With the placement of Jehoiakim as the puppet king in 609 BCE, Judah was firmly in Egypt's hand. When the Egyptian army of
Necho II and his Assyrian allies were defeated by the
Babylonian army of
Nebuchadnezzar II and his allies—the
Medes,
Persians, and
Scythians—in the
Battle of Carchemish (605 BCE), Jehoiakim switched to be Babylonian vassal. In 601 BCE, a battle near
Pelusium between Egypt and Babylonia resulted in heavy casualties on both sides, forcing Nebuchadnezzar to return to Babylon to rebuild his army, but Jehoiakim apparently considered this as a Babylonian defeat, so he revolted against Babylonia and returned under the Egypt's wing. During 601-598 BCE Nebuchadnezzar dispatched 'raiding parties from various surrounding nations to harass Judah', until he mustered strong enough army to attack Jerusalem (cf.
Jeremiah 35:1,
11;
Zephaniah 2; Babylonian Chronicles,
ANET 564), while Egypt could not protect Judah anymore (verse 7). In late 598 BCE, the Babylonian army laid
siege to Jerusalem for three months. Jehoiakim apparently died before the siege ended. The
Book of Chronicles recorded that "Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon ... bound him in fetters, to carry him to Babylon." Jeremiah prophesied that he died without proper funeral, describing the people of Judah "shall not lament for him, saying, 'Alas, master!' or 'Alas, his glory!' He shall be buried with the burial of a donkey, dragged and cast out beyond the gates of Jerusalem" (
Jeremiah 22:18–19) "and his dead body shall be cast out to the heat of the day and the frost of the night" (
Jeremiah 36:30).
Josephus wrote that Nebuchadnezzar slew Jehoiakim along with high-ranking officers and then commanded Jehoiakim's body "to be thrown before the walls, without any burial."
Verse 1 :
In his days Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant for three years. Then he turned and rebelled against him. • "In his days": that is,
605 BCE, toward the end of the third year () and the beginning of the fourth year (
Jeremiah 25:1) of
Jehoiakim's reign. The
New King James Version's editors calculate the
exiles' "seventy years of service" to the king of Babylon (Jeremiah 25:11-12) from this date.
Verse 2 :
And the Lord sent against him raiding bands of Chaldeans, bands of Syrians, bands of Moabites, and bands of the people of Ammon; He sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the Lord which He had spoken by His servants the prophets. • "Bands": or "troops"
Verse 3 :
Surely at the commandment of the Lord this came upon Judah, to remove them from His sight because of the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done, • "Surely at the commandment of the Lord": literally, "only upon the mouth of
YHWH"; the Greek
Septuagint and Syriac versions read "wrath" instead of "mouth".
Verse 6 :
So Jehoiakim slept with his fathers, and Jehoiachin his son reigned in his place. • "Slept": rendered as "rested" (
NKJV) or "lay down".
Verse 7 :
And the king of Egypt did not come again out of his land, for the king of Babylon had taken all that belonged to the king of Egypt from the Brook of Egypt to the river Euphrates. • "
Brook of Egypt": mostly identified with
Wadi El-Arish an epiphemeral river pouring at the
Mediterranean sea near the city of
Arish (cf.
1 Kings 8:65). ==Jehoiachin, king of Judah (24:8–16)==