It was not enough that God caused some of Judah’s finest, including her king and the priests to the royal house, to be carried off because of Judah’s continued rebellion against Him. Even on the banks of the Kebar River, hundreds of miles from home and a lifetime from the hope of seeing their homeland again, Judah’s finest continued their rebellion, trying to conceive of ways that the current leaders of Jerusalem could defy their earthly rulers and their Heavenly King and avoid the disaster that was sure to befall them.