ZEDEKIAH, zed"e-kai'd: Nineteenth and last king of Judah (597-586), son of Josiah, successor of Jehoiachin. By the sudden death of Josiah his sons Jehoahaz and then Jehoiakim (qq.v.) came to the throne, the last named, at first a vassal of Egypt and later of Babylonia, revolting from Babylonia and bringing about the interference of the. Babylonian king. His successor was his son Jehoiachin (q.v.), who with a number of his subjects was deported to' Babylon, while his uncle Zedekiah was made king in his place. In other circumstances Zedekiah might have made a good king, but the situation was too difficult for him to control. He lacked the firmness of will and the courage to restrain the fanatical elements among his people, especially those which counseled attempts at national independence. The diplomacy of Egypt, perhaps intensified by a change of rulers there, and the unrest of the neighboring states induced a tentative revolt from Babylonian vassalage, on account of which Zedekiah was compelled to journey to Babylon, where he seems to have conciliated Nebuchadrezzar. When Hophra came to the throne in Egypt, a false patriotism is Judah brought about revolt in Judah from Babylon in 588, and in 587 Nebuchadrezzar began the siege of Jerusalem. Relief seemed about to come from Hophra, and the siege was raised for a brief time, only to be renewed; the wall was breached, and Zedekiah tried to escape, getting as far as Jericho, when he was captured and taken before Nebuchadrezzar at Riblah; his sons were slain before his eyes, he was then blinded and carried in chains to Babylon, where he died in prison.

(R. Kittel.)

Bibliography: The literature on the period as given under Ahab; and Israel, History of; and the articles in the Bible dictionaries.

ZEISBERGER, DAVID: Moravian missionary to the American Indiana; b. at Zauchenthal (a hamlet in Moravia) Apr. 11, 1721; d. at Goshen, O., Nov. 17, 1808. When he was five years old, his parents fled with him to Herrnhut, and in this Moravian center he received his first training. He was then sent, after his father and mother had already emigrated to Georgia, to the Moravian settlement of Iierrendyk, Holland, but the discipline was so stern that he ran away fro England, where Oglethorpe assisted him to rejoin his parents in Georgia. With his brother Moravians he left Georgia in 1740 and was one of those who built the Pennsylvania towns of Nazareth and Bethlehem. In 1743 he was designated a member of the escort to accompany Count Zinzendorf on his return to Europe, nor was it until just before the ship sailed that his unwillingness to leave America became manifest, and he was permitted to remain. Soon afterward he resolved to devote his life to the evangelization of the American Indians, and from 1745 until 1807 he labored unceasingly in this cause. Studying first, Delaware and Onondaga, he later acquired Mohican, Monsey, and Chippewa. His initial work 'was at Shamokin, Pa., and Onondaga, N. Y. (1745-50), and after a visit to Europe in behalf of his mission, he returned to Onondaga in 1751, but was forced by the outbreak of the French and Indian War to return to Bethlehem, though he was a sachem and keeper of records to the Six Nations and an adopted member of the Monsey tribe. In 1755-62 he was largely employed in work among the Connecticut Indians, and during the war with Pontiac he was in charge of the Moravian Indians, whom he accompanied to Wyalusing, Pa., on the close of hostilities. He established a Mousey mission on the Alleghany River in 1767, and in 1770 commenced the building of the town of Friedenatadt on the Beaver. In 1772 he organized a mission on the Muskingum, in Ohio, and during the American Revolution it was mainly his influence that kept the Delawares from joining the British side. The Wyandottes, in revenge, broke up Zeisberger's mission in 1781, and he and his fellow missionaries were tried at Detroit as American spies, but were acquitted. In the year following nearly a hundred Christian Indiana were massacred by settlers at Gnadenhiitten, one of the many missions that Zeieberger founded, and he then led the remnant to the Clinton River, Mich., and thence to New Salem,

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O. (1787), and to his new settlement of Fairfield, Ont. (1791). In 1789 he was at last able to bring back a part of his Indians to the Tuacarawas Valley, O., where Congress granted them a large tract of land, and there he founded his last settlement, Goshen, where he passed the remainder of his life.

Among all the non-Roman Catholic missionaries to the American Indians Zeisberger deserves a foremost place. Though almost none of the settlements founded by him survived him, and although the immediate results of his work were small, yet his devotion to his cause was unsurpassed and his influence on his wards by no means ended with his death. His works thus far published are Delaware Indian and English Spelling-Book (Philadelphia, 1776); Collection. of Hymns for the Christian Indians (in Delaware; 1803); Sermons to Children (in Delaware; 1803); History of our Lord . . . Jesus Christ (Delaware harmony of the four Gospels, translated from S. Lieberkiihn's harmony; 1821); Diary, 1781-1798 (travel. E. F. Bliss, 2 vols., Cincinnati, 1885); Indian Dictionary, English, German, Iroquois [Onondaga] and Algonquin [Delaware] (ed. E. N. Horsford, Cambridge, 1887); Essay of an Onondaga Grammar (Philadelphia, 1888); and History of North American Indians (ed. A. B. Hulbert and. W. N. Schwarze, Columbus, O., 1910). Some of his most important works still remain unedited, e.g., his "German and Onondaga Lexicon" (in 7 vols.) and his "Delaware Grammar," the manuscripts being preserved partly in the library of the American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia and partly in the library of Harvard University.

Bibliography: C. G. Blumhardt, Vie de David Zeisberger, Neuchâtel, 1844; J. J. Heim, David Zeasberger, Bielefeld, 1849; E. De Schweinitz, Life and Times of David Zeisberger, Philadelphia, 1838, reissue, 1870; H. R6mer, Die Indianer und ihr Freund David Zeisberger, Gütersloh, 1890; J. Grunewald, David Zeisberger, 2d ed., Niesky, 1895; P. Steiner, David Zeisberger, Basel, 1905.