Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible
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2 Chronicles
Book: 2 Chronicles
Chapter: 36
Overview:
The
Destruction of
Jerusalem.
(1-21) The proclamation of
Cyrus.
(22,23)
1-21 The ruin of
Judah and
Jerusalem came
On By Degrees. The
methods
God takes to
Call back sinners
By his
Word,
By
ministers,
By Conscience,
By providences, are all instances of
his compassion toward them, and his unwillingness that any
should perish. See here what woeful havoc
Sin makes, and, as we
value the comfort and continuance of our earthly blessings, let
us keep that
Worm from the root of them. They had many times
ploughed and sowed their land in the seventh
Year, when it
should have rested, and now it lay unploughed and unsown for ten
times
Seven years.
God will be
No loser in his
Glory at last,
By
the disobedience of men. If they refused to let the land
Rest,
God would make it
Rest. What place, O
God, shall thy
Justice
spare, if
Jerusalem has perished? If that delight of thine were
cut off for wickedness, let us not be high-minded, but fear.
22,23 God had promised the restoring of the captives, and the
rebuilding of
Jerusalem, at the
End of seventy years; and that
time to favour Zion, that set time, came at last. Though
God's
Church be cast down, it is not cast off; though his people be
corrected, they are not abandoned; though thrown into the
Furnace, they are not lost there, nor left there any longer than
till the
Dross be separated. Though
God contend long, he will
not contend always. Before we close the books of the
Chronicles,
which contain a
Faithful register of events, think what
Desolation Sin introduced into the world, nay, even into the
Church of
God. Let us tremble at what is here recorded, while in
the character of some few gracious souls, we discover that the
Lord left not himself without
Witness. And when we have looked
at this
Faithful portrait of
Man By nature, let us contrast with
it that same nature, when recovered
By Almighty
Grace, through
the justifying and soul-adorning
Righteousness of
Christ our
Saviour.