Person Old Testament
Zedekiah
Also known as Mattaniah, Zedekiah =ESV, NIV; Jehoiakim =KJV
Zedekiah, originally named Mattaniah, was the last king of Judah before the Babylonian exile. Mentioned in 54 verses across 4 books, first at 2 Kings 24:17.
Why it matters. Last king of Judah before the Babylonian exile
- Primary passages
- Last reviewed
- 2026-08-30 by the FaithGraph team
About Zedekiah
Zedekiah, originally named Mattaniah, was the last king of Judah before the Babylonian exile. He was the son of Josiah and the uncle of Jehoiachin. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, appointed him as a vassal king after deporting Jehoiachin. Zedekiah reigned for 11 years, but he did evil in the sight of the Lord. Despite the warnings of the prophet Jeremiah, Zedekiah rebelled against Babylon, leading to the siege and destruction of Jerusalem. During the siege, Zedekiah sought counsel from Jeremiah but did not heed his advice to surrender. When the city fell, Zedekiah attempted to flee but was captured. His sons were killed before his eyes, and then he was blinded and taken to Babylon in chains. Zedekiah's reign ended in tragedy, marking the fall of the kingdom of Judah and the beginning of the Babylonian exile.
Description from STEPBible TIPNR (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0, lightly reformatted. This is background reference material, not Scripture and not a FaithGraph editorial claim.
Connections
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Family
Family links from STEPBible TIPNR (CC BY 4.0). Where the dataset marks an identification as uncertain, the mark is kept. Matthew and Luke give different genealogies for Jesus; see the Lineage page, which never merges them.
Appears in Scripture
Named in 54 verses across 4 books. Occurrence data from STEPBible TIPNR (CC BY 4.0); references only, no translation text.