II Chronicles 36:17

When the moral corruption had reached this height, judgment broke upon the incorrigible race. As in Ch2 36:12-16 the transgressions of the king and people are not described according to their historical progression, but are portrayed in rhetorical gradation; so, too, in Ch2 36:17-21 the judgment upon the sinful people and kingdom is not represented in its historical details, but only rhetorically in its great general outlines. "Then brought He upon them the king of the Chaldeans, who slew their young men with the sword in their sanctuary, and spared not the youth and the maiden, the old man and the grey-headed; he gave everything into his hand." Prophetic utterances form the basis of this description of the fearful judgment, e.g., Jer 15:1-9; Jer 32:3., Eze 9:6; and these, again, rest upon Deu 32:25. The subject in the first and last clause of the verse is Jahve. Bertheau therefore assumes that He is also the subject of the intermediate sentence: "and God slew their young men in the sanctuary;" but this can hardly be correct. As in the expansion of the last clause, "he gave everything into his hand," which follows in Ch2 36:18, not Jahve but the king of Babylon is the subject; so also in the expansion of the first clause, which וגו ויּהרג introduces, the king of the Chaldeans is the subject, as most commentators have rightly recognised. By מקדּשׁם בּבית the judgment is brought into definite relationship to the crime: because they had profaned the sanctuary by idolatry (Ch2 36:14), they themselves were slain in the sanctuary. On נתן ב הכּל, cf. Jer 27:6; Jer 32:3-4. הכּל includes things and persons, and is specialized in Ch2 36:18-20.

We have here, I. A short but sad account of the utter ruin of Judah and Jerusalem within a few years after Josiah's death. 1. The history of it in the unhappy reigns of Jehoahaz for three months (Ch2 36:1-4), Jehoiakim (Ch2 36:5-8) for eleven years, Jehoiachin three months (Ch2 36:9, Ch2 36:10), and Zedekiah eleven years (Ch2 36:11). Additions were made to the national guilt, and advances towards the national destruction, in each of those reigns. The destruction was, at length, completed in the slaughter of multitudes (Ch2 36:17), the plundering and burning of the temple and all the palaces, the desolation of the city (Ch2 36:18, Ch2 36:19), and the captivity of the people that remained (Ch2 36:20). 2. Some remarks upon it - that herein sin was punished, Zedekiah's wickedness (Ch2 36:12, Ch2 36:13), the idolatry the people were guilty of (Ch2 36:14), and their abuse of God's prophets (Ch2 36:15, Ch2 36:16). The word of God was herein fulfilled (Ch2 36:21). II. The dawning of the day of their deliverance in Cyrus's proclamation (Ch2 36:22, Ch2 36:23).