12. The Fall of Jerusalem, 586/7 BC.
Within a year of Zedekiah's rebellion, Nebuchadnezzar's forces had surrounded Jerusalem and laid seige to it. Though the biblical report is extremely brief, the seige lasted 18 horrendous months:
So in the ninth year of Zedekiah's reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched against Jerusalem with his whole army. He encamped outside the city and built siege works all around it. The city was kept under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. By the ninth day of the fourth month the famine in the city had become so severe that there was no food for the people to eat. Then the city wall was broken through, and the whole army fled at night through the gate between the two walls near the king's garden, though the Babylonians were surrounding the city.
The suffering during the seige is better and more poignantly captured in the book of Lamentations.
Even jackals offer their breasts to nurse their young, but my people have become heartless like ostriches in the desert. Because of thirst the infant's tongue sticks to the roof of its mouth; the children beg for bread, but no-one gives it to them. Those who once ate delicacies are destitute in the streets. Those nurtured in purple now lie on ash heaps. The punishment of my people is greater than that of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment without a hand turned to help her. Their princes were brighter than snow and whiter than milk, their bodies more ruddy than rubies, their appearance like sapphires. But now they are blacker than soot; they are not recognised in the streets. Their skin has shrivelled on their bones; it has become as dry as a stick. Those killed by the sword are better off than those who die of famine; racked with hunger, they waste away for lack of food from the field. With their own hands compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food when my people were destroyed.
Just as the walls of the city were breached Zedekiah tried to flee with his family. They were, however, captured near Jericho; "he was taken to the king of Babylon at Riblah, where sentence was pronounced on him. They killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. Then they put out his eyes, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon" (2 Ki 25:6-7; Jer 52:9-11). Jerusalem was sacked, its walls demolished and the temple razed to the ground. Judah was depopulated and taken into exile (the "second deportation). Though the first commonwealth of Israel is thus ended, life in the land continued for a possibility. Soon, however, even that sliver of hope was dashed.
©ALBERITH
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