Jeremiah 52:14, commentary and pictures

The army of the Chaldeans that was with the captain of the guard broke down all the walls of Jerusalem round about. The breaking down of the walls was the fulfillment of Jeremiah's prediction that Babylon would destroy Jerusalem, with the city suffering the consequences of its wrongdoing. It was part of a conquest in which many people were killed and only a small remnant was carried into captivity, while the royal family, the surviving priests, and the surviving vessels of the sanctuary were taken to Babylon.

The destruction came because Jerusalem broke the Sabbath. Had the people borne no burdens on the Sabbath day, Jerusalem would have stood forever, but because they would not listen God destroyed it within a few years when the Chaldean army broke down all its walls round about. In the days of Zedekiah, B.C. 590, God permitted the Babylonians to deprive the kingdom of Israel of its king. The throne of the Lord, occupied by Solomon and passed by God from one king to another, had become so corrupt that it misrepresented God and failed to present a holy nation to the world, so God let it be taken away, after which the throne would be overturned, overturned, overturned until Christ, whose right it is, takes it and reigns eternally.

The verse marks the captivity of Zedekiah when Jerusalem was laid waste, the desolation from which the restoring and building of Jerusalem afterward began. That commencing work belonged to Ezra under his decree, not to Nehemiah, whose later work was only to build the walls and gates that were then broken down, continuing what Ezra had been restoring. The verse belongs to the biblical record of calamity and of warnings and judgment on wicked cities, warning modern cities that forget and defy God that they may face the consequences of wickedness.

Babylon's warnings went unheeded until its doom and downfall came, presenting a lesson for such cities. Its lesson is applied to New York, Chicago, and other places, as well as San Francisco.