Bible Commentaries

2 Chronicles 35:1-18];

23. But in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, wherein this passover was holden to the Lord in Jerusalem.

24. Moreover the workers with familiar spirits, and the wizards, and the images, and the idols, and all the abominations that were spied in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, did Josiah put away, that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of the Lord.

25. And 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, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose there any like him. [A panegyric not to be pushed to the letter, but to be understood in the spirit]

26. Notwithstanding the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath, wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocations [wrath is heaped upon wrath] that Manasseh had provoked him withal.

27. And the Lord said, I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed Israel, and will cast off this city Jerusalem which I have chosen, and the house of which I said, My name shall be there.

28. Now the rest of the acts of Josiah, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? [Josiah lived thirteen years after the celebration of his great passover.]

29. ¶ In his days Pharaoh-nechoh king of Egypt went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates: and king Josiah went against him; and he slew him at Megiddo, when he had seen him. [In The Speaker's Commentary we learn that Megiddo lies on the caravan route from Egypt to Damascus, the ordinary line for an army. Josiah probably took up his position here, near the point where the road over the hill debouches upon the plain, in order to assail with all his force the head of the Egyptian column as it merged from the pass into more open ground. The battle would be fought, not at the point itself, which is on a hill, but in the valley at its foot, as is noted in 2 Chronicles 35:22. When Necho found his way blocked by Josiah's troops, he sent ambassadors to him, and tried to induce him to retire but as Josiah refused to move, Necho was obliged to fight. According to one rendering, the Jewish king, following an unhappy precedent—that of Ahab—disguised himself before entering into the battle, and like Ahab was slain by a chance arrow.]

30. And his servants carried him in a chariot dead [mortally wounded] from Megiddo, and brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own sepulchre [in the new cemetery made by Manasseh]. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz [Shallum originally] the son [not the eldest] of Josiah, and anointed him [a rite observed only where there was some irregularity in the succession], and made him king in his father's stead.

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.

32. And he did that which was evil [Josephus calls him irreligious and of impure habits] in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done.

33. And Pharaoh-nechoh put him in bands [loaded him with chains] at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem; and put the land to a tribute [set a mulct upon the land] of an hundred talents of silver, and a talent of gold.

34. And Pharaoh-nechoh made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in the room of Josiah his father [Necho did not acknowledge that Jehoahaz had ever been king], and turned his name to Jehoiakim, and took Jehoahaz away: and he came to Egypt, and died there.

35. And Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh; but he taxed the land to give the money according to the commandment of Pharaoh: he exacted the silver and the gold of the people of the land, of every one according to his taxation, to give it unto Pharaoh-nechoh.

36. Jehoiakim was twenty and five years old when he began to reign; and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Zebudah, the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah.

37. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done.