The End of the Story?

Passage: 2 Chronicles 36:15-23

After a downward spiral of increasingly corrupt and ungodly kings, Chronicles reaches the only conclusion possible. The children of Israel are finally called to account for the abandon and idolatry to which they’ve given themselves. God, who has time and again implored his people to turn around, steps back and allows them to experience judgment. Judah is overrun by the irresistible force of the Babylonian Empire. The walls of Jerusalem are torn down; the temple is sacked; those Israelites who aren’t put to the sword are carried off into exile.

However, this is not the end of the story. The author includes two hopeful details at the conclusion of his otherwise pessimistic account. The first is that after the Israelites are removed from the Promised Land, “The land enjoyed its sabbath rests; all the time of its desolation it rested, until the seventy years were completed in fulfillment of the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah.” The Sabbath that God’s people refused to observe is observed in spite of them. God makes good his promise to the land – that it will experience relief from the sin of humanity.
Second, the author fast-forwards seventy years to the conclusion of the Israelites’ exile. He notes that God makes good his promise to bring his people back to the Promised Land. And he alludes to the remarkable way in which God fulfills this promise. Even as God’s people experience the lowest point in their history; even as it seems their story has come to an end, they are given a glimpse of the new thing God has yet to do.