Explaining The Exile (2 Kings 25:8-21)

Explaining the Exile

2 Kings 25:8-21

 

Most in church today are familiar with the term “Exile”.

It is one of those bible terms that is often used and is very familiar.

 

Sort of like the Exodus was the leaving of Egypt,

The Exile was the entrance into Babylon.

Most are familiar with the concept.

 

But this is an area in which our familiarity can actually work against us.

Because the more we hear about an exile taking place,

The less shocked we are by it.

 

Today when someone says all of Israel was exiled into Babylon,

Most people don’t even bat an eye. That is a familiar truth.

 

And so we don’t get all that excited about it,

Nor do we treat it like it is any big deal.

 

But if we look at it like that, it is obvious we are not taking the time

To contemplate what it really was.

 

The exile was NOT a pretty site.

It was the total annihilation and deportation of an entire people.

What the holocaust is in our day, the exile was in this day.

 

It was as supreme and horrific a judgment

As a nation could possibly experience.

 

You were defeated, you were deported, and if you survived

You were forced to dwell wherever your new master placed you.

 

Exile was a horrific thing.

 

And the Bible helps us understand just how horrific this event was.

 

There is an entire book of the Bible

Dedicated just to explaining the horror of this event.

We call it Lamentations.

 

It was written by Jeremiah after the events that we read of today.

Jeremiah is very literally sitting on a rock that used to be a part of the temple

And is lamenting what he sees.

 

His words give us a great glimpse into just how horrible it really was.

 

TURN TO: LAMENTATIONS

1:1-6 – 5:1-22

If you want a picture from the New Testament,

We turn to the book of Matthew.

 

And when Matthew explains what it was like on that day

That Herod killed all those babies in Bethlehem,

 

In order to explain what the weeping and wailing was like,

Matthew quotes the words of Jeremiah as he looked at the exile.

 

Matthew 2:16-18 “Then when Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he became very enraged, and sent and slew all the male children who were in Bethlehem and all its vicinity, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the magi. Then what had been spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: “A VOICE WAS HEARD IN RAMAH, WEEPING AND GREAT MOURNING, RACHEL WEEPING FOR HER CHILDREN; AND SHE REFUSED TO BE COMFORTED, BECAUSE THEY WERE NO MORE.”

 

The point is that the exile was a horrible thing.

And just in case you have grown a little desensitized to it,

I hope to maybe stir up your understanding a little this morning.

 

God’s people had sinned against God,

And the exile was the punishment for that sin.

 

And the writer of Kings is explaining to you what the exile looked like.

 

The final statement of this section.

In verse 21, “So Judah was led away into exile from its land.”

 

That tells us that the verses preceding that statement

Are meant to explain to us exactly what exile looked like.

 

And as we see the exile this morning, I want you to fully understand

That the penalty for apostasy, the penalty for rejecting God

IS NO LAUGHING MATTER.

 

And as we look at our text, there are three main things

That the writer wants you and I to know about the exile.

 

These are things that occurred.

 

#1 THEIR CITY WAS DESTROYED

2 Kings 25:8-12

 

We can obviously read over those verses and just sort of digest them as facts, but let it be real to you for a moment.

 

Imagine a foreign enemy entering this town,

And burning every church and every house with fire.

We all remember the horror of September 11th,

But imagine that sort of destruction covering the entire land.

 

This was not Babylon just seizing control of a territory,

This was Babylon completely destroying everything in this land.

 

He burned the house of the Lord and all the houses.

He broke down the wall around the city.

 

Lamentations 2:5-9 “The Lord has become like an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel; He has swallowed up all its palaces, He has destroyed its strongholds And multiplied in the daughter of Judah Mourning and moaning. And He has violently treated His tabernacle like a garden booth; He has destroyed His appointed meeting place. The LORD has caused to be forgotten The appointed feast and sabbath in Zion, And He has despised king and priest In the indignation of His anger. The Lord has rejected His altar, He has abandoned His sanctuary; He has delivered into the hand of the enemy The walls of her palaces. They have made a noise in the house of the LORD As in the day of an appointed feast. The LORD determined to destroy The wall of the daughter of Zion. He has stretched out a line, He has not restrained His hand from destroying, And He has caused rampart and wall to lament; They have languished together. Her gates have sunk into the ground, He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are among the nations; The law is no more. Also, her prophets find No vision from the LORD.”

This was ultimate destruction.

 

AND ONE OF THE THINGS THAT ACTUALLY ATTRIBUTED TO THIS JUDGMENT WAS THEIR FALSE ASSURANCE.

 

The people just didn’t think they would be destroyed.

(11-12) “Then the rest of the people who were left in the city and the deserters who had deserted to the king of Babylon and the rest of the people, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away into exile. But the captain of the guard left some of the poorest of the land to be vinedressers and plowmen.”

 

You may have noticed that there were some who decided not to fight,

But instead chose to go and surrender to Babylon ahead of time.

 

This may make them appear to be cowards.

But this was actually the command of God.

 

Jeremiah 38:2-3 “Thus says the LORD, ‘He who stays in this city will die by the sword and by famine and by pestilence, but he who goes out to the Chaldeans will live and have his own life as booty and stay alive.’ “Thus says the LORD, ‘This city will certainly be given into the hand of the army of the king of Babylon and he will capture it.'”

 

Jeremiah 38:17-18 “Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “Thus says the LORD God of hosts, the God of Israel, ‘If you will indeed go out to the officers of the king of Babylon, then you will live, this city will not be burned with fire, and you and your household will survive. ‘But if you will not go out to the officers of the king of Babylon, then this city will be given over to the hand of the Chaldeans; and they will burn it with fire, and you yourself will not escape from their hand.'”

God had actually commanded them to abandon the city,

But many rebelled.

 

WHY DID THEY REBEL?

False Assurance

 

And by the way, this was a shock to the people.

Lamentations 4:12 “The kings of the earth did not believe, Nor did any of the inhabitants of the world, That the adversary and the enemy Could enter the gates of Jerusalem.

 

TURN TO: JEREMIAH 7:1-15

(we see that they were trusting in deception (8))

 

They didn’t think this was possible, but it happened.

 

Every building in Jerusalem was leveled.

All that was left were the smoking embers of a city that once was.

This was a total destruction.

 

All because the people were disobedient and trusted in things

That that they should not have trusted in.

 

(The Spiritual Application is obvious)

 

When people have false assurance,

They lose their desire for obedience,

And both lead them into judgment.

 

For Judah it led them into exile and complete destruction.

 

Their city was destroyed

#2 THEIR POSSESSIONS WERE STOLEN

2 Kings 25:13-17

 

This section has a clear point.

Although most everything in Jersusalem was knocked down and burned,

The Babylonians did spare some things.

 

Anything of value they stole before they set the place on fire.

 

You probably remember that this was prophesied:

2 Kings 20:16-18 “Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the LORD. ‘Behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house, and all that your fathers have laid up in store to this day will be carried to Babylon; nothing shall be left,’ says the LORD. ‘Some of your sons who shall issue from you, whom you will beget, will be taken away; and they will become officials in the palace of the king of Babylon.'”

 

And now that is coming to pass.

Babylon is stealing it all.

Obviously most of the gold and silver had already been taken.

This is now the Babylonians totally scrapping the place.

 

But if you notice, the writer of kings

Has a particular interest in two things that were stolen.

 

(13) “Now the bronze pillars which were in the house of the LORD, and the stands and the bronze sea which were in the house of the LORD, the Chaldeans broke in pieces and carried the bronze to Babylon.”

 

(17) “The height of the one pillar was eighteen cubits, and a bronze capital was on it; the height of the capital was three cubits, with a network and pomegranates on the capital all around, all of bronze. And the second pillar was like these with network.”

 

Of all the things stolen the writer is particularly interested in these pillars.

 

WHAT WERE THEY?

 

They were actually built by Solomon.

1 Kings 7:15,21 “He fashioned the two pillars of bronze; eighteen cubits was the height of one pillar, and a line of twelve cubits measured the circumference of both…Thus he set up the pillars at the porch of the nave; and he set up the right pillar and named it Jachin, and he set up the left pillar and named it Boaz.”

 

These were two decorative pillars set up by Solomon

To signify something to the people of Israel.

 

Jachin means “He shall Establish”

Boaz means “In it is strength”

 

They were meant to symbolize the strength of God’s temple

And that by virtue of this temple God had established Israel.

 

Israel is no longer established and Israel is no longer strong.

And God appointed the removal of the pillars.

 

And please notice that these monuments were not treasured by Babylon.

They weren’t going to put them in the Babylonian museum.

They weren’t going to set up a temple in Babylon for the Jews.

 

Just look at verse 16

“The two pillars, the one sea, and the stands which Solomon had made for the house of the LORD – the bronze of all these vessels was beyond weight.”

 

They don’t talk about these artistic structures according to their beauty,

They talk about them according to their weight.

 

What were priceless emblems of worship to the Jews

Were nothing but scrap metal to the Babylonians.

 

(Imagine someone coming in here with an axe and demolishing everything in order to salvage some of the wood)

 

This was a brutal event to behold.

 

Of this event Matthew Henry wrote:

“It was a righteous thing with God to deprive those of the benefit of worship who had slighted it so long and preferred false worships before it. Those that would have many altars shall now have none.”

 

What does exile look like?

 

Their City was Destroyed Their Possessions were Stolen

#3 THEIR LEADERS WERE KILLED

2 Kings 25:18-21

 

Here you recognize what the rulers of Babylon are doing?

 

Everyone who had a hand in rebelling against Babylon;

Everyone who encouraged those to stay and fight;

Were systematically gathered and executed.

 

72 leaders of the people were found in the city and they were brought before Nebuchadnezzar who “put them to death”

 

There would be no hope of an uprising.

There would be no hope of winning your freedom.

Anyone who had the ability to lead such an insurrection was killed.

 

Of course the result was to leave behind

A defenseless, demoralized, and utterly hopeless people.

 

That is exactly what was left,

And those survivors were led on a march to Babylon.

 

Jeremiah 52:28-30 “These are the people whom Nebuchadnezzar carried away into exile: in the seventh year 3,023 Jews; in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar 832 persons from Jerusalem; in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried into exile 745 Jewish people; there were 4,600 persons in all. “

Chapter 24 spoke of 10,000 captives.

The remaining captives were 4,600

So roughly 15,000 people were exiled.

 

The only survivors from a nation

That would be like the sand of the seashore.

 

The realization is that there were a lot more people who died

Than there were people who were exiled.

 

Death was the order of the day.

 

Ezekiel gave a dramatic prophesy about this.

Ezekiel 5:1-4 “As for you, son of man, take a sharp sword; take and use it as a barber’s razor on your head and beard. Then take scales for weighing and divide the hair. “One third you shall burn in the fire at the center of the city, when the days of the siege are completed. Then you shall take one third and strike it with the sword all around the city, and one third you shall scatter to the wind; and I will unsheathe a sword behind them. “Take also a few in number from them and bind them in the edges of your robes. “Take again some of them and throw them into the fire and burn them in the fire; from it a fire will spread to all the house of Israel.”

 

Obviously the hair represented the people,

It was only that “few in number”, bound in Ezekiel’s robe that survived,

And even some of them were then removed and killed.

 

The point is that death was a huge part of this exile.

 

Lamentations 2:22 “You called as in the day of an appointed feast My terrors on every side; And there was no one who escaped or survived In the day of the LORD’S anger. Those whom I bore and reared, My enemy annihilated them.”

 

The point is that when you read in Scripture

That Israel disobeyed God and so He exiled them to Babylon.

 

Don’t picture it as though they all packed their luggage

And went on some 70 year sabbatical to a tropical paradise.

 

Most were killed

Those that survived were sent as slaves of slaves in a foreign land.

Their city was destroyed and their possessions were stolen.

 

These were people who were left with absolutely nothing

And there was nothing to do but lament.

 

Exile is a horrible thing.

 

And I don’t know if you picked up on it or not,

But there is actually a very interesting parallel

To this passage in the New Testament.

 

John 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

 

You caught what the thief came to do.

Steal, Kill, Destroy.

 

That is precisely what Babylon did.

 

And all along God was crying out to Jerusalem

As the One who gives life, begging them to turn

From their evil ways and come to Him.

 

But they continually refused.

 

And when you refuse the One who gives life,

You automatically fall into the hands of the destroyer.

(Paul actually handed apostates over to Satan – 1 Timothy 1)

 

And all that is left to do is lament the horror of that judgment.

 

In fact Jesus called that day of judgment

“A place of weeping and gnashing of teeth”

 

The point is not pleasant, but it is so vitally important.

These Jews were false believers,

They were apostates who had turned away from God.

 

And as such they were not welcome to live in the land

God had promised to His children.

 

Because they had rejected Him judgment was their fate

And it came in the form of a horrific exile.

 

That same warning is for us today.

• It is for any who know the truth of God but refuse to yield to it…

• It is for any who put on a show of religion, but have not truly yielded to Him…

• It is for any who claim allegiance with their mouth, but their heart is far from Him…

 

Those people must learn that the judgment of God

Is severe on such people.

 

In fact, the writer of Hebrews said it like this:

Hebrews 10:26-31 “For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and THE FURY OF A FIRE WHICH WILL CONSUME THE ADVERSARIES. Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, “VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY.” And again, “THE LORD WILL JUDGE HIS PEOPLE.” It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

 

“It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

And if you don’t believe the writer of Hebrews,

Then ask the writer of Kings.

 

He most likely was one of those surviving Jews

Led away into captivity in Babylon.

 

And his timeless warning to the ages,

For all who read the book he left behind, is

• Seek God,

• Obey God,

• Trust God,

• Remove all idols from your land and from your heart.

 

For God is a jealous God

And He will not allow those whose heart is not fully His

To dwell in the land of promise.

 

This morning I again encourage you

To learn the lesson of the book of Kings.

And be genuine before the Lord.

 

Give Him your heart

Give Him your soul

Give Him your mind

Give Him your strength

 

Love Him above all else, and be real.

 

Matthew 16:24 “Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.”