It was a common custom in the early ages of the world for powerful sovereigns to take the people of a conquered country captive, and make them slaves. They employed them, to some extent, as personal household servants, but more generally as agricultural laborers, to till the lands.
Jeremiah and the book of Chronicles.
Incursions of Nebuchadnezzar.
An account of the captivity of the Jews in Babylon is given briefly in the closing chapters of the second book of Chronicles, though many of the attendant circumstances are more fully detailed in the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah was a prophet who lived in the time of the captivity. Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, made repeated incursions into the land of Judea, sometimes carrying away the reigning monarch, sometimes deposing him and appointing another sovereign in his stead, sometimes assessing a tax or tribute upon the land, and sometimes plundering the city, and carrying away all the gold and silver that he could find. Thus the kings and the people were kept in a continual state of anxiety and terror for many years, exposed incessantly to the inroads of this nation of robbers and plunderers, that had, so unfortunately for them, found their way across their frontiers. King Zedekiah was the last of this oppressed and unhappy line of Jewish kings.
Denunciations of Jeremiah.
Predictions of Jeremiah.
The prophet Jeremiah was accustomed to denounce the sins of the Jewish nation, by which these terrible calamities had been brought upon them, with great courage, and with an eloquence solemn and sublime. He declared that the miseries which the people suffered were the special judgments of Heaven, and he proclaimed repeatedly and openly, and in the most public places of the city, still heavier calamities which he said were impending. The people were troubled and distressed at these prophetic warnings, and some of them were deeply incensed against Jeremiah for uttering them. Finally, on one occasion, he took his stand in one of the public courts of the Temple, and, addressing the concourse of priests and people that were there, he declared that, unless the nation repented of their sins and turned to God, the whole city should be overwhelmed. Even the Temple itself, the sacred house of God, should be destroyed, and the very site abandoned.
Exasperation of the priests and people.
The priests and the people who heard this denunciation were greatly exasperated. They seized Jeremiah, and brought him before a great judicial assembly for trial. The judges asked him why he uttered such predictions, declaring that by doing so he acted like an enemy to his country and a traitor, and that he deserved to die. The excitement was very great against him, and the populace could hardly be restrained from open violence. In the midst of this scene Jeremiah was calm and unmoved, and replied to their accusations as follows:
Defense of Jeremiah.
"Every thing which I have said against this city and this house, I have said by the direction of the Lord Jehovah. Instead of resenting it, and being angry with me for delivering my message, it becomes you to look at your sins, and repent of them, and forsake them. It may be that by so doing God will have mercy upon you, and will avert the calamities which otherwise will most certainly come. As for myself, here I am in your hands. Yon can deal with me just as you think best. Yon can kill me if you will, but you may be assured that if you do so, you will bring the guilt and the consequences of shedding innocent blood upon yourselves and upon this city. I have said nothing and foretold nothing but by commandment of the Lord."[C]
He is liberated.