His Story

Josiah’s elder son, set up by Pharaoh as a puppet (his name itself changed from Eliakim by his master). Under him Egypt’s yoke gave way to Babylon’s: Nebuchadnezzar bound him in his third year (Daniel 1:1 – 2 — Daniel and his friends went to Babylon in that first carrying away). He taxed the land heavily to pay tribute and built himself a cedar palace while the nation bled.

His Sin — How He Displeased the LORD

Jeremiah’s indictment is personal and precise: “Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness… thine eyes and thine heart are but for thy covetousness, and for to shed innocent blood” (Jeremiah 22:13 – 17). His signature act: when Jehudi read Jeremiah’s scroll before him, the king cut it piece by piece with a penknife and burned it in the firepot — then ordered the prophet arrested. God’s answer: “The word of the LORD cannot be burned; rewrite it, and add the judgment.”

The Good He Did

Scripture records none — Jeremiah sets him expressly against his father: Josiah “did judgment and justice… then it was well with him” (Jeremiah 22:15).

The LORD’s verdict

“And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his fathers had done.”2 Kings 23:37 (KJV)

How His Reign Ended

He rebelled against Babylon in dependence on Egypt; the record of Kings closes his reign with raiders on every border. Jeremiah prophesied he would have “the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem” (Jeremiah 22:19) — a king unburied and unwept, as Josephus and the silence of his own obituary confirm.

Lessons for Believers Today

• You can burn a scroll; you cannot burn a sentence of God. Every copy Jehoiakim destroyed multiplied — his grandson’s generation read Jeremiah in exile.
• Palaces built on unrighteousness stand in Jeremiah’s woe-list. A king is measured by what he does for the poor (Jeremiah 22:16), not the cedar on his walls.

← Jehoahaz (of Judah)All 43 KingsJehoiachin →