In the twenty-third year of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried into exile 745 Jewish people; there were 4,600 persons in all.We think of Jerusalem as a huge city, and Judah as a fairly impressive nation for the time. Yet when only those necessary to work the fields were left, they'd only removed 4,600 people. We tend to think in terms of tens of thousand, but less than 5,000 decimated the nation.
If I'm remembering correctly, when the Jews came out of Egypt there were over 2 million of them. How badly had they fallen to be to the point where under 5,000 people left them as a mere remnant of themselves? They had clearly been on the decline for a very long time, and Babylon merely finished off the poor scraps. Yet in their exile they would rebuild, and I believe tens of thousands returned a few decades later.
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