The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Kings — Section 448

of the people be0&me extreme. 'fhe bread wa.s "spent" in the city (Jer. xxxvii. 21). The Book of Lamentations gives vivid glimpses of the horrors-the young children fainting for hunger at the top of every street (Lam. ii. 11, 19); crying to their mothers, Where is corn and wine? (Lam. ii. 12); and asking bread, and no man breaking it to them (Lam. iv. 4); the delicately nurtured lying on dunghills (Lam. iv. 5) ; women eating their own offspring (Lam. ii. 20), etc. II. 'l'HE FATE OF ZEDEKIAH. As the vigour of the defence slackened, the besiegers redoubled their energies, till, on the ninth day of the fourth month, a breach was made in _the walls, and Nebuchadnezzar's princes penetrated as far as the mi<ldle gate (Jer. xx1x. 1-3). The stages that follow are, as respects Zedeldah, those of: 1. Flight. The besiegers bad entered by the north side of the city, and the king, with his men of war, feeling that all was lost, made their escape by night through a gate of tho city on the south-" the gate between the two walls, which is by the king's garden "-and evading the Chaldeans in the darkness, fled towards the Jordan. By a symbolic actio~ Ezekiel had foretold this flight, and the actual manner of the escape, down to its minutest details-a singular instance of the unerring prescience of these inspired prophets (Ezek. xii. 1-16). What the king's thoughts were as he fled that nirrht. with beating heart and covered face, who can tell? Jeremiah had been vindicated and the prophets who had buoyed the people up with so many false hopes were no~ shown to be miserable deceivers. 2. Capture. The flight of the king was soon disco'<'ered, and a contingent of Chaldeaus was despatched in pursuit. It was not long ere they overtook the fleeing monarch, no doubt faint with hunger, unnerved by fear, and exhausted with the miles he had already traversed, unable therefore to make any defence. If his followers made any stand, they were speedily scattered, and the kincr was taken on the plains of Jericho. His hopes, his plans, his intrigues with Egypt, all had come to nothing. He stood there, a prisoner of the Chaldeans, as Jeremiah declared he would be. It is God's Word that always comes true. Would that Zedekiah had believed it in time! 3. Punishment. 'l'he fate which awaited Zedekiah was not long deferred. With his sons, and the nobles who were with him (Jer. xxxix. 6; Iii 10), he waR taken to Riblah, to have judgment passed on him by Nebuchadnezzar. Little mercy had he to look for from the haughty, infuriate king, who had given him his throne, and whose covenant he had broken, entailing on Lim the trouble and delay of a sixteen months' siege. Tortures, perhaps, and death in protracted agonies. 'l'he wonder is that Zedekiah escaped as mercifully as he did. Hut his punishment was, nevertheless, heart-breaking in its severity. (1) He saw his own sons slain before bis eyes. It was the last spectacle he ever beheld; for (2) his own eyes were next put out. Then (3) he was bound with fetters of brass, and carried to Babylon, where he remained a prisoner all the rest of his life (Jer. Iii. 11; cf. xxxiv. 5-8), The nobles of Judah were at the same time slain ( J er. xxx.ix. 6; lii. 10). Life thus ended for Zedekiah when he was yet a young man of little over thirty years of age. His sons must have Leen mere boys, and their pitiable death would be a pang in his heart greater even than the pain of the iron which pierced his eyes. The joy of life was lost to him, like the darkness which had now fallen for ever on the outer world. 'fhe dreary living death of the prison was all that was left to him. Miserable man, how bitterly he had to expiate his sin, and mourn over past errors and self-willed courses ! Will it be otherwise with those who stand at the last before the judgment-seat of God, if their lives are spent in disobedience? If it was hard to face Nebuchadnezzar when he was "full of fury, and the form of his visage was changed" (Dan, iii. 19), ~ow shall men endure " the wrath of the Lamb" (Rev. vj. 16) ? IIL JERUSALEM DEijTROYED. A month elapsed before the destruction of the now captured city was carried out. It was probably during this interval that Jeremiah composed his passionate and pathetic Lamentations. When at length the work was taken in hand by Nebuzar-adan, an officer deputed for the purpose, it was done with characteristic thoroughness, amidst the glee of Judah's hereditary enemies, whose shouts, "Rase it, rase it, even to the foundations thereof!" (Ps. cxxxvii. 7), stimulated the work of demolition. We see: 1. 'I'M temple burned. "He burnt the house of the Lord," etc. Thus came to an end the great and beautiful house of God, built by Rolom•-n, consecrated by so many ceremonies and prayers (1 Kings viii.), and whose courts had so often resounded with the psal!lls and shouts of the multitude that kept cm. XXV, 1-30.] THE SECOND BOOK OF THE KINGS. 601