The children of Israel forsook God and went after idols, so God dispersed them into all the nations; yet, in His eternal love (Jer. 31:3) He would bring them back to their fathers’ land. Although Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed and God’s people were carried away into captivity, God still carried out the return from captivity (see Ezra) in order to preserve the fourteen generations of Christ’s genealogy “from the deportation to Babylon until the Christ” (Matt. 1:17). God was gracious to David, Solomon, and the nation of Israel in order to keep the line of Christ’s genealogy that Christ might come into humanity and in order to maintain a people to possess the land of Immanuel (Isa. 8:8), so that Christ could come to establish His kingdom on the earth. Through the return from captivity the good land was recovered, and God carried out His intention to bring Himself in His Trinity into humanity and to set up His spiritual kingdom.

Because of Israel’s failure and God’s judgment, the line of the genealogy of Christ became very thin, but in God’s sovereignty that line was never broken. The royal Davidic family was destroyed, but God kept David’s lineage so that He could come to be a man through incarnation (see note Matt. 1:16^2a and note Matt. 2:23³). This brought God to humanity and into humanity, and it changed the age in the whole universe, including the heavens.

For the details concerning the pillars, see notes in 1 Kings 7:15-22.