect of the law concerning the sabbatical years (Leviticus 25:1-
7). The following words, “as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath” (literally, all
the days of the desolation she rested) are taken from Leviticus 26:34-35.
To fulfil threescore and ten years.—i.e., in order to fulfil the seventy years of exile
foretold by Jeremiah.
We have no right whatever to press the words of the sacred writer, in the sense of
assuming that he means to say that when Jerusalem was taken by the Chaldeans
exactly seventy sabbatical years had been neglected—that is, that the law in this
respect had not been observed for 490 years (70×7), or ever since the institution of
monarchy in Israel (490 + 588 = 1,078).
The seventy years are reckoned from the 4th of Jehoiakim, when the prophecy was
uttered (Jeremiah 25:1; Jeremiah 25:12), to the first year of Cyrus, and the return
under Zernbbabel, 536 B.C.
COKE, "2 Chronicles 36:21. As long as she lay desolate, she kept sabbath, &c.—
God had commanded them to let their land rest every seventh year; and because the
Jews had violated this, as well as other precepts, God gave their land a long sabbath
or rest, for no less than ten times seven years, which Jeremiah threatened. If it be
true that they had neglected this law for the space of 490 years, having ploughed
their ground in the seventh, as well as in other years, then the judgment of God
upon them was very remarkable, in causing their ground to rest, and be free from
tillage, just as long as it should have been if they had observed his law. For in those
490 years, says Procopius Gazaeus, when they were under the government of kings,
there were seventy years to be kept as sabbaths, which, that the land might enjoy its
sabbath, were spent in the captivity of Babylon. Their punishment too was made the
more remarkable in this particular, if it be true, as some have observed, that both
the kingdom of Samaria and the kingdom of Judah were destroyed in a sabbatical
year; and that, immediately after a jubilee, the city and temple were destroyed by
Titus, according to Scaliger's computation. See Patrick and Calmet.
REFLECTIO S.—1st, The short and evil reigns recorded in this chapter were the
forerunners of the kingdom's ruin.
1. Jehoahaz, set up by the people, was quickly dethroned, and carried captive into
Egypt, by echo, provoked at his father's opposition. He reigned but three months,
yet long enough to give a sufficient specimen of his evil conduct.

55. 2. Jehoiakim, the tributary of the king of Egypt, continued eleven years governor of
the impoverished country, yet more abundantly weakened by his wickedness, when
he fell into the hands of the king of Babylon, and died in chains, after seeing
Jerusalem and the temple plundered, and the sacred vessels taken away.
3. His son, who succeeded him, shewed, though young, the evil which was in his
heart; and after a short reign of three months and ten days, was deposed by the king
of Babylon; and Zedekiah, the last of the kings of Judah, advanced to the throne.
Thus did the nation hastily change her kings; and, not being admonished by the
repeated warnings, vengeance came upon them to the uttermost.
2nd, Behold the desolations of Zion! the beautiful temple lies in ruins, the line of
confusion is stretched over the palaces of Jerusalem: O sin, what a bitter and evil
thing art thou! We have here,
1. Zedekiah's rebellion against the king of Babylon. Though he had solemnly sworn
to serve him, he perfidiously violated his engagements, and obstinately refused
submission, notwithstanding all Jeremiah's warnings and entreaties. ote; (1.)
Oaths are sacred things; God will not suffer them to be broken with impunity. (2.)
They who will not bow, must break.
2. He rebelled also against God, and neither paid regard to the admonitions of
Jeremiah, nor humbled himself before the Lord. We need not mind who is our
enemy, if God be our friend; but who ever hardened his heart against him and
prospered?
3. The priests and people universally fell into idolatry; they who should have been
the first to restrain others, were the ringleaders in the wickedness; and even in the
temple their abominations were set up. In vain the compassionate Lord God of their
fathers, unwilling that they should perish, sent them repeated warnings, and his
prophets with diligence and zeal rose up early to testify against their sins; they
mocked at his counsel, and despised his reproof; his prophets they treated with
scorn and contempt; and the hand of the priests was chief in the transgression.
ote; (1.) God abandons not the sinner, till all the methods of his grace have been
ineffectual, and his wilful heart refuses to be reformed. (2.) God's true prophets are
earnest and assiduous in their word; woe to those against whom they complain, all
day long have we stretched out our hands to a disobedient and gainsaying people.
(3.) When God visits for sin, no charge will lie heavier than that of a slighted gospel.
(4.) God's ministers, when employed in the kindest offices, are often grievously
misused; but let them not be discouraged; they shall be glorious, though Israel be
not gathered. (5.) Worldly and wicked priests in every age have been the most
inveterate enemies of God's faithful prophets and preachers. (6.) They who ill-use
the ministers of God, seeking to render their labours ineffectual, and their persons
contemptible, know not what wrath they treasure up against their souls.
4. The consequence of this conduct was utter ruin. After a terrible siege, see 2 Kings
25 the city was taken by storm, and sacked; no sanctuary protected young or old;

56. even the temple was filled with the carcases of the slain; the sacred house was
stripped of all its ornaments, the palaces were plundered, the temple was burnt, the
city razed to its foundations, the few that were left from the sword were enslaved
and insulted, and dragged to Babylon to weep in vain over the mournful
remembrance of their part and present miseries; their country was ravaged and
desolate, and left to enjoy those sabbaths which they profanely refused to observe:
and seventy years the iron bondage lasted, till the kingdom of Persia rose upon the
ruins of their conquerors, and the daughter of Babylon, wasted with misery, drank
of the cup of wrath which she had put into the hands of the nations. ote; (1.) The
more we see of the miseries that sin produces, the more should we fear to provoke a
holy God. (2.) When the rod has done its office, it will be broken or burned. God,
though he afflicts his people, will not be wroth for ever.
Thus have we arrived at the end of the books of the Chronicles, which we would
advise always to be read in harmony with the books of Kings; for then they will
mutually throw light upon each other, and the difficulties found in either will be
more easily removed. We conclude our observations with some general reflections
on the moral causes of the Babylonish captivity, and the propriety of that
dispensation, from Dr. Taylor's ingenious work, intitled, "The Scheme of Scripture
Divinity."
The whole Jewish nation, both Judah and Israel, had all along a strong and strange
propensity to idolatry; and their morals were as corrupt as their religion. What
their peculiar temptations were, we know not; but all the endeavours of good kings,
and all the preaching of holy prophets, sent by special commission from God, were
ineffectual to produce a reformation. See 2 Chronicles 36:14; 2 Chronicles 36:23.
They were, therefore, carried away captive into Babylon. This dreadful calamity
came upon them gradually; but gradual punishment effected no amendment of the
religion or morals of the nation. Zedekiah, the last king, was as bad as his
predecessor; therefore the whole land of Judea was reduced to an utter desolation
for the sins thereof.
The propriety of this dispensation will appear, if we reflect: I. That the lenity of God
appeared in bringing this terrible overthrow upon them so gradually, after a
succession of judgments from less to greater, for the space of twenty-two years,
which should have been a warning to them, and by experience have convinced them,
that the threatenings denounced by the prophets would certainly be executed.
II. That it was a just punishment of their sins, particularly of their idolatry,
whereby they forsook God, and therefore God justly forsook them, and delivered
them into the hands of their enemies, as Moses had foretold, Leviticus 26:30-36.
III. This dreadful calamity was the most effectual means to work their reformation,
which was the end proposed by the divine wisdom. ow in their captive,
disconsolate state, they had time, and their calamities had a natural tendency to give
them a disposition, to reflect upon the long series of iniquity and perverseness which
had brought them under the heaviest of God's judgments. ow their own

57. wickedness corrected them, and their back-slidings reproved them; now they must
know and see that it was an evil thing and bitter, that they had forsaken the Lord
their God, and that his fear had not been in them. Isaiah 2:19. In the land of their
captivity, the sermons of the prophets, declaiming with the highest authority against
their profane and vicious practices, would be still sounding in their ears, and their
abject, wretched condition, the consequence of such practices, would sink them deep
into their hearts, and surety give them an utter detestation of what they very well
knew was the cause of all their grievous sufferings.
IV. The law of God, written by Moses as the rule of their conduct in all affairs civil
and religious, and the ground of their happiness, they had so far neglected, that
once it was almost unknown and lost among them, 2 Kings 22:8-12. Against this
contempt of the divine law, the prophets had frequently and strongly protested,
Isaiah 5:24; Isaiah 30:9. Jeremiah 6:19; Jeremiah 8:8; Jeremiah 9:13. Hosea 8:12.
Amos 2:4 and in other places; and publicly declared that it would be their ruin. In
their ruined state, this must have been remembered as the primary reason of all
their sufferings; and they must have been thoroughly sensible, that a due regard to
the law of God was the only way to recover his favour and their own prosperity, and
accordingly must have been disposed to be attentive to it; which was really the case.
Here was another good effect of this dispensation; and it may justly be given as one
good reason of their being so strongly fixed against idolatry ever after the
Babylonish captivity.
V. This dispensation was also calculated to produce good effects among the nations
whither they were carried into captivity. For, wherever they were dispersed in the
eastern countries, they would bring with them the knowledge of the true God, now
seriously impressed upon their hearts. Divine Providence, by such signal
circumstances of his interposition as were published and known over all the vast
extent of the eastern empire, raised some of the captive Jews to the highest posts of
dignity and power in the courts of Assyria and Persia, Daniel 1:19-20 insomuch that
the most haughty monarchs openly confessed the living and true God, as the only
and supreme God, (Daniel 2:47-49; Daniel 4:34; Daniel 4:37.) and made decrees,
which were published throughout their spacious dominions, in favour of the
profession and worship of him, Daniel 3:29; Daniel 6:25; Daniel 6:28. From all this
it is clear, that the Jews, notwithstanding their depravity in their own country
during the captivity of seventy years, must have been a burning and shining light all
over the eastern countries. And thus, in this dispensation also, God, the Father and
Governor of mankind, was working for the reformation and improvement of the
world, in that which is the true excellency of their nature, and the only foundation
of their happiness.
PULPIT, "The word of the Lord. ote marginal references (Jeremiah 25:9-12;
Jeremiah 29:10). The three score and ten years of desolateness may probably best be
dated from ebuchadnezzar's first taking of Jerusalem, b.c. 606-5. Although this
date does not tally exactly with the b.c. 538 of Cyrus's conquest of Babylon, yet the
discrepancy is easily explained on more than one sufficiently natural supposition

58. (e.g. that Cyrus's reign was not exactly synchronous in the beginning of it with his
conquest of Babylon, etc.). Enjoyed her sabbaths (see Le 26:34, 35, 43-46).
22 In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in
order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by
Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus
king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout
his realm and also to put it in writing:
BAR ES, "This and the next verse are repeated at the commencement of the book of
Ezra Ezr_1:1-3, which was, it is probable, originally a continuation of Chronicles,
Chronicles and Ezra together forming one work. See the introduction to Chronicles.
CLARKE, "Now in the first year of Cyrus - This and the following verse are
supposed to have been written by mistake from the book of Ezra, which begins in the
same way. The book of the Chronicles, properly speaking, does close with the twenty-
first verse, as then the Babylonish captivity commences, and these two verses speak of
the transactions of a period seventy years after. This was in the first year of the reign of
Cyrus over the empire of the East which is reckoned to be A.M. 3468. But he was king of
Persia from the year 3444 or 3445. See Calmet and Usher.
GILL 22-23, "Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia,.... These two verses
are the same with which the next book, the book of Ezra, begins, where they will be
explained; and these two books, the one ending and the other beginning with the same
words, is a strong presumption, that one and the same person, Ezra, is the writer of
them both; or rather, as a learned (e) writer conjectures, these two verses are added by
some transcriber, who, having finished the book of Chronicles at verse twenty one went
on with the book of Ezra, without any stop; but, perceiving his mistake, broke off
abruptly; for so it is plain these verses conclude; however, this shows, as the same writer
observes, that the book of Ezra followed that of the Chronicles, in the Hebrew copies,
though it now does not.

59. HE RY 22-23, "These last two verses of this book have a double aspect. 1. They look
back to the prophecy of Jeremiah, and show how that was accomplished, 2Ch_36:22.
God had, by him, promised the restoring of the captives and the rebuilding of Jerusalem,
at the end of seventy years; and that time to favour Sion, that set time, came at last. After
a long and dark night the day-spring from on high visited them. God will be found true
to every word he has spoken. 2. They look forward to the history of Ezra, which begins
with the repetition of these last two verses. They are there the introduction to a pleasant
story; here they are the conclusion of a very melancholy one; and so we learn from them
that, though God's church be cast down, it is not cast off, though his people be corrected,
they are not abandoned, though thrown into the furnace, yet not lost there, nor left there
any longer than till the dross be separated. Though God contend long, he will not
contend always. The Israel of God shall be fetched out of Babylon in due time, and even
the dry bones made to live. It may be long first; but the vision is for an appointed time,
and at the end it shall speak and not lie; therefore, though it tarry, wait for it.
JAMISO , "2Ch_36:22, 2Ch_36:23. Cyrus’ proclamation.
the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus — (See on Ezr_1:1-3).
K&D 22-23, "To point out still further how exactly God had fulfilled His word by the
mouth of the prophet Jeremiah, it is in conclusion briefly mentioned that God, in the
first year of Coresh king of Persia, stirred up the spirit of this king to cause a command
to go forth in all his kingdom, that Jahve, the God of heaven, who had given him all the
kingdoms of the earth, had commanded him to build again His temple in Jerusalem, and
that whoever belonged to the people of God might go up to Jerusalem. With this
comforting prospect for the future, the author of the Chronicle closes his consideration
of the prae-exilic history of the people of God without completely communicating the
contents of the royal edict of Cyrus, since he purposed to narrate the history of the
restoration of Judah to their own land in a separate work. This we have in the book of
Ezra, which commences by giving us the whole of the edict of Cyrus the king of the
Persians (Ezr_1:1-3), and then narrates the return of a great part of the people to
Jerusalem and Judah, the rebuilding of the temple, and the re-settlement in the land of
their fathers of those who had returned.
BE SO , "2 Chronicles 36:22. ow in the first year of Cyrus — Kennicott thinks
that the last two verses of this book belong properly to the book of Ezra, and were
subjoined to the Chronicles through the inadvertency of some transcriber. And thus
ends the history of the kingdom of Judah, as governed by the successors of the
illustrious King David, with the destruction of Jerusalem, the temple, and the whole
Jewish monarchy, by the conquest of the Babylonian king: which, in the course of a
righteous providence, in punishment of the idolatry and other sins of this people, fell
out about nine hundred and three years after their deliverance from Egypt; eight
hundred and sixty-three from their first entrance into the land of Canaan; four
hundred and sixty-eight from David’s reign; four hundred and seventeen after the

60. building of the temple; and one hundred and thirty-four after the destruction of the
kingdom of the ten tribes.
It is justly observed by a late writer, that the propriety of this dispensation of Divine
Providence toward this people will appear, if we reflect,
1st, That this dreadful calamity came upon them gradually, by a succession of
judgments, from less to greater, for the space of twenty-two years; in which the
lenity of God was very apparent, and which should have been a warning to them,
that the threatenings denounced by the prophets would certainly be executed; but
which effected no amendment of the religion or morals of the nation; Zedekiah, the
last king, being as bad as his predecessors.
2d, That it was a just punishment of their sins, particularly of their idolatry,
whereby they forsook God, and therefore God justly forsook them, and delivered
them into the hands of their enemies, as Moses had foretold, Leviticus 26:30-36.
3d, That this terrible overthrow was the most effectual means to work their
reformation, which was the end proposed by the divine wisdom. ow, in their
captive, disconsolate state, they had time, and their calamities had a natural
tendency to give them a disposition, to reflect upon the long series of iniquity and
perverseness which had brought them under the heaviest of God’s judgments. ow
their own wickedness corrected them, and their backslidings reproved them: now
they must know and see that it was an evil thing and bitter, that they had forsaken
the Lord their God, and that his fear had not been in them, Jeremiah 2:19. In the
land of their captivity, the sermons of the prophets, declaiming with the highest
authority against their profane and vicious practices, would be still sounding in
their ears, and their abject, wretched condition, the consequence of such practices,
would cause these discourses to sink deep into their hearts, and produce an utter
detestation of what they very well knew was the cause of all their grievous
sufferings.
4th, The law of God, written by Moses, as the rule of their conduct in all affairs,
civil and religious, and the ground of their happiness, they had so far neglected, that
once it was almost unknown and lost among them, 2 Kings 22:8-12. This contempt
of the divine law the prophets had frequently and strongly protested against, and
publicly declared that it would be their ruin. And in their ruined state this would be
remembered as the primary reason of all their sufferings; and they would be made
thoroughly sensible that a due regard to the law of God was the only way to recover
his favour and their own prosperity; and accordingly would be disposed to attend to
it; which, in some measure, was the case. This was another good effect of this
dispensation, and may justly be given as one good reason of their being so strongly
fixed against idolatry ever after the Babylonish captivity.
5th, This dispensation was also calculated to produce good effects among the nations
whither they were carried into captivity. For wherever they were dispersed, in the
eastern countries, they would bring with them the knowledge of the true God, now

61. seriously impressed upon their hearts. But Divine Providence, by such signal
circumstances of his interposition as were published and known over all the vast
extent of the eastern empire, raised some of the captive Jews to the highest posts of
dignity and power in the courts of Assyria and Persia, (Daniel 1:19-20,) insomuch
that the most haughty monarchs openly confessed the living and true God, (Daniel
2:47-49; Daniel 4:34, &c.,) and made decrees, which were published throughout
their spacious dominions, in favour of the profession and worship of him. Daniel
3:29; Daniel 6:25, &c. From all this, it is clear, that the Jews, notwithstanding their
depravity in their own country, during the captivity of seventy years, must have
been the means of diffusing a blessed light all over the eastern countries. And thus,
in this dispensation also, God, the Father and Governor of mankind, was working
for the reformation and improvement of the world, in that which is the true
excellence of their nature, and the only foundation of their happiness. See Dodd and
Taylor’s Scheme of Scripture Doctrine.
COFFMA , "Through the two great prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah God had
foretold and prophesied exactly what and when the captivity of the Children of
Israel would be terminated. It was Jeremiah who prophesied the exact duration of
the captivity in Jeremiah 25 of his great prophecy. (See our comments on that
chapter in the commentary, beginning on page 279.)
But another great prophet, namely Isaiah, had foretold and prophesied the nature
and source of the very decree of Cyrus mentioned here even naming Cyrus
generations before he was born. (See our discussion of this phenomenal prophecy on
pp. 8,9, in our Commentary on Isaiah. The prophecy is recorded in Isaiah 45:1f,
which is also discussed on pages 467 and the following pages of that commentary.)
There is no logical doubt whatever of the validity and integrity of those prophecies.
The Jewish historian Josephus verifies them; and the very fact of such a thing as a
captive nation being given permission to return to their own land, and even to be
encouraged to do so, and aided financially in the project, is so contrary to the
inclinations of human nature, so unheard of in any other instance, that the only
intelligent conclusion must allow God as the Author of the prophecies.
ELLICOTT, "THE EDICT OF CYRUS, AUTHORISI G THE RETUR (2
Chronicles 36:22-23). (Comp. Ezra 1:1-3; 3 Esdr. 2:1-5; Isaiah 44:28; Isaiah 45-47)
(22) ow in the first year of Cyrus.—This verse is the same as Ezra 1:1, save that it
has “by the mouth “instead of “from the mouth.” The latter is probably correct.
(Comp. 2 Chronicles 36:12 supra.) So some MSS. here also.
That the word . . . Jeremiah.—Concerning the seventy years.
Stirred up the spirit.—1 Chronicles 5:26;2 Chronicles 21:16.
That he made a proclamation.—And he made a voice pass (2 Chronicles 30:5).

62. Throughout all his kingdom . . . and put it also in writing.—Into all . . . and also into
a writing.
Writing.—Miktâb (2 Chronicles 35:4.)
The Lord.—Iahweh. Instead of this Ezra 1:3 has, Iehi, “Be;” so also 3 Esdr. 2:5.
“The Lord—with him!” (Iahiveh ‘immô) is a frequent formula in the chronicle, and
is probably correct here. (Some Hebrew MSS. and the Vulg. unite the readings.)
And let him go up.—Whither The sentence is abruptly broken off here, but
continued in Ezra 1:3. As to the relation between the Chronicles and Ezra, see
Introduction.
Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia.—Comp. the words of Darius Hystaspes on the
famous Behistuu Inscription, which begins “I am Darius, the great king, the king of
kings, the king of Persia;” while every paragraph opens with “Saith Darius the
king.”
All the kingdoms . . . given me.—Comp. the words of Darius: “Saith Darius the king
:—By the grace of Ormazd I am king; Ormazd has granted me the empire.”
The Lord God of heaven.—Jehovah, the God of heaven. “The god of heaven” was a
title of Ormazd or Ahuramazda, the Supreme Being according to Persian belief,
which was Zoroastrianism. It is not at all wonderful that Cyrus should have
identified the God of Israel with his own deity, especially if he had heard of the
prophecies Isaiah 44:28, &c. Such a politic syncretism was the settled practice of the
Roman empire in a later age.
GUZIK, "4. (2 Chronicles 36:22-23) Cyrus allows the Jewish people to return to
Jeruasalem.
ow in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the
mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king
of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also put
it in writing, saying, Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: All the kingdoms of the earth
the LORD God of heaven has given me. And He has commanded me to build Him a
house at Jerusalem which is in Judah. Who is among you of all His people? May the
LORD his God be with him, and let him go up!
a. ow in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia: God gave the Persian king a sense of
urgency about this, and the relief from exile was granted the very first year of his
reign as the LORD stirred up his spirit.
i. Cyrus made a decree giving Ezra and the Babylonian captives the right to return
to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple in 538 B.C. (Ezra 1:1-4 and Ezra 5:13-17).

63. ii. “Cyrus’s policy of cooperating with local religions and of encouraging the return
of exiles has received explicit archaeological confirmation from the inscriptions of
the king himself (cf. especially the famous ‘Cyrus Cylinder’).” (Payne)
b. All the kingdoms of the earth the LORD God of heaven has given me: This
remarkable recognition of God’s hand upon his life may be connected with the
remarkable prophecies regarding Cyrus in Isaiah 44:28 to Isa_45:4.
c. He has commanded me to build Him a house at Jerusalem: The command of
Cyrus not only allowed the return of the exiled people, but also a rebuilding of the
destroyed temple.
i. “ ‘To build him a house’ is a deliberate echo of the central promise of the Davidic
covenant (cf. 1 Chronicles 17:11-12; 1Ch_22:10; 1Ch_28:6; 2 Chronicles 6:9-10).
Cyrus of course is thinking only of the house in Jerusalem, but in the Chronicler’s
thought this phrase is inevitably connected with both houses of the Davidic
covenant, the dynasty as well as the temple.” (Selman)
d. Who is among you of all His people? May the LORD his God be with him, and let
him go up! The Books of 1 and 2 Chronicles end with this wonderful and
remarkable encouragement to return and rebuild Jerusalem. This was the necessary
and helpful encouragement to the first readers of Chronicles, letting them see their
connection with God’s broader plan of the ages.
i. Sadly, only a small percentage decided to return from exile; but those who did
needed the encouragement to know they were making a valuable contribution to
God’s work.
ii. “Unlike the Book of Kings, with its central message of stern moral judgments,
Chronicles exists essentially as a book of hope, grounded on the grace of our
sovereign Lord. . . . [Chronicles shows that] History is a process, not of
disintegration, but of sifting, of selection, and of development.” (Payne)
iii. “In the end, therefore, the end is also a fresh start. God’s promises continue
through the exile, on through his own generation and into the future.” (Selman)
PULPIT, "In the first year of Cyrus King of Persia. A period of half a century has
elapsed between the latest date of the foregoing verses and the date signalized here
(circ. b.c. 5.38-6). With the proclamation of Cyrus begins in fact the manhood, with
all its mystic, its wonderful, and its still non-progressing struggles, of the Jew. His
simple childhood, wilful youth, am indeed for ever gone. But he and his nation are
with unspeakably painful travail born. o life of nation that is or ever has been
merits the devout observation and study that this unchal-lengeably does. Our
present verse and the one succeeding it are, sentence for sentence, the same with the
opening verses of the Book of Ezra, which may possibly once have joined on to

64. Chronicles, as one work, though we think this exceedingly unlikely. Cyrus (the ‫שׁ‬ ֶ‫כוֹר‬
of the Hebrew text) was the son of a royal Persian, Cambysses; his mother was
Mandane, daughter of Astyages, last King of Media. The name appears on the
monuments, written Kurus. Cyrus defeated his grandfather Astyages, b.c. 559;
ending thereby the Median royal line; and he defeated Croesus, b.c. 546, possessing
himself thereby of the kingdom of Lydia; he took Babylon, as above, b.c. 538. He
himself died in battle, b.c. 529. That the word of the Lord by … Jeremiah might be
accomplished (see Jeremiah 25:11-14; Jeremiah 29:9-11). The Lord stirred up the
spirit of Cyrus. The fact is told us, and this, no doubt, as on a thousand other
unsuspected occasions of far more intrinsic and vital interest in the Bible, is
sufficient. It would have been interesting to know, however, even here, the mode in
which Cyrus was appealed to; as, e.g; it has been plausibly suggested that Daniel
may have been in part instrumental in the work, and that, again, in part perhaps by
directing the attention of Cyrus to Isaiah 44:28; Isaiah 45:1.
23 “This is what Cyrus king of Persia says:
“‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all
the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed
me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in
Judah. Any of his people among you may go up,
and may the Lord their God be with them.’”
CLARKE, "The Lord his God be with him - “Let the Word of the Lord be his
helper, and let him go up.” - Targum. See the notes on the beginning of Ezra.
Thus ends the history of a people the most fickle, the most ungrateful, and perhaps on
the whole the most sinful, that ever existed on the face of the earth. But what a display
does all this give of the power, justice, mercy, and long-suffering of the Lord! There was
no people like this people, and no God like their God.
PULPIT, "Hath the Lord God of heaven given me … the Lord his God be with him.

65. The adopting by Cyrus of the Hebrew "Jehovah" in both these places cannot escape
our notice. There can be no room to doubt that Cyrus was acquainted with the
sacred literature of the Hebrews, and especially with the writings of Isaiah,
Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, as with the language of Daniel. It may have been partly a
graceful act on the part of Cyrus to word his proclamation to the Jews thus, or it
may have been simply, what under the circumstances came most naturally to him,
with little or no intention in it either way. The numerous passages in Ezra parallel in
matter with this verse do not need specification here. ow begins the new period of
Jewish life, with fiercer probation, with unbounded and various trial, and probably
of world-length continuance.
BI 22-23, "Now, in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persta.
Cyrus: the divinely-directed deliverer
I. God stirred up cyrus to do a great and necessary work.
II. Cyrus was a fitting instrument for the great work.
III. God has various means whereby to incite to action.
IV. The divine incitement to the necessary work was at a most opportune time.
V. God teaches his instruments how as well as when to act.
VI. As the lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, so he can stir men now. (F. Hastings.)
He made a proclamation.—
The decree of Cyrus; or, all things for the Church
I. God uses kings and rulers for His Church. That the Lord raises up men within the
Church to be leaders and mighty workers in her behalf is a fact which the Bible and all
history fully prove. Such men were Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David, Paul,
Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Wesley. But He calls men from without also to work for her.
Conspicuous among this number is Cyrus, the Persian king. Though Cyrus be a marked
illustration of the matter under discussion, especially so because of the clear declarations
of prophecy on his behalf, still he is by no means the only one. Through the intervention
of Joseph, God made Pharaoh the preserver of His people. The immediate successors of
Cyrus on the Persian throne followed his example. Through the influence of Esther and
Mordecai, Ahasuerus, in a most critical time, became the saviour of the Jews. Later, in
the time of Darius, the interrupted work upon the temple at Jerusalem was renewed and
pushed forward. Still later, in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, Artaxerxes expended his
royal treasure in establishing the remnant of the Jews in their ancient and. Alexander
the Great, marching upon Jerusalem with a bitter purpose in his heart, is suddenly
changed from foe to friend. Like Cyrus, he too doubtless was shown the sacred books of
the Jews, and in the prophesy of Daniel saw himself described and his career delineated.
The general policy of the Roman government was severe, but many of the emperors,
moved by kindness of disposition or considerations of State, were lenient towards the
Christians. Ere long the government itself became Christian, and throughout the Middle
Ages, power was on the side of the Church. At the Reformation, whenever and wherever
needed, men were raised up among the rulers of the world to be abettors of the new faith

66. and breakwaters against the floods of persecution. Such were the elector of Saxony in the
days of Luther, and measurably so Henry VIII of England. Such were the Syndics who
stood around Calvin At Geneva. Such Elisabeth, Gustavus Adolphus, Cromwell And the
same thing is transpiring in our own days.
II. God handles the nations for the good of the Church. We know that the nations round
about the Hebrews in all their history were instruments in God’s hands for disciplining
them and fashioning them to His will. To this end He ordered their affairs. And the same
thing is apparent in these modern ages. Was it fortuitous that England early became
Protestant and the champion of the new faith? Was it a thing of chance that Saxony, the
Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, resisted the tyranny of the Pope? Did it merely
happen that this broad land of ours was sealed against the efforts of Rome to possess it,
and was preserved as virgin soil for a pure faith and a free government? Is not God’s
hand in England’s occupancy of India, and can we not see that thereby that land is
bespoken for Christ? Is Italy’s emancipation from the Pope wholly of man? Is Germany’s
attitude to Rome of Bismarck as much as it is of God? Blind is he who cannot see God’s
use of the nations in these modem times!
III. God uses the world’s material resources and forces for the Church. God has always
put the world’s wealth under tribute as He has needed it, from the day when Israel went
out of Egypt to the present time. And the tribute increases as the Church increases. More
of the world’s wealth is flowing into the channels of the Church now than ever before.
But not merely wealth—money expression of value—but every good and uplifting form at
work among men God uses for the development of His plan. Discovery, invention,
progress in economical and industrial arts, natural science—all these things, which are
represented in the complicated civilisation of our day, are likewise represented in the
Christianity of the times. Providence takes them up and utilises them as they appear;
nay, more, orders the time and the manner of their appearance. How true of the art of
printing! The first book printed was the Bible, And from that day forward God has been
presiding at the printing press and scattering its leaves for the healing of the nations.
The fleets of commerce beam the gospel to the corners of the world. Discovery in
geography, ethnology, philology adds new buttresses to Christianity. All these and the
like, though material and natural forces, yet work spiritual results.
1. By all these means God fulfils His prophecies and accomplishes His purpose. None
can hinder, none compel. On the trains of providence there are neither accidents nor
delays.
2. Herein we see the undying nature of the Church. Great has been the heat of her
affliction, but by it have her enemies been consumed.
3. The Spirit of God is abroad in the world, preparing the way for the coming of
Christ’s kingdom. How should the servants of the Lord be encouraged in labour and
in prayer by the Spirit’s antecedent work in every heart!
4. In all these things we have the assurance of the triumph of God’s kingdom. (H. S.
Kelsey.)

67. Footnotes:
2 Chronicles 36:2 Hebrew Joahaz, a variant of Jehoahaz; also in verse 4
2 Chronicles 36:3 That is, about 3 3/4 tons or about 3.4 metric tons
2 Chronicles 36:3 That is, about 75 pounds or about 34 kilograms
2 Chronicles 36:7 Or palace
2 Chronicles 36:9 One Hebrew manuscript, some Septuagint manuscripts and Syriac (see also 2
Kings 24:8); most Hebrew manuscripts eight
2 Chronicles 36:10 Hebrew brother, that is, relative (see 2 Kings 24:17)
2 Chronicles 36:17 Or Chaldeans