Righteousness of Jehovah
2 Kings 24:17-25:21; 2 Chron. 36:11-21
Contemporary Prophets: Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Obadiah
Her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more: her prophets also find no vision from the Lord. Lamentations 2:9
“And the king of Babylon made Mattaniah his father’s brother king in his [Jehoiachin’s] stead, and changed his name to Zedekiah. Zedekiah was twenty and one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem” (2 Kings 24:17-18).
Zedekiah was Josiah’s youngest son, and full brother of Jehoahaz. He was, at his father’s death, only ten years old.
Nebuchadnezzar changed his name (as a token of his vassalage) but did not give him the name of some heathen deity, as in the case of Daniel and the three Hebrew children. He “had made him swear by God,” and his new name—Zedekiah meaning “Righteousness of Jehovah”—may have been given him to remind him of his oath (2 Chron. 36:13). Or the name may have had some connection, even in the heathen king’s mind, with Jehovah’s righteousness in taking from this wicked people (called by His name) their political independence, and subjecting them to his dominion.
“Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon” (2 Kings 24:20). He had no real faith in Jehovah, Israel’s covenant-keeping God, and therefore did not hesitate to break his covenant with Nebuchadnezzar. But how dearly he paid for this violation of his oath! “And it came to pass, in the ninth year of his reign...that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he, and all his host, against Jerusalem... and the city was besieged unto the eleventh year of king Zedekiah” (2 Kings 25:1-2).
The occasion of this rebellion was Zedekiah’s hope of assistance from the king of Egypt (see Ezek. 17:11-21). He also vainly attempted to form an alliance with the surrounding nations, for the purpose of ridding himself, and them, of the yoke of the Babylonian king (see Jer. 27:1-11. Various ancient manuscripts have the name Zedekiah for Jehoiakim in 27:1. Compare with verses 3 and 12 and 28:1). Pharaoh-hophra attempted to relieve Zedekiah during the siege, but was driven back into Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar’s army, who then returned and reoccupied Jerusalem (see Jer. 37:5-10). It was a terrible siege, lasting eighteen months; famine and pestilence prevailed. Mothers boiled and ate their own children (Lam. 4:10). According to Josephus, at midnight the Chaldees gained entrance into the city, and the fugitive king was captured. He and his sons were brought to Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah, “on the high road between Palestine and Babylon, where the Babylonian kings remained in directing the operations of their armies in Palestine and Phenicia” (Fausset).
Here his terrible punishment was meted out to him for his deceit in violating his solemn compact with his master. After seeing his own children slain before him, his own eyes were dug out of their sockets, and he was bound “with double chains of bronze” (2 Kings 25:7, literal translation), and led off to Babylon. So the two seemingly contradictory prophecies of Jeremiah (32:4) and Ezekiel (12:13) were literally fulfilled. At Babylon he was cast into prison “till the day of his death” (Jer. 52:11). “Until I visit him” (Jer. 32:5) might imply that he was finally set at liberty, but “till the day of his death” precludes any such interpretation. It is more agreeable to take the expression to mean that God in mercy would visit him with repentance and a true knowledge of Himself as He did to Manasseh before him. How often God has used the stern hand of his government to break down the pride and rebellion of the heart, and through such “visitation” bring to the penitent soul the truest of all liberty—deliverance from the bondage of sin. So would his soul be set free, though his body remain in bondage. Adapting Richard Lovelace’s poem, we could say:
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage,
If I have freedom in [God’s] love,
And in my soul am free.
Josephus said Nebuchadnezzar “kept Zedekiah in prison until he died; and then buried him magnificently.” This agrees with Jer. 34:5; “Thou shalt die in peace: and with the burnings of thy fathers, the former kings which were before thee.”
Zedekiah has been justly characterized as weak, vacillating, and treacherous. His weakness and subserviency to his princes mark him as a man wholly unfit to wear a crown, or sit on a throne: “Behold he [Jeremiah] is in your hand,” he said to them, “for the king is not he that can do anything against you” (Jer. 38:5). He was hypocritical also. He feigned a desire for the prophet’s prayers, saying, “Pray now unto the LORD our God for us” (Jer. 37:3). He pretended too, at times, to have confidence in the prophecies of Jeremiah (“Inquire, I pray thee, of the LORD for us,” Jer. 21:2), which when delivered, he refused to heed or believe. “He did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD his God, and humbled not himself before Jeremiah the prophet speaking from the mouth of the LORD” (2 Chron. 36:12). He was not so openly wicked as his three predecessors perhaps, and not willingly given to persecution. This is probably why Josephus, judging after the standards of men, wrote of “his gentle and righteous disposition.” But the Lord sees not as man sees, neither are His thoughts man’s thoughts. He said, “He stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart from turning unto the LORD God of Israel?” So God took him away in His anger.
The temple was burned to the ground, and only a miserable remnant of the nation was left in the land: “The captain of the guard left of the poor of the land to be vinedressers, and husbandmen” (2 Kings 25:12). Rebellion arose even among these, and for fear of the Chaldees they fled to the land of Egypt, only to miserably perish there, as Jeremiah had faithfully and tearfully warned them.
For seventy years the land lay desolate, after which a remnant was permitted to return. Six hundred years later wise men came from that very land of the East, inquiring where they might find Him that was “born King of the Jews.”
Until that day the godly remnant of His heritage could only pray, in the words of David—the type of that coming King —“Oh let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end; but establish the just” (Psa. 7:9). “Even so, come, LORD JESUS”!