At that time the officials of
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon,attacked Jerusalem, and the city came under siege.
Then Jehoiachin, king of Judah, together with his mother,
his ministers, officers, and functionaries,
surrendered to the king of Babylon, who,
in the eighth year of his reign, took him captive.
And he carried off all the treasures
of the Temple of the Lord and those of the palace,
and broke up all the gold utensils that Solomon, king of Israel,
had provided in the Temple of the Lord, as the Lord had foretold.
He deported all Jerusalem:
all the officers and men of the army, ten thousand in number,
and all the craftsmen and smiths.
None were left among the people of the land except the poor.
2 Kings 24:8-17
Despite being the Chosen People, Israel
has suffered tremendously throughout history.
The Temple was destroyed not once but twice, and in each case the calamity was foretold or seemingly
foretold in Scripture itself. The
Babylonian exile, which begins with today’s passage, was only one of several
holocausts to which God’s Chosen People have been subjected after God made the
Covenant with Israel.
