The Terrible End of a Foolish King Text: 2 Kings 25:1-7
Introduction: The Unavoidable Invoice
We come now to the end of a long and sordid story. The history of the kings of Israel and Judah is a history of God's extraordinary patience and man's extraordinary rebellion. For centuries, God sent prophets, warnings, judgments, and deliverances. He sent seasons of want and seasons of plenty. He wooed His people and He warned His people. But Judah had become stiff-necked, hard-hearted, and resolutely set on their own destruction. They had taken the grace of God and trampled it underfoot. They loved their high places more than their God, and their political alliances more than His promises.
And so, the bill comes due. What we are reading in this chapter is not a random geopolitical event. It is not the unfortunate result of Babylon's imperial expansion. It is a carefully orchestrated, meticulously prophesied, covenantal lawsuit. God is the plaintiff, Judah is the defendant, and Nebuchadnezzar is the bailiff sent to carry out the sentence. Every detail of this horror was written down centuries before in the book of Deuteronomy. God had set before them life and death, blessing and cursing, and they had cheerfully chosen death.
This is a hard passage. It is brutal. We see famine, desperation, the flight of a cowardly king, and the execution of his sons before his eyes. It is easy for us, in our comfortable age, to read this as ancient, barbaric history. But that would be a profound mistake. This is a revelation of the character of God. He is a God of justice. His holiness is not a sentimental suggestion; it is a consuming fire. Sin has consequences. Rebellion has a price. And when a nation, particularly a covenant nation, decides to spit in God's face, the consequences are catastrophic. This is not just about Judah; it is about us. It is a warning against trifling with God and a stark reminder that while judgment may be delayed, it is never cancelled.
The events here are the historical bedrock of God's faithfulness to His own warnings. If God is not faithful to His threats, we have no reason to believe He will be faithful to His promises. The same God who promised a Savior in Genesis 3 also promised a siege in Deuteronomy 28. The cross of Christ is glorious because the judgment described here is so terrible. Let us therefore approach this text with sobriety, understanding that the wages of sin is death, and that God is not mocked.
The Text
Now in the ninth year of his reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his military force, against Jerusalem, and he camped against it and built a siege wall all around it. So the city came under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. On the ninth day of the fourth month the famine was so strong in the city that there was no food for the people of the land. Then the city was broken into, and all the men of war fled by night by way of the gate between the two walls beside the king’s garden, though the Chaldeans were all around the city. And they went by way of the Arabah. But the military force of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook him in the plains of Jericho and all his military force was scattered from him. Then they seized the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah, and they spoke their judgment on him. And they slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes; then he blinded the eyes of Zedekiah and bound him with bronze fetters and brought him to Babylon.
(2 Kings 25:1-7 LSB)
God's Appointed Siege (v. 1-2)
The final act begins with the arrival of God's ordained instrument of judgment.
"Now in the ninth year of his reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his military force, against Jerusalem, and he camped against it and built a siege wall all around it. So the city came under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah." (2 Kings 25:1-2)
The precision of the date is important. This is not a fairy tale; it is history. God's judgments unfold in real time, on real calendars. But we must see who is the true actor here. It says Nebuchadnezzar came, but the prophets tell us who sent him. Jeremiah called Nebuchadnezzar "My servant" (Jer. 25:9). God is the one directing this pagan king. The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever He will (Prov. 21:1). Nebuchadnezzar thought he was building an empire; in reality, he was an errand boy for the God of Israel.
This entire scene is a direct fulfillment of the covenant curses laid out in Deuteronomy. "The LORD will bring a nation against you from afar... a nation whose language you will not understand... And they shall besiege you in all your gates until your high and fortified walls, in which you trust, come down throughout all your land" (Deut. 28:49, 52). Judah had trusted in their walls. They trusted in their political savvy and their alliance with Egypt. They trusted in anything and everything except the Lord. And so God, in a display of terrible irony, brings down the very things they trusted in.
The siege wall is built, and the city is cut off. This is a picture of what sin does. Sin isolates. It cuts us off from the source of life. The siege lasted for about eighteen months. This was a long, slow, grinding judgment. God's patience had been long, and now His judgment would be thorough. He was giving them time to contemplate the fruit of their rebellion, to see the utter bankruptcy of their idols, which could not provide a drop of water or a crumb of bread.
The Agony of the Curse (v. 3-4)
The result of the siege is the predictable and prophesied horror of famine and desperation.
"On the ninth day of the fourth month the famine was so strong in the city that there was no food for the people of the land. Then the city was broken into, and all the men of war fled by night by way of the gate between the two walls beside the king’s garden, though the Chaldeans were all around the city. And they went by way of the Arabah." (2 Kings 25:3-4)
Again, this is Deuteronomy coming to pass. "Therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of everything" (Deut. 28:48). The book of Lamentations, written by Jeremiah who witnessed this firsthand, gives us the graphic details: "The hands of compassionate women have cooked their own children; they became their food during the destruction of the daughter of my people" (Lam. 4:10). This is the end-game of idolatry. When you worship what is not God, you become less than human.
Finally, the walls are breached. The thing they trusted in has failed. And what does the king do? What do the "men of war" do? They flee. They run like cowards in the night. Zedekiah, the king who had refused to listen to Jeremiah, who had broken his oath to Nebuchadnezzar and to God, now abandons his people to save his own skin. This is the moral collapse that always accompanies spiritual rebellion. The leaders who should have been shepherds leading the people in repentance are now hirelings, fleeing at the first sign of wolves.
They flee "by way of the Arabah," toward the Jordan Valley, trying to escape. But there is no escape from the judgment of God. You cannot outrun the consequences of your sin. The psalmist asks, "Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?" (Psalm 139:7). For the believer, this is a comfort. For the rebel, it is a terror.
The Capture of the Coward (v. 5-6)
The king's pathetic escape attempt is quickly thwarted.
"But the military force of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook him in the plains of Jericho and all his military force was scattered from him. Then they seized the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah, and they spoke their judgment on him." (2 Kings 25:5-6)
There is a profound historical irony here. He is captured in the plains of Jericho. This is the very place where Israel, under Joshua, had their first great victory upon entering the Promised Land. It was a place of miraculous triumph, a testament to God's faithfulness. Now, it becomes the site of Israel's ultimate, humiliating defeat, a testament to their unfaithfulness. The story has come full circle. The land that was taken by faith is now lost through rebellion.
His army scatters. Loyalty that is not grounded in faithfulness to God is no loyalty at all. It is just self-interest, and when the pressure is on, it evaporates. Zedekiah is brought to Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah, a city in Syria, which served as the Babylonian headquarters. And there, the earthly king who served as God's instrument passes sentence on the covenant king who had rebelled against his own Lord.
A Judgment to Fit the Crime (v. 7)
The sentence passed on Zedekiah is one of calculated, symbolic, and excruciating cruelty.
"And they slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes; then he blinded the eyes of Zedekiah and bound him with bronze fetters and brought him to Babylon." (2 Kings 25:7)
This is not random barbarism. This is a judgment tailored to the sin. First, his sons, the heirs to the Davidic throne, are executed before him. The royal line, the future of his house, is extinguished as he watches. This was a judgment on the promise God made to David, a promise that Judah had treated with contempt. The covenant had conditions, and the condition of obedience had been grotesquely violated.
Then, after forcing him to watch the death of his legacy, they put out his eyes. The last thing King Zedekiah ever saw was the fruit of his own rebellion. The image of his dead sons would be burned into his mind for the rest of his life, a perpetual, dark reminder of his failure. This is a physical picture of a spiritual reality. Zedekiah had been spiritually blind for years. He had eyes, but he would not see what God was showing him through the prophet Jeremiah. He refused to see the truth. And so, God gives him over to the physical reality of what he had chosen spiritually. He is plunged into a literal darkness to match the spiritual darkness he loved.
Bound in bronze, he is led away to Babylon. The king of Jerusalem becomes a blind beggar in the court of a pagan monarch. This is the end of the road for those who defy the living God. It is a portrait of utter ruin, the final invoice for a lifetime of spiritual adultery.
Conclusion: The Last Thing You See
The story of Zedekiah is a terrifying warning. The last thing he saw was the judgment of God on his house. And for the rest of his life, that is all he could see. This is the state of every man who dies in rebellion against God. The last thing they see is the righteous judgment of God, and that image will be their eternal companion in the darkness.
But for us, who are in Christ, this story has a different resonance. We too were blind. We too were rebels, bound in the fetters of our sin, destined for exile. But God, in His mercy, performed a great reversal. Another King, from the line of David, came to Jerusalem. He too was captured. He too was judged. And on a hill outside the city, He saw something horrific. He saw the full, unmitigated wrath of God against sin. But He did not just see it; He bore it. He took the curse upon Himself.
And unlike Zedekiah, His eyes were not closed in judgment. They were closed in death, only to be opened again three days later in resurrection. Because of His sacrifice, the last thing we see does not have to be judgment. Through faith in Him, the last thing we will see is the face of our loving Father. The story of Zedekiah shows us the depth of the pit from which we were rescued. It magnifies the grace of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Let us therefore not trifle with sin, but flee from it, and run to the King who took our blindness upon Himself, that we might see.