Jehoiakim

Jehoiakim, also called Eliakim, was the king of Judah from 609 to 598 BCE. He was the eldest son of Josiah and was named Eliakim at birth; after Josiah’s death, Pharaoh Necho II installed him as king and renamed him Jehoiakim, a name meaning “Yahweh raises up” or “the Lord establishes.” He ruled as a vassal of Egypt until the rise of Babylonian power.

During his reign Judah remained under foreign suzerainty, first to Egypt and later to Babylon after Nebuchadnezzar II’s campaigns. In 605 BCE, the first group of Judean elites, including Daniel, was exiled to Babylon as Babylon asserted greater influence. Jehoiakim initially submitted to Nebuchadnezzar but soon rebelled around 601–598 BCE, provoking renewed Babylonian intervention. Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem; Jehoiakim died during the siege, and his son Jehoiachin succeeded him. Nebuchadnezzar later installed Zedekiah as a puppet ruler.

Religiously, the biblical record portrays Jehoiakim as continuing the idolatrous practices associated with his father’s era and not fully restoring Josiah’s reforms. His reign coincided with Jeremiah’s prophecies and the beginnings of the Babylonian exile that reshaped Judah’s history.

Jehoiakim is named in 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles, Jeremiah, and Daniel. His reign marks the transition from Egyptian to Babylonian dominance over Judah and the lead-up to the major deportations that characterized early exile in Jewish history.