Lives of Scripture

Seraiah served as chief priest in Jerusalem when the Babylonian army finally breached the city's walls after a long siege, bringing the kingdom of Judah to its end. Nebuzaradan, the captain of Nebuchadnezzar's guard, seized Seraiah along with Zephaniah the second priest, three keepers of the threshold, a military officer, five royal counselors, a scribe, and sixty other men of standing from the city (2 Kings 25:18-19). All were brought to the king of Babylon at Riblah, where he had them struck down and put to death (25:20-21) -- "so Judah was led away into exile from its land." Seraiah's execution as the city's highest religious leader marks the brutal, definitive close of the monarchy and the beginning of exile. Yet his line did not end there: he was the father of Jehozadak, who was carried into exile, and an ancestor of Ezra the priest and scribe (Ezra 7:1), whose return generations later would help restore worship in Jerusalem.