And out of the city he took an officer that was set over the men of war, and five men of them that were in the king's presence, which were found in the city, and the principal scribe of the host, which mustered the people of the land, and threescore men of the people of the land that were found in the city :

And Nebuzar-adan captain of the guard took these, and brought them to the king of Babylon to Riblah :

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.

COMMENT.-How dreadful the famine had come to be in Jerusalem during the terrible siege, lasting two years and two months, we gather from the Lamentations of Jeremiah, five poems arranged in the acrostic alphabetical form in which the prophet bewails the miseries of his city (Lam. ii. 10; iv. 10.):—

The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence : They have cast up dust upon their heads:

They have girded themselves with sackcloth :

The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.

Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth.

For the destruction of the daughter of my people;

Because the children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.
They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine?

When they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city;

When their soul was poured out into their mothers' bosom.

They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger :

For these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.
The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children :
They were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

Such was their wretchedness, a fulfilment of what Moses had long ago foretold; and it daily increased, while Nebuchadnezzar, leaving his army to carry on the blockade, retired to Riblah, in Syria, to be nearer his own dominions.

At last at midnight, in the month that answers to July, the Chaldeans entered through the breach their machines had made in the walls. Two of the Babylonian chiefs, the Nergal-sharezer (Samgar, or cup-bearer), another Nergal-sharezer (who was Rab-mag, or chief magician), and the chief of the Eunuchs (Sarsechim), came and took up their station under the middle gateway, leading from the upper to the lower city, a central post whence they could watch

over their soldiers, who spread through the city, slaying, burning, plundering. The palace, being a fortress in itself on the hill of Zion, was not attacked at once, so that the unhappy Zedekiah, with his wife and children, fled out by the gate leading through the two city walls, by the way of the King's Gardens, and so towards Jericho ; but they were tracked, overtaken, and made prisoners. Then must the weak, wavering king have mourned his refusal to follow Jeremiah's advice and surrender to the Chaldeans. Now traitor, oathbreaker as he was, there was no hope for him. He was dragged to Riblah, where he did indeed “see the eyes of Nebuchadnezzar," but in fierce wrath. He was sentenced to see his young sons slain before his eyes, so as to put an end to his line, and then, when their death-struggle had been the last sight he had beheld, his eyes were put out, and he was carried in chains to Babylon. Then he perceived how the two apparently inconsistent prophecies could be fulfilled. Jeremiah mourns him thus in his Lamentations (chap. iv. 20):

The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the LORD, was taken in their pits, Of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.

The heart of Zedekiah was more wavering than hardened, and as the prediction to him spoke of his dying in peace, we may believe that the blind, childless captive at Babylon, far away from his evil counsellors and from the demands of expediency, repented truly of his sins. He was probably visited by his cousins or nephews, Daniel and his three companions, and we may believe he found his punishment true mercy.

Meantime, the next month after the capture, Nebuchadnezzar sent the captain of his guard, Nebuzar-adan, to carry out his sentence upon Jerusalem as a rebel city. Daniel had probably entreated the king to spare Jeremiah, and assured him of the prophet's endeavours to prevent the insurrection, and he was therefore to be allowed to go where he pleased. But the chief priests, who bore no mark from Ezekiel's angel, and all who had been movers in the rebellion, were brought to Riblah, and there slain. The principal persons, artificers, and every family of mark, were carried away to Babylon, and only the poor husbandmen and vine-dressers were allowed to remain, and placed under the government of Gedaliah,

a good and loyal man, faithful and trustworthy. The royal palace, "the house of David built on the citadel," and the chief houses had already been destroyed, and Nebuchadnezzar had now commanded that the Temple should share their fate, no doubt looking on it as a rallying point of rebellion.

So all the precious things (lovingly enumerated in the Book of Kings) were carried off as trophies to Chaldea, and the holy and beautiful house raised by Solomon four hundred years before was burnt with fire and levelled with the ground.

LESSON CXV.

EZEKIEL'S PROMISE OF THE SHEPHERD.

EZEK. xxxiii. 21, 22; and xxxiv. (abridged).

B.C. 587.—The tidings of the taking of Jerusalem came thus to Ezekiel in his silence at Chebar.

And it came to pass in the twelfth year of our captivity, in the tenth month, in the fifth day of the month, that one that had escaped out of Jerusalem came unto me, saying, The city is smitten.

Now the hand of the LORD was upon me in the evening, afore he that was escaped came; and had opened my mouth, until he came to me in the morning; and my mouth was opened, and I was no more dumb.

And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto the shepherds; Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks?

Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed: but ye feed not the flock.

The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost, but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them. And they were scattered, because there is no shepherd: and they became meat to all the beasts of the field when they were scattered.

Therefore, O ye shepherds, hear the word of the LORD;

Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require my flock at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the flock: neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; for I will deliver my flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for them.

For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep and seek them out.

As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered: so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.

And I will bring them out from the people, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land, and feed them upon the mountains of Israel by the rivers, and in all the inhabited places of the country.

I will feed them in a good pasture, and upon the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be: there shall they lie in a good fold, and in a fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains of Israel.

I will feed my flock, and I will cause them to lie down, saith the Lord God.

I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick: but I will destroy the fat and the strong; I will feed them with judgment.

And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd.

And I the LORD will be their God, and my servant David a prince among them; I the LORD have spoken it.

And I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land : and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods.

And I will make them and the places round about my hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessing.

*

Thus shall they know that I the LORD their God am with them, and that they, even the house of Israel, are my people, saith the Lord GOD.

And ye my flock, the flock of my pasture, are men, and I am your God, saith the Lord GOD.

COMMENT.-The darker the outer world was with the prophets the brighter were the visions God vouchsafed to them. When Ezekiel's mouth was opened, after the direful tidings of the capture of Jerusalem, he was in the first place taught to explain how the sins of the fathers are not visited on the children's soul, but only in their outward life. Then he was led to utter a rebuke of the evil shepherds, the priests, kings, and false prophets who had done so much to cause the ruin of God's flock, passing from thence to one of the most full and beautiful promises of the mercy that should gather them together "out of all the places where they had been scattered in the cloudy and dark day" that now was upon them

The full beauty of the prophecy has not been given here, but never was there a tenderer, sweeter promise. "They shall dwell safely, and none shall make them afraid." We who live in a land where, for many centuries, none has made us afraid, can hardly enter into the sense of peace those words must have given to people whose country had never been free from marauders and invaders! But, it is not only that rest which is promised and the return to Jerusalem, but this is the crown of the promises of the Anointed Saviour as the Shepherd. Jacob had cried, "From thence is the Shepherd the Stone of Israel” (Gen. xlix.) The shepherd-king had sung, "The Lord is my Shepherd." Isaiah, too, had proclaimed, "He shall feed His flock like a shepherd" (Is. xl.) And now, in much more detail, Ezekiel foretells, that when the scattered flock shall have been collected, "My servant David,” namely, the son of David, "shall be prince over them." King and Shepherd in one, gathering them in safety under His hand to enjoy showers of blessing, and breaking the yoke of their oppression. And how did He break it? He told them how He was about to break it when He took this prophecy to Himself in these words: "I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep" (John x.) And again :

I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep.

And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice: and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.

Thus was it as Chief Shepherd gathering His flock that He goeth forth to save and rescue His single lost sheep (Matt. xviii.) :—

How think ye? If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?

And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray.

Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.

And thus again, that His dearest charge to His Apostles was to show love to Himself by feeding His sheep (John xxi.)

And that