Jehoiakim pronounced Jeho-i’akim means whom Jehovah sets up. Jehoiakim’s given name was Eliakim He was the second son of king Josiah (1 Chronicles 3:15) and the eighteenth king of Judah. After deposing his younger brother, Jehoahaz, Pharaoh-necho set Eliakim upon the throne, and changed his name to Jehoiakim (609-598). For four years, Jehoiakim was subject to Egypt.1He took the throne in 609 B.C. and in 605 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar defeated Pharaoh-necho and Jehoiakim became a vassal of Babylon. In the third year of his reign [see JFB comments below on the reason for the third year vs. fourth year], Nebuchadnezzar, after a short siege, entered Jerusalem (Dan. 1:2), took the king prisoner, bound him in fetters [in preparation ?] to carry him to Babylon (2Chron. 36:6).2Smith’s Bible Dictionary
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown Commentary has this to say: “the fourth year; Jehoiakim came to the throne at the end of the year, which Jeremiah reckons as the first year, but which Daniel leaves out of count, being an incomplete year: thus, in Jeremiah, it is “the fourth year”; in Daniel, “the third” [Jahn]. However, Jeremiah (Jer. 25:1; 46:2) merely says, the fourth year of Jehoiakim coincided with the first of Nebuchadnezzar, when the latter conquered the Egyptians at Carchemish; not that the deportation of captives from Jerusalem was in the fourth year of Jehoiakim: this probably took place in the end of the third year of Jehoiakim, shortly before the battle of Carchemish [Fairbairn].3All commentaries that I have read say that Nebuchadnezzar attacked Jerusalem for the first time after he had defeated Egypt at Carchemish. Nebuchadnezzar took away the captives as hostages for the submission of the Hebrews. Historical Scripture gives no positive account of this first deportation, with which the Babylonian captivity, that is, Judah’s subjection to Babylon for seventy years (Jer. 29:10), begins. But 2Chron. 36:6-7, states that Nebuchadnezzar had intended “to carry Jehoiakim to Babylon,” and that he “carried off the vessels of the house of the Lord” thither. But Jehoiakim died at Jerusalem, before the conqueror’s intention as to him was carried into effect (Jer. 22:18-19; Jer. 36:30), and his dead body, as was foretold, was dragged out of the gates by the Chaldean besiegers, and left unburied. The second deportation under Jehoiachin was eight years later.”4Daniel 1:1. Dan. 1:1-21. The Babylonian captivity begins; Daniel’s education at Babylon, etc. third year — compare Jer. 25:1. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown Commentary (Electronic Version)
Addressing the invasion of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar in 605 B.C., Jamieson, Fausset and Brown have this to say: “This invasion took place in the fourth year of Jehoiakim’s, and the first [year] of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign (Jer. 25:1; compare Jer. 46:2) [605bc]. The young king of Assyria being probably detained at home on account of his father’s demise, dispatched, along with the Chaldean troops on his border, an army composed of the tributary nations that were contiguous to Judea, to chastise Jehoiakim’s revolt from his yoke. But this hostile band was only an instrument in executing the divine judgment (2Kgs. 24:2) denounced by the prophets against Judah for the sins of the people; and hence, though marching by the orders of the Assyrian monarch, they are described as sent by the Lord (2Kgs. 24:3).”
Jeremiah 25:1 says, “This is the message that came to Jeremiah concerning all the people of Judah. This message came in the fourth year that Jehoiakim son of Josiah was king of Judah. The fourth year of his time as king was the first year that Nebuchadnezzar was king of Babylon.” ( ERV)
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown says that, “fourth year of Jehoiakim — called the third year in Dan. 1:1. But probably Jehoiakim was set on the throne by Pharaoh-necho on his return from Carchemish about July, whereas Nebuchadnezzar mounted the throne January 21, 604 b.c.; so that Nebuchadnezzar’s first year was partly the third, partly the fourth, of Jehoiakim’s. Here first Jeremiah gives specific dates. Nebuchadnezzar had previously entered Judea in the reign of his father Nabopolassar.5Jeremiah 25:1. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown Commentary (Electronic Version)
and took also some of the precious vessels of the Temple, and carried them to the land of Shinar (605 B.C.). Jehoiakim became tributary to Nebuchadnezzar, after his invasion of Judah, and continued so for three years, but at the end of that time, he broke his oath of allegiance and rebelled against him. 2Kings 24:1. Nebuchadnezzar sent against him, numerous bands of Chaldeans, with Syrians, Moabites and Ammonites, 2Kings 24:7, who cruelly harassed the whole country. Either in an engagement with some of these forces, or else, by the hand of his own oppressed subjects, Jehoiakim came to a violent end, in the eleventh year of his reign. His body was cast out ignominiously on the ground, and then was dragged away and buried “with the burial of an ass,” without pomp or lamentation, “beyond the gates of Jerusalem” (Jer. 22:18-19; Jer. 36:30). All the accounts we have of Jehoiakim, concur in ascribing to him a vicious and irreligious character (2Kings 23:37, 24:9; 2Chron. 36:5). The reign of Jehoiakim extends from B.C. 609 to B.C. 598, or, as some reckon, 599.
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