The last king of Jerusalem was not buried with his ancestors.
Prince Matanyahu, son of King Josiah of Judea, and his wife Hanutal, was 21 years old in 597 BCE, the year in which Babylon conquered Jerusalem, exiled his nephew, the king, changed Matanyahu’s name to Zedekiah and crowned him as a puppet-vassal king.
The biblical account is confirmed by the Babylonian chronicle:
“In the month Kislev the king of Akkad mustered his army and marched to Hattu. He encamped against the city of Judah and on the second day of the month Adar he captured the city and seized its king. A king of his own choice he appointed in the city and taking the vast tribute he brought it into Babylon.”
Zedekiah’s fate would be to be the last one wearing the Davidic crown of Judah. At least officially.
(The Book of Mormons claims that one of his sons escaped to begin another dynasty that somehow becomes part of the Mormon legacy but that’s another story.)
Jeremiah, who knew the king from childhood and may have been his mentor, has a complicated relationship with Zedekiah. Despite Jeremiah’s insistence that rebellion against Babylon is collective suicide, the king prefers that path, likely swayed by more extreme nationalist voices in court. By the time the Babylonian siege is over - at least a year long - Jerusalem is devastated and broken. Nebuchadrezzar’s army takes over with ease.
The date is the 9th of Tammuz, 586BCE. 11 years after Zedekiah’s reign, it’s over.
Jeremiah is in the palace prison, newly rescued from the dungeons, thanks to the king’s favor and the alacrity of one of the king’s kindest servants, Eved-Melech.
But the king and his family flee. They likely take the tunnel routes from within the city to escape to the north, and they make it halfway there, as far as Jericho, when the chase is over.
The last king and his entourage are brought in chains to Rivla, across the Jordan river, where the King of Babylon, Nebuchadrezzar, will decide their fate.
Way back, in the early days of the siege, Jeremiah warned the king that if won’t change his policy his fate will be harsh:
וְאַתָּ֗ה לֹ֤א תִמָּלֵט֙ מִיָּד֔וֹ כִּ֚י תָּפֹ֣שׂ תִּתָּפֵ֔שׂ וּבְיָד֖וֹ תִּנָּתֵ֑ן וְֽ֠עֵינֶ֠יךָ אֶת־עֵינֵ֨י מֶלֶךְ־בָּבֶ֜ל תִּרְאֶ֗ינָה וּפִ֛יהוּ אֶת־פִּ֥יךָ יְדַבֵּ֖ר וּבָבֶ֥ל תָּבֽוֹא׃
“And you will not escape from him; you will be captured and handed over to him. And you will see the king of Babylon face to face and speak to him in person; and you will be brought to Babylon.”
And that’s exactly what would happen.
The King of Babylon would make a public example of the vassal ruler who defied the empire. Zedekiah would see Nebuchadrezzar eye to eye but that would be the last thing he would ever see:
וַיִּשְׁחַט֩ מֶ֨לֶךְ בָּבֶ֜ל אֶת־בְּנֵ֧י צִדְקִיָּ֛הוּ בְּרִבְלָ֖ה לְעֵינָ֑יו וְאֵת֙ כׇּל־חֹרֵ֣י יְהוּדָ֔ה שָׁחַ֖ט מֶ֥לֶךְ בָּבֶֽל׃ וְאֶת־עֵינֵ֥י צִדְקִיָּ֖הוּ עִוֵּ֑ר וַיַּאַסְרֵ֙הוּ֙ בַּֽנְחֻשְׁתַּ֔יִם לָבִ֥יא אֹת֖וֹ בָּבֶֽלָה׃ וְאֶת־בֵּ֤ית הַמֶּ֙לֶךְ֙ וְאֶת־בֵּ֣ית הָעָ֔ם שָׂרְפ֥וּ הַכַּשְׂדִּ֖ים בָּאֵ֑שׁ וְאֶת־חֹמ֥וֹת יְרוּשָׁלַ֖͏ִם נָתָֽצוּ׃
“The king of Babylon had Zedekiah’s sons slaughtered at Riblah before his eyes; the king of Babylon had all the nobles of Judah slaughtered.
Then the eyes of Zedekiah were put out and he was chained in bronze fetters, that he might be brought to Babylon.”
The Chaldeans burned down the king’s palace and the houses of the people by fire, and they tore down the walls of Jerusalem.”
In just three terrible sentences, Jeremiah describes the bitter end. It’s everything he hoped to prevent, but failed. Now the king is blind but the prophet lives on to see, and struggle, and live with what’s next.
In 1879, the Hebrew poet Yehuda Leib Gordon wrote a poem titled “Zedekiah in the Dungeon.” In it, the last king of Judea muses in prison about his fate and his conflict with the prophet Jeremiah. It is a tragic poem not just because of its historical woe but because the blind king’s legacy still lingers today. It’s quotes in a searing article written by Hillel Halkin, earlier this year in The Jewish Review of Books:
“I see how on that distant day
Jeremiah will have his way.
His dispensation will prevail;
All governance will founder and then fail;
Our people, erudite in chapter and in verse,
Will go from woe to woe and bad to worse.
I see . . . alas, I see!
What the blind king saw, the king-elect is blind to.”