"The Carrying Away Into Babylon"

Matthew 1:17
"So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations."

Matthew may not get his numbers correct (there are not exactly fourteen generations between each of these time-markers), but he does tell us something interesting about Jewish culture (and religious culture in general) with his referencing "the carrying away into Babylon" as though it were a valid and acknowledged marker of time.

Note this quote from a talk that President Spencer W. Kimball gave:

“When you look in the dictionary for the most important word, do you know what it is? It could be ‘remember.’ Because all of [us] have made covenants … our greatest need is to remember. That is why everyone goes to sacrament meeting every Sabbath day—to take the sacrament and listen to the priests pray that [we] ‘… may always remember him and keep his commandments which he has given [us].’ … ‘Remember’ is the word” (Circles of Exaltation [address to religious educators, Brigham Young University, 28 June 1968], 8).

Remembering is, in fact, essential. Many of the prophets, if not all, have counseled as Alma the Younger did his son Helamen, "I would that ye should do as I have done, in remembering the captivity of our fathers; for they were in bondage, and none could deliver them except it was the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he surely did deliver them in their afflictions."

What Matthew shows us unwittingly through his simple acknowledgement of the captivity in Babylon is that the Jews remembered this captivity, and even had it on their genealogy. It was an event ingrained within the annals of their culture, and it is, quite obviously, a marker of remembrance. We could do more to have such markers in our lives. When was the last time the Lord has led me out of captivity (spiritually or emotionally)? And have I sufficiently retained it in remembrance, marking it as a major event that has changed my life?