The Puppet King and the Price of Sin Text: 2 Kings 23:34-37
Introduction: The High Cost of Unbelief
We come now to the tail end of one of the most tragic stories in the Old Testament. The good king Josiah, a bright and shining light of reformation, is dead. His reforms, though thorough and zealous, were ultimately too little, too late. The heart of the people, for the most part, was not in it. They went through the motions, but the deep rot of Manasseh’s idolatry had done its work. The nation was a hollowed-out tree, and God’s judgment, long delayed, was now at the door. What we witness in these closing verses of 2 Kings 23 is not just a political shuffle; it is a theological object lesson. It is a stark portrait of what happens when a nation rejects its true King.
When a people forsake the Lord, they do not become free. They simply exchange masters. They trade the light yoke of Christ for the heavy yoke of a pagan tyrant. Judah had played the harlot with foreign gods, and now she would be enslaved by foreign kings. This is the unvarying logic of the covenant. Obedience brings liberty and blessing. Disobedience brings bondage and cursing. There is no third way. A nation will either be ruled by God, or it will be ruled by tyrants. And as we see here, the tyrants God sends as judgment are often far more demanding than He ever was.
The events here are swift and brutal. The people’s choice for king, Jehoahaz, lasts a mere three months before Pharaoh Neco of Egypt puts him in chains and carts him off. Egypt is now calling the shots in Jerusalem. And Pharaoh’s man, Eliakim, renamed Jehoiakim, is placed on the throne. He is not a king in any true sense; he is a puppet, a regional manager for a foreign power. His job is to extract wealth from his own people and send it to his overlord. This is the price of apostasy. It is the bill coming due for generations of covenant unfaithfulness. And it is a bill that must be paid.
We must not read this as some dusty, ancient history. This is a recurring pattern. When a nation, founded on Christian principles, decides it knows better than God, when it redefines good and evil, when it sacrifices its children on the altars of convenience and sexual license, it should not be surprised when it finds itself in bondage. It should not be surprised when it finds its leaders are no longer statesmen but puppets, serving foreign interests or globalist ideologies. It should not be surprised when it finds its wealth plundered through oppressive taxation to pay for its own subjugation. This is how God works. He gives rebellious people over to the consequences of their rebellion. What we see in Jehoiakim is a picture of a nation under the judgment of a holy God.
The Text
Then Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in the place of Josiah his father and changed his name to Jehoiakim. But he took Jehoahaz and brought him to Egypt, and he died there. So Jehoiakim gave the silver and gold to Pharaoh, but he taxed the land in order to give the money at the command of Pharaoh. He exacted the silver and gold from the people of the land, each according to his valuation, to give it to Pharaoh Neco. Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Zebidah the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah. And he did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh, according to all that his fathers had done.
(2 Kings 23:34-37 LSB)
The Foreign Kingmaker (v. 34)
We begin with the political reality on the ground:
"Then Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in the place of Josiah his father and changed his name to Jehoiakim. But he took Jehoahaz and brought him to Egypt, and he died there." (2 Kings 23:34 LSB)
The first thing to notice is who is doing the action. Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim king. The authority to install a king over God’s covenant people now rests in the hands of a pagan ruler. This is a profound and shameful reversal. The throne of David, which was to be a reflection of the throne of God, is now a pawn in an Egyptian geopolitical strategy. When God’s people reject His authority, He hands them over to another authority. This is a form of divine mockery. You don’t want me as your king? Fine. See how you like this Egyptian fellow.
Then Pharaoh changes his name. Eliakim means "God will establish," but Pharaoh changes it to Jehoiakim, which means "Yahweh will establish." This might seem like a pious change, but it is the height of arrogance. Pharaoh is claiming the authority to speak for Yahweh. He is, in effect, saying, "Your God, Yahweh, establishes this man as king because I, Pharaoh, say so." This is the essence of pagan statism. The state, embodied in its ruler, assumes the prerogatives of God. It defines reality. It names things. The power to name is the power to define and control. We see this all through Scripture. God names Adam. Adam names the animals. And here, a pagan king names the king of Judah, demonstrating his absolute dominion. Judah has lost its sovereignty because it first lost its covenant faithfulness.
Meanwhile, the people's choice, Jehoahaz, is taken to Egypt to die in exile. This is a picture of the nation's hope being extinguished. The man they chose is removed, and the man chosen for them by their enemy is installed. This is what happens when you make alliances with the world. The world does not play fair. It does not respect your autonomy. It devours. Egypt was supposed to be an ally against Babylon, but it turned out to be just another master. Seeking security in pagan alliances is like trying to quench your thirst by drinking seawater.
The Crushing Burden (v. 35)
Next, we see the economic consequence of this new political arrangement.
"So Jehoiakim gave the silver and gold to Pharaoh, but he taxed the land in order to give the money at the command of Pharaoh. He exacted the silver and gold from the people of the land, each according to his valuation, to give it to Pharaoh Neco." (2 Kings 23:35 LSB)
Sin is expensive. Apostasy carries a hefty price tag. Pharaoh demands tribute, a massive sum of silver and gold. And where does Jehoiakim get it? He doesn't take it from the temple treasury, which had been done before. He taxes the land. He exacts it from the people. The word "exacted" is a harsh one. It means to demand, to extort. This was not a voluntary contribution for the common good. This was plunder. The king of Judah is now the chief tax collector for a foreign empire, squeezing his own people to pay off their new master.
This is a direct fulfillment of the curses of the covenant laid out in Deuteronomy 28. "The alien who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him. He shall be the head, and you shall be the tail" (Deut. 28:43-44). Judah is now the tail, and Egypt is the head. Their wealth, which was a sign of God's blessing, is now being drained away as a sign of His curse.
And notice the method: "each according to his valuation." This sounds orderly, but it was a systematic fleecing of the entire population. Everyone had to pay their share of the price of national sin. This is how judgment often works. The bad decisions of leaders bring hardship upon the entire populace. When a nation as a whole turns from God, the economic consequences are felt by everyone, from the richest to the poorest. Oppressive taxation is a classic sign of a nation under judgment. The government ceases to be a minister of God for good and becomes a beast that devours the substance of its people.
The Character of the King (v. 36-37)
Finally, the passage gives us the spiritual assessment of this puppet king.
"Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Zebidah the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah. And he did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh, according to all that his fathers had done." (2 Kings 23:36-37 LSB)
After all this political and economic turmoil, we get to the root of the problem. Jehoiakim "did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh." This is the standard formula in Kings for a wicked ruler, but here it is especially poignant. He is the son of the great reformer, Josiah. He saw the book of the Law discovered. He witnessed the national renewal of the covenant. He saw his father tear down the high places. He had every opportunity to know the right way. And yet, he deliberately chose the path of evil.
His evil was not done in a vacuum. He did it "according to all that his fathers had done." Which fathers? Not his immediate father, Josiah. This refers to the wicked kings before Josiah, like Manasseh and Amon. The reformation under Josiah had been a brief interruption in a long, downward slide into apostasy. Jehoiakim represents the nation snapping back to its default setting of rebellion. He is the embodiment of the people’s true heart. They didn't want Josiah's godliness; they wanted Manasseh's idols. And God, in His judgment, gave them a king who reflected their own corrupt desires.
We learn more about Jehoiakim's specific evils from the prophet Jeremiah, who was his contemporary. Jehoiakim was arrogant, materialistic, and violent. He built a lavish palace for himself with the forced labor of his people (Jer. 22:13-17). He persecuted the prophets of God, even having the prophet Uriah hunted down in Egypt and executed (Jer. 26:20-23). And most infamously, when Jeremiah’s scroll of prophecy was read to him, he took a knife, cut it into pieces, and contemptuously threw it into the fire (Jer. 36:21-24). This was a man at war with the Word of God. He was not just a weak puppet; he was an active and defiant rebel against Yahweh.
Conclusion: No King But Caesar
The story of Jehoiakim is a grim one, but it is filled with important warnings for us. When a people’s cry is "We have no king but Caesar," or "We have no king but Pharaoh," God will often grant their request, to their own ruin. Judah traded the rule of God for the rule of a man who answered to another man in Egypt. They got what they wanted, and it crushed them.
The central issue is always lordship. Who is king? Is Yahweh king, or is the state king? Is Christ on the throne, or is some man, some party, some ideology on the throne? Jehoiakim’s sin was not just personal wickedness; it was a public, political, and national rejection of God's crown rights. He represented a nation that had forgotten its identity. They were God's treasured possession, a kingdom of priests. But they wanted to be "like the other nations," and so God made them subject to the other nations.
The application for us is direct. We cannot serve God and mammon. We cannot serve Christ and a secular state that demands ultimate allegiance. When our government redefines marriage, sanctions the murder of the unborn, and teaches our children to call evil good and good evil, it is acting like Pharaoh. It is renaming things, claiming the authority of God for itself. When it funds this rebellion through crushing taxation, it is acting like Jehoiakim, exacting the price of apostasy from the people.
Our response must not be to despair, but to repent. The story of Judah did not end here. God’s judgment through Babylon was severe, but it was also purifying. It was through that exile that God preserved a remnant and, in the fullness of time, brought forth the true King, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Son of David who will never do evil in the sight of the Lord. He is the King who was not installed by Pharaoh, but was raised from the dead by God the Father. He is the one who pays the tribute for His people, not with silver and gold exacted from them, but with His own precious blood. Our allegiance is to Him and Him alone. We must refuse to have our names changed, refuse to bow to the puppet kings of this age, and declare, in the face of every Pharaoh and every Jehoiakim, that Jesus Christ is Lord.