Poor Jeremiah!
Now he did not glory in the fact that all that he had spoken had finally come true.
He wept bitterly. He mourned as if every one of the exiles had been his brothers and sisters. He could not be consoled.
But when his first grief had worn off and the Prophet had a chance to study the conditions and to consider the future, God vouchsafed to him a new message for his people—a message of hope and of promise.
CHAPTER XVIII.
In Exile and in the Homeland.
Stripped of all its best people the country was in a sorry plight when, in the year 596, Nebuchadrezzar, on departing for Babylon, raised Zedekiah to the throne of Judah.
Zedekiah was an uncle of the ill-fated Jehoiachin. He was the third son of Josiah, and, like his brothers, Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim, he was to see the fortunes of Judah ebb to their lowest point, and finally to witness the destruction of the capital and the end of Judah.
The king had to surround himself with a vulgar, arrogant and uncouth set of people. All of the princes and leading Judeans who were taken to Babylon had been forced to sell their estates and properties at whatever price they would bring. These were bought up by anyone that came along and created a class of newly-rich that the country had never had before.
The court was now, therefore, composed of these newly-rich, who knew nothing about affairs of state, but who prided themselves on the fact that because they were spared in Judah, they were the choice remnant of God.