Zedekiah
Archimandrite Nikifor’s Biblical Encyclopedia
(the LORD is righteousness)—the name of six persons. (1) (2 Kings 24:17–18 and elsewhere) son of Josiah and last king of Judah. His original name was Mattaniah, but Nebuchadnezzar changed it to Zedekiah. He began to reign at twenty-one and ruled eleven years (2 Chron. 36:11). Scripture portrays him as wicked and impious, while the people in his reign were especially marked by godlessness. At God’s command Jeremiah warned Zedekiah of severe judgment. Zedekiah joined the alliance of neighboring kingdoms and made a separate covenant with the king of Egypt; the Babylonian king therefore marched into Judah and captured its fortified places apart from Lachish and Azekah. In the eleventh year of Zedekiah’s reign, on the ninth day of the fourth month, Jerusalem fell after a sixteen-month siege attended by the horrors of famine.