יחזקאל, פרק י״ד, פסוק כ״א

The fall of Jerusalem stands as more than just a historical tragedy; it represents an extreme and unprecedented display of divine justice. When multiple forces of ruin converge on a single city, the natural expectation is complete annihilation. Yet, the survival of a small remnant carries a profound historical and educational message.

The primary approach among commentators is to view the severity of the destruction through a simple logical progression. If God brings even a single punishment upon a foreign land, it is ruined. Furthermore, if during a single disaster the wicked cannot be saved by the presence of the righteous, this applies all the more so to Jerusalem. The city faced four devastating plagues simultaneously, meaning strict justice dictated that all its wicked inhabitants should perish without any chance of rescue [מצודת דוד, רד״ק, ביאור שטיינזלץ]. These four punishments—sword, famine, wild beasts, and plague—did not strike randomly. They formed a terrifying chain reaction. The enemy's sword forced a siege that led to severe starvation within the city. Wild beasts consumed the casualties left outside the walls, while deadly disease spread rapidly among those trapped inside [מלבי״ם].

Under this original judgment, the city truly deserved total destruction, with all life wiped out entirely. However, God showed mercy and allowed a small group to escape [רד״ק]. The survival of these individuals and their journey into exile was not a reward for their righteousness, but a deliberate act of divine providence meant to achieve two main goals. First, it served to justify God's harsh judgment in the eyes of the Babylonians. By witnessing the deeply corrupt behavior of these newly arrived exiles, the Babylonians would clearly understand why God had unleashed His anger with such force. Second, their arrival offered comfort to the exiles of Jehoiachin who had been sent away earlier and were sad about their fate. When these earlier exiles saw the extreme wickedness of Zedekiah's generation arriving in exile, they would realize that their own early removal from the land was actually a great blessing. It had saved them from the severe moral decay that eventually consumed the rest of the nation [מלבי״ם].