Egypt and the Kingdom of Judah under Josiah and Jehoiakim

Abstract

Based on an evaluation of archaeological, epigraphic and egyptian material the article argues that in the final decades of the 7th century BCE (ca. 630) the egyptian pharaoh Psammetichus I filled the power vacuum created in the southern levant by the departure of the Assyrians. Presumably, after the march to the Tigris in 616, he established with the help of his Greek mercenaries an egyptian-controlled system of vassal-states with a fortress at Mezad Hashavyahu; a network of royal messengers; and the procedures for collecting taxes. In the last years of the reign of Psammetichus I, the Kingdom of Judah under Josiah became part of this egyptian 'successor state'. Judah had to pay taxes and Judahites served the egyptian-Greek authority, which was probably a form of corvée. The egyptian interlude ends with the defeat of Necho II in the Battle of Carchemish in 605 BCE, though the Greek mercenaries remained in the land, probably now in Judahite service under King Jehoiakim.