2Ki 23:29-24:7 | NETfull | STEP | During Josiah’s reign Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt marched toward the Euphrates River to help the king of Assyria. King Josiah marched out to fight him, but Necho killed him at Megiddo when he saw him.

2 Kings 23:29-37

29 During Josiah’s reign Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt marched toward ^{▼▼ Heb “went up to.” The idiom עַל…עָלָה (’alah …’al) can sometimes mean “go up against,” but here it refers to Necho’s attempt to aid the Assyrians in their struggle with the Babylonians.} the Euphrates River to help the king of Assyria. King Josiah marched out to fight him, but Necho ^{▼▼ Heb “he”; the referent (Necho) has been specified in the translation for clarity.} killed him at Megiddo ^{▼▼ For location see Map1-D4; Map2-C1; Map4-C2; Map5-F2; Map7-B1.} when he saw him. 30 His servants transported his dead body ^{▼▼ Heb “him, dead.”} from Megiddo in a chariot and brought it to Jerusalem, where they buried him in his tomb. The people of the land took Josiah’s son Jehoahaz, poured olive oil on his head, ^{▼▼ Or “anointed him.”} and made him king in his father’s place.

Jehoahaz’s Reign over Judah

31 Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. ^{▼▼ For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; Journey of Paul map 1-F4; Journey of Paul map 2-F4; Journey of Paul map 3-F4; Journey of Paul map 4-F4.} His mother ^{▼▼ Heb “the name of his mother.”} was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah, from Libnah. 32 He did evil in the sight of ^{▼▼ Heb “in the eyes of.”} the Lord as his ancestors had done. ^{▼▼ Heb “according to all which his fathers had done.”} 33 Pharaoh Necho imprisoned him in Riblah in the land of Hamath and prevented him from ruling in Jerusalem. ^{▼▼ The consonantal text (Kethib) has “when [he was] ruling in Jerusalem,” but the marginal reading (Qere), which has support from Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, and Latin witnesses, has “[preventing him] from ruling in Jerusalem.”} He imposed on the land a special tax ^{▼▼ Or “fine.”} of one hundred talents ^{▼▼ The Hebrew term כִּכָּר (kikkar, “circle”) refers generally to something that is round. When used of metals it can refer to a disk-shaped weight made of the metal or to a standard unit of weight, generally regarded as a talent. Since the accepted weight for a talent of metal is about 75 pounds, this would have amounted to about 7,500 pounds of silver and 75 pounds of gold (cf. NCV, NLT); CEV “almost four tons of silver and about seventy-five pounds of gold.”} of silver and a talent of gold. 34 Pharaoh Necho made Josiah’s son Eliakim king in Josiah’s place, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. He took Jehoahaz to Egypt, where he died. ^{▼▼ Heb “and he took Jehoahaz, and he came to Egypt and he died there.”} 35 Jehoiakim paid Pharaoh the required amount of silver and gold, but to meet Pharaoh’s demands Jehoiakim had to tax the land. He collected an assessed amount from each man among the people of the land in order to pay Pharaoh Necho. ^{▼▼ Heb “And the silver and the gold Jehoiakim gave to Pharaoh, but he taxed the land to give the silver at the command of Pharaoh, [from] each according to his tax he collected the silver and the gold, from the people of the land, to give to Pharaoh Necho.”}

Jehoiakim’s Reign over Judah

36 Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned for eleven years in Jerusalem. ^{▼▼ For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; Journey of Paul map 1-F4; Journey of Paul map 2-F4; Journey of Paul map 3-F4; Journey of Paul map 4-F4.} His mother was Zebidah the daughter of Pedaiah, from Rumah. 37 He did evil in the sight of ^{▼▼ Heb “in the eyes of.”} the Lord as his ancestors had done.

2 Kings 24:1-7

1 During Jehoiakim’s reign, ^{▼▼ Heb “In his days.”} King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon attacked. ^{▼▼ Heb “came up.” Perhaps an object (“against him”) has been accidentally omitted from the text. See M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 306.} Jehoiakim was his subject for three years, but then he rebelled against him. ^{▼▼ The Hebrew text has “and he turned and rebelled against him.”} 2 The Lord sent against him Babylonian, Syrian, Moabite, and Ammonite raiding bands; he sent them to destroy Judah, as he had warned he would do through his servants the prophets. ^{▼▼ Heb “he sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the Lord which he spoke by the hand of his servants the prophets.”} 3 Just as the Lord had announced, he rejected Judah because of all the sins which Manasseh had committed. ^{▼▼ Heb “Certainly according to the word of the Lord this happened against Judah, to remove [them] from his face because of the sins of Manasseh according to all which he did.”} 4 Because he killed innocent people and stained Jerusalem with their blood, the Lord was unwilling to forgive them. ^{▼▼ Heb “and also the blood of the innocent which he shed, and he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the Lord was not willing to forgive.”}

5 The rest of the events of Jehoiakim’s reign and all his accomplishments, are recorded in the scroll called the Annals of the Kings of Judah. ^{▼▼ Heb “As for the rest of the events of Jehoiakim, and all which he did, are they not written on the scroll of the events of the days of the kings of Judah?”} 6 He passed away ^{▼▼ Heb “lay down with his fathers.”} and his son Jehoiachin replaced him as king. 7 The king of Egypt did not march out from his land again, for the king of Babylon conquered all the territory that the king of Egypt had formerly controlled between the Brook of Egypt and the Euphrates River.