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Updated: June 5, 2025
Josiah lived between two mighty powers; the King of Babylon, who had newly taken Nineveh, and Pharaoh Necho, King of Egypt, a very bold and able man, who hired Phoenician ships to sail round Africa, and then did not believe the crews when they came back, because they said they had seen the sun to the north at noon, and wool growing on trees.
The Greek oracles were of Egyptian origin. So profound was the respect paid to their commands that even the sovereigns were obliged to obey them. It was thus that a warning from the oracle of Amun caused Necho to stop the construction of his canal. For the determination of future events, omens were studied, entrails inspected, and nativities were cast.
When Sennacherib conquered Egypt, he carried the throne away with him, but, on his homeward march, during the overthrow of his army before the gates of Jerusalem, he had to part with it to Hezekiah. Now it remained in Palestine until the time of Jehoash, when it was once more carried to Egypt by Pharaoh Necho. His possession of the throne brought him little joy.
Yet, why should an undertaking which was successful in the days of Sesostris appear unattainable? The shortness of the time at their disposal was a still greater source of anxiety, and to this was added the information that one hundred and twenty thousand workmen had perished during the restoration of the canal which Pharaoh Necho nearly completed.
Scythians and Medes are holding most of eastern and central Assyria; Chaldaeans hold south Mesopotamia; while Syria, isolated from the old centre of empire, is anyone's to take and keep. A claimant appears immediately in the person of the Egyptian Necho, sprung from the loins of that Psammetichus who had won the Nile country back from Assyria.
In the same neighbourhood Josiah, king of Judah, fought in disguise against Necho, king of Egypt, and fell by the arrows of his antagonist, deeply lamented. The great mourning in Jerusalem, foretold by Zechariah, is said to be as the lamentations in the Plain of Esdraelon, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the Valley of Megiddon. Vespasian reviewed his army in the same great plain.
For whom were these tears? for the play-fellow of her youth, or for the handsome, beloved prince? Amasis embraced his wife and daughter in the eyes of all his people; and held up his little grandson, Prince Necho, to their gaze, the sight eliciting cries of joy on all sides. But Psamtik, the child's own father, stood by the while, tearless and motionless.
Josiah rashly embarked in the contest, either with a view of giving his aid to the king of Babylon, or to prevent the march of Necho, which lay through the great plain of Esdrælon. Josiah, heedless of all warnings, ventured in person against the Egyptian army, though in disguise, and was slain by an arrow.
Napoleon Bonaparte was the first in modern times to take up the subject of a water connection between the two seas. In 1798 he examined the traces of the old canal of Necho and his successors, and ordered Monsieur Lepère to survey the isthmus and prepare a project for uniting the two seas by a direct canal.
We have the testimony of Herodotus, that Necho, king of Egypt, having failed in an attempt to connect the Nile with the Red Sea by a canal, determine to try whether another route might not be within his reach, and sent Phoenician vessels from the Red Sea, with orders to sail round Africa, and return by the Mediterranean.
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