cho is gathered
from a passage in Berosus, where he says that the Egyptian
army beaten at Carchemish comprised Phoenicians, besides
Syrians and Arabs.

[Illustration: 378.jpg Victorious Necho]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph published in
Mariette. This scarab, now in the Gizeh Museum, is the only
Egyptian monument which alludes to the victories of Necho.
Above, the king stands between Nit and Isis; below, the
vanquished are stretched on the ground.

The Jews had rescued the body of their king and had brought it back in
his chariot to Jerusalem; they proclaimed in his stead, not his eldest
son Eliakim, but the youngest, Shallum, who adopted the name of Jehoahaz
on ascending the throne. He was a young man, twenty-three years of age,
light and presumptuous of disposition, opposed to the reform movement,
and had doubtless been unwise enough to display his hostile feelings
towards the conqueror. Necho summoned him to Eiblah, deposed him after
a reign of three months, condemned him to prison, and replaced him by
Eliakim, who changed his name to that of Jehoiakim--"he whom Jahveh
exalts;" and after laying Judah under a tribute of one hundred talents
of silver and one of gold, the Egyptian monarch returned to his own
country. Certain indications lead us to believe that he was obliged to
undertake other punitive expeditions. The Philistines, probably deceived
by false rumours of his defeat, revolted against him about the time that
he was engaged in hostilities in Northern Syria, and on receiving news
not only of his safety, but of the victory he had gained, their alarm
was at once aroused. Judah forgot her own sorrows on seeing the peril in
which they stood, and Jeremiah pronounced against them a prophecy full
of menace. "Behold," he cried, "waters rise up out of the north, and
shall become an overflowing stream, and shall overflow the land and all
that is therein, the city and them that dwell therein; and the men shall
cry, and all the inhabitants of the land shall howl... for the Lord will
spoil the Philistines, the remnant of the Isle of Caphtor. Baldness is
come upon Gaza; Ascalon is dumb with terror, and you, all that are left
of the giants, how long will ye tear your faces in your mourning?"*
Ascalon was sacked and then Gaza,** and Necho at length was able to
re-enter his domains, doubtless by the bridge of Zalu, following in this
his models, his heroic ancestors of the