_JEHOAHAZ_
B.C. 608
2 KINGS xxiii. 31-33
"I went by, and, lo! he was gone: I sought him, but his place
could nowhere be found."--PSALM xxxvii. 36.
It was under the disastrous circumstances which attended his father's
death at Megiddo that Jehoahaz began to reign. There is some confusion
about the four sons of Josiah, whom the Chronicler calls Johanan,
Jehoiakim, Zedekiah, and Shallum.[753] From Jer. xxii. 11, it appears
that Jehoahaz was the royal name taken on his anointing by Shallum, the
third son.[754] If so, he cannot be identified with Johanan, the
firstborn, as in the margin of our version. Further, it appears from our
historians that Jehoahaz was twenty-three at his succession, and was
therefore younger than Jehoiakim who (three months later) succeeded him
at the age of twenty-five. Jehoahaz was the own brother of Zedekiah,
Jehoiakim being his half-brother by another mother (Zebudah).
We do not know for what reason he was preferred by "the people of the
land" to his elder brother Eliakim or Jehoiakim. It was probably
because they regarded him as a prince of eminent courage and ability.
The high hopes which the nation conceived of him may be seen in the
pathetic elegy of Ezek. xix.:--
"Moreover take thou up a lamentation for the princes of Israel, and
say,--
What was thy mother? A lioness!
Amidst lions she couched,
In the midst of the young lions she nourished her whelps.
She brought up one of her whelps: he became a young lion;
He learned to catch the prey; he devoured men.
The nations heard of him;
In their pit was he taken,[755]
And they brought him with hooks into the land of Egypt."[756]
We see, too, that he was to an eminent degree the darling of the
nation in the still more plaintive wail of Jeremiah which will be
quoted later.
The fact that Shallum solemnly changed his name to Jehoahaz ("Jehovah
taketh hold"),[757] and that the people of the land not only "made him
king in his father's stead," but also "anointed him," points to a
disputed succession.[758] High hopes were conceived of him; but he
hardly had a chance of fulfilling them, for he was only permitted to
reign three months. What were the events of those months we do not
know. Jehoahaz must have disappointed any hopes which may have been
formed of him by the religious party; for dear as he was to them, the
historians record of him that "he did that which was evil in the sight
of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done," although
they specify no particular offence. The same sad verdict is passed on
all his four successors; but Josephus says even more emphatically of
Jehoahaz that he was impious and impure.[759]
He must have shown some activity in other respects, or else Ezekiel
would hardly have said that "the nations heard of him," and that "he
learned to catch the prey; he devoured men." Over all his deeds,
whatever they may have been, "the iniquity of oblivion has blindly
scattered her poppy," and he fell a victim to the great
world-movements of those troublous times.
For Pharaoh, after his defeat of Josiah at Megiddo, proceeded to make
himself master of Syria and Palestine. He took Cadytis, which
Herodotus calls "a large city of Syria,"[760] and which--since it
cannot here mean Gaza, as in Herod., iii. 5--has been identified by
some with Kadesh. Thence he marched to Carchemish, on the right bank
of the Euphrates,[761] none venturing to check him, till "once more,
after the lapse of nine centuries, Egyptian garrisons looked down on
that historic stream."[762] On his return he stopped at Riblah, on the
Orontes,[763] to consolidate his Syrian conquests; and there he learnt
that, without consulting him, the people of Jerusalem had made
Jehoahaz their king. Perhaps he heard enough of the warlike prowess of
Jehoahaz to make him resent this act of independence. After his three
months' campaign he sent for Jehoahaz to Riblah, and the unhappy
prince had no choice but to obey. Possibly the Egyptian party in
Jerusalem, headed by his disappointed elder brother Eliakim, may have
intrigued against him with Pharaoh Necho. When he reached Riblah, he
was unceremoniously deposed; and though we may hope that the
expression of Ezekiel, that "they brought him with _hooks_ into the
land of Egypt," belongs to the metaphor of the captured lion's whelp,
it is certain that he was taken to the banks of the Nile as a fettered
captive, never to return. How long his miserable life was protracted,
or how he was treated in Egypt, we do not know. The sun of the young
prince went down in darkness while it was yet day. No king of Judah
before him had died in prison and in exile, and the calamity smote
heavily the heart of his people. Egypt was not to escape--shortly
thereafter--the doom of violence and pride; but whether the young
Jewish king had died meanwhile of a broken heart, or whether he
dragged on to hoar hairs his maimed life, or whether he was murdered
in his dungeon, no man knew. One thing only was clear to the sad
prophet--that he would never return.
"Weep ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him: but weep ye sore for
him that is gone away: for he shall return no more, nor see his native
country. For thus saith Jehovah concerning Shallum, the son of Josiah,
King of Judah, which reigned instead of Josiah his father, which went
forth out of this place: 'He shall not return thither any more: but in
the place whither they have led him captive there shall he die, and he
shall see this land no more.'"[764]
To show his absolute power over Judah and Jerusalem, Pharaoh Necho not
only deposed and fettered their king, but put the whole land under a
yearly tribute of one hundred talents of silver (about £40,000) and a
talent of gold (about £4,000).[765]
Even this comparatively small sum was a heavy burden for so greatly
afflicted and impoverished a country, and Pharaoh further imposed on
them a vassal to see that it was duly extorted. This was Eliakim, the
eldest living son of Josiah. There was nothing left to plunder in the
Temple or the palace, and therefore the exaction had to be borne by
the taxed and suffering people.
FOOTNOTES:
[753] Chron. iii. 15.
[754] He is named "fourth," but he was older than his brothers
Jehoiakim and Zedekiah (2 Kings xxiii. 31, xxiv. 18). The genealogy is
as follows:--
Zebudah = JOSIAH = Hamutal.
| |
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Nehushta = ELIAKIM ZEDEKIAH JEHOAHAZ
| or Jehoiakim. or Mattaniah. or Shallum.
|
JEHOIACHIN.
[755] An allusion to the Syrian mode of hunting the lion by driving it
with cries into a concealed pit (Tristram, _Nat. Hist. of the Bible_,
118; Cheyne, 140).
[756] Ezek. xix. 1-4.
[757] The name Shallum means "recompense." It may have been regarded
as ill-omened, since the King of Israel who bore this rare name had
only reigned a month.
[758] The Talmud says that kings were only anointed in special cases
(_Keritoth_, f. 5, 2; Grätz, ii. 328).
[759] Jos., _Antt._, X. v. 2: Ἀσεβὴς καὶ μιαρὸς τὸν τρόπον.
[760] Herod., ii. 159.
[761] Mr. G. Smith identifies Carchemish with Jerablûs.
[762] Cheyne, _Jeremiah_, p. 127.
[763] Comp. 2 Kings xxv. 20, 21. The old Hittite capital of Riblah was
a convenient halting-place on the road between Babylon and Jerusalem.
It was on the northernmost boundary of Palestine towards Damascus
(Amos vi. 14).
[764] Jer. xxii. 10-12.
[765] 2 Chron. xxxvi. 3; 1 Esdras i. 36. The smallness of the tribute
proves the impoverishment of the land. Sennacherib demanded from
Hezekiah three hundred talents of silver, and thirty of gold; and
Menahem paid one thousand talents of silver to Tiglath-Pileser.