073. II. The Decade Before The Final Fall Of Jerusalem And Its Two Great Prophets

II THE DECADE BEFORE THE FINAL FALL OF JERUSALEM AND ITS TWO GREAT PROPHETS The year 597 B. C. was of great significance to the Hebrew people politically and religiously. The obstinate, unreasoning confidence of his people Israel in Jehovah’s protection which had blinded the eyes of the majority in Judah to the ruin toward which the state was drifting, and made them deaf to the earnest appeals of Jeremiah, began to be shaken, when the flower of the nation was transported to Babylon. Instead despair and a passionate desire to see the vengeance of God upon their bold, even contemptuous, oppressors took possession of their minds. The times seemed to them to be completely out of joint and Jehovah the one at fault. They failed to realize that their misfortunes were wholly due to their own short-sightedness, disloyalty, and corruption, and that nothing but a thorough-going national reformation could restore them to divine favor. They counted themselves rather the victims of adverse political and religious conditions. They considered their triumphant restoration to Judah the only possible way in which Jehovah’s character could be vindicated and their own great wrongs righted. The prospect of an immediate deliverance, however, was anything but bright. They were completely and helplessly in the power of Nebuchadrezzar, because of the insensate folly and perversity of their late King Jehoiakim and his nobles. Placed on the throne of Judah about 608 B. C. by Pharaoh Necho, he became, by virtue of the crushing defeat which that sovereign suffered at the hands of Nebuchadrezzar two years later, a vassal of the Babylonian king. Under Jehoiakim’s sway the kingdom of Judah became a nursery of insurrection and corruption. The young king was thoroughly selfish and incompetent. He dreamed of impossibilities; he was impatient of criticism; he was superstitious and vain. Swayed completely by his likeminded counsellors and resisting the disinterested warnings of Jeremiah, he trusted the promises of the king of Egypt and revolted from Nebuchadrezzar. Such an open defiance of his power could not be overlooked by one who aimed at the absolute sway of the western world. The great king in 597 B. C. marched westward to subdue his rebellious vassal. Before his army had effected the capture of the city of Jerusalem King Jehoiakim died, thus escaping the bitter consequences of his blunder. These were inevitable. In accord with the military policy of the Assyrians and Babylonians, Nebuchadrezzar not only took due vengeance upon the rebellious people and their leaders, but also made another formidable rebellion impossible by removing those who would naturally instigate and give it strength. As soon as the hapless young King Jehoiakin, three months a nominal sovereign, was forced to surrender, he, his attendants, officials, warriors, and thousands of his substantial subjects, among others the young priest Ezekiel and probably the youthful Daniel, were transported to Babylonia. The king was placed in confinement; a few were drafted into the service of the great king; the great majority were settled by themselves, not far from the city of Babylon. Here they were free, apparently, to live, undisturbed, a community-life of their own, to engage in industrial occupations, and to make the most of their opportunities. They even held intercourse with those who were left behind in Judah, but any word or act which tended to arouse discontent among those at home was sure to incur severe punishment. In Judah Nebuchadrezzar had appointed Zedekiah, another prince of the royal Davidic house, to the throne, and had left the kingdom once more to itself, content with having crippled its power for mischief. For the remaining decade of Judah’s history its people were living in these two widely separated and contrasting communities. The Jews in Babylon represented the strongest elements of the race and were compared by the prophet Jeremiah to good figs fit for use (Jeremiah 24). On them he based all his hopes for the future. The people left in Judah he likened to rotten figs, fit only for destruction. Well might he despair of them, for they gave little heed to his warnings and subjected him to constant persecution. They had no desire to confess, much less to repent of their evil ways, but defiantly persisted in the idolatry which he denounced. The heart and hopes of Jeremiah were with the other portion of the nation, far away beyond the trackless desert. He saw that the real future of his nation must be achieved through them. He counselled patience and submission, urging them to settle down in quiet and to pursue their normal life (Jeremiah 29), asserting that the exile would continue at least more than a generation (Jeremiah 29:10). That his words were read with respect is indicated by the indignant protest of Shemaiah, a man of standing among the exiles, who wrote to Jerusalem (Jeremiah 29) urging that his action be rebuked by the ecclesiastical authorities in Judah. But God had raised up for these lonely and homesick exiles—unhappy in the midst of plenty, impatient under the slight restrictions laid upon them, haunted by the hateful thought that they dwelt in an unclean land—a faithful shepherd in the person of the prophet Ezekiel. He was one of themselves, dwelling in their midst, sharing their experiences, entering into their needs. It was he who held them together, kept alive a spirit of hope, fought their idolatrous tendencies and taught them broader views of the purposes and methods of Jehovah. During the decade between the first captivity and the destruction of Jerusalem, however, his most prominent task was to throw a clear light upon the attitude of Jehovah toward Israel and to assert the absolute certainty of the downfall of the city and state. For some years Ezekiel uttered no word of which we have record. So far as we know, his ministry began in 592 B. C., five years after the deportation itself. For the latter half of the decade he labored earnestly to prepare his fellow-captives to understand the approaching catastrophe. They still believed that the holy city was inviolable, for there was located Jehovah’s holy temple, which he could not allow to be destroyed. Hence Ezekiel’s God-given task was to set in a clearer light the true character of the city and land, to indicate that, because of the sins of the inhabitants, Jehovah had abandoned his once-loved sanctuary, and to predict in unmistakable ways the speedy end of city, state, and temple. Every such plain utterance, unpalatable though it was, helped to save some Judean patriots from despair and infidelity when the crushing blow descended. It helped them to understand the great principles of the kingdom of God more clearly, and thus—even at the period when the true prophets had only denunciations and warnings for their hearers—prepared them to appreciate the future work of Israel among the nations.