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<p>This narrative begins no higher than the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah, though there were two captivities before, one in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, the other in the first of Jeconiah; but probably it was drawn up by some of those that were carried away with Zedekiah, as a reproach to themselves for imagining that they should not go into captivity after their brethren, with which hopes they had long flattered themselves. We have here, 1. God’s just displeasure against Judah and Jerusalem for their sin, <a class="bibleref" title="Jer.52.3" href="/passage/?search=Jer.52.3">Jer. 52:3</a>. His anger was against them to such a degree that he determined to <i>cast them out from his presence</i>, his favourable gracious presence, as a father, when he is extremely angry with an undutiful son, bids him get out of his presence, he expelled them from that good land that had such tokens of his presence in providential bounty and that holy city and temple that had such tokens of his presence in covenant-grace and love. Note, Those that are banished from God’s ordinances have reason to complain that they are in some degree <i>cast out of his presence</i>; yet none are cast out from God’s gracious presence but those that by sin have first thrown themselves out of it. This fruit of sin we should therefore deprecate above any thing, as David (<a class="bibleref" title="Ps.51.11" href="/passage/?search=Ps.51.11">Ps. 51:11</a>), <i>Cast me not away from thy presence</i>. 2. Zedekiah’s bad conduct and management, to which God left him, in displeasure against the people, and for which God punished him, in displeasure against him. Zedekiah had arrived at years of discretion when he came to the throne; he <i>was twenty-one years old</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Jer.52.1" href="/passage/?search=Jer.52.1">Jer. 52:1</a>); he was none of the worst of the kings (we never read of his idolatries), yet his character is that he <i>did evil in the eyes of the Lord</i>, for he did not do the good he should have done. But that evil deed of his which did in a special manner hasten this destruction was his <i>rebelling against the king of Babylon</i>, which was both his sin and his folly, and brought ruin upon his people, not only meritoriously, but efficiently. God was greatly displeased with him for his perfidious dealing with the king of Babylon (as we find, <a class="bibleref" title="Ezek.17.15" href="/passage/?search=Ezek.17.15">Ezek. 17:15</a>); and, because he was angry at Judah and Jerusalem, he put him into the hand of his own counsels, to do that foolish thing which proved fatal to him and his kingdom. 3. The possession which the Chaldeans at length gained of Jerusalem, after eighteen months’ siege. They sat down before it, and blocked it up, in the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, in the tenth month (<a class="bibleref" title="Jer.52.4" href="/passage/?search=Jer.52.4">Jer. 52:4</a>), and made themselves masters of it in the <i>eleventh year in the fourth month</i>, <a class="bibleref" title="Jer.52.6" href="/passage/?search=Jer.52.6">Jer. 52:6</a>. In remembrance of these two steps towards their ruin, while they were in captivity, they kept <i>a fast in the fourth month, and a fast in the tenth</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Zech.8.19" href="/passage/?search=Zech.8.19">Zech. 8:19</a>): that in the <i>fifth month</i> was in remembrance of the burning of the temple, and that in the <i>seventh</i> of the murder of Gedaliah. We may easily imagine, or rather cannot imagine, what a sad time it was with Jerusalem, during this year and half that it was besieged, when all provisions were cut off from coming to them and they were ever and anon alarmed by the attacks of the enemy, and, being obstinately resolved to hold out to the last extremity, nothing remained but a <i>certain fearful looking for of judgment</i>. That which disabled them to hold out, and yet could not prevail with them to capitulate, was the <i>famine in the city</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Jer.52.6" href="/passage/?search=Jer.52.6">Jer. 52:6</a>); there wa
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