Page:A memoir of Granville Sharp.djvu/152

148 the order of time, in which he delivered the several tremendous predictions of God's vengeance against the wicked princes. Zedekiah was the son of that excellent prince Josiah king of Judah, on whose account, expressly, the dreadful vengeance, due to that wicked nation, was postponed for several years, viz. till after his death.

The Scriptures mention four sons of king Josiah, viz. "the first born, Johanan (or John); the second, Jehoiakim; the third, Zedekiah; and the fourth, Shallum." 1 Chron. iii. 15. What became of the eldest son, Johanan, or John, is not recorded (1 Chron. iii. 15.) but all the others ascended the throne of David; and first of all, the youngest son Shallum, whom, on the death of king Josiah, "the people of the land took, and" (as it seems, without regard to seniority) "made him king in his father's stead in Jerusalem." 2 Chron. xxxvi. 1.

The reign of Shallum (alias Jehoahaz 2 Kings xxiii. 31, 32.) was only three months; for he regarded not the eternal laws of God, and thereby drew down the divine vengeance upon himself, by the hand of Pharaoh-Neco, who deposed him at Jerusalem (2 Chron. xxxvi. 3,) and afterwards "put him in bands at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem" (2 Kings xxiii. 33) there being, probably, some reason to apprehend, that he would attempt to supplant his elder brother Eliakim, whom the Egyptian conqueror had thought proper to set up in his stead upon " the throne of David;" and therefore, to secure the new established monarch, he not only put Shallum in bands, but also carried him away with him into captivity in Egypt where he died (2 Kings xxiii. 34.)

Thus Eliakim (through the mercy of God to "the house of David") was raised to the throne and kingdom of his ancestors, even by a foreign enemy! who also changed his name (that the providence of God might be more apparent in the revolution) from Eliakim (אל־וקים, signifying God will establish) to Jehoiakim, signifying (as I have before remarked) "Jehovah will establish;" whereby it is manifest that even a heathen monarch took pains to remind the