"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.
[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. | | ----- |------------------- | | | 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.