2 Kings 25:1-7 | The Way of Scripture

2 Kings 25:1-7

How does Zedekiah’s attempted escape end?

Berean Standard Bible

1 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 entire army. They encamped outside the city and built a siege wall all around it. 2 And the city was kept under siege until King Zedekiah’s eleventh year. 3 By the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine in the city was so severe that the people of the land had no food. 4 Then the city was breached; and though the Chaldeans had surrounded the city, all the men of war fled by night by way of the gate between the two walls near the king’s garden. They headed toward the Arabah, 5 but the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook him in the plains of Jericho, and his whole army deserted him. 6 The Chaldeans seized the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah, where they pronounced judgment on him. 7 And they slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. Then they put out his eyes, bound him with bronze shackles, and took him to Babylon.

What is the context?

Babylon’s army surrounds Jerusalem and builds siege works. The siege lasts into Zedekiah’s eleventh year, until famine leaves the people without food and the city is breached.

The soldiers flee at night, but the king is overtaken near Jericho after his army scatters. He is brought before Babylon’s king at Riblah for judgment.

His sons are killed before him, then his eyes are put out and he is taken in bronze shackles to Babylon. The account’s dreadful sequence is not merely a change in rulers: the royal house and the captive king suffer a deliberate and devastating humiliation.

How is this passage commonly understood?

Wesley reads the killing followed by blinding as making the king’s last sight a lasting horror. The narrative should retain that severity without inventing the sons’ exact ages or treating the conquerors’ cruelty as a general moral permission. The USCCB notes also identify difficulties in the wording of the escape notice; the BSB’s account remains the text explained here.

What is our position?

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