A biographical sketch of the eighteenth-century evangelist George Whitefield claims: "His voice had the range of an organ and with it he could reduce grown men to tears by the mere pronunciation of the word ’Mesopotamia.’" Perhaps a Judean exile who hung his harp upon the willows and remembered Jerusalem (Ps. 137) would also be moved to tears at the mention of "Mesopotamia," but not because of acoustics. It was from this region that the Assyrians and Babylonians came to demolish the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.

In terms of geopolitical ebb and flow, the monarchies were simply crushed by revived superpowers. But the biblical record penetrates to a deeper level of causality. God’s deliverance of Jerusalem from Sennacherib in 701 B.C. shows that if Judah had remained loyal, he would have protected it from the mightiest military machines. So the real reason for Jerusalem’s fall to the Babylonians in 586 B.C. was breach of the divine covenant rather than mere military inferiority. In spite of God’s amazingly gracious patience, the Judahites managed to shatter the covenant through royal insubordination to God, false worship, ethical sins, and false hope combined with unwillingness to follow present truth revealed by not-yet-canonical prophets.

With 20/20 hindsight it is easy for us to condemn the kings of Judah for blunders of biblical proportions. But in worldly terms they were not stupid. They were independence-oriented opportunists who counted the cost of confrontation with foreign powers. The problem was that at crucial moments they counted wrong. It would have taken superhuman insight to weigh accurately the fateful circumstances. The tragedy is that, although they had access to such insight through true prophets, they deliberately rejected it because they failed to trust the Lord’s word.

The late monarchy was a time of bewildering complexity, with overpowering internal and external forces, radical paradigm shifts, and accumulating stress. Individuals with credible credentials espoused conflicting theologies. False prophets proffered candy-coated comfort for profit, and priests were fixated on shekels rather than focussed on the Shekinah. Institutional leaders pulled in opposite directions. Those delegated to solve problems perpetuated them, as Hizzoner Mayor Richard J. Daley assured Chicagoans alarmed by the 1968 riots: "The police are not here to create disorder. The police are here to preserve disorder."

In Jerusalem greed and misery fought in the streets. In their daily struggle for survival, some puffed the deadly vapors of vain euphoria and others withered in despair.

Through it all, God was there, waiting for his prodigal people to come home after tasting the bitter alternative to his benevolent rule. Even after he abandoned his hopelessly polluted temple and the miserable inhabitants of Judah were in captivity, his presence served as a sanctuary to them (Ezek. 11:16). Through national meltdown God’s prophets stayed with their people—weeping over them (Jer. 9:1; 13:17), thundering at them (Jer. 25), persecuted by them (Jer. 37–38), but going with them into exile (Jer. 43:1–7).

Searing prophetic indictments sounded harsh, but they paved the way for solid hope. When prophecies of doom turned out to be reliable and realistic, there was basis for belief that promises of restoration would also come true. This hope preserved the identity of a remnant, without which it is unlikely that the Jews could have survived as a distinct people. No wonder "the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls, tenement halls"! (Simon and Garfunkel).

When the Assyrians and Babylonians rampaged across the stage of history, many little peoples were trampled into the dust and vanished. But the Jews survived and were transformed into "the people of the Book." Despite agony and perplexity, the visions that awaited their time were trustworthy and the just did live by faith (Hab. 2:3–4). It is true that God’s people were by no means immune from problems after the exile, but the fact that they survived at all is a tribute to the faithfulness of the few who obeyed when it was popular to disobey and who spoke when nobody seemed to be listening. Even more, it is a tribute to the love and power of the Most High, who "rules the kingdom of men, and gives it to whom he will" (Dan. 4:17, 25; compare 5:21).

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