God’s Word for You

2 Chronicles 36:15-21 The temple is burned

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Thursday, June 26, 2025

15 The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to them again and again through his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. 16 But the people kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words, and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD rose up against his people, until there was no remedy. 17 Therefore he brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary. He had no compassion on young man or virgin girl, old man or even decrepit. He gave them all into his hand. 18 And all the vessels of the House of God, large and small, and the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king and of his princes, all these he brought to Babylon. 19 And they burned the House of God, and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, and burned all its palaces with fire, and they destroyed all its precious vessels.

With each of the kings of Judah, good or bad, the prophet has taken time to tell us about each man’s death—even that of wicked queen Athaliah. We are expecting this with Zedekiah. We have grown accustomed to the pattern. But our author does not fulfill the pattern, nor our expectations. And in doing so, he illustrates something of the surprise that the people and that Zedekiah himself may have felt.

In 588, the Babylonians established their siege against Jerusalem. Within two years it was all over. The walls were broken through. The king tried to escape but was caught. His sons were killed as he watched, and then his own eyes were put out, and he was bound with bronze chains and was forced to march to Babylon. All of this is in 2 Kings 25:1-7, but the author of Chronicles doesn’t mention any of it. The last thing we hear about Zedekiah here is the crescendo of his sinful hostility toward God and toward his prophets, leading the people in their “mocking, despising, scoffing” (verse 16), and somewhere in the wild and wicked laughter of the king’s voice, the Babylonians appear from over the hills to the north, and west, and east, and south. Jerusalem is surrounded, the walls are broken, and there is no more mention of King Zedekiah in the book at all. He simply vanishes like the flame of a candle that is suddenly blown out. And the hands of the Babylonians grab the candlestick and are simply and suddenly gone again. The city burned. The temple burned. The people who were not killed were bound and marched away. Listen again to the list and the description, just one word (“until”) after the king’s mockery:

“the wrath of the LORD rose up against his people, until there was no remedy. Therefore he (the Lord) brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary.
1, He (the Lord) had no compassion on young man
2, or virgin girl,
3, or old man
4, or even decrepit. He (the Lord) gave them all into his hand” (the attacking king of Babylon, also called Chaldea).

They were removed from what had become the center of sin, the bullseye of idolatry in the world. Jerusalem and the temple of Solomon were supposed to have been the bastion of faithfulness, but the buildings and the people who led and guided God’s nation had tipped everything upside down. Jerusalem had become the place to lose your faith, not to strengthen it. It was where kings mocked the prophets and killed them, burned the Bible page by page and bragged about it, warming their hands over the flames in devilish delight. The priests followed along, and the people, the ordinary people of the land, finally got pulled into it as well, until there was practically no one left. A prophet or two, a prince or two, and a few faithful common folks. But not many.

20 He took those who had escaped from the sword into exile in Babylon, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the royalty of Persia took over as kings. 21 This happened to fulfil the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah, that the land enjoyed its sabbath rests. All the days that it lay desolate completed the sabbaths, until the seventy years were through.

The author of Kings shows, correctly, that this destruction of Jerusalem and the blinding and removal of the king were a punishment. But the author of Chronicles has something else to say; a different application of the same event, but both given by the same Holy Spirit. The author of Chronicles is looking at the exile from the other side, after the people had returned. He sees the exile as the method God used to preserve his people, to rescue the faith of those few who still had it from being crushed by their king, by their princes, and even by their priests. The exile, while on the one hand being a punishment for sin—and it certainly was this—was also an example of the mercy of God. God has mercy even on the land, and gave it the rest it was supposed to have had.

Just as God is supremely good, so also he is supremely merciful. “Although the wicked and impenitent have been excluded from this special love, the doors of grace are still open for them in this life until the Last Judgment when ‘the doors will be closed to them’ (Matthew 25:10) after they, with all the devils, have been hurled away from the face of the Lord into the pit of hell.” (Gerhard II §216).

Consider the mercy of God. Against the terrible greatness of our sins, God’s mercy is infinite. It is greater than “the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19). Jesus teaches the mercy of God in the mirror of the father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son: (a) the father runs toward the son; not to gain anything, but to show his love. (b) The father embraces the son; his mercy accepts us, miserable sinners though we are, in our fumbling, poorly-rehearsed words of repentance. (c) The father kisses the son; this is his unifying mercy, drawing us back into a loving relationship with him. (d) The father gives the son clothes; this is the righteousness of Christ given to us freely and by faith. (e) The father gives the son a ring; this is his mercy adorning us, especially with the gift of the Holy Spirit. (f) The father gives him shoes; this is his fortifying mercy, strengthening us for the path of life and of his righteousness and even the burdens of the crosses that remain for us to bear. (g) The father brings out the fattened calf; a feeding mercy, for the Father feeds us with many spiritual things, including his law and gospel, our knowledge of justification and sanctification, the catechism, and many other things.

Our miseries are many, but God’s mercy is more. Our perseverance is uncertain to us, but God strengthens us (Psalm 117:2).

Death that awaits us is bitter. But God’s sweet mercy will be able to render even bitter death as a sweet thing, for his mercy is eternal and “death itself is transitory.”

God’s mercy urges and exhorts us to glorify God (Luke 1:46,50). God’s mercy leads us to love our kind Father and to imitate the mercy of God (Luke 6:36).

God’s mercy stirs up and strengthens confidence within ourselves, confidence in our prayers (Psalm 25:6, 51:1), confidence in our conversion and faith (Joel 2:3), confidence when we face times of temptation (Job 10:12-13; Psalm 77).

God’s mercy kindles love for our neighbor (1 John 4:11). What we give to our fellow man, we give to God, “for man is the likeness of God.”

Ignatius of Antioch said: “So we should not be insensible to his goodness. For if he would imitate us according to our actions, we would cease to exist. For this reason, we should be his disciples and learn to lead Christian lives. For whoever is called by any other name than this doesn’t belong to God” (Magnesians 10:1).

And Ambrose said : “God is more indulgent in his mercy than persistent in his severity.”

The desecrated temple was burned. The wicked king was gone. The people were taken away to another land to grieve for what they lost, which they did not know they missed until it was gone. What things have happened in our lives that seemed to be trouble, pain, or disaster, but turned out to be blessings from our so very merciful God? Be patient in suffering, and look for his persistent mercy. For as David says: “Surely goodness and mercy will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

Note: Yashesh is a curious word. It only occurs here (verse 17), but it might be related to either shesh (perhaps meaning “over sixty”), or shisheh, a piel verb meaning “to lead” either a child or an old man (Ezekiel 39:2).

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

Browse Devotion Archive