PERSON · KING
Zedekiah
Zedekiah was the last king of Judah, placed on the throne by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and reigning eleven years until the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC. His broken vassal oath, his indecision before the prophet Jeremiah, and his capture on the plains of Jericho close the story of the Davidic monarchy in the land.
2 Kings 24:17–20
- Born
- Jerusalem, c. 618 BC
- Died
- Babylon, after 586 BC
- Role
- King of Judah
- Capital
- Jerusalem
- Reign
- 11 years (597–586 BC)
The Story
He began with a new name. That is where the last king of Judah enters the story — not with a coronation of his own choosing, but with a foreign king renaming him. His name at birth was Mattaniah, the third son of good king Josiah, born in Jerusalem while his father was still on the throne. He was a boy of about ten when Josiah fell at Megiddo, and the throne began to pass through the sons and grandson of Josiah in painful succession. His older brother Jehoahaz was taken to Egypt after three months. His brother Jehoiakim reigned eleven troubled years and died as Babylon closed in. His nephew Jehoiachin came to the throne as a young man and lasted a hundred days before Nebuchadnezzar's armies took him and the treasures of the house of the Lord away to Babylon. Mattaniah, still in Jerusalem, was the last son of David the Babylonians would allow to sit on the throne. Nebuchadnezzar changed his name to Zedekiah — the LORD is my righteousness — and set him in Jerusalem as a vassal king.
17And the king of Babylon made Mattaniah his father’s brother king in his stead, and changed his name to Zedekiah.
2 Kings 24:17·KJV
He was twenty-one years old. The kingdom he inherited was not the kingdom his father had known. The temple treasures were gone. The nobility of Judah, the craftsmen, the smiths, and the king's own nephew were already in Babylon. What remained in Jerusalem was a shell — a diminished city, a compromised court, and a Davidic throne holding on by the sufferance of a foreign emperor. The book of Kings gives him the epitaph it gives most of the kings before him: he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord.
19And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that Jehoiakim had done.
2 Kings 24:19·KJV
But his failure was not the flamboyant idolatry of an Ahab or a Manasseh. His was a quieter failure, a failure of nerve.
The prophet Jeremiah stood beside him for the whole eleven years. Their relationship is one of the strangest in Scripture. Zedekiah did not persecute Jeremiah as his brother Jehoiakim had done, cutting up the prophet's scroll and casting it in the fire. Nor did he obey him. He kept him near — sometimes free, sometimes imprisoned, sometimes lowered into a miry cistern by his princes and then rescued at the king's own quiet command — and again and again, in the hardest moments, he sent for Jeremiah in secret and asked what the word of the Lord was. The message never changed. Judah was under judgment. Babylon was the rod in God's hand. Submit to Nebuchadnezzar, and the city would be spared. Rebel, and it would burn.
Life & Legacy
Death
ScriptureZedekiah's sons were slain before his eyes at Riblah, his own eyes were then put out, and he was carried in chains to Babylon, where he remained a prisoner until the day of his death.
Jeremiah 52:10–11; 2 Kings 25:6–7
Legacy
ScriptureZedekiah's reign ended the Davidic monarchy in Jerusalem and inaugurated the Babylonian exile — the destruction of the temple and the deportation of Judah occurred in his eleventh year. His name became a byword in Scripture for a ruler who heard the word of the Lord through Jeremiah and would not obey it.
2 Kings 25:8–21; 2 Chronicles 36:15–21; Jeremiah 52
Character
ScriptureScripture presents Zedekiah as a fearful and divided king — willing to consult Jeremiah in secret, unwilling to act on what he heard, more afraid of his own princes and of the men who had already deserted to the Babylonians than of the Lord. He swore a covenant to Nebuchadnezzar in the name of God and broke it, a betrayal Ezekiel names directly among the exiles.
Jeremiah 38:14–28; Ezekiel 17:11–21
Significance
ScriptureZedekiah is the hinge on which the story of the kingdom of Judah closes and the story of the exile begins. In him the long line of kings that began with David comes to a broken end in the land, and the promises of God to David are carried forward not by any throne in Jerusalem but by a scattered people and a word spoken through prophets.
2 Kings 25; Jeremiah 52; 2 Chronicles 36:11–21
DeathScripture
Zedekiah's sons were slain before his eyes at Riblah, his own eyes were then put out, and he was carried in chains to Babylon, where he remained a prisoner until the day of his death.
Jeremiah 52:10–11; 2 Kings 25:6–7
LegacyScripture
Zedekiah's reign ended the Davidic monarchy in Jerusalem and inaugurated the Babylonian exile — the destruction of the temple and the deportation of Judah occurred in his eleventh year. His name became a byword in Scripture for a ruler who heard the word of the Lord through Jeremiah and would not obey it.
2 Kings 25:8–21; 2 Chronicles 36:15–21; Jeremiah 52
CharacterScripture
Scripture presents Zedekiah as a fearful and divided king — willing to consult Jeremiah in secret, unwilling to act on what he heard, more afraid of his own princes and of the men who had already deserted to the Babylonians than of the Lord. He swore a covenant to Nebuchadnezzar in the name of God and broke it, a betrayal Ezekiel names directly among the exiles.
Jeremiah 38:14–28; Ezekiel 17:11–21
SignificanceScripture
Zedekiah is the hinge on which the story of the kingdom of Judah closes and the story of the exile begins. In him the long line of kings that began with David comes to a broken end in the land, and the promises of God to David are carried forward not by any throne in Jerusalem but by a scattered people and a word spoken through prophets.
2 Kings 25; Jeremiah 52; 2 Chronicles 36:11–21
Artist's impression