John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 39:7

"Moreover he put out Zedekiah`s eyes, and bound him in fetters, to carry him to Babylon." — Jeremiah 39:7 (ASV)

Here was an accumulation of misery: the king had his eyes pulled out, after having been a witness to the slaughter of his own sons! He then saw piled up the dead bodies of his own offspring and of all his nobles. After that slaughter, he was made blind.

His life was, no doubt, prolonged so that he might die, as it were, little by little, according to what a notorious tyrant has said. Thus, Nebuchadnezzar intended to kill him a hundred and a thousand times, and not to put him to death at once, for death removes man from all the miseries of the present life. That Zedekiah remained alive was then a much harder condition.

And this has been recorded so that we may know that, because he had been so long obstinate against God, the punishment inflicted on him was long protracted. For he had not sinned through frivolity or lack of thought, or some hidden impulse, but had hardened himself against all truth and all counsel. It was therefore just that he should die little by little, and not be killed at once. This was the reason why the king of Babylon pulled out his eyes.

The Prophet says finally that he was bound with chains and, in this miserable condition, led into Babylon. This disgrace was an addition to his blindness: he was bound with chains as a criminal. It would have been better for him to have been taken immediately to the gallows or to have been put to death in any way; but it was Nebuchadnezzar’s design that he should lead a miserable life in this degraded state and be a public example of what treachery deserved.