2 Kings 24:18-20

V. THE REVOLT OF ZEDEKIAH AND PUNISHMENT OF ZEDEKIAH 24:18-25:7

TRANSLATION

(18) Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem; and the name of his mother was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. (19) And he did evil in the eyes of the LORD according to all which Jehoiakim had done. (20) For through the anger of the LORD it came to pass in Jerusalem and in Judah that Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon until He cast them out from His presence. (1) And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem; and he camped against it, and built siege towers round about. (2) And the city was besieged unto the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. (3) On the ninth day of the (fourth) month the famine was strong in the city, and there was no bread for the people of the land. (4) And the city was broken into and all the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between the walls which were beside the garden of the king; (now the Chaldeans were against the city round about) and he went by the way of the Arabah. (5) And the Chaldean army pursued after the king, and they caught up with him in the plains of Jordan; and all his army were scattered from him. (6) So they seized the king and they brought him unto the king of Babylon to Riblah; and they pronounced judgment upon him. (7) And the sons of Zedekiah they slew before his eyes; then the eyes of Zedekiah were blinded, and they bound him in bronze fetters, and took him to Babylon.

Nineteenth King of Judah
ZEDEKIAH BEN JOSIAH
597-587 B.C.
(Righteousness of Yahweh)

2 Kings 24:17 to 2 Kings 25:21; 2 Chronicles 36:11-21

Contemporary Prophets
Jeremiah; Ezekiel; Daniel

Mother: Hamutal

Appraisal: Bad

As I live, says the Lord God, Surely in the country of the king who put him on the throne, whose oath be despised, and whose covenant he broke, in Babylon be shall die. Ezekiel 17:16

COMMENTS

Zedekiah reigned from 597-587 B.C.[683] He was the full brother of Jehoahaz who had been deported to Egypt by Pharaoh Necho in 609 B.C. (cf. 2 Kings 23:31). He was the half brother of Jehoiakim (cf. 2 Kings 23:36). His father-in-law, Jeremiah of Libnah, is not the prophet who was of Anathoth (2 Kings 24:18). Zedekiah allowed the people of Judah to continue their pollutions and abominations (2 Chronicles 36:14). He ignored the prophetic warning to submit willingly to Babylon and sought instead by political maneuverings to extricate himself from the grip of Nebuchadnezzar. For these reasons it is said that he did evil in the eyes of the Lord as did Jehoiakim his half brother (2 Kings 24:19). It was because of God's righteous anger that He permitted this perverse and faithless monarch to sit on the throne of David. The Almighty permitted Zedekiah's stupid and stubborn rebellion against Nebuchadnezzar to proceed unimpeded until finally the cup of Judah's iniquity was full to overflowing. Judah was cast out from the presence of the Lord, i.e., Judah lost the protecting power of God and thus was left defenseless against national enemies. Yet in spite of the precarious predicament of his people, Zedekiah broke his solemn vassal oath to Nebuchadnezzar and rebelled against his overlord (2 Kings 24:20).

[683] Thiele argues for the date 586 B.C. for the termination of Zedekiah's reign and the fall of Jerusalem.

The reign of Zedekiah was in many respects the most tragic in the history of the people of God. The territory of Judah was diminished, and many of the cities of the land were severely damaged. The population had been drastically reduced through deportation, the upper classes being completely depleted. Zedekiah himself seems to have been at the mercy of his princes. The royal court was bent on rebellion. Jeremiah the prophet thundered forth against the folly of resistance against Babylon,[684] but still the political leaders clung to their suicidal course. A brief insurrection in Babylon sparked renewed hope in the western part of the empire. When a new Pharaoh, Psamtik II, came to power in 594 B.C. the little states of Syria-Palestine began to make plans for a concerted effort against Babylon. Ambassadors from Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre and Sidon met in Jerusalem to plan the rebellion (Jeremiah 27:3 ff.). The plan must have been uncovered, for that very year Zedekiah was summoned to Babylon to reaffirm his allegiance to Nebuchadnezzar (Jeremiah 51:59 ff.). Zedekiah's first major effort to break with Babylon was nipped in the bud.

[684] Unlike the Assyrians, the Babylonians did not include worship of their gods as a condition of servitude, and thus there was no theological reason why Judah should not render homage to the Chaldeans. Cf. Finley, BBC, p. 500.

A still more boastful and aggressive Pharaoh took the throne of Egypt in 588 B.C. Pharaoh ApriesHophra, as he is known in the Bibleactively encouraged a western coalition against Babylon. But the revolt does not seem to have been widespread in Syria-Palestine. So far as is known, only Tyre and Ammon seem to have committed themselves. Zedekiah, however, sent ambassadors to Egypt (Ezekiel 17:15), and entered wholeheartedly into the rebellion.

The author of Kings is very precise in dating the events of the last days of Judah. Only in chapter 25 does he give the year, month and day of any event, and this he does three times. Extreme exactness with respect to a date indicates the extreme importance of the event dated. Chronologists have computed that the Babylonian army arrived at Jerusalem on January 15, 588 B.C. They blockaded the city and began to systematically eliminate the outlying strong points. The fortified towns of Lachish and Azekah were among the last to fall to the Chaldeans[685] (Jeremiah 34:7). With the fall of these two villages, Zedekiah's communication lines to Egypt were cut. The siege of Jerusalem now began in earnest. Siege towers (KJV forts) were constructed (2 Kings 24:1). These towers were movable ones, made of planks, which were pushed up to the walls of the city. Such towers enabled the assailants to attack their adversaries with better advantage, being now on a level with the top of the walls. Sometimes these towers contained battering rams.

[685] In 1935 eighteen ostraca which date to this very time were discovered in the ruins of the ancient fortress city of Lachish. In the main these ostraca are military communiques between a field commander by the name of Hoshayahu and his superior in Lachish whose name was Yaosh. For a discussion of the significance of these letters, see Smith, JL, pp. 22-24.

The author of Kings omits all details of the siege of Jerusalem and passes immediately to the final catastrophe (2 Kings 24:2). Jeremiah and Ezekiel add significant information at this point. In the summer of 588 B.C. an Egyptian army marched northward toward Jerusalem with the intention of relieving the pressure on Zedekiah. Nebuchadnezzar was forced temporarily to lift the siege of the city in order to deal with the Egyptian threat (Jeremiah 37:5; Ezekiel 17:17). Apparently with little effort, Nebuchadnezzar was able to send the Egyptians scurrying back home. He then resumed the siege of Jerusalem. The defenders of the city began to suffer from famine (Jeremiah 21:7; Jeremiah 21:9; Lamentations 2:12; Lamentations 2:20). All the bread in the city was consumed by July of 588 B.C.[686] (2 Kings 24:3). Famine was followed by pestilence (Jeremiah 21:6-7), and after a time the city was reduced to the last extremity (Lamentations 4:10).

[686] From the information given here and in Jeremiah 52, it cannot be determined whether the bread was exhausted in the fourth month of Zedekiah's tenth year (July, 587) or fourth month of his eleventh year (July 587 B.C.).

On July 29, 587 B.C. after a siege of eighteen months, the Babylonians were able to make a breach in the walls of Jerusalem, probably on the north side of the city. Zedekiah and the men of war who were left fled from Jerusalem on the south side by means of a gate which opened into the Tyropoeon valley, between the two great walls that guarded the town on either side of it. The escape route took Zedekiah and his men by the king's gardens which were located near the Pool of Siloam. Under cover of darkness, the desperate Jews slipped past the Babylonian outposts and made their way in the direction of the Arab ah, the plains region near Jordan. The way toward the Arabah is the ordinary road from Jerusalem to Jericho. It would appear that Zedekiah was attempting to reach one of the friendly lands beyond the river.

When the escape of Zedekiah and his soldiers was discovered, the Babylonians set out in hot pursuit. Doubtlessly, the commander at Jerusalem was incensed to learn that the king had successfully abandoned the city. A company of soldiers was dispatched immediately to pursue the fugitives. When the Babylonians came within sight, the troops of Zedekiah deserted him (2 Kings 24:5). The king was taken captive without any resistance and was transported north to Riblah where Nebuchadnezzar had made his headquarters. There the rebel stood trial before the Babylonian princes (2 Kings 24:6). The judgment against Zedekiah probably corresponded to the self-maledictions which he had pronounced at the time he swore allegiance to Nebuchadnezzar. He was forced to witness the execution of his young sons.[687] This turned out to be the last sight Zedekiah had on earth, for the Babylonians blinded him, probably by means of a red-hot iron rod.[688] The Babylonians then put Zedekiah in fetters of bronze and carried him away to Babylon (2 Kings 24:7) where he remained in prison until the day of his death (Jeremiah 52:11).

[687] As Zedekiah was no more than thirty-two years old (cf. 2 Kings 24:18), his sons must have been minors.

[688] Zedekiah's loss of eyesight reconciled the two apparently conflicting propheciesthat he would be carried captive to Babylon (Jeremiah 22:5), and that he would never see Babylon (Ezekiel 12:13).