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INTRO
From judgement to hope
Hope now, and ultimate hope later
The future glory of Zion (4:1-13)
From Discipline and Pain – vv. 9-10
No true leaders
Lack of true leadership
Compared to birth pains
Ultimate captivity
Rescued
Persian King Cyrus 586 BC
Deportation of Judah Far more significant was the exile of Judah, the southern kingdom (the tribes of Judah and Benjamin). Because they had been able to preserve a margin of autonomy following Sennacherib’s siege of Jerusalem in 701 (2 Kgs. 18:13–19:37 par. Isa. 36–37; cf. 2 Chr. 32:1–22), the people of Judah believed that they could regain their freedom from the crumbling Assyrian Empire, in dissolution since the fall of Nineveh in 612. But Judah had to face another powerful foe, the Neo-Babylonian Empire, whose capable leader, Nebuchadnezzar II, quickly defeated Judah’s ally and overlord, Egypt, at Carchemish in 605. According to 2 Kgs. 24, Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem in 598 and, following capture of the city, exiled to Babylon King Jehoiachin, his family, the nobles, a large number of valiant soldiers (a smaller number is given at Jer. 52:28), and craftsmen. Nebuchadnezzar also seized the temple treasures as booty (2 Kgs. 24:11–16; 2 Chr. 36:6; Dan. 1:1–2). The Babylonian monarch made Zedekiah his vassal in Jerusalem, and when Zedekiah refused to pay tribute, Nebuchadnezzar returned to Judah in 587, besieged the city again, and finally leveled it. He took the remaining Jewish rebels, except for the very poorest, to his capital (2 Kgs. 24:20–25:17; 2 Chr. 36:15–21; Jer. 52:3–16). A third deportation took place ca. 581 following the murder of Gedaliah, whom Nebuchadnezzar had appointed governor over Judah (2 Kgs. 25:22–26; Jer. 41:2–3). (Meanwhile a sizable number of Hebrews had taken refuge in Egypt [Jer. 43:5–7].) Unlike their northern counterparts, the people of the southern kingdom returned in 538 when Cyrus the Achaemenid, who had conquered Babylon the preceding year, issued an edict that anyone who wished to assist in building a sanctuary for Yahweh in Jerusalem could go there (2 Chr. 36:22–23). Under Zerubbabel some forty thousand exiles indeed returned to their native country (Ezra 1:1–2:67), where the rebuilding of the temple was completed in 515 (Ezra 6:15) and the walls of Jerusalem nearly a century later. Not all Hebrews left Babylon and the other cities of their exile (e.g., Susa). During their “seventy years” (cf. Jer. 25:12; 29:10), many had managed to carve a niche for themselves abroad, had married “foreign wives” (cf. Ezra 10:10ff.), and enjoyed a comfortable existence, perhaps enhanced by their willingness to worship the Babylonian deities. As late as the second half of the fifth century leaders such as Ezra the scribe and Nehemiah the royal cupbearer still resided in Persia ALLEN C. MYERS, THE EERDMANS BIBLE DICTIONARY (GRAND RAPIDS, MI: EERDMANS, 1987), 361–362.
To Victory and Strength – vv. 11-13
Many nations
They do not know the thoughts of the Lord
Sovereign rule over the nations
Sheaves to the threshing floor
Arise and thresh
Horn iron
Strength and power