The Northern Kingdom was scattered in 2 Kings 17; the Southern Kingdom, Judah, is carted off to Babylon in 2 Kings 24 and 25. The downfall begins:

Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he began to rule; he was king for eleven years in Jerusalem…In GOD’s opinion he was an evil king, picking up on the evil ways of his ancestors. It was during his reign that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon invaded the country. Jehoiakim became his puppet. But after three years he had had enough and revolted. GOD dispatched a succession of raiding bands against him: Babylonian, Aramean, Moabite, and Ammonite. The strategy was to destroy Judah. Through the preaching of his servants and prophets, GOD had said he would do this, and now he was doing it. None of this was by chance—it was GOD’s judgment as he turned his back on Judah because of the enormity of the sins of Manasseh—Manasseh, the killer-king, who made the Jerusalem streets flow with the innocent blood of his victims. GOD wasn’t about to overlook such crimes.  (2 Kings 23.36 – 24.4, MSG)

Jehoachin becomes king, and the judgment continues:

And Jehoiachin king of Judah, along with his mother, officers, advisors, and government leaders, surrendered. In the eighth year of his reign Jehoiachin was taken prisoner by the king of Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar emptied the treasuries of both The Temple of GOD and the royal palace and confiscated all the gold furnishings that Solomon king of Israel had made for The Temple of GOD. This should have been no surprise—GOD had said it would happen. And then he emptied Jerusalem of people—all its leaders and soldiers, all its craftsmen and artisans. He took them into exile, something like ten thousand of them! The only ones he left were the very poor. He took Jehoiachin into exile to Babylon. With him he took the king’s mother, his wives, his chief officers, the community leaders, anyone who was anybody—in round numbers, seven thousand soldiers plus another thousand or so craftsmen and artisans, all herded off into exile in Babylon. (2 Kings 24.12 – 16, MSG)

All according to God’s prediction and plan. Then Jehoachin’s successor Zedekiah is the last:

The Babylonians took Zedekiah prisoner and marched him off to the king of Babylon at Riblah, then tried and sentenced him on the spot. Zedekiah’s sons were executed right before his eyes; the summary murder of his sons was the last thing he saw, for they then blinded him. Securely handcuffed, he was hauled off to Babylon. In the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, on the seventh day of the fifth month, Nebuzaradan, the king of Babylon’s chief deputy, arrived in Jerusalem. He burned The Temple of GOD to the ground, went on to the royal palace, and then finished off the city—burned the whole place down. He put the Babylonian troops he had with him to work knocking down the city walls. Finally, he rounded up everyone left in the city, including those who had earlier deserted to the king of Babylon, and took them off into exile. He left a few poor dirt farmers behind to tend the vineyards and what was left of the fields. (2 Kings 25.6 – 12, MSG)

Hard to believe this is the same kingdom that the Queen of Sheba visited. But nothing is permanent, especially when God promises exactly this outcome. Moses told them:

All the nations will ask, “Why did GOD do this to this country? What on earth could have made him this angry?” Your children will answer, “Because they abandoned the Covenant of the GOD of their ancestors that he made with them after he got them out of Egypt; they went off and worshiped other gods, submitted to gods they’d never heard of before, gods they had no business dealing with. So GOD’s anger erupted against that land and all the curses written in this book came down on it. GOD, furiously angry, pulled them, roots and all, out of their land and dumped them in another country, as you can see.” (Deuteronomy 29.24 – 28, MSG)

The narrative of 1 Samuel – 2 Kings ends with the people in Babylon. After the same story is told from another perspective in 1 and 2 Chronicles, The books of Ezra and Nehemiah will record their return from exile. What happened during exile? We’ll take a quick look from Jeremiah’s perspective tomorrow. In the meantime, a sad time.

¹  By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion.
²  On the willows there we hung up our lyres.
³  For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
⁴  How shall we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land? (Psalm 137.1 – 4, ESV)

How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow has she become, she who was great among the nations! She who was a princess among the provinces has become a slave…Judah has gone into exile because of affliction and hard servitude; she dwells now among the nations, but finds no resting place; her pursuers have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress. (Lamentations 1.1 – 3, ESV)