Seraiah

Name and Other Bearers of the Name

Several people named Seraiah appear in the Old Testament. David's scribe (2 Samuel 8:17), the army captain who came to Gedaliah (2 Kings 25:23), the son of Neriah who served as chamberlain and went to Babylon with Zedekiah (Jeremiah 51:59), and a leader who returned from exile (Ezra 2:2) are all different individuals. This article concerns Seraiah, the high priest in Judah's final years.

The Biblical Record

• Lineage: According to 1 Chronicles 6:14, Seraiah was the son of Azariah and the father of Jehozadak (called "Jozadak" in Ezra, Nehemiah, and elsewhere). First Chronicles 6:15 records that Jehozadak went into captivity under Nebuchadnezzar.
• Death: According to 2 Kings 25:18–21 and Jeremiah 52:24–27, after Jerusalem fell, the Babylonian captain of the guard seized Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the second priest, the three keepers of the door of the temple, and others, and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah. The king of Babylon struck them down and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath.
• Descendants: Ezra 7:1 introduces Ezra the scribe as "the son of Seraiah."

Significance Within Scripture

Seraiah was the high priest of Judah when Jerusalem fell. His execution is recorded as one of the events marking the end of the kingdom and of temple worship in the time of Zedekiah. The high-priestly family, however, was not cut off. His son Jehozadak was carried into captivity, and his grandson Jeshua (Joshua) returned with Zerubbabel and became high priest (Ezra 3:2; Haggai 1:1). For this reason Seraiah is understood as a link between the priestly line before the exile and the line after it. The New Testament does not mention Seraiah directly.

Interpretive Issues

• Relationship to Ezra: Ezra lived in the Persian period, more than a century after Seraiah's death. Many commentators therefore take "son" in Ezra 7:1 in the sense of "descendant" and understand the genealogy as omitting intervening generations.
• Seraiah in Nehemiah 11:11: This verse mentions "Seraiah the son of Hilkiah," who was ruler of the house of God after the return. Some regard this figure as a different member of the same family as the high priest Seraiah, while others attribute the discrepancy to differences in genealogical notation. The text alone does not permit a firm conclusion.
• Scripture records nothing about Seraiah's faith or conduct. Any assessment of him is speculation beyond the text.

In the Korean Church

Seraiah is rarely the sole subject of a sermon or Sunday school lesson. His name comes up mainly in explanations of the Babylonian exile and the destruction of Jerusalem, or of the genealogy of Ezra and the high priest Jeshua.