2 Chronicles 36:15–23

Read the passage.

In a lot of ways, the history of Israel, Judah, and all of humanity can be summed up in verses 15 and 16. The Lord has compassion on His people and on the land in which they dwell, so He sends word to them through the prophets. The people don’t want to hear it, so they mock and deride the message and the ones who brought it. For hundreds of years, this went on, so the Lord’s compassion was very great.

Eventually, though, the promises of the Lord came to pass and the people were driven out of the land of Judah. Jerusalem’s wall was torn down, the temple burned down, and all of its treasures were carried away. The people were forced to live in Babylon, and the emptied land was given rest from the abominations they were carrying out. Ever since the death of Abel, the Lord has described the land as being burdened and crying out because of the blood shed upon it. By neglecting the Lord’s commands, they were polluting their inheritance with their murderous, filthy practices.

So the Lord cleansed the land of them until they learned repentance. Then he was kind and gracious to His people and allowed them to return after seventy years. Much like the wandering in the wilderness, the older, disbelieving generation needed to be taken out of the way so that the next generation would believe in the Lord. There were still a few who saw both the old and new temples, but for the most part, those who returned were not the same as those who left.

When Cyrus the king of Persia allowed the people of Judah to return, it wasn’t for the purpose of rebuilding their kingdom or their capital, but to rebuild the temple of the Lord. I don’t know if this meant he believed in the Lord in a saving way, or if he was just trying to undo the policies of the Babylonians which the Persians had conquered. Whatever his motivation, the result was that the first thing the returned exiles did was to establish the proper worship of the Lord.

Establish true worship for You in our hearts.