Difference between revisions of "Zedekiah" - New World Encyclopedia

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After the fall of Jerusalem, the Babylonian general [[Nebuzaraddan]] was sent to carry out its complete destruction. The city was razed to the ground, and the Temple of Jerusalem, the crucial center of Judah's religious life, was utterly destroyed.
 
After the fall of Jerusalem, the Babylonian general [[Nebuzaraddan]] was sent to carry out its complete destruction. The city was razed to the ground, and the Temple of Jerusalem, the crucial center of Judah's religious life, was utterly destroyed.
  
==Zedekiah in the Book of Mormon==
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==Legacy==
According to the [[Book of Mormon]], Zedekiah's son [[Mulek]] escaped death and travelled across one of the oceans (Atlantic or Pacific) to the [[Americas]], where he founded a nation that later merged with the [[Nephite]]s.<ref>[http://scriptures.lds.org/en/hel/6/10#10 Helaman 6:10]</ref><ref>[http://scriptures.lds.org/en/hel/8/21#21 Helaman 8:21]</ref>
+
After the destruction of Jerusalem, the Babylonians established a new capital of Judea in Mizpah, appoint the pro-Babylonian administrator [[Gedaliah]] as governor.
 +
Jeremiah had remained captive in the Jerusalem palace prison until his liberation by the Babylonians, who honored him as a man of God and allowed him to choose his place of residence. He chose to move to the new capital in Mizpah. Gedaliah, however, was soon assassinated as a Babyonian collaborator, and his succeedor, Johanan, rejected Jeremiah's counsels and fled to Egypt, apparently taking the prophet with him.
  
 
==Notes==
 
==Notes==

Revision as of 22:16, 22 October 2008

Kings of Judah

File:Germany Zwiefalten Münster Nebuchadnezzer and Zedekiah.jpg
Nebuchadnezzar faces off against Zedekiah, who holds a plan of Jerusalem, in this Baroque-era depiction in Zwiefalten Abbey in Germany

Zedekiah (Hebrew: צִדְקִיָּהוּ, Tzidkiyahu; Greek: ζεδεκιας, Zedekias) was the last king of Judah.

He was the third son of Josiah, and his mother was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah, thus he was the brother of King Jehoahaz (2 Kings 23:31; 24:17,18). In Hebrew, his name means, Şidhqî Yāhû (צִדְקִי יָהוּ), "YHWH [is] my righteousness." William F. Albright dates the reign of Zedekiah to 597-587 B.C.E., while E. R. Thiele to 597-586 B.C.E.

Zedekiah's original name was Mattanyahu (Hebrew: מַתַּנְיָהוּ, Mattanyāhû, "Gift of God"; traditional English: Mattaniah), but when Nebuchadnezzar II placed him on the throne as the successor to Jehoiachin, he changed his name to Zedekiah. The prophet Jeremiah was his counsellor, yet "he did evil in the sight of the Lord" (2 Kings 24:19, 20; Jeremiah 52:2, 3).

Background

Zedekiah came to the throne in place of Jehoiachin, whose reign in Jerusalem began upon the death of his father around 598 B.C.E. at the age of 18, near the beginning of the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem. The prophet Jeremiah, who counseled a policy of non-resistance toward Babylon, had been a bitter opponent of his father, and strongly denounced Jehoiachin as well.

King Nebuchadnezzar II succeeded in having Jehoiachin removed from office and taken in chains to Babylon. Most of the royal household and those officials of Judah who had joined the rebellion against Babylon were forced into exile. The prophet Jeremiah, who had urged cooperation with the Babylonians, was allowed to remain in Jerusalem, and Zedekiah—Jehoaiachin's uncle—was identified as a sutiable replacement as king under Babylonian supervision.

Reign

Zedekiah was only three years older than Jehoiachin, ascending the throne at the age of 21. Nebuchadnezzer required an oath of fealty from him, which he made in the name of Israel's God (2 Chronicles 36:13). Zedekiah was initially cooperative, lifting the restrictions the previous administration had imposed against the prophet Jeremiah, who was seen as a Babylonian symphathizer.

However, in Zedekiah's fourth year as king, talk of independence from Babylonian vassalage began to circulate once again. Jeremiah dramatically appeared in the marketplace with a wooden yoke around his neck urging a policy of continued submission. The Temple-affiliated prophet Hananiah, however, prophesied against Jeremiah:

"This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: 'I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon. Within two years I will bring back to this place all the articles of the Lord's house that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon removed from here and took to Babylon.'" (28:2-3)

Hananiah then grabbed the yoke from Jeremiah's shoulders and broke it. Jeremiah the withdrew to consider, and later countered with a prophecy of his own predicting Hananiah's doom within the same two-year period. Jeremiah had come to view Nebuchadnezzar as God's "servant" (Jer. 25:9), who had the mission of executing divine judgment on Judah because of her sins. He thus urged a policy of non-resistance to the Babylonians even wrote those who had been taken into exile to to pray for the Babylonian king and settle more or less permanently into life there (Jer. 29).

Rebellion

Zedekiah, the son of King Josiah, the man the Bible calls Judah's greatest king since David, was understandably swayed by the patriotic call of Hananiah and others urging to throw off the Babylonian yoke. He thus decided to support the rebellion against Nebuchadnezzar, entering into an alliance with Pharaoh Hophra, king of Egypt. This brought up Nebuchadnezzar, "with all his host" (2 Kings 25:1), in a new siege ofJerusalem.

Jeremiah confronted Zedekiah directly warning that resistance against Babylon constituted rebellion against God and would bring disaster. The distant voice of the prophet Ezekiel was added to this warning from Babylonian exile, but in the current political climate—with other prophets claiming just the opposite— the independence-minded king refused to listen. When the Babylonians temporarily lifted their siege to deal with Zedekiah's Egyptian allies, Jeremiah left Jerusalem on business in the nearby land of Benjamin and was arrested on the pretext of being a deserter. Being by palace guards, he was placed in a dungeon, but was soon released at Zedekiah's command but remained confined within the palace court. The prophet, however, stubborn refused to keep silence, predicting Jerusalem's imminent doom and affecting the moral of the soliders, leading the king's officers to silence him by imprisoning him in an empty cistern, where he nearly died.

During this siege, which began 589 B.C.E. and lasted about 18 months, "every worst woe befell the devoted city, which drank the cup of God's fury to the dregs" (2 Kings 25:3; Lamentations 4:4-9).

In the eleventh year of Zedekiah's reign, Nebuchadnezzar succeeded in conquering Jerusalem. The city was plundered and reduced to ruins. Zedekiah and his followers attempted to escape, making their way out of the city, but were captured on the plains of Jericho, and were taken to Riblah.

There, after seeing his own sons put to death, Zedekiah's own eyes were put out. Place in chains, he was then carried captive to Babylon, where he remained a prisoner to the day of his death.

After the fall of Jerusalem, the Babylonian general Nebuzaraddan was sent to carry out its complete destruction. The city was razed to the ground, and the Temple of Jerusalem, the crucial center of Judah's religious life, was utterly destroyed.

Legacy

After the destruction of Jerusalem, the Babylonians established a new capital of Judea in Mizpah, appoint the pro-Babylonian administrator Gedaliah as governor. Jeremiah had remained captive in the Jerusalem palace prison until his liberation by the Babylonians, who honored him as a man of God and allowed him to choose his place of residence. He chose to move to the new capital in Mizpah. Gedaliah, however, was soon assassinated as a Babyonian collaborator, and his succeedor, Johanan, rejected Jeremiah's counsels and fled to Egypt, apparently taking the prophet with him.

Notes


References
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This entry incorporates text from the public domain Easton's Bible Dictionary, originally published in 1897.


House of David
Cadet Branch of the Tribe of Judah
Regnal Titles


Preceded by:
Jeconiah
King of Judah
597 B.C.E. – 586 B.C.E.
Judah conquered by
Nebuchadrezzar II of Babylon
Leader of the House of David Succeeded by: Shealtiel

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