1. the people of the land took] Compare xxvi. 1, xxxiii. 25.
Jehoahaz] Called “Shallum” in 1 Chronicles iii. 15; Jeremiah xxii. 11. He was younger than Jehoiakim; verse 5.
²Joahaz was twenty and three years old when he began to reign; and he reigned three months in Jerusalem.
2. in Jerusalem] His mother’s name is here omitted; compare xxxiii. 1, 21, xxxiv. 1. According to 2 Kings xxiii. 32 (compare Ezekiel xix. 3, 4) Jehoahaz “did evil.”
³And the king of Egypt deposed him at Jerusalem, and amerced the land in an hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.
3. deposed him at Jerusalem] The clause answers to 2 Kings xxiii. 33, “put him in bands at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem.” Perhaps we should read the same words in Chronicles The Hebrew words for “deposed” and “put in bands” are liable to be easily confused.
amerced] Authorized Version condemned. For “amerce” in the sense of “fine,” compare Deuteronomy xxii. 19; and for “condemn” in the same sense see Amos ii. 8 (Authorized Version, “fined” Revised Version).
an hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold] The land was poorer than in the days when Sennacherib had imposed a fine on Hezekiah of “three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold” (2 Kings xviii. 14).
⁴And the king of Egypt made Eliakim his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. And Neco took Joahaz his brother, and carried him to Egypt.
4. changed his name to Jehoiakim] This name is compounded with the Divine name Jehovah. Probably Neco made the new king swear fealty by Jehovah, and then declared his official name to be Jehoiakim, in order that he and his people might have something to remind them of the oath he had taken. (Eliakim = “God establishes”; Jehoiakim = “Jehovah establishes.”) The rendering of this verse in 1 i. 38 is due to misreadings of the Hebrew.