All the cities, towns, and villages of Judah were destroyed by the Babylonians. Judah’s king and all her important people were killed or taken captive (see 2 Kings 25:6–7; 2 Kings 18:1 – 21:26). Again, Jeremiah does not say that it is the Babylonians who did it—but the Lord! The Lord has brought Judah down in “dishonor”—the opposite of what it is to be a holy people that belongs to God.
2 The Lord has swallowed up without mercy all the habitations of Jacob; in his wrath he has broken down the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; he has brought down to the ground in dishonor the kingdom and its rulers.