Dead Men Tell Tales

by Harry Rimmer

In order to reach the battle ground, the Pharaoh Necho marched his horde across the terrain of Palestine. The story of what followed is familiar to every student of the Old Testament. In the thirty-fifth chapter of II Chronicles, beginning with the twentieth verse and ending with the twenty-seventh, this incidental tragedy is told. Josiah, who had taken the pledge of fidelity to Assur-bani-pal, gathered together his small army and sought to prevent this passage of the Egyptian army across his domain. It is recorded that Pharaoh sent his heralds to Josiah offering to leave the land of Palestine unmolested on condition that they gave him no opposition in his plans for battle. The pharaoh went so far as to claim that he was on the business of God. Although King Josiah had disguised himself in the common dress of a humble man-at-arms, he seems to have been recognized. The sharpshooters among the archers picked him as their target and he fell sorely wounded. He died after being taken to Jerusalem, and all of the people of Judah and Jerusalem mourned for him.

Jeremiah the prophet deeply loved the godly king because of his fidelity to the law, and the fourth chapter of the Book of Lamentations contains part of the dirge of Jeremiah concerning the death of the king.

In the meantime, hindered by the abortive attempt of the faithful Josiah to delay his passage, Necho swept on to the banks of the Euphrates where a notable battle was fought. The assault of Necho found the Assyrian monarch unprepared. The force that he had gathered at Charchemish was inadequate to defend his borders, and Assur-bani-pal was defeated. In the meantime, Jehoahaz had succeeded his father Josiah and was reigning at Jerusalem. The sway of the young king was short and ended tragically after ninety days. On his way home from his victory at Charchemish, the Pharaoh Necho deposed Jehoahaz because of his father’s conduct and put Eliakim on the throne. Thus the younger brother of Jehoahaz became king over Judah in his place.

The Pharaoh changed the name of Eliakim to Jehoiakim and once more Judah became a vassal to the might and power of Egypt. The unfortunate Jehoahaz, laden with chains, was carried away to Sais. There he dragged out a miserable existence until death brought him a happy release from captivity and degradation. The Pharaoh Necho imposed upon Palestine a fine for their opposition which would be about the equivalent in our modern currency of $200,000. In considering the difference in purchasing power, however, that would be about $3,000,000 in our money.

These incidents are either expressly stated or are referred to in many portions of Holy Writ. We first find them in the twenty-third chapter of II Kings.

The twenty-sixth chapter of Jeremiah, verses twenty-one to twenty-three, contains a bleak record of the hardship and oppression that resulted when men of God were slain for speaking God’s Word concerning the events of this grim and dismal affair.

In the nineteenth chapter of Ezekiel, the third and fourth verses of this record, the prophet sings a lamentation over the “lion’s whelp” and sorrows that “he shall be bound in chains in the land of Egypt.” Then from the fifth verse on, the prophet caustically berates the land because that another of the lion’s whelps, suddenly raised to maturity, devoured the men who had raised him and laid waste their land and cities.

Our present interest, however, is to be found in the records that deal with these events in the sources of archeology. It would be inconceivable that the mighty Necho should fail to boast of his power and victory when he had won so notable an ascendancy over all of his enemies. In the voluminous records of the Pharaoh Necho, the vainglorious boasting of this long-dead monarch comes to us today as a welcome, added voice to the rapidly swelling chorus that testifies to the historical accuracy of the Old Testament.

Leaving the record of Necho, however, for the present moment (as he enters the story again in the reign of the succeeding Babylonian monarch), we turn to the sources of Babylonian and Assyrian antiquity for the authentication of these affairs by the mighty Assur-bani-pal. Now, indeed, it becomes difficult to choose the most effective and pointed evidences, as we are embarrassed with so vast a wealth of material. It would take many days indeed for a careful student to exhaust the possibilities in that collection of the material of Assur-bani-pal that is found in the British Museum alone. In this notable and incomparable deposit of priceless fact and information, there is no more striking section than that which is derived from the works and records of this stormy ruler.

In about the year 666 B. C. this conqueror finished the third of his campaigns against Egypt, and with the sack of the City of Thebes, again established the dominion of Assyria over Egypt. The mighty king then turned his military attentions to the northern regions of his empire and thrust his borders out to an unprecedented extent. At the same time, with a part of his forces he waged a long war with the Elamites on his southeastern border and subjected that country to the yoke of Assyria. Putting down the Elamite uprising with a stern and bloody hand, he left a lesson in implacable cruelty that the Elamites never forgot.