Even this comparatively small sum was a heavy burden for so greatly afflicted and impoverished a country, and Pharaoh further imposed on them a vassal to see that it was duly extorted. This was Eliakim, the eldest living son of Josiah. There was nothing left to plunder in the Temple or the palace, and therefore the exaction had to be borne by the taxed and suffering people. FOOTNOTES: [753] Chron. iii. 15. [754] He is named "fourth," but he was older than his brothers Jehoiakim and Zedekiah (2 Kings xxiii. 31, xxiv. 18). The genealogy is as follows:-- Zebudah = JOSIAH = Hamutal. | | ----- |------------------- | | | Nehushta = ELIAKIM ZEDEKIAH JEHOAHAZ | or Jehoiakim. or Mattaniah. or Shallum. | JEHOIACHIN. [755] An allusion to the Syrian mode of hunting the lion by driving it with cries into a concealed pit (Tristram, _Nat. Hist. of the Bible_, 118; Cheyne, 140). [756] Ezek. xix. 1-4. [757] The name Shallum means "recompense." It may have been regarded as ill-omened, since the King of Israel who bore this rare name had only reigned a month. [758] The Talmud says that kings were only anointed in special cases (_Keritoth_, f. 5, 2; Grätz, ii. 328). [759] Jos., _Antt._, X. v. 2: Ἀσεβὴς καὶ μιαρὸς τὸν τρόπον. [760] Herod., ii. 159. [761] Mr. G. Smith identifies Carchemish with Jerablûs. [762] Cheyne, _Jeremiah_, p. 127. [763] Comp. 2 Kings xxv. 20, 21. The old Hittite capital of Riblah was a convenient halting-place on the road between Babylon and Jerusalem. It was on the northernmost boundary of Palestine towards Damascus (Amos vi. 14). [764] Jer. xxii. 10-12. [765] 2 Chron. xxxvi. 3; 1 Esdras i. 36. The smallness of the tribute proves the impoverishment of the land. Sennacherib demanded from Hezekiah three hundred talents of silver, and thirty of gold; and Menahem paid one thousand talents of silver to Tiglath-Pileser. CHAPTER XXXIV _JEHOIAKIM_ B.C. 608-597 2 KINGS xxiii. 36-xxiv. 7 "But those things that are recorded of him, and of his uncleanness and impiety, are written in the Chronicles of the Kings."--1 ESDRAS i. 42. "When Jehoiakim succeeded to the throne, he said, 'My predecessors knew not how to provoke God.'"--_Sanhedrin_, f. 103, 2. "There is no strange handwriting on the wall, Through all the midnight hum no threatening call, Nor on the marble floor the stealthy fall Of fatal footsteps. All is safe.--Thou fool, The avenging deities are shod with wool!" W. ALLEN BUTLER.