2 Kings 23:36-24:7--Jehoiakim King of Judah

2 Kings 23:36-24:7
English Standard Version

Jehoiakim Reigns in Judah
36 Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Zebidah the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah. 37 And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done.

24 In his days, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant for three years. Then he turned and rebelled against him. 2 And the LORD sent against him bands of the Chaldeans and bands of the Syrians and bands of the Moabites and bands of the Ammonites, and sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the LORD that he spoke by his servants the prophets. 3 Surely this came upon Judah at the command of the LORD, to remove them out of his sight, for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done, 4 and also for the innocent blood that he had shed. For he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the LORD would not pardon. 5 Now the rest of the deeds of Jehoiakim and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? 6 So Jehoiakim slept with his fathers, and Jehoiachin his son reigned in his place. 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.

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We mentioned Jehoiakim briefly at the end of our last passage.  He was the king that Pharaoh Necro put into power.  Though he was part of the royal family, he was loyal at first to Egypt, however, that will all change in today's passage.  Jehoiakim was 25 years old when he was made king and he reigned in Jerusalem for 11 years.  It is no surprise to us that he did what was evil, just like his fathers had done.

​Now during his time as king, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up to attack Jerusalem and Jehoiakim became his vassal for three years. This would either mean that Nebuchadnezzar defeated Pharaoh Necro, or Jehoiakim saw a stronger king and switched allegiances.  Whatever the case, Jehoiakim has not switched his tactic of paying taxes and protection money to foreign kings and being vassals for them.

Because of this, the LORD brought raiders against Judah--the Chaldeans, Syrians, Moabites, and Ammonites all took advantage of Jehoiakim's weakness and freely attacked and raided with the intent of destroying Judah.  They did not know they were accomplishing the prophecy that the Word of the LORD had spoken, but they were.

The text event tells us that sure this came upon the people to put them out if the LORD's sight because of the sin of Manasseh (the one that was a relative of King Ahab that led Judah into idolatry and infanticide and setting up foreign gods in the LORD's Temple).  The text even says that the LORD would not pardon this high-handed sin of rebellion.

There is really nothing else said here about Jehoiakim other than he died and was buried with his fathers.  There may be more to say in the book of Chronicles but the main thing to know here is that he made an alliance with Babylon which will result in Jerusalem and all Judah with it being taking into captivity and exile.  Our question is answered as well as to why Jehoiakim stopped looking to Pharaoh Necro for help, for the Babylonians had pushed the Egyptians back to the pace we think of as Egypt today so that Babylon had control of all the land from the Nile River (if I'm interpreting correctly the meaning of "The Brook of Egypt") to the Euphrates River--that would include all the land that had been held by Assyria as well making Babylon the only "super-power" left in the area (the Medes and Persians would band together later to conquer the Babylonian empire which we'll read about in the book of Daniel).