The same observation applies to this king’s mother as to the mother of Jehoahaz. Her name is Zebuddah, the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah. She probably came from one of the cities of Judah. Jehoiakim, at first tributary to Pharaoh, then becomes tributary to Nebuchadnezzar whose reign began the fourth year of Jehoiakim. The Lord’s warnings are lavished upon him by Jeremiah (Jer. 22:13-19) and other prophets; they are not heeded. He slays Urijah, a prophet who prophesied against Jerusalem and against Judah, but who, lacking faith in presence of the king’s murderous plans, fled to Egypt (Jer. 26:20-23). Jeremiah also runs the same dangers, but this man of God trusts in the word of the Lord: “And I, behold, I appoint thee this day as a strong city, and an iron pillar, and brazen walls, against the whole land; against the kings of Judah, against its princes, against its priests, and against the people of the land. And they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee saith Jehovah, to deliver thee” (Jer. 1:18-19; see also Jer. 6:27; 15:20-21). The Lord watches over him according to this word. When in his unbelief the king, after having cut up the roll of the prophecy of Jeremiah with a penknife and thrown it into the fire, seeks further to seize the prophet and his faithful companion, Baruch, we are told that “Jehovah hid them” (Jer. 36, especially Jer. 36:23, 26).
Jeremiah had begun to prophesy in the thirteenth year of faithful Josiah when the people were still enjoying the prosperity which the faithfulness of the king had procured for them, but the people had not listened. Then the prophet announced the seventy years of captivity under the yoke of Babylon (Jer. 25:11), the destiny of all the nations, at the head of whom he placed Jerusalem, comparing it to the idolatrous peoples, and finally, the destiny of Babylon itself (Jer. 25:17-29). This account indicates what the universal monarchy begun by Babylon would be like, regardless of how short its dominion might be by comparison with the long Assyrian dominion. But Assyria had never formed a compact kingdom, well established and universally recognized like that of Babylon.
Jehoiakim had changed masters. He could hardly wait to rebel against Nebuchadnezzar. After his land had in part become a prey for all his neighbors (2 Kings 24:2), this monarch went up against him and bound him with chains of brass to take him away to Babylon (2 Chron. 36:6). We learn through Jeremiah what word the Lord had pronounced concerning him: “Therefore thus saith Jehovah concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah: He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David; and his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost” (Jer. 36:30).
“Verily, at the commandment of Jehovah it came to pass against Judah, that they should be removed out of His sight, for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done; and also because of the innocent blood that he had shed; for he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and Jehovah would not pardon” (2 Kings 24:3-4). From the time of Manasseh this irrevocable decree had gone forth from the Lord; it had been suspended during Josiah’s reign, and would have remained so during the reigns of his successors had they been willing to listen (Jer. 25:1-11). There were two causes for this final judgment: idolatry, and innocent blood; and Jehoiakim, like Manasseh, had shed the latter according to his power in Jerusalem, the city that has killed the prophets and stoned those who were sent to it.
From thenceforth Pharaoh came not again any more out of his land (2 Kings 24:7), the Babylonian empire having deprived him of all his possessions from the Nile to the Euphrates.