Zedekiah’s attempt to flee is short lived as the army of the Chaldeans pursued them and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho.
They then bring Zedekiah to Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, who has set up his base in the city of Riblah. Riblah was an ancient Syrian town to the south of Kadesh on the river Orontes and it was a strategic city from which Nebuchadnezzar could co-ordinate his dominance over Syria-Palestine1. Nebuchadnezzar deals with Zedekiah swiftly and ruthlessly. He passes sentence over him, slaughters all his sons before his eyes as well as all of the nobles of Judah. He then puts out Zedekiah’s eyes, binds him in chains and takes him to Babylon. The Hebrew word for slaughtered
is sahat and it is normally used for the killing of animals. It is probably used here to describe the brutality with which Zedekiah’s sons are killed. These events probably also fulfill the prophecies Jeremiah delivered to Zedekiah in Jeremiah 32:5 and Jeremiah 34:3. Zedekiah sees Nebuchadnezzar and is taken to Babylon, but he never actually sees Babylon (Ezekiel 12:13)2.
Nebuchadnezzar treats Zedekiah as a king who tried to rebel against his rule and his fate can only be described as one worse than death. Through Jeremiah, the Lord had warned him not to resist but to surrender to Nebuchadnezzar, but he had refused to listen and now the Lord’s judgment had come, just as the Lord had said it would.
5 Mais l'armée des Chaldéens les poursuivit, et atteignit Sédécias dans les plaines de Jéricho. Ils le prirent, et le firent monter vers Nebucadnetsar, roi de Babylone, à Ribla, dans le pays de Hamath; et il prononça contre lui une sentence.