Josiah Falls at Megiddo
609 BC, firm dateFirm date
Pharaoh Necho marches north to the Euphrates in support of Assyria. King Josiah of Judah goes out against him at Megiddo and is killed. Three months later Necho deposes Josiah’s son Jehoahaz and makes Jehoiakim king as Egypt’s vassal.
The Babylonian chronicle for 610 BC says that the Babylonians and Medes marched on Harran against Ashur-uballit, who had taken the throne of Assyria, and that he and an Egyptian army that had come to his aid abandoned the city and crossed the Euphrates (Babylonian Chronicle 3 year 16). In the month Du’uzu of the following year Ashur-uballit came back over the river with a large army from Egypt. They besieged Harran until the month Ululu and achieved nothing (Babylonian Chronicle 3 year 17).
Kings tells in two verses what this march meant for Judah. Pharaoh Necho II went up to the Euphrates, King Josiah went to meet him, and Necho killed him at Megiddo. His servants brought the body in a chariot to Jerusalem and buried him in his own tomb (2 Kings 23:29–30). The translations differ on Necho’s purpose: the World English Bible has him go up “against the king of Assyria”, the New Revised Standard Version “to the king of Assyria”. The chronicle has the Egyptians fighting beside the Assyrians (Babylonian Chronicle 3 year 17).
Chronicles gives a longer account that differs in several points. Necho was marching to Carchemish on the Euphrates to fight. He sent envoys to tell Josiah that he had no quarrel with him and that God had ordered him to hurry. Josiah would not turn back. He disguised himself and joined battle in the plain of Megiddo, where archers shot him. His servants moved him to a second chariot and brought him to Jerusalem, and Chronicles places his death there. The Chronicler says that Josiah did not listen to the words of Necho “from the mouth of God” (2 Chronicles 35:20–24). All Judah mourned, and Jeremiah made a lament for the king (2 Chronicles 35:24–25).
The people of the land anointed Josiah’s son Jehoahaz, who reigned three months (2 Kings 23:30–31). Necho put him in chains at Riblah in the land of Hamath, laid on Judah a tribute of a hundred talents of silver and one of gold, and made another son, Eliakim, king under the name Jehoiakim. Jehoahaz was taken to Egypt and died there (2 Kings 23:33–34). Chronicles says that the king of Egypt deposed him in Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 36:1–4). Jeremiah, who calls him Shallum, told the people to weep for the king who had gone away and would never see his country again (Jeremiah 22:10–12).
Kings says that no king before or after Josiah turned to the Lord as he did (2 Kings 23:25). After his death Judah paid tribute to Egypt (2 Kings 23:35). Four years later Necho’s army was beaten at Carchemish (Jeremiah 46:2), and Jehoiakim became the servant of Nebuchadnezzar (2 Kings 24:1, 7). Of the kings who followed, Necho appointed Jehoiakim and Nebuchadnezzar appointed Zedekiah (2 Kings 23:34) (2 Kings 24:17).
How this is dated
Firm date. Fixed by contemporary documentation and not seriously disputed.
Kings and Chronicles give no year, only that Josiah reigned thirty-one years (2 Kings 22:1) and died when Necho marched to the Euphrates (2 Kings 23:29). The Babylonian chronicle supplies the year. In the month Du’uzu of Nabopolassar’s seventeenth year, which fell in the summer of 609 BC, the Assyrian king crossed the Euphrates with a large Egyptian army to attack Harran, and the siege went on until the month Ululu (Babylonian Chronicle 3 year 17). The chronicle names neither the pharaoh nor Judah. The link between the two accounts is that both describe an Egyptian march to the Euphrates in the last years of the Assyrian kingdom; in the chronicle the Egyptians march with the Assyrian king.
A second line of evidence gives the same year. Jeremiah dates the battle of Carchemish to the fourth year of Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 46:2), and the Babylonian chronicle puts that battle in 605 BC (see the battle of Carchemish). Jehoiakim’s reign therefore began in 609 or 608 BC, and Kings has it begin three months after Josiah’s death (2 Kings 23:31–34).
On this reckoning Josiah fell as the Egyptian army went north, before it crossed the Euphrates in Du’uzu. Abraham Malamat, “Josiah’s Bid for Armageddon: The Background of the Judean-Egyptian Encounter in 609 B.C.”, Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society 5 (1973), pp. 267–279, places the clash at Megiddo in the summer of 609 BC, about half a year after the Egyptian retreat from Harran in November 610.
Primary sources
Scripture
In context
Grows out of
- 622 BC, estimated date
Leads to
- 605 BC, firm date