Introduction:

Originally, the last book of the Hebrew Bible (what we know as the Old Testament) was 2 Chronicles. So the 2 Chronicles 36 was the last chapter of the Old Testament. This is significant because of the way 2 Chronicles ends, which we’ll see.

2 Chronicles 36:15-16

15 The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. 16 But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord rose against his people, until there was no remedy.

Question 1:

For generation after generation, God warned his people that their sin would catch up to them. Eventually, they were sent into exile. What does this passage tell us about God’s faithfulness and patience? What does it tell us about the consequences of our sin?

2 Chronicles 36:17-21

17 Therefore he brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or aged. He gave them all into his hand. 18 And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king and of his princes, all these he brought to Babylon. 19 And they burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem and burned all its palaces with fire and destroyed all its precious vessels. 20 He took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia, 21 to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.

Questions 2:

Just like Adam and Eve had to leave the Garden, Judah’s sin led to their removal from the Promised Land and access to the presence of God in the Temple. The Bible calls this “exile.” The exile of the Jews to Babylon points to a more universal reality: we are all in the exile. How does this biblical truth help to explain the reality of living in a broken world? How does it inform what we put our hope in and where we find our identity?

2 Chronicles 36:22-23

22 Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing: 23 “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may the Lord his God be with him. Let him go up.’”

Question 3:

In the original Hebrew, the last sentence of Chronicles ends without finishing the thought. It’s an incomplete sentence like, “Whoever is among you of all his people, may the Lord his God be with him. Let him go up…” Scholars agree that the point of this abrupt ending is to leave the reader in anticipation for how the exile will be resolved. They eventually did return and rebuild the Temple but it wasn’t the same and God’s presence was not felt in the same way. The reality is that we are still in exile.

How does this abrupt ending point you to the hope found in Jesus? How is Jesus the fulfillment of this open ending? And how does that inform the way we think about “going home”?