2 Kings 23:29

29. Pharaoh-necho According to Manetho, he was the sixth king of the twenty-sixth dynasty, and the enterprising monarch who, according to Herodotus, (iv, 42,) fitted out an expedition under charge of the Phenician sailors, which accomplished the circumnavigation of Africa twenty-one centuries before Vasco de Gama doubled the Cape of Good Hope. He appears to have been a most active and energetic king.

Went up against the king of Assyria According to Josephus, this expedition of Necho was “to fight with the Medes and Babylonians, who had overthrown the dominions of the Assyrians.” In that case the king of Assyria here would mean the Babylonian conqueror, Nabopolassar, who had so recently become ruler of Assyria, and stood in the same relation to Judah, so that the Hebrew historian considered it unnecessary to be more particular.

Some think that as the exact date of the fall of Nineveh is not yet settled, it may be that the Assyrian empire was just now in its last stage of weakness, and this weakness tempted Necho to improve the opportunity to conquer Carchemish, (2 Chronicles 35:20,) and attach to his own dominion the Asiatic country west of the river Euphrates. But it is fatal to this supposition, that Necho held Carchemish only three years, when it was wrested from him by Nebuchadnezzar, who had then just attained the royal power. Jeremiah 25:1; compare with Jeremiah 46:2. But Nebuchadnezzar’s father reigned twenty years, and his reign could not have commenced long before the fall of Nineveh. Hence Necho’s conquests on the Euphrates must have occurred after the fall of Assyria.

Josiah went against him He probably supposed that if this Egyptian expedition against the king of Assyria was successful, Necho would not spare Judea on his return. Although the king of Egypt pretended to assure him that he had no hostile intentions against Judea, Josiah was too far-sighted a ruler to fail to see that if Egypt extended her dominions beyond him on the east, and so surrounded him, he would soon be required to surrender his independency, and become a mere vassal of Pharaoh.

Slew him at Megiddo In the great plain of Esdraelon at the northern base of the Carmel range of mountains, at the site of the modern village el-Lejjun. See at Joshua 12:21. It appears from the parallel passage in Chronicles that the surrounding plain was sometimes called “the valley of Megiddo.” Near by was Hadadrimmon, and the excessive lamentation of the Jews over the fall of the beloved Josiah became proverbial, and is spoken of by Zechariah (Zechariah 12:11) as “the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon.” Herodotus seems to refer to this battle between Necho and Josiah when he says (ii, 159) that this king of Egypt “made war by land upon the Syrians and defeated them in a pitched battle at Magdolus,” the latter name being probably a confused form of Megiddo.

When he had seen him When the two armies came in conflict on the field of battle, and looked each other in the face. See at 2 Kings 14:8. It does not appear that Necho slew Josiah with his own hand, but, according to Chronicles, he was shot at and wounded by the archers, and was carried in a chariot to Jerusalem; but where he died is not exactly stated. See on next verse.