18 Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. 19 And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that Jehoiakim had done. 20 For because of the anger of the Lord it came to the point in Jerusalem and Judah that he cast them out from his presence. And Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.
(II Kings 24)
Zedekiah was among the last of the kings of Judah to reign before the exile. None of them reigned very long, and all of them "did what was evil in the sight of the LORD..." Enough was enough... God finally cast them out of the Holy City. But something else was a part of this pattern: rebellion against others. Zedekiah and others had such an entitlement mentality that they acted as if the great king of Babylon was acting of his own accord, and would run away scared because of their being God's "chosen" people. They did not see that God was using the Babylonians to chastize them, so He finally used them to punish them. Rebellion does that: It makes us angry, but we focus our anger at everyone by our sin. May we have humble and penitent hearts, ready to have Him show our rebellious ways, repent, and be corrected.
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