I will stretch out over Jerusalem the measuring line used against Samaria and the plumb line used against the house of Ahab. I will wipe out Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. – 2 Kings 21:13

Today’s Scripture Reading (July 3, 2013): 2 Kings 21

When I was growing up one of the comedies I enjoyed watching was “Hogan’s Heroes.” The show was loosely based on the movie “Stalag 17” – but don’t tell anyone, because apparently no one is supposed to know. And at some point during every show the prisoners are assembled (called out of the barracks and made to stand in a series of lines.) The idea of the lines is so that it is easy to see if someone is missing, and standard military line-ups are characterized by order, but for Hogan and the men, it was disorder that was more likely the result of the line (usually because they were trying to hide the fact that someone was indeed missing.)

In the ancient world, captives doomed for destruction were often measured in a line. In Samria, the captives would have been placed in a series of lines – each line of the same length – and marched out of the city. And it is most likely this act the is being referred to, a way of orderly moving – and recognizing quickly if someone is missing – the captives being moved from place to another. Just as Samaria was measured by such a line and the inhabitants of the city removed, so would Jerusalem be emptied.

But the prophecy also indicates the “plumb line” used against the house of Ahab. While the first line was measuring horizontally, a plumb line has a weight on the end of it and is used to measure something vertically, and the intent would seem to be that while the inhabitants of Jerusalem would be marched out of the city into captivity, the city itself, and possibly even the nation, would be destroyed and removed, just as Ahab’s family was destroyed and removed from the face of the earth.

It was a prophecy that would be realized in relatively short order, although not during the lifetime of Manasseh. But what God had spoken would come to pass. Jerusalem’s time of independence was quickly drawing to a close and, except a brief period during the time of the Maccabeus restoration, that independence would be missing until the restoration of Israel following the Second World War – almost 2500 years later.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 2 Kings 22