Verse 3. - It came to pass. The implied subject of the verb is Zedekiah's evil doing. That Zedekiah rebelled. There ought to be a full stop before these words, and "that" should rather be "And."

52:1-11 This fruit of sin we should pray against above any thing; Cast me not away from thy presence, Ps 51:11. None are cast out of God's presence but those who by sin have first thrown themselves out. Zedekiah's flight was in vain, for there is no escaping the judgments of God; they come upon the sinner, and overtake him, let him flee where he will.For through the anger of the Lord it came to pass in Jerusalem and Judah,.... Or, "besides the anger of the Lord that was in", or "against Jerusalem and Judah" (n); for their many sins and transgressions committed against him:

till he had cast them out from his presence; out of the land of Judea; out of Jerusalem, and the temple, where were the symbols of his presence; so the Targum,

"till he removed them from the land of the house of his Shechinah;''

or majesty:

that Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon: acted a very perfidious part, and broke a solemn covenant made with him by an oath, which was highly displeasing to God, and resented by him; the oath being made in his name, and by one that professed to worship him: this was an additional sin to those of the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem, which provoked the Lord to anger. According to our version the sense is, that because of the anger of the Lord for the sins of the Jews, God suffered Zedekiah to rebel against the king of Babylon, that so he might be provoked to come against them, and take vengeance on them; or for his former sins he suffered him to fall into this, to his own and his people's ruin.

(n) "nam praeter iram Jehovae, quae fuit contra Hierosolymam", Schmidt.