Zedekiah

Zedekiah was the last king of Judah, and he watched his sons killed before being blinded. Born Mattaniah around 618 BC, he was a son of Josiah and an uncle of the boy king Jehoiachin. Nebuchadnezzar installed him in 597 BC after deporting his nephew and the Jerusalem elite, changed his name to Zedekiah as an assertion of ownership, and required an oath of loyalty sworn in the name of his God. His position was impossible. The deportation had removed the governing class, and much of the population regarded Jehoiachin in Babylon as the real king and Zedekiah as a caretaker. The book of Jeremiah presents him as weak rather than wicked — repeatedly consulting the prophet in secret, repeatedly unable to act on the advice, and telling him plainly that he was afraid of his own officials. Jeremiah's advice was consistent and unpopular: submit to Babylon, because the alternative is the destruction of the city. He was accused of desertion, beaten and thrown into a cistern for it. Zedekiah rebelled anyway around 589 BC, encouraged by an Egyptian pharaoh whose relieving army came and withdrew. The siege lasted about eighteen months and ended in famine. He fled by night through a gap in the walls towards the Jordan and was caught near Jericho. At Riblah his sons were executed in front of him, and that was the last thing he saw. He was blinded, bound and taken to Babylon, where he died in prison. The Temple was burned a month later.

• Lived: 617 BCE – 580 BCE
• Nationality: Jewish
• Roles: ruler