Jeremiah 39:4-10

B. The Capture of the King Jeremiah 39:4-10

TRANSLATION

(4) And it came to pass when Zedekiah, king of Judah, and all the men of war saw them, they fled by going out at night from the city by way of the king's garden through the gate between the walls. And they went out toward the way of the Arabah. (5) And the Chaldean army pursued after them, and they caught up with Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho, took him captive, and brought him to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, in the land of Hamath. There he passed sentence upon him. (6) And the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes at Riblah. The king of Babylon also slew all the nobles of Judah. (7) Then he put out the eyes of Zedekiah and bound him with chains to take him away to Babylon.

COMMENTS

When the lower city fell to the Chaldeans, Zedekiah knew that within a matter of hours he would be captive in the hands of his enemies. Under cover of night he and what was left of the army made a desperate dash for safety. The king fled through the gate between the two walls, i.e., where the inner and outer walls came together. The king's garden was on the southeastern slope of the city near the junction of the Hinnom and Kidron Valleys. It must have been his intention to cross the Jordan river (Jeremiah 39:4). But in the plains around Jericho the Chaldean army overtook him. The king and his staff were taken in chains to the headquarters of Nebuchadnezzar at Riblah[335] some two hundred miles to the north. There Zedekiah was forced to stand in the judgment of the king against whom he had violated a sacred oath of allegiance (Jeremiah 39:5).

[335] This is probably the same Riblah mentioned in Numbers 34:11 as on the eastern boundary of the promised land. Some years earlier Pharaoh Necho had made Riblah his military headquarters. There he had summoned Judean king Jehoahaz who was then deported to Egypt in chains (2 Kings 23:33). Riblah was a strategic military point being at one of the major crossroads of western Asia.

Many vassal oaths from the ancient Near East have come to light in recent years. In swearing fidelity to his overlord the vassal would call upon the gods of both nations to punish him if he proved unfaithful to the terms of the agreement. Generally such vassal treaties contained a section of maledictions which the vassal pronounced against himself, his family, and his nation should he violate any part of the treaty. Such treaties were regarded as the most solemn possible obligation. The overload would punish in the most severe way the vassal who disregarded the treaty and rebelled. Though the exact wording of the vassal treaty between Zedekiah and Nebuchadnezzar is unknown, perhaps the words can be reconstructed in the light of what happened at Riblah. If this particular vassal treaty followed the terminology which was more or less standard in such documents, Zedekiah may well have said something like the following: May my sons and my officials be slain before my eyes and my eyes be blinded if I am unfaithful to any of the terms of this treaty. May I be carried to Babylon in fetters of bronze and languish in prison until my death if I violate this agreement. If Zedekiah said something to this effect when he was placed on the throne of Judah as the vassal of Nebuchadnezzar then no wonder he tried so desperately to escape the wrath of the great king. Those self-maledictions, uttered as part of a formal vassal treaty, were literally fulfilled at Riblah. The last sight which Zedekiah saw was the slaying of his own sons. Then his own eyes were blinded and he was carried away to Babylon (Jeremiah 39:6-7).

The tragedy of Riblah is that all of this could have been avoided had Zedekiah only heeded the word of God spoken through the prophet Jeremiah. Again and again Jeremiah had warned Zedekiah that disobedience to his vassal oath would result in face to face confrontation with the king of Babylon and eventual deportation to Babylon (Jeremiah 32:4-5; Jeremiah 34:3). The prophet Ezekiel in far away Babylon also accurately predicted the course of events though his words must have seemed vague and contradictory at the time he uttered them. I will bring him (Zedekiah) to Babylon to the land of the Chaldeans; yet shall he not SEE it, though he shall die there (Ezekiel 12:13). As I live (oracle of the Lord God), surely in the place where the king dwells that made him king, whose oath he despised, and whose covenant he brake, even with him in the midst of Babylon he shall die (Ezekiel 17:16).