And the king of Babylon smote them, and slew them at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was carried away out of their land.
So Judah was carried away out of their land. 'In the history of the Jewish state, this great truth is clearly and powerfully impressed, that as "righteousness exalteth a nation, so sin is the reproach of any people" (Proverbs 14:34) - a lesson which, but for the immediate and extraordinary providence displayed in this awful dispensation, could never have been so forcibly inculcated, or so clearly understood' (Graves, 'Lectures on the Four Last Books of the Pentateuch,' 2:, p. 230).