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 judgments of God; they come upon the sinner, and overtake him, let him flee where he will.It - i. e., Zedekiah's evil doing.

Presence, that Zedekiah - Or, punctuate; "presence. And Zedekiah" etc.

3. through … anger of … Lord … Zedekiah rebelled—His "anger" against Jerusalem, determining Him to "cast out" His people "from His presence" heretofore manifested there, led Him to permit Zedekiah to rebel (2Ki 23:26, 27; compare Ex 9:12; 10:1; Ro 9:18). That rebellion, being in violation of his oath "by God," was sure to bring down God's vengeance (2Ch 36:13; Eze 17:15, 16, 18). It is generally thought that what we have in this chapter was not penned by the prophet Jeremiah, who it is not probable would have so largely repeated what he had related before, Jeremiah 39, and could not historically relate what happened after his time, as some things did, which are mentioned towards the end of the chapter, from Jeremiah 52:31 to the end. They therefore rather think it penned by some or other of those in Babylon, and put in here as a preface to the Book of Lamentations. What we have in the three first verses is entirely taken out of 2 Kings 24:18-20. See the notes there.

Here the wicked actions of Zedekiah, and particularly his rebellion against the king of Babylon, who had made him king, as 2 Kings 24:17, and to whom he had given an oath of fealty, is ascribed to the wrath of the Lord; God not putting any such wickedness into his heart, but suffering him so to miscarry, having a design to send Judah into captivity. Princes are often by God suffered to miscarry for the sins of their people, which should oblige us, when we think we have cause to complain of the errors of our rulers, to consider whether we have not by some sinful courses provoked God, which hath made him leave our rulers so to miscarry in order to our ruin and punishment.

For through the anger of the Lord it came to pass in Jerusalem and Judah,.... Or, "besides the anger of the Lord that was in", or "against Jerusalem and Judah" (n); for their many sins and transgressions committed against him:

till he had cast them out from his presence; out of the land of Judea; out of Jerusalem, and the temple, where were the symbols of his presence; so the Targum,

"till he removed them from the land of the house of his Shechinah;''

or majesty:

that Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon: acted a very perfidious part, and broke a solemn covenant made with him by an oath, which was highly displeasing to God, and resented by him; the oath being made in his name, and by one that professed to worship him: this was an additional sin to those of the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem, which provoked the Lord to anger. According to our version the sense is, that because of the anger of the Lord for the sins of the Jews, God suffered Zedekiah to rebel against the king of Babylon, that so he might be provoked to come against them, and take vengeance on them; or for his former sins he suffered him to fall into this, to his own and his people's ruin.

(n) "nam praeter iram Jehovae, quae fuit contra Hierosolymam", Schmidt.

{a} For through the anger of the LORD it came to pass in Jerusalem and Judah, till he had cast them out from his presence, that Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

(a) So the Lord punished sin by sin and gave him up to his rebellious heart, till he had brought the enemy on him to lead him away and his people.