Charles Ellicott Commentary 2 Chronicles 35:20

"After all this, when Josiah had prepared the temple, Neco king of Egypt went up to fight against Carchemish by the Euphrates: and Josiah went out against him." — 2 Chronicles 35:20 (ASV)

JOSIAH SLAIN IN BATTLE AGAINST NECHO KING OF EGYPT (2 Chronicles 35:20–27. Compare to 2 Kings 23:29–30; 2 Kings 3:0; Ezra 1:23-30).

After all this. —Compare this to the similar phrase, “after these matters, and this faithfulness” (2 Chronicles 32:1). The phrase calls attention to the difference between the event and what might naturally have been expected. In spite of Josiah’s fidelity to Jehovah, this was his end.

Necho king of Egypt came up. —The Book of Kings states, “In his days came up Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt.” The Septuagint also reads similarly here. The Syriac version states, “Pharaoh the Lame, king of Egypt.” Pharaoh is simply “the king;” Coptic Pouro, or Perro (pi “the,” ouro or r̄ ro, “king”).

The Hebrew spelling Pa’rôh appears to be due to an assimilation of the Egyptian word to the Hebrew pĕrâ’ôth, “leaders” (Judges 5:1). An inscription of Assurbanipal gives a list of twenty subject kings appointed by Esarhaddon his father to rule in Egypt; the first name in the list being that of “Nikû sar ali Mimpi u ali Sâa,” i.e., “Necho, king of the city of Memphis, and the city of Sais.” Assurbanipal twice reinstated this Necho (Necho I., around 664 B.C.) after vanquishing Tirhakah.

The Necho of our text is Necho II., who reigned around 610 B.C. (See the Note on 2 Kings 23:29).

Against Charchemish. — At Charchemish. The Syriac and Arabic versions state, “to assault Mabûg,” i.e., Hierapolis. Necho’s enemy was “the king of Assyria” (2 Kings 23:29; the Septuagint also states this here), i.e., Esarhaddon II. (Saracus), the last of the rulers of Nineveh; not Nabopalassar, king of Babylon, because the Assyrian empire had not yet fallen before the united assault of the Medes and the Babylonians.

Charchemish has been identified with the modern Jirbâs, on the western bank of the middle Euphrates. Its situation, as Schrader observes, suits an intended expedition against Nineveh and Assyria, rather than against Babylon. It was one of the great Hittite capitals, and inscriptions in hieroglyphics, similar to those of Hamath, have recently been unearthed on the site, and brought from there to the British Museum.

The name means, “Fortress of Mîsh.” Compare this to “Mesha” (Genesis 10:30), the Assyrian Masu, i.e., the part of the Syrian desert which ran along the right bank of the Euphrates. The place was also called Tel-Mîsh, “mound of Mîsh;” Greek, Τελμησσός. (Thenius thinks the phrase, “against Charchemish,” was originally a marginal gloss, noting the place of the final and decisive encounter between Necho and the Babylonians).

Josiah went out against him. —To this statement the Book of Kings only adds that Necho “slew him at Megiddo, when he saw him,” i.e., at the outset of the encounter. The chronicler, therefore, has derived the details of the following verses from another source (2 Chronicles 35:21–25).