JEHOIAKIM jĭ hoi’ ə kĭm (יהﯴיָקִ֥ים; LXX ̓Ιωακιμ, may the Lord raise up, cf. 1 Sam 2:8, Hos 6:2, etc.). Throne name of Eliakim, son of Josiah, appointed king of Judah by Pharaoh Necho. The form Yoqim is found on a seal of unknown provenance (Diringer, IAE, 197 [perhaps 5th cent., Cook NSI, no. 150/8, p. 362]; the formation with the imperfect is rather unusual [Noth, Isr. Personennamen p. 28], but see 2 Kings 18:18 and postexilic examples including Joiakim, Neh 12:10).

1. Chronology. Whereas the dates of Jehoiakim’s accession (autumn 609 b.c.) and death (winter 598/7) are now known to within a month, his regnal years are still debated because: (a) authorities differ as to whether a fall or spring New Year was used, and whether a change was made at this time; (b) the date of Josiah’s death is not exactly known. Jehoiakim’s eleventh year began in Tishri or in Nisan 598 b.c.; his fourth, which saw the battle of Carchemish (Jer 46:2), began in Tishri 606 or Nisan 605. Josiah prob. used a fall regnal year (see Josiah, 4/b); Jehoiakim’s first would then run from Tishri 609 b.c., with his accession a little earlier. On this basis, however, at the end of 598 he would have reigned twelve years by Heb. reckoning. For this reason, Auerbach has suggested that Jehoiakim was compelled, when he submitted to Nebuchadnezzar, to use the Babylonian calendar extending his fifth year by six months to Nisan 603 b.c. The winter “ninth month” of Jeremiah 36:9, 22 is not strictly relevant to this conclusion, for months were always numbered from the spring (cf. 1 Kings 6:1; 12:33; 2 Chron 35:1).

The correlation of Jehoiakim’s fourth year with Nebuchadnezzar’s first (Jer 25:1) may be explained by taking “first” (ri’shonit) as the Akkad. res sarruti, accession period (Vogt, Finegan s. 314) or assuming that Jewish scribes regarded Nebuchadnezzar as already king (so Freedman, Finegan s. 327; cf. Jer 52:12 with 52:29). Daniel may have interpreted the standard correlation by Babylonian information, thus dating Carchemish in Jehoiakim’s third, and making no distinction of the years immediately following.

2. Family. In 1 Chronicles 3:15, Jehoiakim is named as Josiah’s second son, ranking before Jehoahaz (Shallum). In 609 b.c., they were twenty-five and twenty-three respectively (2 Kings 23:31, 36); but Zedekiah, only ten (24:18), appears between them in Chronicles. W. F. Albright (JBL, LI, p. 92) would emend 2 Kings 23:36 to avoid making Josiah a father at fourteen; but 2 Chronicles 36:5 preserves the same reading, and in that year Jehoiakim’s son was already seven (2 Kings 24:8).

3. Egyptian overlordship. Necho, committed in support of the failing power of Assyria, needed to secure the flank of his line of march up the coast. He had no time to turn aside at Megiddo, but on his return that fall, taking Jehoahaz as hostage, he appointed Eliakim to govern in the Egyp. interest, symbolizing his dependence by giving him a new name. The fact that he only altered the divine prefix suggests that he was aiming to conciliate Judean feeling. The tribute (a talent of gold and a hundred of silver) was more of a warning than a penalty.

Jehoiakim remained loyal to the Egyp. cause, if only from self-interest. The majority of the people also, or at any rate of the ruling class, preferred Egyp. overlordship to that of the Babylonians, if it came to a choice.

4. Relations with Nebuchadnezzar. For nearly four years, Jehoiakim lived secure in Egypt’s shadow; then the “pot” of Jeremiah’s vision (Jer 1) was upset. The Babylonian victory at Carchemish not only finished the Assyrians, but spelled the end of Egyp. power in Asia, though for years the rulers of Judah could not believe this. The death of Nebuchadnezzar’s father interrupted his follow-through, but in 604 b.c. according to the Babylonian Chronicle, he received tribute from “all the kings of Hatti-land”; it is probable that Judah was included. Ashkelon fell early in 603 b.c. He became Nebuchadnezzar’s vassal for three years, but rebelled, evidently after the Egyp. repulse of the Babylonians (601). Thus he paid tribute in 604, 603, 602; or (Vogt) 603-1.

In December 599 b.c., Nebuchadnezzar returned to Syria, reestablishing his authority there as a preliminary to renewing the contest with Egypt. A year later he advanced S to recover Judah. Meanwhile, he induced the Ammonites and Moabites and the “Arameans” (2 Kings 24:2; possibly, as Peshitta, “Edomites,” cf. Jer 35:11) to raid Judah. Their incursions are explained by Ginsberg (Alex. Marx Jub. Vol.) as motivated by fear, that if he were successful, Jehoiakim would repeat the recovery of Israelite territory E of the Jordan, which Ginsberg attributes to Josiah; he appears to underrate the age-old enmity of these peoples, who would more readily have seen Judah as a prey than “fellow-vassal” (cf. Ps 137:7; Obad 10ff.).

5. Attitude to Jeremiah. Jeremiah characterized Jehoiakim as “competing in cedar” (Jer 22:15), greedy and unprincipled. He ordered the death of Uriah of Kiriath-jearim, who prophesied as Jeremiah did (26:20ff.) “against this city,” but clearly it was the call to repent that was unacceptable to the people and leaders as well as to the king. In December 605, or, less probably, a year later, Jehoiakim burned the first written edition of Jeremiah’s prophecies, which had been confiscated after Baruch had read from it in the Temple; he would have arrested (and doubtless murdered) both Jeremiah and Baruch, “but the Lord hid them” (Jer 36). His antagonism might indicate determination to resist the Babylonians, or resentment that the outcome of his diplomacy was being questioned.

6. Death and burial. If Jehoiachin’s reign ended with his surrender on 2 Adar (March 16) 597, Jehoiakim died about 7 December 598 b.c., before Nebuchadnezzar reached Jerusalem, but while the district was subject to raids from across the Jordan (2 Kings 24:2; Freedman, BA, XIX, p. 53, n. 2). Some mystery surrounds Jehoiakim’s burial. The phrase “slept with his fathers” (2 Kings 24:6) normally indicates a natural death, and as the same information was available to the Chronicler, he can hardly have meant that Jehoiakim ended his reign in captivity (2 Chron 36:6). However, several authorities note the possibility that he was murdered, referring either to Jer 22:19; 36:30, or to Josephus’ account of a double siege in 598/7 b.c. (Jos. Antiq. 10:6:3). The latter cannot be reconciled with the Babylonian Chronicle, but may have been constructed from Jeremiah’s words; whereas these may well have been fulfilled in an undignified burial because of the raids. There is a dispute whether a proper burial would have been in the palace or outside the city; Manasseh and Amon were buried in the “garden of Uzza,” which is named in 2 Chronicles 36:8 (LXX). Yeivin accepts this but locates the garden in the city; Myers and Gray draw the opposite conclusion.

Bibliography W. F. Albright, JBL, LI (1932), 84-92; S. Yeivin, JNES, VII (1948), 34ff.; A. Honeyman, JBL, LXVII (1948), 18f.; A. Dupont-Sommer, Semitica I (1948), 43-68; H. Ginsberg, BASOR, CXI (1948), 24-27; J. Bright, BA XII (1949), 46-52; H. Ginsberg, Alexander Marx Jubilee Volume (1950), 350ff.; J. Montgomery, “Kings” ICC (1951); W. F. Albright, JBL, LXXI (1952), 31, 253; D. Wiseman, Chron. of the Chaldaean Kings (1956); J. Hyatt, JBL, LXXV (1956), 277-284; D. Freedman, BA, XIX (1956), 50-60; E. Thiele, BASOR, CXLIII (1956), 22-27; H. Tadmor, JNES, XV (1956), 226-230; A. Malamat, IEJ, VI (1956), 246-255; E. Vogt, Suppl. Vet Test, IV (1957), 67-97; E. Kutsch, ZATW, LXXI (1959), 270ff.; E. Auerbach, Vet Test, IX (1959), 113-121, X (1960), 69f.; J. Finegan, Handbook of Biblical Chronology (1964), ss. 309-318; J. Gray, Kings (1964); J. Myers, Chronicles (1965); J. Fitzmyer, Biblica XLVI (1965), 41-55.