After king Josiah, Judah had a final string of corrupt kings. The immoral and unjust lifestyles of the people of Judah resulted in captivity. Through their behavior, they sold themselves as slaves to sin. Their freedom in God was neglected, rejected and then fully abandoned. God is our parent; in order to discipline His children out of corruption, they were submerged in the stark reality of their own choices.
36:1-4 Judah was no longer rooted in faith; it was therefore easy for the kingdom's enemies to uproot them, claim them and carry them into captivity. Judah released itself from God and Egypt, the nation which symbolized their ancestor's enslavement took control. The king of Egypt replaced Josiah's son, an evil king named Jehoahaz with his brother, Eliakim. He then changed Elakim's name to Jehoiakim and took Jehoazhaz to Egypt.
36:5-8 Jehoiakim reigned evilly for eleven years. King Nebuchadnezzer captured him, stole from the house of the Lord, and decorated his own temple. Judah's faithlessness made the house of the Lord vulnerable; evil swept in and carved out of it all its treasures. Every good thing the Lord had taught the people of Judah had been tainted by corruption.
36:9-10 Jehoiachin then took the kingship; he was also an evil man and therefore did not have the protection of God. He suffered the same fate as his father.
36:11-14 Zedekiah became king and rejected the prophet Jeremiah. The kingdom of Judah fell further and further away from God. Obstinately, Zedekiah refused the counsel of God's prophet. He was unwilling to live the life of trust and humility God had offered.
36:15-16 God was present in Judah's season of faithlessness. He repeatedly offered to retrieve them; He cautioned the repercussions of their choices. He sent messengers and prophets, but each were mocked and rejected. In the New Testament, Jesus spoke of the repeated attempts God has made to reach out to humanity. In the Parable of the Vinedressers, it is explained the world has harshly treated and killed the prophets He has sent:
Matthew 21:33-39 Parable of the Vinedressers
There was a certain landowner who planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it, dug a winepress in it and built a tower. And he leased it to vinedressers and went into a far country. Now when vintage-time drew near, he sent his servants to the vinedressers, that they might receive its fruit. And the vinedressers took his servants, beat one, killed one, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did likewise to them. Then last of all he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the vinedressers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.’ So they took him and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him.
Finally Judah reached a point of no return. They could not rectify their situation without discipline. It became too late for warning; they had turned their hearts away from God so fully that there was no more God left in their hearts.
26:17-21 The people of Judah had submitted themselves to their desires, to a lifestyle more consistent with their enemies ideologies than God's and this was the result:
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. 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.*Jeremiah 25:11; Daniel 9:2
36:22-23 Comprising the end of this chapter and the following next books (Ezra + Nehemiah) the kingdom of Judah steadily exited their seventy years of captivity. The generation of discipline was ended by God and He enabled them to progress toward restoration once again.
God moved the heart of Cyrus, king of Persia to release the captives of Judah. Cyrus had conquered the Babylonian empire during Judah's captivity and taken control over them. He made a proclamation throughout the kingdom to restore Judah and the house of the Lord. Cyrus accepted God as a god but not as the God; still, it was a concession which led to Judah's return to Jerusalem.
God moved the heart of Cyrus, king of Persia to release the captives of Judah. Cyrus had conquered the Babylonian empire during Judah's captivity and taken control over them. He made a proclamation throughout the kingdom to restore Judah and the house of the Lord. Cyrus accepted God as a god but not as the God; still, it was a concession which led to Judah's return to Jerusalem.
