ירמיהו, פרק נ״ב, פסוק ט״ו

After the fall of Jerusalem, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, carries out the Babylonian strategy for exile. Unlike the earlier Assyrian empire, which favored completely emptying a conquered land, the Babylonians used a more selective approach. They preferred to carefully sort through the population, taking certain citizens with them while leaving a portion of the residents behind to maintain the region.

The captives taken to Babylon were made up of several distinct groups. First were the poor and vulnerable. Nebuzaradan did not take all the people from this lower class; he selected only a portion of them to be exiled, leaving the rest to remain in the land [רד״ק, ביאור שטיינזלץ]. Along with them went the rest of the general population who were not poor [ביאור שטיינזלץ] and who had managed to survive the brutal battles [מצודת דוד].

Another group led into captivity consisted of those who had defected. These were not casualties of war, but rather individuals who had willingly surrendered and crossed enemy lines to serve the king of Babylon [מצודת דוד, מצודת ציון]. This desperate choice to surrender was driven by the harsh reality of a long, difficult, and ultimately hopeless war [ביאור שטיינזלץ].

Finally, the exile included the vast multitude of people who did not live in the capital. The primary approach among commentators is that this refers to the large, general crowds scattered throughout the various cities of Judah, far beyond the walls of Jerusalem [מנחת שי, רד״ק, מצודת דוד, מצודת ציון].