14 Facts About Jehoiakim

Jehoiakim, sometimes spelled Jehoikim was the eighteenth and antepenultimate King of Judah from 609 to 598 BC.

Jehoiakim was the second son of King Josiah and Zebidah, the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah.

Jehoiakim reigned for eleven years, until 598 BC and was succeeded by his son Jeconiah, who reigned for only three months.

Jehoiakim was appointed king by Necho II, king of Egypt, in 609 BC, after Necho's return from the battle in Harran, three months after he had killed King Josiah at Megiddo.

Jehoiakim ruled originally as a vassal of the Egyptians, paying a heavy tribute.

However, after the Egyptians were defeated by the Babylonians at the battle of Carchemish in 605 BC, Nebuchadnezzar II besieged Jerusalem, and Jehoiakim changed allegiances to avoid the destruction of Jerusalem.

Jehoiakim paid tribute from the treasury in Jerusalem, some temple artifacts, and handed over some of the royal family and nobility as hostages.

Jehoiakim is portrayed as living in incestuous relations with his mother, daughter-in-law, and stepmother, and was in the habit of murdering men, whose wives he then violated and whose property he seized.

Jehoiakim continued for three years as a vassal to the Babylonians, until the failure of an invasion of Egypt in 601 BC undermined their control of the area.

Jehoiakim installed in his place a king of his own choice, and after he had received rich tribute, he sent forth to Babylon.

When, subsequently, Jehoiakim took the government, after Jehoahaz had been led captive to Egypt, he showed how little he resembled his pious father: he was a godless tyrant, committing the most atrocious sins and crimes.

Jehoiakim lived in incestuous relations with his mother, daughter-in-law, and stepmother, and was in the habit of murdering men, whose wives he then violated and whose property he seized.

Nebuchadnezzar came with his army to Daphne, near Antiochia, and demanded from the Great Sanhedrin, whose members came to pay him their respects, that Jehoiakim be delivered to him, in which case he would not disturb the city and its inhabitants.

Jehoiakim is portrayed by Andrea Occhipinti in the film Jeremiah.