Why did the Babylonians take over Canaan and what did they force the Israelites to do?

Answer 1

The Babylonians conquered the nations of the Palestinian region as part of a territorial expansion after their defeat of the Assyrian Empire. They never conquered Israel, because the kingdom had ceased to exist more than a century earlier, following the Assyrian conquest. The successor province to Israel was called Samaria, and the people (now of mixed race) were called Samarians or Samaritans. We have very little information about the interaction of the Babylonians with the Samaritans, but it was probably fairly benign because they simply exchanged one overlord for another. Similarly, the Canaanites, who occupied the coastal strip centred on the city of Dor, would have seen little change from rule by the Assyrians.

The Judahite people were beginning to adopt the ethnic name 'Israelite' at about the time of the Babylonian conquest, possibly to justify claims on the much larger and more prosperous northern territory, but there is little evidence that this name was used by other nations for the people of Judah until some centuries later. The leading citizens of Jerusalem, capital of Judah, were forced into exile, although much of the rural population and some residents of Jerusalem were allowed to remain behind. It was only the Persian defeat of Babylon that eventually resulted in the exiled Jews being allowed to return to their homeland in Judah.

Answer 2

The Babylonians conquered the land of Judah and exiled the populace (some 2600 years ago).

1) The general spiritual reason was that God found the people of Judah to be below the spiritual level that was a requisite for having His presence among them. The prophets had warned them (Jeremiah 7:25) but were not sufficiently heeded (2 Chronicles 36:16). Once God's presence no longer felt welcome in the Holy Temple, its destruction was just a matter of time (Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 31a, and midrash Eichah Rabbah 1:43).
A more specific spiritual reason was the egregious sins of Menasheh, king of Judah (2 Kings 21:11-13 and 24:3).

2) The temporal circumstance was the fact that King Yehoiakim, after having been obedient to Nevuchadnezzar (king of Babylonia), became insubordinate (2 Kings 24:1); and Nevuchadnezzar responded by conquering the land of Judah, destroying the First Temple and exiling the populace.

Some positive results: the false prophets, at long last, were silenced forever. They had predicted that Judah would remain independent of Babylonia (Jeremiah ch.27) and no Destruction would take place.
Also, the lure of idolatry finally weakened, since the Destruction and Exile happened exactly as predicted by the true Prophets, who were the same ones who had spoken ceaselessly against dabbling in idolatry.

See also:

Jewish history timeline

The Diaspora

Answer 3

The kings of Israel had not been paying the Tribute (i.e. taxes) to the Babylonian empire.

The Israelites were forcibly relocated to Babylon.