2. Chron. 35: 20. After all this.** Thirteen years after, in B.C. 608. For this period Jewish history is an absolute blank, since we can gather nothing certain from Jeremiah. It is not improbable that into this space fell the great invasion of the Seythians, who overran all Western Asia between the years B.C. 633 and B.C. 605, and who certainly came into these parts. Psammetichus, king of Egypt, met them at Ascalon, on the extreme frontier of Philistia toward Egypt (Herod. 2: 105); and in the valley of the Jordan they occupied permanently the old Canaanitish city of Bethshan. Otherwise their raid into Lower Syria seems to have been hasty, and though it must have created great alarm, to have left no permanent impression. Necho came up to fight against Carchemish. Rather, “at Carchemish.” Necho’s object was to engage the Assyrian (or rather the Babylonian) forces, which he expected to find in the vicinity of Carchemish, at this time the chief city of Northern Syria. B. C.

Politically, the time was a stirring one. The great invasion of Western Asia by the Scythic hordes (Herod. i. 103–106), which is alluded to by Jeremiah (6: 1–5), Ezekiel (38, 39), and perhaps by Zephaniah (2: 6), probably belongs to it; as also the attack of Psamatik I, upon Philistia, the fall of the Assyrian empire, and the destruction of Nineveh; the establishment of the independence of Babylon, and her rise to greatness; together with the transfer of power in the central part of Western Asia, from the Assyrians to the Medes. Amid the dangers which beset him, Josiah appears to have conducted himself prudently, gradually extending his power over Samaria and Galilee, without coming into hostile collision with any of the neighboring nations, until about the year B.C. 609 or 608, when his land was invaded by Pharaoh-Necho, the Neku of the Egyptian monuments. Josiah felt himself called upon to resist this invasion, and, in doing so, met his death. Hammond.

2. K. 23: 29. Pharaoh-Necho.** This king is well known to us both from profane historians and from the Egyptian monuments. Named after his grandfather, who was a tributary prince of Lower Egypt under the Assyrians, he succeeded his father, Psammetichus (Psamatik), in the year B.C. 610, and was king of Egypt for sixteen years, from B.C. 610 to 594 (Herod. ii. 159, confirmed by monuments). B. C.

2. Chron. 35: 21.** Such references to God—especially in the present circumstances—need not surprise us. Canon Cook gives an almost exactly parallel expression from a Pharaoh of the year 750 B.C. The eastern, in contradistinction to the western mind almost instinctively refers to the direct agency of the Divine Being certain human actions or remarkable events, and such expressions must not be too closely pressed according to our modern notions, nor yet literally understood. A. E.

22. Valley of Megiddo.** In a nook of the hills, about five miles northwest of Taanach, just on the borders of the plain, are ancient ruins, strewn with large fragments of marble sculptures and granite, on both sides of a little stream, but no modern village or houses. The place bears the name of Lejjun, the Arabic corruption of Legio, the Roman name of the Megiddo of the Old Testament. There are few spots of greater interest in the old history of Israel. From the brow here we look out upon the great plain of Esdraelon (the Greek corruption of its old name, the plain or “valley of Jezreel”), the great battle-field of Israel. The wide western portion of it may be called the plain of Megiddo. Megiddo was the fortress of the western portion of the plain. From its position it was the point of contact between the Israelites, who relied solely on their infantry, and the Canaanites and subsequent invaders, whose strength was in their cavalry and chariots. Hence it has been taken in the Apocalypse as the figurative name of the place of final conflict between the powers of good and evil, “called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon” (Rev. 16: 16)—i.e., “the Mount of Megiddo.”

Two of the great battles of Old Testament history occurred in front of Megiddo. The first was when Barak, stirred up by the prophetess Deborah, roused all the northern and central tribes to shake off the yoke of Jabin, king of Canaan. Sisera’s nine hundred chariots of iron were mustered in front of Taanach and Megiddo. Barak descended from Tabor, on the opposite side of the plain, and, as a terrific storm burst upon the Canaanites, fell upon them. The mountain torrents, rapidly swollen, poured down into the Kishon, the river overflowed, and the torrent swept away chariots and horses in hopeless confusion. So “the Lord discomfited Sisera.” Very different were the circumstances and the results of the second battle of Megiddo, six hundred and fifty years later. Pharaoh-Necho, king of Egypt, marching against the king of Assyria, came, as it would seem, along the plain of Sharon, and then, rounding Carmel, turned to march up the central plain toward Syria; when Josiah, determined to oppose his progress, met him at Megiddo. Here, exposing himself in his chariot, Josiah was mortally wounded by the Egyptian archers and carried to Jerusalem, where he died, overwhelming his nation in the bitterest grief. The lamentations for Josiah “were made an ordinance in Israel.” The battle of Megiddo is mentioned by Herodotus, who speaks of the Jews as Syrians. Josiah was not the first king of Judah to whom Megiddo had been fatal, for here Amaziah died of his wounds when he fled from Jehu (2 K. 9: 27). Tristram. (See Vol. III., pp. 184, 218).

The death of Josiah proved an irremediable disaster to the Jewish State. He left behind him a family torn by jealousies and supported by rival factions, a people hostile to the religious reforms he had carried through, and an army which had lost both its leader and its veterans. From henceforth Judah was no longer able to defend itself from an invader, whether Egyptian or Babylonian; and even the strong walls of Jerusalem no longer proved a defence in days when the method of warfare had changed, and a victorious army was content to sit down for years before a fortress until its defenders had been starved out. Necho’s triumph, however, was short-lived. Three years after the battle of Megiddo (n.c. 606), he had to meet the Babylonian army, under its young general Nebuchadnezzar, the son of Nabopolassar, at the ford of the Euphrates, which was protected by the old Hittite city of Carchemish. The battle of Carchemish finally decided who should be the master of Western Asia. The Egyptian forces were completely shattered, and Necho retreated with the wreck of his army to his ancestral kingdom. Judah and the countries which adjoined it passed under the yoke of Babylonia. Sayce.

2. Chron. 34: 24, 25.** Josiah, who in the course of the fight had been wounded by an arrow, was conveyed to Jerusalem in his second chariot (2 Chron. 35: 24), where he died of his wound in a short time. Great lamentation was made over him, and he was buried with all due honors in his own sepulchre, near the tombs of Amon and Manasseh. Jeremiah mourned his death in a special elegy, which continued to be sung by professional minstrels of both sexes till long after the return from the Captivity (2 Chron. 35: 25). G. R.—The result brought deep sorrow upon all his good people. Jeremiah bewailed his noble sovereign and bosom friend with tenderest lamentation—and not without reason. There were graceless sons to succeed their godly father on his throne—not one worthy man among them all. Days of bitter trial and of stinging grief were coming upon Jeremiah, and perhaps, to no small extent, upon those other good men who had wrought in this great reformation. They must breast the fury of this storm—and with no sustaining hope of arresting the near impending doom of their country. H. C.

The prophet Zechariah employs the mourning at Megiddo as a type of the more wholesome sorrow of Judah in the day when God shall pour out upon them the spirit of grace and prayer, as a preparation for His final destruction of all the nations that come up against Jerusalem; and his imagery is adopted in the visions of the Apocalypse. On the very scene of the two most signal defeats of Israel and Judah by their most inveterate enemies, the Philistines and Egypt, the seer beholds the mystic “battle of Armageddon,” which avenges all such defeats by the final overthrow of the kings of all the world in the great day of God Almighty.

The reign of Josiah was marked by the revival of prophecy, which had long been silent under Manasseh and Amon. To this period belong Nahum, Zephaniah, Habakkuk, and the greatest of all, Jeremiah. Nahum’s splendid prophecy of the destruction of Nineveh seems to have only preceded the event by a short time. The date of Habakkuk, though far from certain, has been placed, upon strong internal evidence, about the twelfth or thirteenth year of Josiah (n.c. 630-629). The title of Zephaniah’s prophecy places him in the reign of Josiah; and though it has been inferred from one passage that he wrote after the restoration of Jehovah’s worship, his vehement denunciations of the sins that prevailed in Judah seem rather applicable to an earlier period. Jeremiah’s long career began in the thirteenth year of Josiah (n.c. 629) with reproaches for sin and warnings of coming judgment, mingled with exhortations and encouragements to repentance, and promises of restoration. Though he is only once mentioned in the history of Josiah’s reign, the language of his own book assures us that, both as priest and prophet, he animated the king and people in the work of reformation, and most vigorously denounced the policy of the Egyptian party. His final lamentation for the fate of Josiah must have been doubly embittered by seeing Israel again prostrate beneath her old oppressor. P. S.

2. K. 23 : 25.** Josiah is perhaps the most blameless of the kings of Judah. “He did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the ways of David his father, and declined neither to the right hand nor to the left.” “Like unto him was there no king before him, that turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might; neither after him arose there any like him.” G. R.

26. Notwithstanding the Lord turned not.** The great misfortune was that, as to the generality of the court and people, all this seeming reformation was nothing but show and pretence, a mere compliance with the vigor and resolution of their prince; their hearts were never firmly in it; but, as plainly appears by the event, they were ready to revolt again into their old idolatry and vice upon the first opportunity. They complied with Josiah’s religion, but their real inclinations were to the old corruptions of Manasseh; for which reason God still resolved to deliver up this part of His chosen people also to the power of a foreign monarch. Pyle.—The people had sunk into a condition in which a true repentance was no longer possible. Individuals, like Josiah, were sincere, but the mass of the nation, despite their formal renewal of the covenant and their outward perseverance in Jehovah-worship, had feigned rather than felt repentance. The earlier chapters of Jeremiah are full at once of reproaches which he directs against the people for their insincerity, and of promises if they would repent in earnest. “Judah hath not turned unto me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the Lord” (Jer. 3 : 10). B. C.

The history of this ancient prince suggests that one who becomes a Christian early in life is likely to become a better man than one who first lives through a career of sin. He is likely to be a more consistent Christian. He will probably have fewer faults to get rid of, and fewer habits which his piety must break up. As soon as the young king was old enough to understand the state of things, he set himself, and his ministers, and his cabinet, and his soldiers, and his workmen, to putting things to rights. He began early, and kept at it, and spent his life in it. We are told that he “covenanted to serve God with all his heart and with all his soul.” This is making a business of doing right. He started with the very first thing that he had to do, and did it right, and in order to please God. Now this is the true way to be a Christian. There is no great mystery about it. There is nothing in it which a child cannot do by the grace of God as well as anybody else. God does not require you to go through any long season of unhappiness, in trying to feel as some others have felt in repenting of sin. You have only to do right in order to please Christ. That is religion, and that is the whole of it. Phelps.

Straightforward and Straightway are two good motto words for the Christian, and especially for the young Christian, as his habits are yet to be formed. He may well mark and fix in mind the meaning of righteousness as here indicated—rightness or rectitude. It is easy to conform to this idea of straightforwardness in conduct in early years; it is more difficult with every added year. Habit is a chain, whose links of thinnest wire at first increase to more than cable thickness at the end. “Since habit is our master,” says Bacon, “we should endeavor to form only the best habits.”

The example of Josiah is one of signal emphasis and force. His piety was not the result of favorable culture, but of his own deliberate choice in early manhood. Every step taken in the successive reforms carried out during his reign was planned and performed by himself. And the zeal, the courage, and the steadfastness of his faith in God, the thorough loyalty to the obligations of his kingly office, which so eminently characterized his youthful career, were maintained to the end of his life. His is one of the few stainless and noble characters in the sacred history.

Other high advantages of early consecration. 1. Absence of contaminating contact with evil, so that there is nothing to unlearn or retrace in experience, and nothing to undo in conduct. 2. Life is touched and tinctured at the outset and throughout with a freshness, a beauty, and a sweetness which hold it in perpetual youth, and which impart to it such effectiveness and fruitage that its close is peaceful and satisfying.

In the personal work of cleansing, all idols of the heart, all selfish aspirations, and all evil thoughts must be put utterly away. This is our life-work, comparatively easy if early begun, but hard in proportion to the length of time in which self-will and self-seeking have dominion, and to the strength of control which they have obtained over the heart. B.

Josiah must not be regarded as an example of the quiet growth of youthful piety under favorable culture. So evil were the influences about him that he only “began to seek after the God of David his father” in his sixteenth year. His religion was his own decided choice, as the first act of his opening manhood; a choice prompted by that loyalty to his high calling as the son of David, which marks every act of his reign. Doubtless he was aided and encouraged by some among the priests, and by prophets, such as Zephaniah and Jeremiah; but it is a striking feature of his history, that the king himself is the prime mover in every act of reformation. P. S.

The discovery of the Book of the Law reminds us that the true basis of all religious reform is the Word of God. Josiah had begun to restore the Temple, but he did not know how great the task was which he had taken in hand till he heard the law read. That recovered book gave impulse and direction to his efforts. The nearest parallel is the rediscovery of the Bible in the sixteenth century, or, if we may take one incident as a symbol of the whole, Luther’s finding the dusty Latin Bible among the neglected convent books. The only reformation of an effete or secularized church is its return to the Bible. A. M.—The Reformation was, in all senses, a resurrection of the Bible; its recovery and restoration as an ancient document; the recognition of its authority as the word of God; the discovery of its meaning as a rule of faith and worship and life, and its new diffusion through the Christian body. The restoration of the Scriptures to their place of power and honor brought with it a revival of true piety scarcely if at all inferior in extent and fervency to that which attended the preaching of the apostles. I. T.

God’s providence is seen in nothing more remarkably than in the care He has exercised over the written Word. He has wonderfully protected it through all ages alike from the neglect and the fury of men. If for a time the knowledge of it seemed lost, it was again revived at the most favorable juncture for the execution of His purposes. It was Josiah’s zeal in the repairing of the Temple which prepared the way for the discovery here; and the book was found just in time to give a new impetus to the reforming movement. In Divine providence, all things fit together in time and place. J. O.

In the loss of the Bible and its fruits we should lose the knowledge of the true God. History proves this beyond reasonable dispute. God must speak, or man does not find Him. Mankind needs a book to keep alive in the earth the knowledge of a spiritual and personal God. By the loss of the Scriptures and their results from the knowledge of mankind, we should lose sooner or later our institutions of benevolence. Benevolence on any large scale, and in the form of permanent institutions, and for all classes of mankind is a biblical idea. In the loss of the Bible and its fruits, we should sooner or later suffer the loss of our institutions for popular education. Culture has existed without a revelation from heaven. Schools are not the product of the Bible only. But it is beyond question that popular education is of Bible origin. Other than Christian religions build themselves on the ignorance of the masses. By the loss of the Scriptures and their creations, we should sooner or later part with our institutions of civil liberty. History shows that the great charter of freedom in the world is the word of God. The great free nations of the earth are the great Christian nations. Phelps.

God’s word is the only agent in humanizing and civilizing mankind. In proportion as it is searched, understood, and obeyed, is human nature lifted up, developed, expanded in all its faculties, purified and ennobled. Even now were the Bible to be destroyed, the nations would be ultimately remitted to barbarism. This is the one supreme lesson of all history, in the Jewish and the Christian dispensations.

The true value and real efficiency of the Bible lies not in the number of copies printed, nor in the extent of their distribution; not in the mere possession, but in the regularity, fidelity and heart-interest with which they are searched, and their truths pondered. Bless God that you have a Bible, but do not rest complacently, or even gratefully, in the possession. Get the far better, the needful and all-essential blessing of His Spirit’s enlightening and impressing influences upon its quickening, sanctifying and helping truths. Thus only will the Bible be a newly found treasure every day. Thus your vision of truth will be widened, its transforming power will be augmented, and its enriching, comforting and delighting influence enhanced.

All who have the Bible and appreciate its worth and power by experience will seek to put it into every hand that has it not. Nay more, every heart that is in any measure “sanctified through the truth” will pray for a similar effect to be wrought by the Spirit upon all who receive the Word.

By the Law is the knowledge of sin. So was it in this case of Josiah. So is it in every other. He frankly met his responsibility when he received the needed knowledge. He felt, and by the symbol of rending his clothes acknowledged and confessed, his own sin, and the sin of his people. In his words and his act of inquiry before God, he virtually repeated the confession and the prayer of David (Ps. 51). B.

If a man will give God’s word a fair hearing, and be honest with himself, it will bring him to his knees. No man rightly uses God’s law who is not convinced by it of his sin, and impelled to that self-abased sorrow of which the rent royal robes were the passionate expression. Josiah was wise when he did not turn his thoughts to other people’s sins, but began with his own, even while he included others. The first function of the law is to arouse the knowledge of sin, as Paul profoundly teaches. Without that penitent knowledge religion is superficial, and reformation merely external. A. M.

Josiah’s thought and feeling, and his confession and prayer were for his people as much as himself. All alike had sinned, and all deserved the wrath of God. That wrath he sought to avert from all. And he would have the people join in his conviction of sin, share in his confession of it, and unite in his prayer, that its consequences of wrath might be averted. Herein are clearly indicated old and vital lessons. Sin, personal and national, still brings the same wrath of God. That wrath is averted only and surely by full confession, and by frank and utter trust in the promised and long-illustrated mercy of God. B.

It is remarkable that through the whole of Josiah’s long reign—one of the longest in Judean annals—not one wrong thing is recorded of him. Doubtless he had faults, and did wrong things; but not one was important enough to be mentioned in the Bible. The only important mistake recorded of him was that in which he lost his life by fighting with the king of Egypt. Except that one mistake of excessive bravery and patriotism, not a thing is recorded of him that went wrong. Phelps.

God never promises anywhere that those who love and fear Him shall be always saved from the consequences of their mistakes. Josiah was mistaken in going out against Pharaoh-Necho. And he sent to urge him not to assail him as an enemy, when he was not at enmity with him. And this warning of the Egyptian king, though he did not know it, was really a warning from God, and is therefore called “the words of Necho from the mouth of God.” Josiah did not regard this warning, and God allowed the natural consequences of his own act to take their course. The arrow did not turn aside because Josiah was a servant of Jehovah, but did its deadly work. What God did then, He does now. Champneys.

REIGN OF JEHOAHAZ, THREE MONTHS. REIGN OF JEHOIAKIM, ELEVEN YEARS. INCIDENTS REPORTED BY JEREMIAH.

23 : 31 JEHOAHAZ was twenty and three years old when he began to reign ; and he reigned three months in Jerusalem : and his mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his fathers had done.

JEHOAHAZ, three months of B.C. 608. (1) 1 Chron. 3: 15; Jer. 22: 11, 12; 2 K. 23: 31, 36, his name was originally Shallum. (2) 2 K. 23: 30-33; 2 Chron. 36: 1-3, the tenure by which he held the throne. (3) 2 K. 23: 32, character of his reign. W. J. B.

The death of Josiah, in B.C. 608, marks the virtual end of the kingdom of Judah. The four kings who followed him were the mere pup- pets of Egypt and Babylon, and the twenty- two years of their nominal reigns are occupied with successive conquests and deportations. These twenty-two years are divided into two equal parts by the captivity of Jehoiachin. P. S.

The defeat of the Judean army and the death of Josiah not only put an end to his great re- formatory movement, and to the hopes of the possible reunion and recovery of Israel and Ju- dah, but it sounded the knell of Jewish inde- pendence. Henceforth Judah was alternately vassal to Egypt or Babylonia. According to 1 Chron. 3: 15, Josiah had four sons, of whom the eldest, Johanan, seems to have died, either before his father or perhaps in the battle of Me- giddo. The other three, arranging them in the order of age, were Eliakim, afterward called Jehoiakim; Shallum, afterward called Jeho- ahaz; and Zedekiah. On the death of Josiah “the people of the land” made and anointed, as his successor, not the eldest royal prince, but his younger brother Shallum, who, on his accession, assumed the name Jehoahaz, “Je- hovah holds up” (cf. 2 K. 23: 30 with Jer. 22: 11 and 1 Chron. 3: 15). From the fate which so speedily overtook him, we may infer that the popular choice of Jehoahaz was largely influenced by his opposition to Egypt. Of his brief reign of three months we only know that “he did the evil in the sight of Jehovah.” Meantime, Necho had, after the battle of Me- giddo, continued his march toward Syria. Thither at Riblah (the modern Ribieh, on the Orontes), “in the land of Hamath,” the victor summoned the new Jewish king. On his ar- rival, Jehoahaz, who had been crowned with- out the leave of Necho, was put in bonds. Necho does not seem, on this occasion, to have pursued his expedition against Assyria. The great battle at Carchemish, to which the chron- icer refers by anticipation (2 Chron. 35: 20), was fought on a second expedition, three years later, when the Egyptian army under Necho was defeated with great slaughter by Nebu- chadnezzar, the son of Nabopolassar. This was after the fall of Nineveh, and when the Babylonian or Chaldean empire had taken the place of the Assyrian. But on the present oc- casion Necho seems to have returned, before encountering the Assyrians, into Egypt, whither “he brought” with him Jehoahaz, who died in captivity. A. E.

Jehoahaz pleased the popular imagination, which saw in him a “young lion,” well trained to “catch the prey” and capable of “devour- ing men” (Ezek. 19: 3). The hope was enter- tained that he would raise the fallen fortunes of Judea, and recover her glories for her (ibid., verse 5); and when this hope was disappointed by his capture and deportation to Egypt, the regret was excessive. Among others, Jeremiah himself bewailed him. “Weep ye not for the dead,” he said—i.e., for Josiah—“neither bemoan him, but weep sore for him that goeth away; for he shall return no more, nor see his native country” (Jer. 22:10). No Jewish prince before him had died in exile; and the prophecy that he should do so touched the nation’s heart with a feeling of deep commiseration. G. R.—His brief reign was characterized by wickedness and oppression, but he was lamented as the last king of the people’s choice. The fortunes of Jehoahaz and his two successors are described in highly poetical imagery by Ezekiel (19:1-9). P. S.

Jehoiakim’s Accession, 608 B.C., his “first year” being the year 607 B.C. (2 K. 23:33-36; 2 Chron. 36:3-5). 1. His tenure of the throne. 2. The fine, why levied, and how paid. 3. General character of his reign.

“The Beginning” of his Reign, perhaps B.C. 607, 606. 1. Jer. 26:20-23, the prophesying and death of Urijah (by extradition from Egypt). 2. Jer. 26, the trial of Jeremiah for prophesying. 3. Jer. 7-10, fuller text of the prophecies for which he was tried, cf. 7:2 and 26:2: (a) 7:12-15 and 26:6, 9, etc.; 9:11, cf. 26:9, the two specifications of the charge; (b) 26:17-19, the precedent cited in Jeremiah’s favor; (c) 26:20-23, the precedent cited against him.

His Third Year, B.C. 605, accession year of Nebuchadnezzar (2 K. 24:1; 2 Chron. 36:6, 7; Dan. 1:1-16). Jehoiakim changes masters.

His Fourth Year, B.C. 604, the “first” year of Nebuchadnezzar. 1. Jer. 46:1-49:33; 25:1-38, especially verse 13. Jeremiah’s written prophecy “concerning the nations;” the great battle of Carchemish. 2. Jer. 45; 36:1-8. Baruch writing Jeremiah’s prophecies.

His Fifth Year, B.C. 603, Jer. 36:9-32. 1. Burning of Baruch’s first roll, and writing of the second. 2. Daniel and his companions, Dan. 1:17-20, graduate from Nebuchadnezzar’s training school; Dan. 2, Nebuchadnezzar’s dream.

Remainder of his Reign, B.C. 602-597. 1. 2 K. 24:1-4, his rebellion and its consequences.

2. Jer. 35, the Rechabites. 3. Jer. 22:1-4, etc., opportunities for repentance. 4. Jer. 52:28, three thousand and twenty-three persons deported in the seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar, the tenth of Jehoiakim. 5. 2 K. 24:6; Jer. 36:30, 31; 22:18, 19, his death, in Jerusalem, by violence, in his eleventh year. W. J. B.

The prophets Zephaniah, Habakkuk and Jeremiah belong to the kingdom of Judah, in the Babylonian period. The characteristics of this period shed much light upon their utterances. It was a time of widespread and increasing corruption. In the face of judgments, the nation is presumptuous in self-confidence and obstinate in sin. False prophets abound and are strong in influence. The true prophets of Jehovah suffer persecution. The Babylonian power, the instrument of the Divine judgment, arises, threatens and at length executes. Judah falls before it, as the kingdom of the north had fallen before Assyria. The prophecy of this period is characterized chiefly by denunciation, yet is not without consolation. For Judah there exists a larger hope than, previously, for Israel. She is not completely apostate, nor is she to disappear finally from history. Moreover, the time is peculiarly ripe for the proclamation of the world-judgment, and in this is found hope for the remnant of Judah. The leading figure of the times is Jeremiah. His ministry was long in duration; the record of it is extensive. The activity of his contemporaries was shorter; their recorded prophecies are brief. Zephaniah emphasizes especially “the day of Jehovah” and its results. His message, strongly positive, is directed principally to Judah. Habakkuk has left us one of the most beautiful books of Hebrew literature. His message is particularly directed against Babylon. Especially does he emphasize abiding faithfulness toward Jehovah. G. S. Burroughs.

With the reign of Jehoiakim began, within the walls of Jerusalem, one of the noblest and most glorious moral contests which the page even of sacred history records. Almost single-handed, for the long period of above twenty years, the gentle and timid Jeremiah stood forth for the Lord in opposition to the united power and fury of the kings, princes and priests of Jerusalem. In his communings with his God we have glimpses of the dreadful expense of personal suffering at which this conflict was maintained by him; but in public, whether in prison or at large, in the palace or in the Temple, we never see him flinch from uttering the stern message committed to him. W. G. B.

Summaries of Jehoiakim’s Reign.

Jehoiakim, the eighteenth king of Judah, was twenty-five years old when he was placed on the throne by Pharaoh-Necho, instead of his brother Jehoahaz; and he reigned eleven years at Jerusalem, doing evil in the sight of Jehoah. Jeremiah sternly rebukes his injustice and oppression, his cruelty and avarice, and his reckless luxury in building himself a magnificent palace, and contrasts all this with his father’s justice to the poor; and in the Chronicles his name is dismissed with an allusion to “all the abominations that he did.” From the very commencement of his reign, the voice of Jeremiah is heard plainly predicting, and prefiguring by striking signs, the captivity at Babylon as a judgment rendered inevitable by the people’s sins, but adding the promise of their future restoration. In one of these prophecies, after mourning the death of Josiah and the hopeless captivity of Jehoahaz, he predicts the fate of Jehoiakim to the very details of his dishonored end (22:1-23). On another occasion the prophet took his stand in the court of the Temple, amid an assemblage from all the cities of Judah, to proclaim that God would even yet repent Him of the coming evil if they turned to Him, but if not, that His house should be destroyed like the tabernacle at Shiloh, and the city made a curse to all nations. The priests and prophets now resolved on Jeremiah’s death; and they had a precedent in the case of Urijah, the son of Shemaiah of Kirjath-jearim, who, having uttered prophecies like those of Jeremiah, had been pursued by the envoys of Jehoiakim into Egypt, and brought back to suffer an ignominious death. The princes of Judah, however, before whom Jeremiah was arraigned, appealed to the better precedent of the times of Hezekiah, who allowed Micah to prophesy with impunity, and Jeremiah’s life was saved by the influence of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, and other old counsellors of Josiah (Jer. 26). These warnings were given in the beginning of Jehoiakim’s reign, and their fulfilment was soon begun by the overthrow of his Egyptian protector. P. S.

The armies of Nebuchadnezzar and Pharaoh-Necho met in the vicinity of Carchemish (now Jerablus), in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, which was the accession year of Nebuchadnezzar, and contended in a great battle, wherein ultimately the Babylonians were victorious. The battle is prophetically, but very graphically, described by the prophet Jeremiah (46:3-12). Jehoiakim was only too glad to submit, and become Nebuchadnezzar’s servant (2 K. 24:1) instead of Necho’s, and pay his homage and his tribute to his new sovereign. The kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, probably also those of Tyre and Sidon, did the same. Nebuchadnezzar, however, was prevented from punishing Necho as he desired, or completing his arrangements for the future government of Syria and Palestine, by intelligence which reached him as he was about to ascend the valley of the Nile. His father, Nabopolassar, had succumbed to his weight of years, and died at Babylon, in the twenty-first year of his reign, n.c. 605. Arrived at Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar ascended the throne without difficulty, but the state of affairs seeming to require his presence in the East rather than in the West, he for some time left Syria and Palestine to themselves—a policy sure to result in fresh troubles. A single defeat was not likely to have cowed the possessor of an old and powerful monarchy; and the petty kingdoms of southwestern Asia were almost certain to incline to that one of the two rival empires which was not at the time their master. Necho, under the circumstances, naturally encouraged this disposition, and it was not long before some of the petty kings openly revolted and declared themselves independent of Babylon. Jehoiakim was the first to take the plunge. In the fourth year after his subjugation, n.c. 602, despite the warnings of Jeremiah, he “turned and rebelled against” Nebuchadnezzar (2 K. 24:1). At first the Great King was content to punish him by sending against him a few “bands” of Chaldeans, which, in combination with some of the neighboring nations—as the Syrians, the Moabites, and the Ammonites—plundered and ravaged his territory; but about the year n.c. 598, Ithobal, king of Tyre, having also rebelled, he marched at the head of a large army into Syria. The sieges of Tyre and Jerusalem were formed simultaneously; but, while Tyre resisted with great obstinacy, Jerusalem very soon succumbed. Jehoiakim fell into Nebuchadnezzar’s hands, was executed, and received at first “the burial of an ass” (Jer. 22:19); but his remains were afterward collected, and interred in the sepulchre of Manasseh. G. R.

2. K. 24:1.** The sudden disappearance of Assyria from the scene, and the sudden appearance of Babylon upon it at this point of the history, are very remarkable. Without a word upon the circumstances that had brought it about, the writer of Kings shows us that a great crisis in the world’s history has come and gone; that the mighty State which had dominated Western Asia for centuries is no more, and has been superseded by a new and hitherto scarce heard of power. “In his [Jehoiakim’s] days Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came up.” Babylon had in remote days (Gen. 10: 8-10) been a powerful State, and had even possessed an empire; but for the last seven hundred years or more she had been content to play a very secondary part in Western Asia, and had generally been either an Assyrian feudatory or an integral part of the Assyrian monarchy. But in the counsels of God it had been long decreed that she, and not Assyria, should be God’s instrument for the chastisement of His people. Therefore, as the appointed time for Assyria’s fall approached, Babylon was made to increase in power and greatness. A wave of invasion, which passed over the rest of Western Asia, left her untouched. A great monarch was given her in the person of Nabopolassar, who read aright the signs of the times, saw in Media a desirable ally, and, having secured Median co-operation, revolted against the long-established sovereign power. A short, sharp struggle followed, ending in the utter collapse of the great Assyrian empire, and the siege and fall of Nineveh. The two conquering States partitioned between them the Assyrian dominions—Media taking the countries which lay to the northwest and north, Babylon those toward the southwest and south. Thus, so far as the Jews were concerned, Babylon, between B.C. 625 and B.C. 608, had stepped into Assyria’s place. She had become “the hammer of the whole earth” (Jer. 50: 23); God’s battle-axe and weapons of war (Jer. 51: 20), wherewith He brake in pieces nations and kingdoms, man and woman, old and young, captains and rulers. The prophecy of Isaiah to Hezekiah (chap. 20: 16-19), which seemed so unlikely of fulfilment at the time that it was uttered, found a natural and easy accomplishment, the course of events in the latter part of the seventh century B.C. having transferred to Babylonia, under Divine direction and arrangement, that grand position and dignity which had previously been Assyria’s. When she had served God’s purpose, Babylon’s turn came; and she sank as suddenly as she had risen, because she too had been “proud against the Lord” (Jer. 50: 29), and had provoked His indignation. Hammond.

2,3. The rejection of Judah is again in these verses connected with the sin of Manasseh, only, however, as before shown, because people and rulers made these sins their own, and would not depart from them. Heathenism was again rampant, and Jehoiakim, like Manasseh, was shedding “innocent blood.” Scripture knows no fatalism beyond that which springs from the incorrigibleness of a people wedded to their sins. Neither is there any sin which, if sincerely repented of, God will not pardon, though its temporal effects may still have to be endured. But there is the awful possibility of getting beyond pardon through our own obduracy. Both sides of the truth are seen in Jeremiah—on the one hand, exhortations to repentance, with assurances of forgiveness (Jer. 18: 7-10; 26: 1-3; 35: 15); and, on the other, declarations that the time for pardon was past (Jer. 7: 13-16, 27, 28; 11: 11-14; 15: 1; 18: 11, 12; 36: 16, 17, etc.). It was not because the fathers had eaten sour grapes that the children’s teeth were set on edge (Ezek. 18: 2); but the children had walked in the fathers’ ways. J. O.

2. Chron. 36: 6, 7. Nebuchadnezzar advanced to Jerusalem, which he took after a brief siege, dethroned Jehoiakim, and put him in fetters, with a view to carry him to Babylon. For some reason this intention was abandoned, and Jehoiakim was restored to his throne as a vassal. His treasures were carried off to Babylon, where the vessels of the sanctuary were dedicated in the temple of Belus. At the same time Nebuchadnezzar commissioned Ashpenaz, the chief of his eunuchs, to choose a number of royal and noble Hebrew youths, excelling alike in beauty and mental accomplishments, to be brought up at his court and trained in the learning of Chaldea. Among those thus selected were Daniel, with his three companions, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. P. S.—Nebuchadnezzar was one of the most mild of all the Assyrian and Babylonian sovereigns. While a skilful warrior, he cared more for building and adorning temples, for beautifying Babylon and for constructing great canals, than for the clash of war. When Jehoiakim submits, Nebuchadnezzar leaves him quietly on the throne. When he revolts, the Babylonian army comes again—“surely at the commandment of Jehovah,” writes the historian, “came this upon Judah, to remove them out of His sight, for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he did.” Lyon.

2. K. 24: 7. And the king of Egypt came not again any more out of his land. Necho’s two expeditions were enough for him. In the first he was completely successful, defeated Josiah, overran Syria as far as Carchemish, and made Phœnicia, Judea, and probably the adjacent countries tributary to him. In the second (Jer. 46 : 2-12) he suffered a calamitous reverse, was himself defeated with great slaughter, forced to fly hastily, and to relinquish all his conquests. After this, he

“came not any more out of his land.” Whatever hopes he held out to Judea or to Tyre, he was not bold enough to challenge the Babylonians to a third trial of strength, but remained peaceably within his own borders. Hammond.

The writers of Kings and Chronicles include Jehoiakim’s reign of eleven years in nine and four verses respectively, only four verses (in Kings) more than Jehoahaz’s reign of three months. All the detail of Jehoiakim’s history we find in the 26th and 36th chapters of Jeremiah, which follow. The 45th chapter is added to complete the story of Baruch. B.