Reshaping the Memory of Zedekiah and His Period in Chronicles

This chapter reconstructs the historical king Zedekiah, namely the Zedekiah of memory that existed within a particular community that consisted of early Second Temple literati who encountered, constructed, and remembered their own Zedekiah through social acts of imagination grounded on their readings and re-readings of texts that existed within their core, authoritative repertoire, and especially, Kings, Chronicles, Jeremianic, and Ezekielian texts. It focuses on the contribution of reading and rereading Chronicles to the shaping of this socially shared Zedekiah of memory. Rulers who are construed and remembered as 'last rulers', just as those remembered as 'first rulers', tend to carry substantial mnemonic mindshare in the relevant mnemonic communities. To understand the contribution of Chronicles it is imperative that, the contributions of other texts to that image be explored, both for what they say by themselves and what they say about the mnemonic system at work within the community. Keywords: chronicles; Ezekielian texts; Zedekiah