Now in the first year of Cyrus Kennicott thinks that the last two verses of this book belong properly to the book of Ezra, and were subjoined to the Chronicles through the inadvertency of some transcriber. And thus ends the history of the kingdom of Judah, as governed by the successors of the illustrious King David, with the destruction of Jerusalem, the temple, and the whole Jewish monarchy, by the conquest of the Babylonian king: which, in the course of a righteous providence, in punishment of the idolatry and other sins of this people, fell out about nine hundred and three years after their deliverance from Egypt; eight hundred and sixty-three from their first entrance into the land of Canaan; four hundred and sixty-eight from David's reign; four hundred and seventeen after the building of the temple; and one hundred and thirty-four after the destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes.
It is justly observed by a late writer, that the propriety of this dispensation of Divine Providence toward this people will appear, if we reflect,
1st, That this dreadful calamity came upon them gradually, by a succession of judgments, from less to greater, for the space of twenty-two years; in which the lenity of God was very apparent, and which should have been a warning to them, that the threatenings denounced by the prophets would certainly be executed; but which effected no amendment of the religion or morals of the nation; Zedekiah, the last king, being as bad as his predecessors.
2d, That it was a just punishment of their sins, particularly of their idolatry, whereby they forsook God, and therefore God justly forsook them, and delivered them into the hands of their enemies, as Moses had foretold, Leviticus 26:30-36.
3d, That this terrible overthrow was the most effectual means to work their reformation, which was the end proposed by the divine wisdom. Now, in their captive, disconsolate state, they had time, and their calamities had a natural tendency to give them a disposition, to reflect upon the long series of iniquity and perverseness which had brought them under the heaviest of God's judgments. Now their own wickedness corrected them, and their backslidings reproved them: now they must know and see that it was an evil thing and bitter, that they had forsaken the Lord their God, and that his fear had not been in them, Jeremiah 2:19. In the land of their captivity, the sermons of the prophets, declaiming with the highest authority against their profane and vicious practices, would be still sounding in their ears, and their abject, wretched condition, the consequence of such practices, would cause these discourses to sink deep into their hearts, and produce an utter detestation of what they very well knew was the cause of all their grievous sufferings.
4th, The law of God, written by Moses, as the rule of their conduct in all affairs, civil and religious, and the ground of their happiness, they had so far neglected, that once it was almost unknown and lost among them, 2 Kings 22:8-12. This contempt of the divine law the prophets had frequently and strongly protested against, and publicly declared that it would be their ruin. And in their ruined state this would be remembered as the primary reason of all their sufferings; and they would be made thoroughly sensible that a due regard to the law of God was the only way to recover his favour and their own prosperity; and accordingly would be disposed to attend to it; which, in some measure, was the case. This was another good effect of this dispensation, and may justly be given as one good reason of their being so strongly fixed against idolatry ever after the Babylonish captivity.
5th, This dispensation was also calculated to produce good effects among the nations whither they were carried into captivity. For wherever they were dispersed, in the eastern countries, they would bring with them the knowledge of the true God, now seriously impressed upon their hearts. But Divine Providence, by such signal circumstances of his interposition as were published and known over all the vast extent of the eastern empire, raised some of the captive Jews to the highest posts of dignity and power in the courts of Assyria and Persia, (Daniel 1:19-20,) insomuch that the most haughty monarchs openly confessed the living and true God, (Daniel 2:47-49; Daniel 4:34, &c.,) and made decrees, which were published throughout their spacious dominions, in favour of the profession and worship of him. Daniel 3:29; Daniel 6:25, &c. From all this, it is clear, that the Jews, notwithstanding their depravity in their own country, during the captivity of seventy years, must have been the means of diffusing a blessed light all over the eastern countries. And thus, in this dispensation also, God, the Father and Governor of mankind, was working for the reformation and improvement of the world, in that which is the true excellence of their nature, and the only foundation of their happiness. See Dodd and Taylor's Scheme of Scripture Doctrine.