Jehoiakim

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 Jehoahaz and placed and placed Jehoiakim on the throne, changing his name, which was originally "Eliakim," in the process (II Kings 23:4). Jehoahaz, meanwhile, was taken captive and brought to Egypt. In addition to taking unspecified treasures from the Temple of Jerusalem, the pharaoh imposed heavy tribute on Jehoiakim, forcing him to raise taxes in order to obtain the necessary funds.

The chronology of events in Jehoiakim's reign is difficult to reconstruct, since it must be reconstructed not only from the accounts in the books of Kings and Chronicles, but also from the prophecies of Jeremiah, which are not recorded in chronological order.

"Early" in Jehoiakim's reign, Jeremiah urged the king to return to the strict religious policy adopted by Josiah, saying in God's name:

"If you do not listen to me and follow my law, which I have set before you, and if you do not listen to the words of my servants the prophets, whom I have sent to you again and again (though you have not listened), then I will make this house [the Temple of Jerusalem] like Shiloh and this city an object of cursing among all the nations of the earth.' " (Jeremiah 26:4-6)

This threat was greeted with a great outcry from those who believed that God would never remove his protection from the Temple—including priests, citizens, and even other prophets. Jeremiah's opponents immediately went to Jehoiakim's officials and demanded Jeremiah's death on grounds of treason. Jeremiah defended himself by assuring the officials that if his words of advice would be heeded, the both the Temple and city would be safe, and the cooler heads in this crisis eventually prevailed.

Another critic of Jehoiakim, however, was not so fortunate. When Uriah son of Shemaiah prophesied in a similar vein, the king himself sought his death. Although Uriah fled into Egypt, he was soon retrieved and executed.

Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon, against whom Pharaoh Necho had marched when King Josiah had attempted to intercept him a few years earlier, was not willing to accept Egyptian suzerainty over the kingdoms of the Levant. In Jehoiakim's fourth year as king, Nebuchadnezzar therefore invaded Judah and compelled Jehoiakim to pay tribute to him instead of Egypt. Some in Judah, notably the prophet Jeremiah, preferred Nebuchadnezzar to Necho, who had been responsible for shattering their hopes that King Josiah would institute a golden age not seen since the times of David and Solomon. Jeremiah became Jehoiakim's most outspoken opponent and urged a policy of cooperation with Babylon rather than Egypt.

However, after three years as a vassal to Babylon, Jehoiakim rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar, a decision which ultimately brought ruin upon himself and upon the country. Jeremiah, meanwhile, became increasingly bold in his criticism against the king. Although banned from speaking openly in the Temple area, Jeremiah dictated a series of stinging prophecies to his scribe, Baruch, and ordered him to read them publicly on his behalf:

"The king of Babylon will certainly come and destroy this land and cut off both men and animals from it. Therefore, this is what the Lord says about Jehoiakim king of Judah: 'He will have no one to sit on the throne of David; his body will be thrown out and exposed to the heat by day and the frost by night. I will punish him and his children and his attendants for their wickedness; I will bring on them and those living in Jerusalem and the people of Judah every disaster I pronounced against them, because they have not listened.'" (Jeremiah 36:29-31)

When these words finally reached the king's ears, Jehoaikim cut them in pieces and had them burned. He then ordered the arrest of both the prophet and his scribe, but Jeremiah, safely hidden, only redoubled his efforts. The prophet went even so far as to predict that Jehoakim would be buried "with the burial of an ass, drawn, and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem." (Jer. 22:19) This prophecy went apparently unfulfilled, however, as the Book of Kings reports only that "he rested with his fathers." (2 Kings 24:6)

In the later years of his reign, Jehoaikim held out against a series of raids by Babylonian, Syrian, Moabite, and Ammonite forces, with the Babylonians apparently playing a coordinating role. Finally, Nebuchadnezzer send a major invasion force and prepared to lay siege to Jerusalem. Jehoiakim died, apparently of natural causes, after a reign of 11 years, with the Babylonian army either approaching or already at his gates.

He was succeeded by his 18-year-old son Jehoiachin, who resisted the siege for three months before surrendering.

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

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

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.

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

• Jehoiakim  ^history

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

• History of "Jehoiakim"

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.