So in the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched against Jerusalem with his whole army. He encamped outside the city and built siege works all around it. 2 The city was kept under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. 3 By the ninth day of the fourth month the famine in the city had become so severe that there was no food for the people to eat. 4 Then the city wall was broken through, and the whole army fled at night through the gate between the two walls near the king’s garden, though the Babylonians were surrounding the city. They fled toward the Arabah, 5but the Babylonian army pursued the king and overtook him in the plains of Jericho. All his soldiers were separated from him and scattered, 6 and he was captured. He was taken to the king of Babylon at Riblah, where sentence was pronounced on him. 7 They killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. Then they put out his eyes, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon. 8 On the seventh day of the fifth month, in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard, an official of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. 9 He set fire to the temple of the Lord, the royal palace and all the houses of Jerusalem. Every important building he burned down. 10 The whole Babylonian army under the commander of the imperial guard broke down the walls around Jerusalem. 11 Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard carried into exile the people who remained in the city, along with the rest of the populace and those who had deserted to the king of Babylon. 12 But the commander left behind some of the poorest people of the land to work the vineyards and fields.
By now, Jehoiachin had been replaced by his uncle Zedekiah who would be the last king of Judah. He had inherited a hopeless situation that he managed to make worse. Encouraged by the Egyptians he rebelled against the Babylonians. As a result, the third and last siege of Jerusalem began in 588 BC. It lasted for nineteen months until the people were starving. The king and the army then tried to escape by breaking out of the city. A king running away and leaving his people to face the Babylonians without any defense is not very appealing. In verse five it seems that Zedekiah’s army then abandons him.
The king and his troops are quickly captured, however, for they only made it about twenty miles. By a supreme irony, Zedekiah tries to leave the Promised Land by the same route that Joshua took to enter it. To make matters worse, he’s defeated at Jericho where Joshua won his great victory. The Babylonians treat Zedekiah with horrible brutality, blinding him, exiling him and killing his children. He has no heirs left and it seems like the end of David’s line and of the promise God made to David.
A month after this, we learn that one of Nebuchadnezzar’s generals arrived to destroy Jerusalem. The temple, the palace and any other building considered important were burnt and the walls of the city toppled. Most of the population was sent away to Babylon except for some of the poorest who were left to farm. Various factions had grown up in Judah’s politics with some supporting the Babylonians but all were deported. Jerusalem is only a ruin and its people slaves. The continual warnings of the prophets have sadly come true. The situation seems absolutely despairing with no heir seemingly left to the promise made to David. But if there is one thing that the Bible should tell us, it is that the God of Israel is a God of hope. The story is by no means over.
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