Furthermore, all the leaders of the priests and the people were very unfaithful following all the abominations of the nations; and they defiled the house of the LORD which he had set apart as holy in Jerusalem.
And the LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to them again and again by the hand of his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his habitation; but they continually mocked the messengers of God, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against his people, until there was no remedy.
Therefore he brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans who killed their choice men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on choice man or virgin, old man or infirm; he gave them all into his hand. And all the articles of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king and of his officials, he brought them all to Babylon.
Then he burned the house of God and tore down the wall of Jerusalem, and burned all its palaces with fire and destroyed all its valuable articles. And those who had escaped from the sword he took away into exile to Babylon; and they were slaves to him and to his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had made up for its sabbaths. All the days of its desolation it kept sabbath until seventy years were fulfilled.
Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia—in order to complete the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah—the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he had a proclamation pass throughout his kingdom, and also put it in writing, saying, “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ‘the LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has appointed me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever there is among you of all his people, may the LORD his God be with him, and let him go up!’”
2 Chronicles 36:14–23 LSB
This story, like all stories in the Bible, doesn’t just communicate facts, it communicates meaning. Our author wants to tell us the meaning of Jerusalem’s destruction, not just data about it. We’ll reach back to our studies in Leviticus to help us understand some the author’s images and how the Chronicler structured his message.
One word says it all
they defiled the house of the LORD
There are two general states of matter in the Levitical story—holy, and common/profane—which is more a spectrum than purely binary. Holiness describes something in proximity to God, because God is the dictionary definition of what is holy and unique. The closer you are to God’s presence, his moral attributes acted out, his outlook on everything, the more holy you are. Common is not bad, not sinful per se, but is less close to God’s own glorious definition of being. Common things have the ability to become holy through interaction with God’s Spirit and transformation via encounter with the originator of life itself.
Common things also have two states of being: pure/clean (Heb. טָהוֹר tahor), and defiled/unclean (Heb. טָמֵא tah-may). Common-pure things exist just as God made them, intact in their orderliness, their being, their purpose, and their end. Common-pure things become common-defiled when they are disordered, their being compromised, their purpose thwarted, and their end not fitting to goodness, truth and beauty. Common-defiled lacks ideal because it treads the boundary between life and death—it is not good to be anywhere near death. At its core, the Levitical text is primarily concerned with moving creation upward from common-pure into holiness. It also includes instruction on how things that have become common-defiled can be restored to common-pure status and resume the path to holiness. We’re never without hope.
The Chronicler demotes God’s holy house, the place of his fellowship alongside creation, skipping right past common-pure and goes straight to tahmay, common-defiled. It did not pass GO, nor did it collect its 200 shekels. That’s quite the nosedive, and puts the nation, Jerusalem, and the temple itself on death’s door.
An inventory of language
until there was no remedy
That word remedy (Heb. מַרְפֵּא mar-pay) interests us. It is related to the Hebrew word for healing, because mar-pay is the “healer-thing” that does the healing. The careful reader of Torah pricks up her ears when tah-may is used in close proximity to mar-pay. Where in the books of Moses do we read about defilement and disease?
You guessed it, Leviticus chapters 13–14 has the largest exposition. The topic discussed there is that of a disease that affects skin, clothing and buildings, rendering them defiled. Let’s see how this idea is applied to the state of affairs in Jerusalem as we find them at the end of 2 Chronicles.
When a person is identified as having the defiling disease in Leviticus 13, he is to publicly cry out “tahmay, tahmay“. While he is coping with the affliction, he is exiled outside the dwelling places of the community. This is exactly what happens to the inhabitants of the Chronicler’s Jerusalem—some of them die, and the rest are exiled totally outside of the land of their dwelling. To add insult to injury, the survivors also return to slavery and servitude, an echo back to their days in Egypt. Strike one.
Back to Leviticus 13. When an article of clothing is identified as tahmay having the defiling disease, it is to be burned. Not even the priestly garments were exempt from the destruction of “diseased” cloth. Psalm 93 uses images like “The LORD reigns, he is clothed with majesty”, and “Holiness befits your house.” What does the Chronicler tell us in our passage? The very centre of divine majesty and priestly activity in Jerusalem—the temple house—is burned. Strike two.
We are definitely down in the count. Leviticus chapter 14 describes a piece of construction like a house or a wall. If it is deemed tahmay, with the defiling disease in it, an attempt can be made to repair it by fixing up the diseased bit. But if the disease reappears, the house must be emptied of all its contents, torn down, and its debris hauled away to a defiled (tahmay) place. No surprise. The Chronicler tells us that the house of the LORD was emptied of its treasures, the city wall was torn down and every precious thing destroyed. Strike three—you’re out.
Cleansing and compassion
But that’s not the last word, and the game isn’t over. If early and often God’s compassion was voiced out of concern for his precious people, and his relationship and desire for proximity to them, then late will he also move to restore and rebuild what was defiled and destroyed. His heart is to be with us, and the Lord is not easily put off of his mission.
Moral rot is real, and reaches a point when the initially small corrective measures become drastic. It happens to every religion, every nation, every culture. John 3 tells us that “Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light, for their deeds were evil.”
The Son of God himself couldn’t have simply uttered a few small bits of advice to this kind of world, our world. Jesus had to become exiled from heaven, have everything valuable taken from him, endure the suffering of his own flesh and the destruction of his temple-body. All this to take the punishment that was ours, and to grant us the opportunity to become part of a new temple not made with human hands, one that he would raise up only three days after its teardown; one that dwells in the centre of a new Jerusalem, filled with every precious thing. And we, his people, are there with him.
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
Psalm 137:5–6
May my right hand forget her skill.
May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
If I do not remember you,
If I do not exalt Jerusalem
Above my chief joy.