1881.] ^Jd [Lesley. 



months in upsetting his father's .Jahvism, and restoring idolatr3^ Necho, 

 on his arrival at Jerusalem, sent him a prisoner to Riblah in northern 

 Syria, and made Josiah's brother, Eliakim, King, turning his name to 

 Jehoiakim. 



Eliakim, CD'p"'bN. ALIQIM, is supposed to mean "God has appointed 

 him" (Ges.) from CDIp. to rise, stand ; a'p, piel, to make rise, stand, con- 

 firm, establish &c. If this be so, then why does Gesenius say of nd'^X 

 (2 Sam, 23 : 25) "etymology unknown," when it should mean "God has 

 spewed him out," from xip, to spew out'? What is good etymology in the 

 one case should be good in the other. — But a more embarrassing question 

 arises : , 



Jehoakim (Eliakim) should then mean "Jehovah has appointed him." 

 Now, how is it possible to suggest any motive for an Egyptian King 

 changing his Hebrew vassal's name by substituting "Jehovah " for " El ; " 

 especially seeing that he himself worshiped El (=KA), and his vassal 

 (so the history goes on to state) hated Jehovah, "as all his fathers had 

 done ?" 



This again shows that either the liebrew traditional names are wrong, 

 or that their hebrew traditional etymologies are valueless. 



It must be noted that Josiah's mother was Jeclidah; but his brother 

 Jehoakim 's mother was .^e&iirfaA; so they were only half-brothers; and 

 while Josiah was 39 years old, his half-brother, Jehoiakim, was only 25. 

 These 14 years may have made a great change in the hareem of King 

 Amon, and goes far to explain the anti-Jahvism of the younger half- 

 brother. 



Undoubtedly jDolygamy at the court of Judah was the ground cause of 

 the continual revival of anti- Jahvist worships in the history of the king- 

 dom. Josiah's own children could have very little chance for a good 

 education in their father's orthodoxy, surrounded as their infancy and 

 adolescence must have been by female worshipers (open or secret) of 

 Baal, Moloch, Chemosh, Rimmon, Thammuz, Astarte, Neith, and other 

 Syrian and Egyptian deities. It is only surprising that the titles of these 

 deities do not appear in the lists of royal names. Why do they not ? 

 Were the mothers deterred from naming their children after the deities 

 which they were permitted openly to adore ? That is evidently no explana- 

 tion. Are we then left to conjecture that the reiterated story of this court 

 idolatry is in the main a mere late priestly tradition, without foundation 

 in fact, and penned for a long subsequent purpose, viz., to account for facts 

 otherwise unaccountable ? 



Among other nations, Greek, Phoenician, Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyp- 

 tian, the national pantheon is painted and recorded in each royal nomen- 

 clature. The Hebrew annals, both Kings and Chronicles, have this 

 exceptional feature : they affirm that kings and people alike were habitual 

 worshipers of numerous well-known deities, and yet, while they record 

 lists of I'oyal and common names compounded from the name of one 



