20After all this, when Josiah had prepared the temple, Neco king of Egypt went up to fight against Carchemish by Euphrates: and Josiah went out against him. 21But he sent ambassadors to him, saying, What have I to do with thee, thou king of Judah? I come not against thee this day, but against the house wherewith I have war; and God [1]hath commanded me to make haste: forbear thee from meddling
"After these things and this faithfulness, Sennacherib came . . .," but in his case the sore trial of faith proved to be for the greater glory of the God of Israel. Here the plea of a successful issue to the trouble was not available, and no doubt the story of Josiah's end was too famous to be passed over in silence. It would seem as if the Chronicler therefore adapted the narrative so as to make it appear that Josiah made an attack on Neco in defiance of a Divine warning (ver. 21), and thus deserved his fate. The somewhat similar tale of Ahab's death (xviii. 28—34 = 1 Kin. xxii. 29—37) was in the Chronicler's mind, and he appears to have drawn upon it for certain details introduced into his version of Josiah's end (see vv. 22, 23).
20. Neco] This was Neco II who reigned 610—594 B.C. (Flinders Petrie, History of Egypt, III. 335). According to Herodotus (II. 159) he conquered the "Syrians" at "Magdolus," and then captured Cadytis (Kadesh on the Orontes, or Gaza?), an important city of Syria. Herodotus no doubt refers to the same great campaign of Neco which is recorded in Kings and Chron., though it is not at all likely that the victory over the Syrians at Magdolus is to be identified with the encounter of Neco and Josiah at Megiddo. The account of Herodotus is obscure, ambiguous, and defective, but a comparison of 2 Kings with an inscription of Nabu-na'id king of Babylon (555—538 B.C.) sets Neco's action in a clearer light. The campaign (which took place about 608 B.C.) was directed "against the king of Assyria" (2 Kin. xxiii. 29), i.e. against the last king Sin-šariškun (Saracos) who was at war with Nabopolassar (father of Nebuchadrezzar), king of Babylon. Nabopolassar, hard pressed, called in to his help the Umman-manda (Scythians), who destroyed Nineveh circ. 607 B.C.; cp. Messerschmidt, Die Inschrift der Stele Nabu-na'id's (pp. 5—13). Neco advanced to the Euphrates to secure some of the spoils of the Assyrian overthrow, but the crushing victory of Nebuchadrezzar over Neco at Carchemish (circ. 605 B.C.) finally excluded Egypt from any share.
against Carchemish] Cp. Jer. xlvi. 2. It was a city situated near the junction of the Habor and Euphrates. In 2 Kin., "against the king of Assyria."
21. against the house wherewith I have war] In 1 Esd. i. 27 there is a different reading, "my war is upon Euphrates."
- ↑ Or, hath given command to speed me
