2 Chronicles 36:15, commentary and pictures

The Lord God of their fathers acted from compassion for his people and for his dwelling place, the temple in Jerusalem, in sending messengers to them again and again even while they sinned and polluted his house. Rising up betimes and sending means sending early and persistently, repeatedly and earnestly. That sending was the sending of prophets and messengers, men of discernment and spiritual power, to warn and appeal to Israel, to call them to repent, to urge his rightful claim upon them as husbandmen of his vineyard, and to warn of the ruin their idolatry and rebellion would bring.

The setting was transgression by the chief priests and the people after the abominations of the heathen, in which they sinned against his commandments and polluted the house of the Lord in Jerusalem. He bore with them in fatherly compassion, forbearance and pitying love, pleading with them by mercies given and mercies withdrawn, patiently setting their sins before them and waiting for them to acknowledge their wrong. He continued to warn and to reclaim them despite repeated rejection, sending again and again with still other messengers after the first were rejected.

The warnings were met with mockery of his messengers, contempt for and slighting of his words, and abuse and misuse of his prophets. The prophets were treated as enemies, persecuted and killed, some slain through the instigation of the leaders in Israel because they reproved iniquity and denounced the sins of those in authority, while the people refused to be reproved, folded their sins closer to their hearts, persisted in sin, and clung to forbidden affinity with abomination. The verse teaches that God gives merciful, repeated warning before judgment and requires his people to trust him alone and stay separate from those who do not serve him.

Such mocking, despising and rejecting brought his wrath till there was no remedy, in captivity of the Jews to a heathen nation and destruction of the temple centuries after it was built, a judgment connected with internal corruption in which cherished sin brings his denunciation and removes his blessing. Before that destruction he revealed the temple's fate and Israel's captivity to a few faithful servants, and the sacred ark was hidden in a cave and was not restored to Israel. His mercy continued to its height in sending his Son to plead with the impenitent city as heaven's greatest gift. The same spirit of resisting his warnings remained among the priests and elders in Christ's day, who lamented their humiliation under the Romans and condemned their fathers for stoning the prophets sent to correct them, yet cherished in their hearts the same spirit that would lead them to commit the same crimes.