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On his return three months later he visited Jerusalem, deposed Jehoahaz, a younger son of Josiah, whom the people had made king, and gave the crown to Jehoiakim, his elder brother. It was probably about this time that he besieged and took Gaza, the most important of the Philistine towns next to Ashdod.
I confess that this little picture of a fire on the hearth so many centuries ago helps to make real and interesting to me that somewhat misty past. No doubt the lotus and the acanthus from the Nile grew in that winter-house, and perhaps Jehoiakim attempted the most difficult thing in the world the cultivation of the wild flowers from Lebanon.
Balphoras! haste thee back with a double guard, and inform Jehoiakim that my orders are not to be trifled with; and moreover, that if he persists in his stubbornness, I shall send sufficient force to drag him into my presence as a guilty culprit." The communication was in perfect accordance with the desires and expectations of the Chaldean officer. Balphoras was in possession of an amiable mind.
"You laugh at me!" she cried indignantly. "You mock me you are going away and you are glad!" She would have turned away from him, but he held her two hands. "Not alone," he answered. "The Great King has sent an order that I shall bring to Shushan the kinsfolk of Jehoiakim, saving only Daniel, our master, for he is so old that he cannot perform the journey.
When the king heard what it contained, he was angry, and tore it, and cast it into the fire, where it was consumed. He also commanded that they should seek for Jeremiah, and Baruch the scribe, and bring them to him, that they might be punished. However, they escaped his anger. And this was the end of king Jehoiakim, when he had lived thirty-six years, and of them reigned eleven.
Thus the conflict waxed hotter and hotter as the Chaldeans desperately fought their way through the exasperated men of Judah. Finally, the King of Judah was carried into the presence of Nebuchadnezzar and had he, even then, humbled himself, he might have escaped an awful doom. The behavior of Jehoiakim in the presence of the Chaldean monarch was that of a madman.
And woe to the stiff-necked and stout-hearted man who, like the wicked king Jehoiakim, sets his face like a flint against God's warnings. How many, how many behave for years, Sunday after Sunday, just as king Jehoiakim did! When he heard that God had threatened him with ruin for his sins, he heard also that God offered him free pardon if he would repent.
Jehoiakim was bent on trusting for help to the Egyptians, who had made him king, and treated Jeremiah as a traitor for counselling him to be loyal to the Assyrians; he threw Jeremiah into prison, and when Baruch read the roll of his prophecies in the Temple, he caused it to be cut to pieces and destroyed.
Then Jeremiah took another roll and gave it to Baruch, the scribe, who wrote on it as Jeremiah spoke to him, all the words of the book which Jehoiakim, the ruler of Judah, had burned in the fire; and many other similar words were added. Once the king of Assyria sent a high official with a great army to Jerusalem.
They made Jehoiakim glide down from the city walls of Jerusalem by a chain. Below, the Babylonians stood ready to receive him. Nebuchadnezzar took Jehoiakim in fetters to all the cities of Judah, then he slew him, and, his rage still unabated, threw his corpse to the dogs after having stuck it into the carcass of an ass.
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