The kingdom that Josiah rebuilt fell apart the moment he died. Josephus records that when <strong>Pharaoh Neco</strong> marched through Judah on his way to fight the Babylonians at the Euphrates, Josiah refused to let him pass. Neco sent messengers pleading with him—this was not his war. Josiah ignored the warning. In the battle, an Egyptian arrow struck him down. He died at age thirty-nine, and the prophet Jeremiah composed an elegy for him.
What followed was a cascade of puppet kings and catastrophe. Josiah's son Jehoahaz reigned only three months before Neco hauled him to Egypt in chains and installed his brother Jehoiakim on the throne instead. Jehoiakim was, in Josephus's words, "of a wicked disposition, and ready to do mischief." He paid tribute to Babylon for three years, then foolishly rebelled.
Nebuchadnezzar came personally. He killed Jehoiakim and threw his body outside the city walls unburied—exactly as Jeremiah had prophesied (Jeremiah 22:19). Nebuchadnezzar installed young Jehoiachin, who lasted just three months before the Babylonian king changed his mind, dragged him to Babylon along with ten thousand captives, and placed Zedekiah on the throne instead.
Zedekiah was warned repeatedly. Jeremiah told him directly: surrender to Babylon and the city survives; resist and everything burns. Zedekiah secretly believed the prophet but feared his own officials who had defected to Babylon. He chose pride over survival. After an eighteen-month siege, the Babylonians breached Jerusalem on the ninth day of the fourth month. Zedekiah fled by night through the desert. They caught him near Jericho. Nebuchadnezzar forced him to watch his sons executed, then put out his eyes—fulfilling both Jeremiah's prophecy that he would see the king face to face, and Ezekiel's that he would be brought to Babylon but never see it. The Temple of Solomon was burned to the ground.