Difference between revisions of "Jehoiakim" - New World Encyclopedia

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During his reign, [[Nebuchadnezzar II]] invaded Judah and forced Jehoiakim  to shift his allegiance from Egypt to Babylon. Jehoiakim later refused to continue paying tribute to [[Nebuchadrezzar II]], which resulted in the subsequent [[Siege of Jerusalem (597 B.C.E.)|siege of Jerusalem]] of 597 B.C.E., just prior to which Jehoiakim died, probably of natural causes. He was succeeded by his son Jehoiachin, who soon surrendered to the Babylonians, resulting in the deportation of many of Jerusalem's nobles, craftsmen, and other leading citizens.
 
During his reign, [[Nebuchadnezzar II]] invaded Judah and forced Jehoiakim  to shift his allegiance from Egypt to Babylon. Jehoiakim later refused to continue paying tribute to [[Nebuchadrezzar II]], which resulted in the subsequent [[Siege of Jerusalem (597 B.C.E.)|siege of Jerusalem]] of 597 B.C.E., just prior to which Jehoiakim died, probably of natural causes. He was succeeded by his son Jehoiachin, who soon surrendered to the Babylonians, resulting in the deportation of many of Jerusalem's nobles, craftsmen, and other leading citizens.
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==Biblical data==
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[[Image:Jeremiah-Scroll.jpg|thumb|Jehoiachin's father, [[Jehoiakim]], destoys the writings of [[Jeremiah]]]]
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===Background===
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Jehoiakim lived at a time of great crisis for the [[Kingdom of Judah]]. His father, [[Josiah]] had been considered Judah's greatest king since David by the biblical writers, but had been shockingly killed in battle against Pharaoh [[Necho II]] at the battle of Megiddo. Josiah's religious reforms, in which he violently suppressed all non-Jewish religions and banned even sacrifices to Yahweh outside of Jerusalem's temple, was greeted with tremendous enthusiasm by the temple priesthood, who had presented Josiah as a new Joshua or Moses for his religious policy and political courage in the face of Egyptian northern incursions. Judah now found itself sandwiched between two colliding great civilizations: [[Egypt]] and [[Babylonia]].
  
 
==Biblical Data==
 
==Biblical Data==
Jehoiakim  was the eldest son of King [[Josiah]] and the brother and successor of Jehoahaz (Shallum), whom Pharaoh Necho had deposed. When placed on the throne, his name, originally "Eliakim," was changed to "Jehoiakim" (II Kings 23:4). During his reign King [[Nebuchadnezzar II]] of Babylon invaded Palestine, entered [[Jerusalem]], and compelled Jehoiakim to pay tribute to him. However, after three years Jehoiakim rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar, a decision which ultimately brought ruin upon himself and upon the country. Dying after a reign of 11 years, he was buried "with the burial of an ass, drawn, and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem" (Jer. 22:19). It was Jehoiakim who slew the prophet Uriah "and cast his dead body into the graves of the common people" (Jer. 26:23); and it was he also who impiously "cut with the penknife and cast into the fire" Jeremiah's roll of prophecies after several of them had been read to the king (36:23).
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Jehoiakim  was the eldest son of King [[Josiah]] but it was his younger brother Jehoahaz (Shallum), who took the throne after Josiah's death. Pharaoh Necho quickly deposed him and place When placed Jehoiakim on the throne, changing his name, originally "Eliakim," to "Jehoiakim" (II Kings 23:4). During his reign King [[Nebuchadnezzar II]] of Babylon invaded Palestine, entered [[Jerusalem]], and compelled Jehoiakim to pay tribute to him. However, after three years Jehoiakim rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar, a decision which ultimately brought ruin upon himself and upon the country. Dying after a reign of 11 years, he was buried "with the burial of an ass, drawn, and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem" (Jer. 22:19). It was Jehoiakim who slew the prophet Uriah "and cast his dead body into the graves of the common people" (Jer. 26:23); and it was he also who impiously "cut with the penknife and cast into the fire" Jeremiah's roll of prophecies after several of them had been read to the king (36:23).
  
 
==In Rabbinical Literature==
 
==In Rabbinical Literature==

Revision as of 16:15, 29 August 2008

Kings of Judah

Jehoiakim ("he whom Jehovah has set up," Hebrew language: יהוֹיָקִים) was one of the last kings of Judah. The son of King Josiah, Jehoiakim succeeded his brother Jehoahaz on the throne as a result of Jehoahaz's being deposed by Pharaoh Necho II of Egypt. Originally named Eliakim, Jehoiakim took the throne at the age of 25 ([2 Kings] 23:36), and reigned between 609 and 598 B.C.E. His name is also sometimes spelled Jehoikim or Joachim.

The son of Josiah by Zebidah the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah, Jehoiakim was the husband of Nehushta and the father of King Jehoiachin. Bitterly opposed by the prophet Jeremiah for his acting as a vassal of Egypt and his liberal religious policy, Jehoiakim reportedly burned a manuscript of the prophecies of prophet and imposed a sentence of capital punishment on him, which was not carried out.


During his reign, Nebuchadnezzar II invaded Judah and forced Jehoiakim to shift his allegiance from Egypt to Babylon. Jehoiakim later refused to continue paying tribute to Nebuchadrezzar II, which resulted in the subsequent siege of Jerusalem of 597 B.C.E., just prior to which Jehoiakim died, probably of natural causes. He was succeeded by his son Jehoiachin, who soon surrendered to the Babylonians, resulting in the deportation of many of Jerusalem's nobles, craftsmen, and other leading citizens.

Biblical data

Jehoiachin's father, Jehoiakim, destoys the writings of Jeremiah

Background

Jehoiakim lived at a time of great crisis for the Kingdom of Judah. His father, Josiah had been considered Judah's greatest king since David by the biblical writers, but had been shockingly killed in battle against Pharaoh Necho II at the battle of Megiddo. Josiah's religious reforms, in which he violently suppressed all non-Jewish religions and banned even sacrifices to Yahweh outside of Jerusalem's temple, was greeted with tremendous enthusiasm by the temple priesthood, who had presented Josiah as a new Joshua or Moses for his religious policy and political courage in the face of Egyptian northern incursions. Judah now found itself sandwiched between two colliding great civilizations: Egypt and Babylonia.

Biblical Data

Jehoiakim was the eldest son of King Josiah but it was his younger brother Jehoahaz (Shallum), who took the throne after Josiah's death. Pharaoh Necho quickly deposed him and place When placed Jehoiakim on the throne, changing his name, originally "Eliakim," to "Jehoiakim" (II Kings 23:4). During his reign King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon invaded Palestine, entered Jerusalem, and compelled Jehoiakim to pay tribute to him. However, after three years Jehoiakim rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar, a decision which ultimately brought ruin upon himself and upon the country. Dying after a reign of 11 years, he was buried "with the burial of an ass, drawn, and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem" (Jer. 22:19). It was Jehoiakim who slew the prophet Uriah "and cast his dead body into the graves of the common people" (Jer. 26:23); and it was he also who impiously "cut with the penknife and cast into the fire" Jeremiah's roll of prophecies after several of them had been read to the king (36:23).

In Rabbinical Literature

Although Jehoiakim was Josiah's eldest son, he was passed over at the latter's death as being unworthy to be his father's successor, and his brother Jehoahaz mounted the throne in his place. Jehoahaz was publicly anointed king to offset his brother's claims to the throne (Seder 'Olam R. xxiv.; Hor. 11b; Ratner's objection ad loc. to Seder 'Olam was anticipated and answered by the Gemara). When, subsequently, Jehoiakim took the government, after Jehoahaz had been led captive to Egypt, he showed how little he resembled his pious father: he was a godless tyrant, committing the most atrocious sins and crimes. He lived in incestuous relations with his mother, daughter-in-law, and stepmother, and was in the habit of murdering men, whose wives he then violated and whose property he seized. His garments were of "sha'aṭneẓ," and in order to hide the fact that he was a Jew, he had made himself an epispasm by means of an operation, and had tattooed his body (Lev. R. xix. 6; Tan., Lek Leka, end; Midr. Aggadat Bereshit xlviii.; see also Sanh. 103b). He even boasted of his godlessness, saying, "My predecessors, Manasseh and Amon, did not know how they could make God most angry. But I speak openly; all that God gives us is light, and this we no longer need, since we have a kind of gold that shines just like the light; furthermore, God has given this gold to mankind [Ps. cxv. 16] and is not able to take it back again" (Sanh. l.c.).

When Jehoiakim was informed that Jeremiah was writing his Lamentations, he sent for the roll, and calmly read the first four verses, remarking sarcastically, "I still am king." When he came to the fifth verse and saw the words, "For the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions" (Lam. i. 5), he took the roll, scratched out the names of God occurring therein, and threw it into the fire (M. Ḳ. 26a). No wonder then that God thought of "changing the world again into chaos," and refrained from doing so only because the Jewish people under this king were pious (Sanh. 103a). Yet punishment was not withheld. Nebuchadnezzar came with his army to Daphne, near Antiochia, and demanded from the Great Sanhedrin, whose members came to pay him their respects, that Jehoiakim be delivered to him, in which case he would not disturb the city and its inhabitants. The Sanhedrin went to Jehoiakim to inform him of Nebuchadnezzar's demand, and when he asked them whether it would be right to sacrifice him for their benefit, they reminded him of what David did in a similar case with the rebel Sheba (Lev. R. xix. 6).

Various opinions have been handed down concerning the circumstances of Jehoiakim's death, due to the difficulty of harmonizing the conflicting Biblical statements on this point (II Kings xxiv. 6; Jer. xxii. 18, 19; II Chron. xxxvi. 6). According to some, he died in Jerusalem before the Sanhedrin could comply with the demand made by Nebuchadnezzar, who therefore had to be content with the king's body, which was cast to him over the walls. Another version says that he died while being let down over the wall. Others, again, maintain that after leading him through the whole land of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar killed him, and then threw his corpse piecemeal to the dogs, or, as one version has it, put it into the skin of a dead ass (Lev. R. xix. 6; Seder'Olam R. xxv., agreeing in part with Josephus, "Ant." x. 6, § 3; see also Jerome to Jer. xxii. 18, and Nebuchadnezzar in Rabbinical Literature).

Even this shameful death, however, was not to be the end of the dead king, upon whose skull were scratched the words, "This and one more." After many centuries the skull was found by a scholar before the gates of Jerusalem; he piously buried it, but as often as he tried to cover it the earth refused to hold it. He then concluded that it was the skull of Jehoiakim, for whom Jeremiah had prophesied such an end (Jer. xxii. 18); and as he did not know what to do with it, he wrapped it in a cloth and hid it in a closet. After a time his wife found it and showed it to a neighbor, who said: "Your husband had another wife before you whom he can not forget, and therefore he keeps her skull." Thereupon the wife threw it into the fire, and when her husband returned he knew what the enigmatical words "this and one more" meant (Sanh. 82a, 104a). Notwithstanding his many sins, Jehoiakim is not one of the kings who have no part in the future world (Sanh. 103b).S. S. L.

References
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House of David
Cadet Branch of the Tribe of Judah
Regnal Titles


Preceded by:
Jehoahaz
King of Judah
609 B.C.E. - 598 B.C.E.
Succeeded by: Jeconiah

This entry incorporates text from the public domain Easton's Bible Dictionary, originally published in 1897.

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