Riblah has been preserved in the miserable village of Rible, from ten to twelve hours to the S.S.W. of Hums (Emesa) by the river el Ahsy (Orontes), in a large fruitful plain of the northern portion of the Bekaa, which was very well adapted to serve as the camping ground of Necho’s army as well as of that of Nebuchadnezzar (2Ki 25:6, 2Ki 25:20-21), not only because it furnished the most abundant supply of food and fodder, but also on account of its situation on the great caravan-road from Palestine by Damascus, Emesa, and Hamath to Thapsacus and Carchemish on the Euphrates (cf. Rob. Bibl. Res. pp. 542-546 and 641).
In the payment imposed upon the land by Necho, one talent of gold (c. 25,000 thalers: £3750) does not seem to bear any correct proportion to 100 talents of silver (c. 250,000 thalers, or £37,500), and consequently the lxx have 100 talents of gold, the Syr. and Arab. 10 talents; and Thenius supposes this to have been the original reading, and explains the reading in the text from the dropping out of a y (= 10), though without reflecting that as a rule the number 10 would require the plural כּכּרים.
Verses 34-35
From the words “Necho made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in the place of his father Josiah,” it follows that the king of Egypt did not acknowledge the reign of Jehoahaz, because he had been installed by the people without his consent. “And changed his name into Jehoiakim.” The alteration of the name was a sign of dependence. In ancient times princes were accustomed to give new names to the persons whom they took into their service, and masters to give new names to their slaves (cf. Gen 41:45; Ezr 5:14; Dan 1:7, and Hävernick on the last passage). - But while these names were generally borrowed from heathen deities, Eliakim, and at a later period Mattaniah (2Ki 24:17), received genuine Israelitish names, Jehoiakim, i.e., “Jehovah will set up,” and Zidkiyahu, i.e., “righteousness of Jehovah;” from which we may infer that Necho and Nebuchadnezzar did not treat the vassal kings installed by them exactly as their slaves, but allowed them to choose the new names for themselves, and simply confirmed them as a sign of their supremacy. Eliakim altered his name into Jehoiakim, i.e., El (God) into Jehovah, to set the allusion to the establishment of the kingdom, which is implied in the name, in a still more definite relation to Jehovah the covenant God, who had promised to establish the seed of David (2Sa 7:14), possibly with an
