Jeremiah 52:5

Jeremiah 52 is an appendix that follows the prophet’s last oracles. It tells nearly the same story as 2 Kings 24–25, and Jeremiah 39 gives a shorter account of the same days. After the long book of prophecy comes the record of its fulfilment, set down with dates and places, so that the reader can see that the LORD did what he said.

Jeremiah had warned of this from his call onward (Jeremiah 1). He had said that the LORD would bring Nebuchadrezzar against the land and that the exile would last seventy years (Jeremiah 25:8–11). He had preached in the temple against Judah’s idolatry and unfaithfulness (Jeremiah 7:1–15), spoken against Judah’s kings (Jeremiah 22), and foretold that the Chaldeans would take and destroy the city (Jeremiah 32:28–29). The chapter comments on the events only in verses 2 and 3. Everywhere else it simply reports, and the report itself shows that God’s word stands.

Verse 1 opens the way the books of Kings open a reign, with the king’s age, the length of his reign and his mother’s name. Zedekiah was twenty-one, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem, the last of David’s line to rule from that city before the exile. His name had been Mattaniah. Nebuchadnezzar set him on the throne in 597 BC, after carrying away King Jehoiachin and many of Judah’s leading men (2 Kings 24:10–17), and gave him his new name. Tsidqîyâh means “right of Jah”, or “My righteousness is the LORD”. It was a sad name for a man whose reign the very next verse calls evil.

The verb in “began to reign” is mâlak, which means to reign and also to come to the throne. Zedekiah’s throne came to him by the decree of the king of Babylon, and his power depended on Babylon. That was the hard fact he would not accept, and the rest of the passage follows from it.

His mother Hamutal was “the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah”, the king’s grandfather and a different man from the prophet. Naming a king’s mother was the custom of Judah’s royal records (1 Kings 14:21). It set the king within his family, helped tell apart kings with similar names, and supported his right to rule. Hamutal had also been the mother of Jehoahaz, an earlier king (2 Kings 23:31), so her family had stood near the throne before. Libnah was a Levitical city in the low hills southwest of Jerusalem, and long before it had revolted against a king of Judah (2 Kings 8:22).

Jerusalem’s Hebrew name, Yᵉrûwshâlaim, has a dual ending, which is explained as pointing to the city’s two main hills. Its eleven years under Zedekiah were its last years as the seat of a king of Judah.

“And he did that which was evil in the eyes of the LORD” is the verdict the books of Kings give on one king after another. It is said of Manasseh in the same words (2 Kings 21:2). The word raʻ covers what is bad in nature and what is wicked in act, and here it is moral evil: idolatry, injustice and refusing the warnings God sent by his prophets. ʻAyin is the eye, and “in the eyes of the LORD” means in his sight and by his judgment. Whatever Zedekiah’s counsellors thought of his policies, the LORD saw the whole reign and gave the verdict that counts.

The verb ʻâsâh, “did”, is the broadest Hebrew word for doing or making, and the verse uses it for both kings: Zedekiah did evil “according to all that Jehoiakim had done”. The comparison is heavy. Jehoiakim had ruled with oppression and disregard for the poor, defied Jeremiah openly, and burned the scroll of the prophet’s words (Jeremiah 36:23). Zedekiah had seen what that road brought on Judah and walked it again.

This is the course the covenant had warned against. The blessings and curses of Deuteronomy 28 set out what would follow if Israel would not hearken to the LORD (Deuteronomy 28:15), and Proverbs states the same truth for any people: “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 14:34).

Verse 3 gives the cause beneath the history: “For through the anger of the LORD it came to pass in Jerusalem and Judah, till he had cast them out from his presence, that Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.” The word for anger, ʼaph, is properly the nose or nostril, from the hard breathing of strong feeling, and so it came to mean wrath. In the LORD it is righteous anger at long unfaithfulness, the just answer of a holy God.

To “cast out”, shâlak, is to throw or hurl something away, often with a sense of rejection. The casting out is the exile. “From his presence” is mippanav, literally “from his face”, and it meant removal from the land God had given and from the temple that stood for his dwelling among them. Moses had warned that disobedience would end in scattering among the nations (Deuteronomy 28:64), and Lamentations mourns Judah gone into exile (Lamentations 1:3).

Zedekiah’s act is mârad, to rebel, and 2 Kings records it in the same words (2 Kings 24:20). It broke the oath of loyalty he had sworn to Nebuchadnezzar in the name of God (Ezekiel 17:15–19). It was also rebellion against God, because Jeremiah had told the king and people to submit to Babylon as God’s instrument of judgment (Jeremiah 27:8–11). Swayed by false prophets and by national pride, and looking to Egypt for help, Zedekiah rebelled anyway.

Verse 4 dates the start of the siege with care: the tenth day of the tenth month of Zedekiah’s ninth year, which is reckoned as about January 588 BC. 2 Kings 25:1 gives the same date. Ezekiel, among the exiles, received a prophecy dated to that very day (Ezekiel 24:1–2), and in later Jewish practice the tenth of the month Tevet became a fast day in memory of the siege’s beginning. The precise date marks this as a real day in history, the day the end began.

Nebuchadrezzar, Nᵉbûwkadneʼtstsar, is the king also spelled Nebuchadnezzar, who ruled Babylon from 605 to 562 BC. His name is Babylonian and is usually explained as a prayer to the god Nabu to protect the king’s son or crown. Through Jeremiah the LORD had called this pagan king his servant (Jeremiah 25:9) and had given the lands into his hand (Jeremiah 27:6–7). He came “he and all his army”, the full strength of Babylon against a small kingdom.

The army “pitched” against the city. Chânâh is the ordinary word for pitching a tent or encamping, and an army encamped against a city was settling in for a siege. Then they “built forts against it round about”. The word is dâyêq, a siege wall or bulwark. Built all around Jerusalem, these works shut the city in, cut off escape and relief, and prepared for the assault. Jeremiah had foretold the city’s destruction (Jeremiah 21:7), and now it began.

Verse 5 marks how long it lasted: “So the city was besieged unto the eleventh year of king Zedekiah.” “Was besieged” stands for mâtsôwr, from a root meaning to hem in, a word for a siege, a fortified place, or distress. ʻÎyr, “city”, is the common word for a city or town, traced to a root meaning to wake, a place guarded by a watch. The verse is one short sentence, and it covers month after month of hunger, sickness and fear inside the walls. Moses had named siege and its horrors among the curses of the covenant (Deuteronomy 28:52–53), and Ezekiel had acted out this siege as a sign (Ezekiel 4:1–5).

On the ninth day of the fourth month, Tammuz, in the summer of Zedekiah’s eleventh year, “the famine was sore in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land.” The verb behind “was sore” is châzaq, to be or grow strong, so the famine had grown strong and taken hold of the city. Râʻâb is hunger or famine, and lechem is bread or food in general. Bread was the staple of life, so “no bread” means the food was gone. “The people of the land” are the common people, and the hunger reached them all, from the highest to the lowest.

The law had warned of famine and scarcity as a curse on disobedience (Leviticus 26:26), and Ezekiel spoke of famine as arrows the LORD would send (Ezekiel 5:16). Lamentations shows what such hunger meant: those killed by the sword were better off than those killed by famine, and women boiled their own children (Lamentations 4:9–10, Lamentations 2:20). The famine is dated as exactly as the siege, and it marks the last point before the wall gave way.

“Then the city was broken up.” Bâqaʻ means to split, cleave or break open, and here the wall is breached. All the men of war “fled”, bârach, which is to flee in haste from danger. The men whose task was to defend the city ran from it. They went out “by night”, using the dark to slip past the enemy, “by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king’s garden”. Jerusalem had more than one line of wall, and a gate between two walls was a postern or lesser exit, less likely to be watched than the main gates. The king’s garden lay outside the main walls, probably in the Kidron valley near the Gihon spring. The king was with them, as the next verse shows and as Jeremiah 39:2–4 and 2 Kings 25:4–5 tell.

The writer stops to add, “(now the Chaldeans were by the city round about:)”. The Chaldeans, Kasdîy, were the people of Chaldea, the ruling people of Babylon, and the same name is also used for astrologers. The aside tells the reader that the city was ringed by the enemy, and that the flight had little hope from the start. The fugitives “went by the way of the plain”, the Arabah or Jordan valley, probably making for the river and the lands beyond it, perhaps Moab or Ammon.

Verse 8 tells how it ended: “But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after the king, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered from him.” Chayil means strength, ability, wealth or an army, and the verse uses it for both sides. The Chaldean army pursued, while Zedekiah’s army fell apart. To pursue, râdaph, is to run after or chase, usually with hostile intent. His men scattered, pûwts, a verb meaning to dash in pieces or disperse, and the king was left alone.

The plains of Jericho, ʻărâbâh Yᵉrîychôw, are the flat Jordan valley near Jericho. Israel had first entered the land there, crossing the Jordan under Joshua (Joshua 3), and on the same plain the last king of Judah was caught trying to leave it. The scattering of his army also pictures the scattering of the nation that Moses had warned would follow defeat (Deuteronomy 28:25), and Lamentations mourns the capture of the LORD’s anointed (Lamentations 4:20). Jeremiah had pleaded with Zedekiah to surrender to Babylon (Jeremiah 38:17–18). The flight he chose in order to save his life and throne led him into a harsher end.

“Then they took the king”. Tâphas means to take hold of, seize or capture. They “carried him up”, with ʻâlâh, the common verb for going up, “unto the king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath”. Riblah lay on the Orontes River, in what is now Syria, far to the north of Jerusalem. It was Nebuchadnezzar’s headquarters for his campaigns in the west, on the roads between Mesopotamia and Egypt, and there he settled the fate of the lands he conquered. The verse gives the title of king (melek) to both men, and only one of them still ruled.

There “he gave judgment upon him”. Mishpâṭ comes from shâphaṭ, to judge, and it means a verdict or sentence, the act of judging, the case and the penalty. Nebuchadnezzar passed sentence on a vassal who had broken his oath.

Verse 10 tells the sentence: “And the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes: he slew also all the princes of Judah in Riblah.” Shâchaṭ means to slaughter, whether in sacrifice or in massacre. Bên is son, and these sons were Zedekiah’s heirs. Killing them ended any claim of his line to the throne, and making their father watch, “before his eyes” (ʻayin), added torment to the punishment. The princes were Judah’s high officials, nobles and commanders, and their deaths removed every leader who might have raised another revolt.

Verse 11 completes it: “Then he put out the eyes of Zedekiah”. The verb is ʻâvar, to blind, and the last thing Zedekiah saw was the death of his sons. Blinding a defeated ruler was a known punishment in that age, and it left him unable to lead again and shamed him before all. The king of Babylon “bound him in chains”. The Hebrew word is nᵉchôsheth, copper or bronze, so these were bronze fetters. He was carried to Babylon, the city he had defied, and put “in prison”, literally a house (bayith) of custody (pᵉquddâh), where pᵉquddâh means oversight, charge or custody and the verb “put” is nâthan, to give or set. He stayed there “till the day of his death”. 2 Kings 25:6–7 and Jeremiah 39:5 record the same end.

Zedekiah’s story shows how far the kings of Judah had fallen, and Scripture points past him to the King God promised. Through this same prophet the LORD promised a righteous Branch for David, whose name would be “THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS” (Jeremiah 23:5–6). The name Zedekiah carried, Jesus is. The angel told Mary that God would give him the throne of David and that his kingdom would have no end (Luke 1:32–33), as Isaiah had foretold (Isaiah 9:6–7). His dominion is everlasting (Daniel 7:14), his kingdom is of another world than Zedekiah’s (John 18:36), and he is King of kings and Lord of lords (Revelation 19:16).

Zedekiah did evil in the sight of the LORD. Jesus said of his Father, “I do always those things that please him” (John 8:29), and he came to fulfil all righteousness (Matthew 3:15). Zedekiah slipped out by night past a garden to escape judgment. Jesus went into a garden, Gethsemane, and there gave himself up to the Father’s will (Matthew 26:36–46). He went to his death as the silent Servant of Isaiah 53:7, obedient unto death (Philippians 2:8). His disciples scattered when he was taken, as he said they would (Matthew 26:31), and yet by his death he draws people to himself: “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me” (John 12:32).

The LORD’s anger cast Judah out from his presence. Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), bore that anger on the cross, where he cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). He was wounded for our transgressions (Isaiah 53:5), God commends his love to us in that Christ died for us while we were yet sinners (Romans 5:8), and his blood cleanses those who come to God by him (Hebrews 9:14). Jeremiah himself announced the new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31), and under it believers are brought into God’s presence, their bodies made temples of the Holy Ghost (1 Corinthians 6:19).

The temple whose loss followed this siege pointed to Jesus, who spoke of the temple of his body (John 2:19–21), and believers have come to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God (Hebrews 12:22–24). The city that starved for bread points to the one who said, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35), the true bread from heaven (John 6:32–33), who fills those who hunger after righteousness (Matthew 5:6) and gives living water (John 4:14). The king blinded in chains points to the Lord who opened the eyes of a man born blind (John 9:1–7), and who by the light of the gospel gives sight to minds the god of this world has blinded (2 Corinthians 4:4–6). By his cross he triumphed over principalities and powers (Colossians 2:13–15).

This passage is hard to read, and it was meant to be. It shows that the LORD’s warnings are as sure as his promises. He sent his prophets to Judah again and again (Jeremiah 7:25–26), and through Jeremiah he told the king plainly how to live. When the warnings were refused, everything he had said came to pass, down to the dates, the gate by the king’s garden and the blind man in a Babylonian prison. Lamentations gives voice to the grief of the desolate city (Lamentations 1:1–5), and that grief is right.

The same God who judged was still working toward mercy. He had already promised that after seventy years he would visit his people in Babylon and bring them home, for he knew the thoughts he thought toward them (Jeremiah 29:10–14). Daniel shows God with his people in exile (Daniel 1), and Ezra tells of their return (Ezra 1). Zedekiah’s line ended at Riblah, but David’s line did not, and its true King reigns. The God who kept his word in judgment keeps his word in salvation, and that is the ground of every promise we lean on.