* 2 Kings xxiv. 1-4. The passage is not easy to be
understood as it stands, and it has been differently
interpreted by historians. Some have supposed that it refers
to events immediately following the battle of Carchemish,
and that Jehoiakim defended Jerusalem against Nebuchadrezzar
in 605. Others think that, after the battle of Carchemish,
Jehoiakim took advantage of Nebuchadrezzar’s being obliged
to return at once to Babylon, and would not recognise the
authority of the Chaldæans; that Nebuchadrezzar returned
later, towards 601, and took Jerusalem, and that it is to
this second war that allusion is made in the Book of Kings.
It is more simple to consider that which occurred about 600
as a first attempt at rebellion which was punished lightly
by the Chaldæans.
Jehoiakim, left to himself, resisted with such determination that Nebuchadrezzar was obliged to bring up his Chaldæan forces to assist in the attack. Judah trembled with fear at the mere description which her prophet Habakkuk gave of this fierce and sturdy people, “which march through the breadth of the earth to possess dwelling-places which are not theirs. They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves. Their horses also are swifter than leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves; and their horsemen spread themselves; yea, their horsemen come from far; they fly as an eagle that hasteneth to devour. They come all of them for violence; their faces are set eagerly as the east wind, and they gather captives as the sand. Yea, he scoffeth at kings, and princes are a derision unto him: he derideth every stronghold: for he heapeth up dust and taketh it. Then shall he sweep by as a wind, and shall pass over the guilty, even he whose might is his god.” Nebuchadrezzar’s army must have presented a spectacle as strange as did that of Necho. It contained, besides its nucleus of Chaldæn and Babylonian infantry, squadrons of Scythian and Median cavalry, whose cruelty it was, no doubt, that had alarmed the prophet, and certainly bands of Greek hoplites, for the poet Alcasus had had a brother, Antimenidas by name, in the Chaldæan monarch’s service. Jehoiakim died before the enemy appeared beneath the walls of Jerusalem, and was at once succeeded by his son Jeconiah,* a youth of eighteen years, who assumed the name of Jehoiachin.**
* [Jehoiachin is called Coniah in Jer. xxii. 24 and xxiv. 1,
and Jeconiah in 1 Chron. iii. 16.—Tr.]
** 2 Kings xxiv. 5-10; cf. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 6-9, where the
writer says that Nebuchadrezzar bound Jehoiakim “in
fetters, to carry him to Babylon.”
The new king continued the struggle at first courageously, but the advent of Nebuchadrezzar so clearly convinced him of the futility of the defence, that he suddenly decided to lay down his arms. He came forth from the city with his mother Nehushta, the officers of his house, his ministers, and his eunuchs, and prostrated himself at the feet of his suzerain. The Chaldæn monarch was not inclined to proceed to extremities; he therefore exiled to Babylon Jehoiachin and the whole of his seditious court who had so ill-advised the young king, the best of his officers, and the most skilful artisans, in all 3023 persons, but the priests and the bulk of the people remained at Jerusalem. The conqueror appointed Mattaniah, the youngest son of Josiah, to be their ruler, who, on succeeding to the crown, changed his name, after the example of his predecessors, adopting that of Zedekiah. Jehoiachin had reigned exactly three months over his besieged city (596).*
The Egyptians made no attempt to save their ally, but if they felt themselves not in a condition to defy the Chaldasans on Syrian territory, the Chaldaeans on their side feared to carry hostilities into the heart of the Delta. Necho died two years after the disaster at Jerusalem, without having been called to account by, or having found an opportunity of further annoying, his rival, and his son Psammetichus II. succeeded peacefully to the throne.** He was a youth at this time,*** and his father’s ministers conducted the affairs of State on his behalf, and it was they who directed one of his early campaigns, if not the very first, against Ethiopia.****
* 2 Kings xxiv. 11-17; cf. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 10.
** The length of Necho’s reign is fixed at sixteen years by
Herodotus, and at six or at nine years by the various
abbreviators of Manetho. The contemporaneous monuments have
confirmed the testimony of Herodotus on this point as
against that of Manetho, and the stelse of the Florentine
Museum, of the Leyden Museum, and of the Louvre have
furnished certain proof that Necho died in the sixteenth
year, after fifteen and a half years’ reign.
*** His sarcophagus, discovered in 1883, and now preserved
in the Gizeh Museum, is of such small dimensions that it can
have been used only for a youth.
**** The graffiti of Abu-Simbel have been most frequently
attributed to Psammetichus I., and until recently I had
thought it possible to maintain this opinion. A. von
Gutsehmid was the first to restore them to Psammetichus IL,
and his opinion has gained ground since Wiedemann’s vigorous
defence of it. The Alysian mercenary’s graffito contains
the Greek translation of the current Egyptian phrase “when
his Majesty came on his first military expedition into this
country,” which seems to point to no very early date in a
reign for a first campaign. Moreover, one of the generals in
command of the expedition is a Psammetichus, son of
Theocles, that is, a Greek with an Egyptian name. A
considerable lapse of time must have taken place since
Psammetichus’ first dealings with the Greeks, for otherwise
the person named after the king would not have been of
sufficiently mature age to be put at the head of a body of
troops.
They organised a small army for him composed of Egyptians, Greeks, and Asiatic mercenaries, which, while the king was taking up his residence at Elephantine, was borne up the Nile in a fleet of large vessels.* It probably went as far south as the northern point of the second cataract, and not having encountered any Ethiopian force,** it retraced its course and came to anchor at Abu-Simbel.
* The chief graffito at Abu-Simbel says, in fact, that the
king came to Elephantine, and that only the troops
accompanying the General Psammetichus, the son of Theocles,
went beyond Kerkis. It was probably during his stay at
Elephantine, while awaiting the return of the expedition,
that Psammetichus II. had the inscriptions containing his
cartouches engraved upon the rocks of Bigga, Abaton, Philo,
and Konosso, or among the ruins of Elephantine and of
Phila?.
** The Greek inscription says above Kerlcis. Wiedemann has
corrected Kerkis into Kortis, the Korte of the first
cataract, but the reading Kerkis is too well established for
there to be any reason for change. The simplest explanation
is to acknowledge that the inscription refers to a place
situated a few miles above Abu-Simbel, towards Wady-Halfa.
The officers in command, after having admired the rock-cut chapel of Ramses II., left in it a memento of their visit in a fine inscription cut on the right leg of one of the colossi. This inscription informs us that “King Psammatikhos having come to Elephantine, the people who were with Psammatikhos, son of Theocles, wrote this. They ascended above Kerkis, to where the river ceases; Potasimto commanded the foreigners, Amasis the Egyptians. At the same time also wrote Arkhôn, son of Amoibikhos, and Peleqos, son of Ulamos.” Following the example of their officers, the soldiers also wrote their names here and there, each in his own language—Ionians, Rhodians, Carians, Phoenicians, and perhaps even Jews; e.g. Elesibios of Teos, Pabis of Colophon, Telephos of Ialysos, Abdsakon son of Petiehvê, Gerhekal son of Hallum. The whole of this part of the country, brought to ruin in the gradual dismemberment of Greater Egypt, could not have differed much from the Nubia of to-day; there were the same narrow strips of cultivation along the river banks, gigantic temples half buried by their own ruins, scattered towns and villages, and everywhere the yellow sand creeping insensibly down towards the Nile. The northern part of this province remained in the hands of the Saite Pharaohs, and the districts situated further south just beyond Abu-Simbel formed at that period a sort of neutral ground between their domain and that of the Pharaohs of Napata. While all this was going on, Syria continued to plot in secret, and the faction which sought security in a foreign alliance was endeavouring to shake off the depression caused by the reverses of Jehoiakim and his son; and the tide of popular feeling setting in the direction of Egypt became so strong, that even Zedekiah, the creature of Nebuchadrezzar, was unable to stem it. The prophets who were inimical to religious reform, persisted in their belief that the humiliation of the country was merely temporary.