What a sad business Zedekiah had made of it; and what a grievous calamity followed! Zedekiah was but in the prime of life when these things took place. And here he felt the awful consequence of rejecting the counsel of God against his own soul His eyes allowed him to behold his little ones, and nobles, all slain; and then darkness as to this world, closed in upon him forever. Reader! pause and contemplate the still greater calamity of the hardened sinner, when all earthly comforts are departing from him; and the everlasting darkness of death and eternal misery, are sealing up his soul at the last day!
Jeremiah 39:4-9
4 And it came to pass, that when Zedekiah the king of Judah saw them, and all the men of war, then they fled, and went forth out of the city by night, by the way of the king's garden, by the gate betwixt the two walls: and he went out the way of the plain.
5 But the Chaldeans' army pursued after them, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho: and when they had taken him, they brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he gavea judgment upon him.
6 Then the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah in Riblah before his eyes: also the king of Babylon slew all the nobles of Judah.
7 Moreover he put out Zedekiah's eyes, and bound him with chains, to carry him to Babylon.
8 And the Chaldeans burned the king's house, and the houses of the people, with fire, and brake down the walls of Jerusalem.
9 Then Nebuzaradan the captainb of the guard carried away captive into Babylon the remnant of the people that remained in the city, and those that fell away, that fell to him, with the rest of the people that remained.