Verses 2 and 3 consist of examples delineating the nature of the removal of the “staff” from Jerusalem. Each of the types of people mentioned in verses 2 and 3 are leaders of the community, and all such will be removed. Each type of person mentioned provides some good service to the community, and all of these shall be removed.
“The enumeration of various types of leaders suggests that Judah will be bereft of everyone who possesses any true leadership talent, whether it be military, social, or cultural. This is exactly what happened at the time of the Babylonian captivity. Josephus records that during the reign of Judah’s young twenty-five-year-old King Jehoiakim, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, came against Jerusalem. At first Jehoiakim served Nebuchadnezzar to avoid violence, but he later rebelled, whereupon Nebuchadnezzar ”slew such as were in the flower of their age, and such as were of the greatest dignity…He also took the principal persons in dignity for captives…among whom was the prophet Ezekial." (Antiquities of the Jews 10:6). After Jehoiakim’s death, his son Jehoiachim, age eighteen, ruled only three months before the Babylonians struck again. The result was much the same:
- 2 Kgs. 24:14 And he carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valour, even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and smiths: none remained, save the poorest sort of the people of the land." (Ludlow, p. 102-3).