4. There was underlying all these political reasons a moral cause in =the divine purpose to discipline the nation=. The captivity was a weeding-out process, to separate the precious from the vile, the false from the true, the "remnant" from the mass. There had always been two distinct elements in Israel and Judah--the spiritual, God-fearing few, and the worldly, idol-worshiping many. The worldly and irreligious took part in the resistance to the King of Babylon; and the worshipers of Jehovah, led by the prophets, urged submission. As a result, the nobles and the warriors, for the most part, perished; while the better part, the strength and hope of the nation, were carried away captive. Notice that the captives were mainly of the middle class, the working element (2 Kings 24. 14-16). Those who had submitted to the Chaldeans were also taken away (2 Kings 25. 11). The prophet expressed greater hope for those taken away than for those left behind (Jer. 24. 1-10). The captives were the root of Judah, out of which in due time a new nation should rise. IV. =THE CONDITION OF THE CAPTIVES IN CHALDEA= was far better than we are apt to suppose. 1. They received =kind treatment=; were regarded not as slaves or prisoners, but as colonists. At a later captivity by the Romans the Jews were sold as slaves and dispersed throughout the empire. Such wholesale enslavement was common after a conquest. For some reason the Chaldeans did not enslave the Jews at the time of their conquest, but colonized them as free people. This may have been because the captives as a class were of the "Chaldean party" among the Jews, and hence were treated in a measure as friends. The letter of Jeremiah to the exiles (Jer. 29. 1-7) shows that they were kindly dealt with in Chaldea. Some of them were received at the court and rose to high station in the realm (Dan. 1. 1-6). 2. =Their organization was maintained.= The exiles were not merged into the mass of the people where they were living, but retained their own system, and were recognized as a separate colony. Their dethroned kings had a semi-royal state, and at death an honorable burial (Jer. 52. 31-34; 34. 4, 5). The captives were governed by elders, rulers of their own nation (Ezek. 8. 1; 14. 1; 20. 1). Such a system is still pursued in the East, where the government is according to race as well as according to locality; that is, the different races in one province will each have separate rulers. There was a "prince of Judah" at the close of the captivity (Ezra 1. 8). This fact of a national organization was a fortunate one for the exiles. If they had been dispersed as slaves throughout the empire, or even had been scattered as individuals, they would soon have been merged among the Gentiles, and would have lost their identity as a people. But maintaining as a separate race, and in Jewish communities, they were readily gathered for a return to their own land when the opportunity came.