They killed Zedekiah’s sons before his eyes, then put out Zedekiah’s eyes, bound him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 7. Eyes; after they had been excruciated by the sight of his slaughtered children. He thus might be convinced, that there was no reason to despise the predictions of Jeremias and of Ezechiel, (12:13) as contradictory, because the latter informed him that he should not see Babylon; though the other said that he should die there.—Babylon, where he was honourably buried, by order of Nabuchodonosor. Joseph. x. 11.—Seder (Olam xxviii.) records that his attendants sung, at his funeral, “Alas! king Sedecias is dead, having drunk the dregs of all ages;” as he suffered also for the crimes of his predecessors. Genebrard. Tirinus.—This is not indeed specified in Scripture: ( Bible.) but it is highly probable that Nabuchodonosor would thus “revere royalty, even in its ruins,” if Daniel and the other Jews in power, had not been careful to shew this mark of respect to their deceased monarch, conformably to the prediction of Jeremias; (34:3) who foretold that he should die, not by a violent death, the usual fate of captive kings, but in peace, or on his bed, though in a prison. Watson, let. 6.