So they took the king, and brought him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah; and they gave judgment upon him.
They took the king, and brought him ... to Riblah. Nebuchadnezzar, having gone from the siege to oppose the auxiliary forces of Pharaoh-hophra, left his generals to carry on the blockade, he himself not returning to the scene of action, but taking up his station at Riblah in the land of Hamath, near the 'entering in of Hamath,' under, the northern, extremity of Anti-Lebanon (Porter's Damascus, 2:, p. 336) (2 Kings 23:33).
Gave judgment upon him - they, i:e., the council (Jeremiah 39:3; Jeremiah 39:13; Daniel 6:7-8; Daniel 6:12), regarding him as a seditious and rebellious vassal, condemned him for violating his oath, and neglecting the announcement of the divine will as made known to him by Jeremiah (cf. Jeremiah 32:5; Jeremiah 34:2; Jeremiah 38:1-7). His sons and the nobles who had joined in his flight were slain before his eyes (Jeremiah 39:6; Jeremiah 52:10). In conformity with Eastern notions, which consider a blind man incapable of ruling, his eyes were put out, an operation frequently performed on young princes whom it is wished to deprive of all pretensions to the throne, and which is done in Persia by a red-hot iron held close to the eyes, so as to dry up the humours, but in Assyria and Babylon by the point of a spear, wielded by the king, on the captive monarch stooping on his knees before his conqueror to be blinded ('Nineveh and its Remains,' 2:, p. 376). It would be in this latter way that Zedekiah's eyes were put out; and afterward being put in chains (cf. Judges 16:21; Psalms 149:8), he was carried to perpetual imprisonment in Babylon (Jeremiah 52:11), which, though he came to it, as Ezekiel had foretold, he did not see (Jeremiah 32:5; Ezekiel 12:13; Ezekiel 17:16).