During this time period the king of Egypt was working with the king of Assyria to push back against the westward advance of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Previously in our study of the kings, while Necho was marching toward Harran to help the king of Assyria against the Babylonians, King Josiah of Judah opposed him and was killed in battle. Necho's efforts at Harran were unsuccessful and on his way back he took King Jehoahaz captive at Riblah, perhaps because Jehoahaz came out to oppose him. The Bible, however, provides no explanation for this event and neither do any of the surviving records of Necho's reign. After taking the king of Judah into his custody, Necho placed Jehoahaz's brother on the throne as a puppet king under the authority of Egypt. Heavy tribute was imposed on Judah, which Jehoiakim obediently paid by taxing all the people.
Jehoiakim and the nation of Judah remained subject to Egypt for several years until Necho led an attack against the Babylonians at Carchemish. The Babylonians, who were led by Nebuchadnezzar the army general and crown prince, delivered a crushing defeat to the king of Egypt. Nebuchadnezzar and his army then pursued the Egyptian army as they fled down to the Sinai. On his way back, Nebuchadnezzar turned his attention to Jerusalem, which lay along the route, because Jerusalem was a vassal state of Egypt. He began to lay siege to Jerusalem but Jehoiakim prevented the fall of the city by pledging his allegiance to Babylon and by handing over to Nebuchadnezzar funds from the royal treasury, valuable items from the temple, and some members of the royal family for Nebuchadnezzar to hold as hostages to ensure that the king would keep his word to him.
The author of 2 Kings provides very few details about this but later in the Bible, when we get to the books of the prophets, we will be learning much more about Nebuchadnezzar's interactions with the nation of Judah. As we begin 2 Kings 24 the author refers to Nebuchadnezzar as "king of Babylon" although, when Nebuchadnezzar first subjugates the nation of Judah, his father Nabopolassar is still king of Babylon. "During Jehoiakim's reign, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon invaded the land, and Jehoiakim became his vassal for three years." (2 Kings 24:1a)
Nabopolassar is near the end of his life when his son makes Judah subject to Babylon. While Nebuchadnezzar was busy subduing all the territories that were vassal states of Egypt, he got word that his father had died. He had to hastily leave off his military campaign and rush home to secure the throne. He was approximately five hundred miles away from his father's palace at the time and this posed the very real threat that a usurper, along with a group of supporters, might charge the palace and gain control of it and declare the usurper king. Or there was the chance of the people bringing a candidate forward and declaring him king. Or there was the possibility that a close relative in the royal family would declare himself Nabopolassar's successor. Nebuchadnezzar was too far away to quash any sort of rebellion so he immediately heads home and must have traveled day and night in order to reach the capital city in two weeks.
Nebuchadnezzar, now king of Babylon, spends the first third of his reign with activities to secure his position as king and with carrying out military exploits. Some of these exploits are unsuccessful, such as an attempted invasion of Egypt. This encouraged some of his vassal states to view him as too weak to enforce their required tribute, so they began to rebel against him. King Jehoiakim is one of those kings who seizes the opportunity to withhold tribute and to transfer his allegiance back to the nation of Egypt, for at this time it appears as if Egypt may regain the upper hand in the region and I am sure he wants to be on the winning side. He likely expects that things will not go well for him if Egypt regains control of the Levant and if it looks to Pharaoh that he is a loyal subject of Nebuchadnezzar. "But then he turned against Nebuchadnezzar and rebelled." (2 Kings 24:1b)
However, Jehoiakim is betting on the wrong horse when he re-allies himself with Egypt. Pharaoh's successful pushback of Nebuchadnezzar's forces will be short-lived and Jehoiakim will find himself taken prisoner to Babylon.
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