Verses 28-30. On these verses Dr. Blayney has some sensible remarks; I will extract the substance. These verses are not inserted in 2 Kings xxv. Are we to conclude from these verses that the whole number of the Jews which Nebuchadnezzar, in all his expeditions, carried away, was no more than four thousand six hundred? This cannot be true; for he carried away more than twice that number at one time and this is expressly said to have been in the eighth year of his reign, 2 Kings xxiv. 12-16. Before that time he had carried off a number of captives from Jerusalem, in the first year of his reign, among whom were Daniel and his companions, Dan. i. 3- 6. These are confessedly not noticed here. And as the taking and burning of Jerusalem is in this very chapter said to have been in the fourth and fifth months of the nineteenth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, those who were carried into captivity at the date of those events cannot possibly be the same with those that are said to be carried away either in the eighteenth or twenty-third year of that prince. Nor, indeed, is it credible that the number carried away at the time that the city was taken, and the whole country reduced, could be so few as eight hundred and thirty-two, (see ver. 29;) supposing a mistake in the date of the year, which some are willing to do without sufficient grounds.

Here then we have three deportations, and those the most considerable ones, in the first, in the eighth, and nineteenth years of Nebuchadnezzar, sufficiently distinguished from those in the seventh, eighteenth, and twenty-third years. So that it seems most reasonable to conclude with Abp. Usher, in Chronologia Sacra, that by the latter three the historian meant to point out deportations of a minor kind, not elsewhere noticed in direct terms in Scripture.

The first of these, said to have been in the seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar, was one of those that had been picked up in several parts of Judah by the band of Chaldeans, Syrians, and others, whom the king of Babylon sent against the land previously to his own coming, 2 Kings xxiv. 2.

That in the eighteenth year corresponds with the time when the Chaldean army broke off the siege before Jerusalem, and marched to meet the Egyptian army, at which time they might think it proper to send off the prisoners that were in camp, under a guard to Babylon.

And the last, in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadnezzar, was when that monarch, being engaged in the siege of Tyre, sent off Nebuzaradan against the Moabites, Ammonites, and other neighbouring nations, who at the same time carried away the gleanings of Jews that remained in their own land, amounting in all to no more than seven hundred and forty-five.

Josephus speaks of this expedition against the Moabites and Ammonites, which he places in the twenty-third year or Nebuchadnezzar; but mentions nothing done in the land of Israel at that time. Only he says that after the conquest of those nations, Nebuchadnezzar carried his victorious arms against Egypt, which he in some measure reduced, and carried the Jews whom he found there captives to Babylon. But the Egyptian expedition was not till the twenty-seventh year of Jehoiachin's captivity, i.e., the thirty-fifth of Nebuchadnezzar, as may be collected from Ezek. xxix. 17; so that those who were carried away in the twenty-third year were not from Egypt, but were, as before observed, the few Jews that remained in the land of Judah.

Jer. 52:1-11 This fruit of sin we should pray against above any thing Cast me not away from thy presence, Ps. 51:11. None are cast out of God's presence but those who by sin have first thrown themselves out Zedekiah's flight was in vain, for there is no escaping the judgment of God; they come upon the sinner, and overtake him, let him flee wher he will.

Jer. 52:12-23 The Chaldean army made woful havoc. But nothing is s particularly related here, as the carrying away of the articles in the temple. The remembrance of their beauty and value shows us the more the evil of sin.

Jer. 52:24-30 The leaders of the Jews caused them to err; but now the are, in particular, made monuments of Divine justice. Here is a account of two earlier captivities. This people often were wonders bot of judgment and mercy.

Jer. 52:31-34 See this history of king Jehoiachin in II Kin. 25:27-30 Those under oppression will find it is not in vain for them to hope an quietly to wait for the salvation of the Lord. Our times are in God' hand, for the hearts of all we have to deal with are so. May we be enabled, more and more, to rest on the Rock of Ages, and to loo forward with holy faith to that hour, when the Lord will bring agai Zion, and overthrow all the enemies of the church __________________________________________________________________

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