When the Temple Turns to Ashes: Finding Comfort in Suffering

Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem for eleven years. His mother’s name was Hamutal, daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. He did what was displeasing to GOD, just as Jehoiakim had done. Indeed, Jerusalem and Judah were a cause of anger for GOD, so that they were cast out from the divine presence.Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. And in the ninth year of his reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, King Nebuchadrezzar moved against Jerusalem with his whole army. They besieged it and built towers against it all around. The city continued in a state of siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. By the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine had become acute in the city; there was no food left for the common people. Then [the wall of] the city was breached. All the soldiers fled; they left the city by night through the gate between the double walls, which is near the king’s garden—the Chaldeans were all around the city—and they set out for the Arabah. But the Chaldean troops pursued the king, and they overtook Zedekiah in the steppes of Jericho, as his entire force left him and scattered. They captured the king and brought him before the king of Babylon at Riblah, in the region of Hamath; and he put him on trial. The king of Babylon had Zedekiah’s sons slaughtered before his eyes; he also had all the officials of Judah slaughtered at Riblah. Then the eyes of Zedekiah were put out, and he was chained in bronze fetters. The king of Babylon brought him to Babylon and put him in prison, [where he remained] to the day of his death. On the tenth day of the fifth month—that was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadrezzar, the king of Babylon—Nebuzaradan, the chief of the guards, came to represent the king of Babylon in Jerusalem. He burned the House of GOD, the king’s palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem; he burned down the house of every notable person. The entire Chaldean force that was with the chief of the guards tore down all the walls of Jerusalem on every side. The remnant of the people left in the city, the defectors who had gone over to the king of Babylon, and what remained of the artisans were taken into exile by Nebuzaradan, the chief of the guards. But some of the poorest elements of the population— some of the poorest in the land—were left by Nebuzaradan, the chief of the guards, to be vine-dressers and field hands. The Chaldeans broke up the bronze columns of the House of GOD, the stands, and the bronze tank that was in the House of GOD; and they carried all the bronze away to Babylon. They also took the pails, scrapers, snuffers, sprinkling bowls, ladles, and all the other bronze vessels used in the service. The chief of the guards took whatever was of gold and whatever was of silver: basins, fire pans, sprinkling bowls, pails, lampstands, ladles, and jars. The two columns, the one tank and the twelve bronze oxen that supported it, and the stands, which King Solomon had provided for the House of GOD—all these objects contained bronze beyond weighing. As for the columns, each was eighteen cubits high and twelve cubits in circumference; it was hollow, and [the metal] was four fingers thick. It had a bronze capital above it; the height of each capital was five cubits, and there was a meshwork [decorated] with pomegranates about the capital, all made of bronze; and so for the second column, also with pomegranates. There were ninety-six pomegranates facing outward; all the pomegranates around the meshwork amounted to one hundred. The chief of the guards also took Seraiah the chief priest and Zephaniah, the deputy priest, and the three guardians of the threshold. And from the city he took a eunuch who was in command of the soldiers; seven royal privy councillors, who were present in the city; the scribe of the army commander, who was in charge of mustering the people of the land; and sixty of the common people who were inside the city. Nebuzaradan, the chief of the guards, took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah. The king of Babylon had them struck down and put to death at Riblah, in the region of Hamath.Thus Judah was exiled from its land. This is the number of those whom Nebuchadrezzar exiled in the seventh year: 3,023 Judeans. In the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar, 832 persons [were exiled] from Jerusalem. And in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar, Nebuzaradan, the chief of the guards, exiled 745 Judeans. The total amounted to 4,600 persons. In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, on the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month, King Evil-merodach of Babylon, in the year he became king, took note of King Jehoiachin of Judah and released him from prison. He spoke kindly to him, and gave him a throne above those of other kings who were with him in Babylon. He removed his prison garments and [Jehoiachin] ate regularly in his presence the rest of his life. A regular allotment of

This passage is one of the most graphic narratives of divine judgment in the Old Testament. Jerusalem, the city chosen by God, falls to the Babylonians; Zedekiah's eyes are put out after he watches his sons die; the Temple built by Solomon is burned to the ground. Suffering here is not random—yet the chapter's inclusion in Jeremiah signals that even catastrophe is recorded within God's covenant story, preparing the way for ultimate restoration.