Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D
After the death of king Solomon, the Israelite kingdom
split into two: Israel in the north and Judah in the south. The last king of
Israel was Hoshea (732-724 BCE); the last king of Judah was Zedekiah (597-687/6
BCE). What do we know about him?
The Hebrew Bible tells us that Zedekiah, king Josiah’s
youngest son, was 21 years old when he became a king, and reigned for 11 years
in Jerusalem ( II K 24: 18). He was made king by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar
(605/4-562 BCE) after king Jehoiachin, Zedekiah’s predecessor, was taken prisoner
to Babylonia.
In the 9th year of his reign, in 588 BCE, Zedekiah
rebelled against the king of Babylon by joining a coalition of coastal
kings. Nebuchadnezzar then came and besieged the city of Jerusalem for two
years. When the Egyptian king Apries (the Bible calls him Hophra, Jer. 44:30)
started to move east, the Babylonian king lifted the siege, faced the Egyptians
and defeated them. After that Nebuchadnezzar came back and besieged Jerusalem
again. This time, the city and the Temple within it were destroyed and the
majority of the people were exiled to Babylon (586 BCE). King Zedekiah was captured, blinded, and was
taken to Babylon as a prisoner.
Not too much is known about Zedekiah as a person. The
Rabbis say he suffered from a “lack of sense” (Lam R 1:16). He comes across as
a weak individual and a sinner who is pressured by two opposing forces: on the
one hand, the prophet Jeremiah who kept telling him to acknowledge the
Babylonians as victors by submitting to their yoke, and, on the other, the military leaders and
courtiers who advised him to stand firm against
Nebuchadnezzar. But, what was his sin? We are told that Jerusalem was destroyed
because “he did what was displeasing to the Lord” (II K 24:19). The Book of
Chronicles adds, “because he did not humble himself before the prophet
Jeremiah” (II Chr. 36:12). But the nature of his sin is not clearly indicated.
A possible explanation for his sin comes from the writings
attributed to the prophet Jeremiah ( see Jer. 34) regarding the freeing of the
slaves. It appears that during the Babylonian siege, king Zedekiah had made a
covenant with the people in Jerusalem to free the slaves, both male and female,
as mandated by biblical law (Ex. 21: 2; cf. Deut. 15:12-18), most likely to
make them join the rebellion as free individuals against the enemies, but after
Nebuchadnezzar lifted the siege to battle the Egyptians, the Judean free men turned
around and re-enslaved their former slaves. This breach of covenant was used to
justify the outcome of the rebellion that eventually saw the destruction of
Jerusalem. The Bible states that the Judeans, among other sins, “ followed the abominable practices of the
(foreign) nations.”( II Chr. 36:14). So,
God, “brought the king of the Chaldeans upon them” (II Chr. 36:17).
In reality, I believe, the city of Jerusalem fell not
because the Judeans behaved unethically or sinfully (which they did) but because
the Babylonians were militarily stronger than the Israelites.
SONSINO’S BLOG rsonsino.blogspot.com
Note: The Bible calls the Babylonian king as
Nebuchadnezzar or Nebuchadrezzar. His Akkadian name was NABU-KUDURRI-USUR.
