Page:The Books of Chronicles (1916).djvu/410

346 written in the lamentations. Now the rest of the acts of Josiah, and his good deeds, according to that which is written in the law of the, and his acts, first and last, behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah. Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and made him king in his father's stead in Jerusalem. Joahaz was twenty and three years old when he began to reign; and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. And the king of Egypt deposed him at Jerusalem, and amerced the land in an hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. And the king of Egypt made Eliakim his brother

in the lamentations] In some lost work, not in our canonical book of the Lamentations, for the contents of the canonical book lend no support whatever to the view that it is referred to here (see further Ency. Brit.$11$, s.v. Lamentations, p. 128).

26, 27 (= 1 Esd. i. 33; 2 Kin. xxiii. 25, 28).&emsp;

26. according to that which is written] Cp. the strong terms used in 2 Kin. xxiii. 25, "like unto him was there no king before him, that turned to the with all his heart  according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose there any like him."

XXXVI. 1—4 (= 1 Esd. i. 34—38; 2 Kin. xxiii. 30 b—34).&emsp;

1. the people of the land took] Cp. xxvi. 1, xxxiii. 25.

Jehoahaz] Called "Shallum" in 1 Chr. iii. 15; Jer. xxii. 11. He was younger than Jehoiakim; ver. 5.

2. in Jerusalem] His mother's name is here omitted; cp. xxxiii. 1, 21, xxxiv. 1. According to 2 Kin. xxiii. 32 (cp. Ezek. xix. 3, 4) Jehoahaz "did evil."

3. deposed him at Jerusalem] The clause answers to 2 Kin. xxiii. 33, "put him in bands at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem." Perhaps we should read the same words in Chron. The Heb. words for "deposed" and "put in bands" are liable to be easily confused.

amerced] A.V. condemned. For "amerce" in the sense of "fine," cp. Deut. xxii. 19; and for "condemn" in the same sense see Amos ii. 8 (A.V., "fined" R.V.).

an hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold] The land was poorer than in the days when Sennacherib had imposed a fine on Hezekiah of "three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold" (2 Kin. xviii. 14).