Jerusalem of messengers from the
kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre and Sidon, all of them states within the
scope of Egyptian intrigues against Babylon.(476) For the time the
movement came to nothing largely because of Jeremiah's influence, and
Sedekiah is said to have journeyed to Babylon to protest in person his
continued fidelity.(477) Either then or previously Nebuchadrezzar imposed
on Jerusalem the Babylonian idolatry which Ezekiel describes as invading
even the Temple.(478)

The intrigues of Egypt persisted, however, and, in 589 or 588, after the
accession of Pharaoh Hophra,(479) at last prevailed upon Judah. Sedekiah
yielded to the party of revolt and Nebuchadrezzar swiftly invested
Jerusalem. Roused to realities _the king and all the people of Jerusalem_
offered their repentance by a solemn covenant before God to enfranchise,
in obedience to the Law, those slaves who had reached a seventh year of
service. But when on the news of an Egyptian advance the Chaldeans raised
their siege, the Jewish slave-owners broke faith and pressed back their
liberated slaves into bondage.(480) This proved the last link in the long
chain of lies and frauds by which the hopelessly dishonest people fastened
upon them their doom. Egypt again failed her dupes. The Chaldeans, either
by the terror they inspired or by an actual victory on the field,
compelled her army to retire, and resumed the siege of Jerusalem. Though
Jeremiah counselled surrender and though the city was sapped by famine and
pestilence, the fanatics--to whom, however reluctantly, some admiration is
due--held out against the forces of Babylon for a year and a half. Then
came the end. The walls on the north were breached. Sedekiah fled by a
southern gate, upon an effort to reach the East of Jordan. He was
overtaken on the plains of Jericho, his escort scattered and himself
carried to Nebuchadrezzar's head-quarters at Riblah on the Orontes.
Thence, after his sons were slain before his eyes, and his eyes put out,
he was taken in fetters to Babylon. Nebusaradan, a high Babylonian
officer, was dispatched to Jerusalem to burn the Temple, the Palace and
the greater houses, and to transport to Babylon a second multitude of
Jews, leaving only _the poorest of the land to be vine-dressers and
husbandmen_.(481) This was in 586.

1. The Release of Hope. (XXIV, XXIX.)

From these rapidly descending years a number of prophecies by Jeremiah
have come to us, as well as narrati