The fate of Zedekiah.
I. THE CAUSES WHICH LED TO THE FATE OF ZEDEKIAH.
1. The general calamity of his nation. The king suffers with his people. Unfortunately it too often happens that an innocent people is punished for the fault of its sovereign. We must not be surprised if the converse is sometimes true. We are all members one of another. Not only kings, but in a less degree private individuals, must expect to share the troubles of the community, apart from the exact measure of private desert. In this life the execution of Divine justice is general; in the next life it will be particular—then the judgment will be individualistic.
2. His own sin. Zedekiah did "evil in the eyes of the Lord" (Jeremiah 52:2). Others may have done worse and escaped. But if we have no more severe a fate than we deserve, we can find no ground for complaint in the fact that more wicked men receive (at present) a milder treatment.
3. His weakness. Zedekiah was more weak than wicked. It is often observable in history that the weak king suffers calamities which the bad king escapes. But weakness is a culpable defect in a sovereign. If he is not strong enough for his duties he should resign the reins of power. No one has a right to retain a post which he cannot efficiently fulfil. Moral weakness is always wrong—to be blamed as much as to be pitied—for it can be overcome (Isaiah 40:29-31).
4. His erroneous policy. Zedekiah was set on the throne by Nebuchadnezzar; he plotted with Pharaoh against his suzerain; and when his rebellion roused the vengeance of Babylon, he found Egypt to be only "a broken reed." In his case the vanity of trust in princes was illustrated.
5. The will of God. The fate of Zedekiah had been predicted by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 34:1-7). The prophecy implied a Divine decree. God has no hard, cruel decrees irrespective of our conduct and will. But following our wrong doing, God's fixed counsels of judgment make flight hopeless.
II. THE LEADING FEATURES OF THE FATE OF ZEDEKIAH.
1. He was captured in the agonies of flight. According to Josephus, this was not till he had reached the banks of the Jordan. How terrible to be so nearly saved, and yet to fall a prey to vengeance at last! To be only almost saved is worse than never to have had a hope of deliverance. They who have been near to the kingdom of heaven and have not entered it will feel the more bitterly the doom that they will share with the city of Destruction. "Remember Lot's wife."
2. He was carried to Babylon and tried before King Nebuchadnezzar. The triumph of the great monarch was the shame of his vassal.
3. His children were slain before his eyes. Parents suffer in the sufferings of their children more than in the pain of their own bodies. The action of Nebuchadnezzar was cruel, brutal, devilish. There are no such spiteful elements in God's punishment of the wicked. His is given in sorrow and with reluctance.
4. His eyes were put out. Here was the greatest refinement of cruelty. Zedekiah's sight was preserved till he had witnessed the death agonies of his children. Then he was blinded, so that the last vision to dwell in his memory was the harrowing spectacle of his children's massacre. But after so terrible a sight would the wretched man care to look on the light of day?
5. He was detained in prison till his death—a punishment worse than death. Dethroned, humiliated, in chains, in a dungeon, bereaved of his children, the poor blind king is left to the agony of his own bitter thoughts. May God deliver us from a similar fate in the future world!