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Jehoahaz
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KINGS OF JUDAH 137 JEHOAHAZ 609 BCE Put on sackcloth And strew dust on yourselves! Mourn, as for an only child. Wail bitterly For suddenly the destroyer Is coming upon us.[58] After three centuries of existence, Judah was drifting inexorably toward extinction . Under Josiah, the southern kingdom of the Jews had freed itself from subservience to the crumbling Assyrian Empire. But even if the proud Josiah had not been mortally wounded by the Egyptians on the battlefield at Megiddo, and even if his army had not been shattered there, Judah would have been doomed. It was at the mercy of far more powerful forces competing for mastery in the region. Ascending the throne, Josiah’s son Jehoahaz knew the outcome of those rivalries would greatly impinge upon Judah’s ways and attitudes and possibly determine its very existence. He was not the only one who realized that. Jerusalem had already become a political arena of feuding cabals siding with one or another of the powers competing in the wider regional struggles. Advisers aplenty urged the king to seek association with, and protection by, those they favored. Assyria’s rapid decline had cost pro-Assyrian advocates, who had formerly prevailed , much of their credibility. But when Josiah had been killed and Judah’s army had been trounced by the Egyptians, those who had favored Egypt, having bowed to what they believed to be the harsh realities of the situation, fell into disgrace . They were edged out by a faction opposed to subservience to any foreign ruler, regardless of external pressures. But this would-be independence movement soon found itself picking Babylon as the best possible option in a no-win situation. Long part of the empire of the Assyrians, the Babylonians had risen against their rule, put an army in the field, and were striving for supremacy over an alliance between their now-floundering former Assyrian masters and the Egyptians. In Jerusalem, Jehoahaz attracted the support of what had evolved into the proBabylonian faction. But Judah would never again savor the luxury of choice. The KINGS OF THE JEWS 138 presence of a victorious Egyptian army on Judaean soil left it bereft of options. Pharaoh Necho II imposed a heavy burden of taxes and expropriated outlying territories that Judah had ruled, cutting the kingdom well down in size. Three months after having been crowned, Jehoahaz presented himself humbly before Necho for the Egyptians to confirm his newly acquired royal status. He was turned down. To demonstrate his absolute power over Judah, Necho ordered that the recently anointed king of Judah be put in chains and hauled off to Egypt where he died in captivity. ...