A biblical Hebrew name meaning the Lord is righteousness or Yahweh is just.
Zedekiah — צִדְקִיָּהוּ in Hebrew — is one of the most dramatically charged names in all of Scripture. Its meaning is transparent and noble: "Yahweh is my righteousness" or "the justice of God." Like Joash and Hezekiah, it belongs to the theophoric naming tradition of ancient Judah, where the divine name was woven into children's identities as a form of living theology.
The name's weight, however, comes less from its etymology than from the devastating story attached to its most famous bearer. Zedekiah was the last king of Judah, appointed by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon after the first deportation of the Jerusalem elite in 597 BCE. His reign ended in catastrophe: he rebelled against Babylonian authority, the city of Jerusalem fell after a brutal siege, the Temple was destroyed, and Zedekiah himself was forced to watch the execution of his sons before his eyes were put out — the final image he ever saw.
The prophet Jeremiah urged submission and was ignored; the Books of Kings and Jeremiah together render Zedekiah as a tragic figure: not wicked in the monstrous register of some kings, but fatally indecisive, unable to hold his nerve between God's counsel and his courtiers' pressure. For centuries Zedekiah was too weighted with catastrophe for everyday use. But in an era when parents eagerly reach for Ezekiel, Josiah, and Nehemiah, Zedekiah has begun appearing again — worn, sometimes, with the nickname Zed, which gives it a pleasingly modern, laconic energy. It is a name of enormous historical gravity and unmistakable Biblical authenticity.