Commentaria in II Paralipomenon
Chapter 36. Synopsis of the chapter
Josias is succeeded by his son Joachaz, whom Nechao leads away into Egypt. Joachaz is succeeded by his brother Joakim, he by his son Joachin, he by his uncle Sedecias, all of whom with the greater part of the people are led away to Babylon by Nabuchodonosor. He burns Jerusalem with the temple, so that Judea remained desolate until the first year of Cyrus, first Monarch of the Persians.
1. And the people of the land took Joachaz the son of Josias, and made him king in his father’s place in Jerusalem. 2. Joachaz was twenty-three years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. 3. And the king of Egypt, when he came to Jerusalem, removed him, and condemned the land in a hundred talents of silver, and a talent of gold. 4. And he made Eliakim his brother king in his stead over Juda and Jerusalem: and changed his name to Joakim; but Joachaz himself he took with him and carried into Egypt. 5. Joakim was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem: and he did evil before the Lord his God. 6. Against him came up Nabuchodonosor king of the Chaldeans, and bound him with chains and carried him to Babylon. 7. To which also he carried the vessels of the Lord, and put them in his temple. 8. Now the rest of the words of Joakim, and of his abominations which he wrought, and that were found in him, are contained in the book of the kings of Juda and Israel. And Joachin his son reigned in his stead. 9. Joachin was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem, and he did evil in the sight of the Lord. 10. And when the course of the year was come about, king Nabuchodonosor sent, and they brought him to Babylon, carrying away at the same time the most precious vessels of the house of the Lord. And he made Sedecias his uncle king over Juda and Jerusalem. 11. Sedecias was one and twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. 12. And he did evil in the eyes of the Lord his God, and humbled not himself before Jeremias the prophet, speaking to him from the mouth of the Lord. 13. He revolted also from king Nabuchodonosor, who had made him swear by God: and he hardened his neck and his heart from returning to the Lord the God of Israel. 14. Moreover all the chief of the priests, and the people wickedly transgressed according to all the abominations of the Gentiles, and they defiled the house of the Lord which he had sanctified to himself in Jerusalem. 15. And the Lord the God of their fathers sent to them by the hand of his messengers, rising in the night, and daily admonishing them: because he spared his people and his dwelling place. 16. But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused the prophets, till the wrath of the Lord rose up against his people, and there was no remedy. 17. For he brought upon them the king of the Chaldeans, and slew their young men with the sword in the house of his sanctuary: he had no compassion on the young man, or maiden, or the old man, no, nor on him that stooped for age, but he delivered them all into his hands. 18. And all the vessels of the house of the Lord, both the greater and the lesser, and the treasures of the temple, and of the king, and of the princes, he carried to Babylon. 19. And the enemies burnt the house of God, and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, burnt all the towers, and destroyed whatsoever was precious. 20. If any escaped the sword, he was led into Babylon, and served the king and his sons, till the reign of the king of the Persians, 21. that the word of the Lord might be fulfilled by the mouth of Jeremias, and the land might keep its sabbaths: for all the days of the desolation it kept a sabbath, until seventy years were fulfilled. 22. And in the first year of Cyrus king of the Persians, for the accomplishment of the word of the Lord, which he spoke by the mouth of Jeremias, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of the Persians, who commanded it to be proclaimed through all his kingdom, and also by writing, saying: 23. Thus saith Cyrus king of the Persians: All the kingdoms of the earth hath the Lord the God of heaven given to me, and he hath charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judea: who is there among you of all his people? the Lord his God be with him, and let him go up.
Verse 6. And bound (Joakim) with chains he carried to Babylon,—namely in the third year of the reign of Joakim: putting his affairs in order, and renewing the covenant with him, and promising the accustomed tribute, he was dismissed free by him to Jerusalem, where in the eleventh year of his reign rebelling again, he was slain by the Chaldeans, as I said on Jeremias XXII, 19.
Verse 8. And that were found in him.—Lyranus, Abulensis, question XXXIX on chapter XXV of book 4 Kings, Vatablus, the Master of the Scholastic History, Pererius, book I on Daniel, near the beginning, and others from the Hebrews relate that on the body of this king were found certain marks impressed, and certain stigmata branded in honour of his gods, whose branded slave he, while yet living, professed himself. What more miserable and unhappy than a king crowned with a diadem to have so abased himself as to make himself the branded slave of the devil? But on the contrary St. Paul: “For the rest, let no man be troublesome to me; for I bear the marks of the Lord Jesus in my body,” Galatians VI, 17.
Verse 9. Eight years old was Joachin when he began to reign,—namely with his father Joakim, who in the second year of his reign made his son Joachin, eight years old, king, and took him as partner of the kingdom, and so reigned with him ten years. The cause was that he feared lest, if anything human should befall him, Sedecias, the boy Joachin being shut out, would seize the kingdom. For already then he seemed to be meditating rebellion, to withdraw himself from the yoke of the Chaldeans; which he did in the third year of his reign, and therefore in the same year he was led away by the Chaldeans into Babylon; whence there succeeded him then his son Joachin, of nine or ten years: but the father Joakim, his affairs at Babylon settled, at once returned, and reigned other eight years with his son: which being completed, in the eleventh year of his reign rebelling again, he was slain by the Chaldeans: whence then his son Joachin, reigning alone with full and plain right, succeeded him, who was now eighteen years old, and reigned only three months, which completed he too was led away to Babylon by the Chaldeans, who set up in his place Sedecias his uncle. So Abulensis, Salianus, Tornielli, and others.
Verse 10. When the course of the year was come about.—In Hebrew, at the revolution of the year; namely when, the current year ending or being ended, a new year was beginning from the month Nisan; as if to say: when the current year was drawing to its end, or at the end of the year, Joachin was led away to Babylon, which was in the third month of his reign: for he began to reign not at the beginning of the year, but three months before the end of the year, for example in November or December. For the Hebrews began the year from Nisan, that is March.
Verse 13. Who had adjured him by God,—that he might keep the faith given and the subjection promised him, Nabuchodonosor threatening him with the vengeance of God the judge, if he violated it; and therefore for “Matthanias” he called him “Sedecias,” that is, justice of God, that he might always make him mindful of it, 4 Kings XXIV, 17.
Verse 15. Rising up by night.—Hebrew, rising early, that is, in the morning, in good time, anxiously he admonished them, like a good father of a family, who in the morning instructs his servants and directs them to the day’s work.
Because he spared (that is, desired to spare and most wished to spare) the people;—but when it despised the warnings of God, he spared it not, and delivered it to the Chaldeans to be laid waste, so that there was no hope of cure and amendment of life, because the Jews were hardened in their idolatry and crimes.
Verse 21. And that the land might keep its sabbaths,—that is, might keep holiday and rest from the labour by which it is ploughed, harrowed, sown, reaped, etc., by which the land is wont to be worked and as it were vexed.
For all the days of the desolation it kept a sabbath,—that is, it rested uncultivated, keeping as it were the leisure of the sabbath. The Hebrews note that the Jews violated the feast of the sabbath, and profaned it by servile and unlawful works, and that therefore God led them away from Judea as a punishment, that the land itself might keep the sabbath denied to it by the Jews for 70 years.
Until seventy years were fulfilled.—Why were the years of the captivity of the Jews in Babylon 70, not 80, not 90, not a hundred? Answer. The cause is given first by Theodoret, on Leviticus XXVI, 34, at those words: “Then shall the land keep her sabbaths all the days of her desolation, because it did not rest on your sabbaths, when you dwelt therein.” For thus he says: “Seventy years they served in Babylon; now from the kingdom of Saul to the captivity are reckoned 490 years, of which the seventh part makes seventy. This therefore he means to say: Seventy years the land will remain untilled and unsown, you dwelling in a foreign land, because together with the rest you transgressed also the precept of the sabbaths.” As if to say: The land of Juda, according to the law, could not be ploughed in the seventh year, but rested and kept its “sabbath,” that is, its leisure and rest, which because you (many of you), O Jews, took from it out of avarice, ploughing it in the seventh year that you might reap the fruits, therefore God will restore the rest due to it in the 70 years of your captivity, in which, destitute of its tillers, it may rest: for 70 sabbaths you took from it, and so many therefore God will give back to it. For in the 490 years which from the beginning of the reign of Saul (if we give him twenty years, and other twenty to Samuel, which joined make 40, of which Acts XIII, 21) to the last year of Sedecias were run through, there likewise passed 70 sabbaths of the land: for this in the seventh every year exacted its sabbath by the law. For the seventh year in 490 years recurs seventy times: multiply 70 by 7, thou shalt find 490. The same cause is here intimated when it is said: “And that the land might keep its sabbaths: for all the days of the desolation it kept a sabbath, until seventy years were fulfilled.”
Again, the Hebrews by their various and many crimes contaminated Judea, which was a holy land, for 490 years: whence God could have imposed on them as many years of penance and captivity; but he would not, and lessened the punishment; so that of seven years he assigned to them only one of penance, in which likewise the land might keep sabbath: wherefore he gave them 70 years of captivity: for these are contained seven times in 490, that in these 70 years the land, resting and keeping as it were a sabbath, might be expiated of the sins committed, and especially of idolatry, which had flourished in it long, but for 70 years more sharply and ardently.
Another literal cause was that the monarchy of the Chaldeans lasted for 70 years; now the Chaldeans were the enemies of the Jews and the scourges of God, who led them away to Babylon, and kept them there during the whole time of their monarchy: which ended in the 70th year, Cyrus arose, enemy of the Chaldeans and friend of the Jews, who overthrew the Chaldeans, and transferred the monarchy to the Persians, and therefore freed the Jews from Babylon. Again, these 70 years of desolation correspond to the 70 weeks of Daniel, chapter IX, at the end of which Christ was to come, of whom Cyrus had been a type, who should free them from the servitude of sin and the devil, and restore the heavenly Jerusalem.
The first and chief cause was the will of God thus decreeing, and of his deep judgments. This cause is given in 4 Esdras, chapter III, where he relates that in the thirtieth year of the desolation of Jerusalem, in Babylon, he complained before God why he so long detained the Jews his faithful ones captive in Babylon, and among other things said to God, verse 27: “Thou hast delivered up thy city into the hands of thine enemies. Do they that dwell in Babylon do better, and for this shall Sion have dominion?” And again: “It came to pass when I had come hither, and had seen impieties of which there is no number, and my soul hath seen many sinners this thirtieth year,” and the Angel said to him: “Go, weigh me the weight of fire, or measure me the blast of wind, or call back for me the day that is past.” Which when Esdras said could not be done, the Angel urges: “If I should ask thee how many dwellings are in the heart of the sea, or veins at the beginning of the abyss,” whence namely waters unceasingly spring, or the veins of the rains in heaven, “or which are the outgoings of paradise,” perhaps thou wouldst say to me: I have not gone down into the abyss, nor yet into hell, nor ever ascended into heaven. “But now I have asked thee only of fire and wind and the day through which thou hast passed, and from which thou canst not be separated, and thou hast answered me about them, and how wilt thou be able to comprehend the ways of the Most High?”
A tropological cause was that which St. Jerome gives, on Jeremias XXIX, 10: that the number seventy is a symbol of penance, which we ought to perform throughout this whole life that we may attain to heavenly glory. For, as is said in Psalm LXXXIX: “The days of our years in them are threescore and ten years.” Hence also the Church at Septuagesima, commemorating the fall of Adam and his posterity, begins the time of mourning and penance. Finally God willed that during 70 years all the old men of the Jews, accustomed to their vices and inveterate in them, should die, and that a new offspring should grow up, which, formed by Esdras, Daniel, Jesus, Zorobabel, and others in piety and the true worship of God, he might lead back to the holy land, as I said on Jeremias XXIX, 10.
Verse 22. In the first year of Cyrus.—This is repeated word for word in the following book of Esdras at the beginning of the first chapter, where I shall explain it in its proper place. Hence Interpreters gather that Esdras is the author of Paralipomenon. For its end is plainly the same as the beginning of Esdras.