* For the manner in which Jeremiah was separated from the
     rest of the captives, set at liberty and sent back to
     Gedaliah, see Jer. xxxix. 11-18, xl. 1-6.

     ** 2 Kings xxv. 23-25, and Jer. xl. 7-16, xli. 1-15, where
     these events are recorded at length.

     *** 2 Kings xxv. 26; Jer. xli. 16-18, xlii., xliii. 1-7.

**** Jer. xliv. 1, where the word of the Lord is spoken to “all the Jews... which dwelt at Migdol, and at Tahpanhes (Daphno), and at Moph (corr.  Moph, Memphis), and in the country of Pathros.”

Even after all these catastrophes Judah’s woes were not yet at an end.  In 581, the few remaining Jews in Palestine allied themselves with the Moabites and made a last wild effort for independence; a final defeat, followed by a final exile, brought them to irretrievable ruin.* The earlier captives had entertained no hope of advantage from these despairing efforts, and Ezekiel from afar condemned them without pity:  “They that inherit those waste places in the land of Israel speak, saying, Abraham was one, and he inherited the land:  but we are many; the land is given us for inheritance....  Ye lift up your eyes unto your idols and shed blood:  and shall ye possess the land?  Ye stand upon your sword, ye work abomination, and ye defile every one his neighbour’s wife:  and shall ye possess the land?...  Thus saith the Lord God:  As I live, surely they that are in the waste places shall fall by the sword, and him that is in the open field will I give to the beasts to be devoured, and they that be in the strongholds and in the caves shall die of the pestilence."**

* Josephus, following Berosus, speaks of a war against the Moabites and the Ammonites, followed by the conquest of Egypt in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar.  To this must be added a Jewish revolt if we are to connect with these events the mention of the third captivity, carried out in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar by Nebuzaradan.

     ** Ezek. xxxiii. 23-27.

The first act of the revolution foreseen by the prophets was over; the day of the Lord, so persistently announced by them, had at length come, and it had seen not only the sack of Jerusalem, but the destruction of the earthly kingdom of Judah.  Many of the survivors, refusing still to acknowledge the justice of the chastisement, persisted in throwing the blame of the disaster on the reformers of the old worship, and saw no hope of salvation except in their idolatrous practices.  “As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken unto thee.  But we will certainly perform every word that is gone forth out of our mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem:  for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well and saw no evil.  But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.”