5. Josiah is killed and Assyria makes last stand in Haran, 609 BC.
At Haran the Assyrians made their last stand. The end was near but it was now extended by the arrival of Neco's Egyptian forces to shore up their former enemies with the hope of slowing down the advance of the rising Babylonians.
As Neco and his forces race towards Haran, they had to traverse the Jezreel Valley; the principal access from the coast to the road leading north. For reasons the remain debated, Josiah decides he should stop the Egyptian pharaoh. The battle was joined at Megiddo, where Josiah was killed (2 Ki 23:29-30):
While Josiah was king, Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt went up to the Euphrates River to help the king of Assyria. King Josiah marched out to meet him in battle, but Neco faced him and killed him at Megiddo. Josiah's servants brought his body in a chariot from Megiddo to Jerusalem and buried him in his own tomb. And the people of the land took Jehoahaz son of Josiah and anointed him and made him king in place of his father.
With Josiah's death, all his reforms unreveled. Judah turned once again to the idolatrous practices of the former generations.
©ALBERITH
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