6. Judah becomes an Egyptian Vassal, 609 BC.
Neco's help came too late for the Assyrians. Ashur-uballit II decamp to Egypt to live out the rest of his life there. For the next few years, however, Egypt held the gound in Syria and Palestine, and Judah became an Egyptian vassal. Upon the death of Josiah the Judeans had appointed Jehoahaz kind. After only three months on the throne, the Egyptian replaced him with his brother, Eliakim, whom they then renamed Jehoakim (2 Ki 23:31-34):
Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem for three months. His mother's name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah; she was from Libnah. He did evil in the eyes of the LORD, just as his fathers had done. Pharaoh Neco put him in chains at Riblah in the land of Hamath so that he might not reign in Jerusalem, and he imposed on Judah a levy of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim son of Josiah king in place of his father Josiah and changed Eliakim's name to Jehoiakim. But he took Jehoahaz and carried him off to Egypt, and there he died.
A heavy tax penalty was also placed upon Judah; "Jehoiakim paid Pharaoh Neco the silver and gold he demanded. In order to do so, he taxed the land and exacted the silver and gold from the people of the land according to their assessments" (2 Ki 23:35).
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