Zedekiah

Zedekiah, son of Josiah, was originally named Mattaniah. After Nebuchadnezzar carried Jehoiachin into exile in 597 BC, he placed Mattaniah, Jehoiachin's uncle, on the throne and changed his name to Zedekiah (2 Kings 24:17). He was twenty-one and reigned eleven years; 'he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that Jehoiakim had done' (24:19). Jeremiah served as the LORD's prophet to him throughout. Repeatedly Jeremiah counselled submission to Babylon as the LORD's appointed discipline: 'serve the king of Babylon and live' (Jeremiah 27:17). The princes treated Jeremiah as a traitor, beat him, imprisoned him, and lowered him into a cistern of mud (Jeremiah 38:6). Zedekiah privately consulted him but lacked the courage to act on his counsel. He rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar (cf. Ezekiel 17:12-21), entered an alliance with Egypt, and in his ninth year Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem. The siege lasted about eighteen months; famine grew severe and the wall was broken through in the eleventh year, fourth month, ninth day. Zedekiah fled by night with his army through the king's garden, was overtaken in the plains of Jericho, and brought to Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah. There his sons were slaughtered before his eyes; then his eyes were put out, and he was bound with bronze chains and carried to Babylon (2 Kings 25:6-7). Nebuzaradan burned the temple, the palace, and every great house in Jerusalem; the city walls were broken down. With Zedekiah the kingdom of Judah ended, and the seventy-year exile foretold by Jeremiah began.