Day 282 2 Chronicles Chapters 34 – 36

The Lord ... sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling place.

Captivity
Day 282, Tuesday, May 20
2 Chronicles Chapters 34 – 36
Much of what we read today is similar to the closing chapters of 2 Kings. Judah has a brief but rather glorious revival during the reign of King Josiah, but then succumbs to bad kings and foreign invasion.
In the end, Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar, forces the leading citizens into exile in Babylon, leaving only a remnant of mainly poor Hebrews in the land that had been Judah.
In some ways this reminds us of the Hebrew people being forced from their homeland into Egypt in Genesis and Exodus. A major difference, though, is that the migration to Egypt was originally voluntary as a response to a famine—only later were the Hebrew people made slaves of the Egyptians. In this case, the migration to Babylon is forced enslavement from its beginning.
During the books of Kings and Chronicles we’ve met several of the prophets already, and will soon be reading the books of the prophets. 2 Chronicles gives us a brief but important anchor for several of the prophets in it closing verses, as it speaks of the exile under Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar (in 597 BC) and the beginning of the return to Jerusalem under Persian King Cyrus. The time before, during and just after the Babylonian exile is an active time for prophecy, and we’ll return to it when we read some of the prophetic books.
In 2 Chronicles, and as we’ll see in the prophets, the exile is seen as a punishment from God for disobedience. This punishment was entirely fair and should have been seen coming by the people due to the warnings of the prophets themselves.
In Chapter 36 the writer makes this clear: “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. 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 and there was no remedy.”
In spite of the gap of more than 50 years, the book of Ezra flows seamlessly from the end of 2 Chronicles, even repeating the final verse in its opening passages. It is possible that Ezra actually compiled the information that is in 2 Chronicles and wrote the book.