Abandoning the Jewish people to exile

Jewish leadership is an oppressed class. That oppression however didn't particularly make them more sensitive about the people's well-being nor did it put them in touch with the sensibilities of the common Jewish man. Jewish leadership was no less elitist than any other absolutist ruling class. The ordinary ruling class used the subject class as a source of wealth and power. The Jewish ruling class used their privilege to help insulate the rulers from the worst oppressions of the surrounding culture. When YHWH abandoned the Jewish people to exile, it was the common Jewish people He was abandoning, not their rulers.