36:1-21 The ruin of Judah and Jerusalem came on by degrees. The methods God takes to call back sinners by his word, by ministers, by conscience, by providences, are all instances of his compassion toward them, and his unwillingness that any should perish. See here what woful havoc sin makes, and, as we value the comfort and continuance of our earthly blessings, let us keep that worm from the root of them. They had many times ploughed and sowed their land in the seventh year, when it should have rested, and now it lay unploughed and unsown for ten times seven years. God will be no loser in his glory at last, by the disobedience of men. If they refused to let the land rest, God would make it rest. What place, O God, shall thy justice spare, if Jerusalem has perished? If that delight of thine were cut off for wickedness, let us not be high-minded, but fear.
(11) Zedekiah was one and twenty.--So 2 Kings 24:18, adding his mother's name (Hamutal, who was also mother of Jehoahaz).
Before Jeremian . . . mouth of the Lord.--Not in Kings. (Comp. Jeremiah 21, Jeremiah 22:1-10, Jeremiah 27, 28, 32-34, 37, 38)
Two special sins of Zedekiah are mentioned in this and the next verse--viz., his disregard of Jeremiah's counsel, and his perjury to Nebuchadnezzar.