* Jer. xlvi. 7-9, where the prophet describes, not the army which marched against Josiah, but that which was beaten at Carchemish.  With a difference of date of only three or four years, the constituent elements of the army were certainly the same, so that the description of one would apply to the other.

As soon as Josiah heard the news, he called together his troops and prepared to resist the attack.  Necho affected not to take his demonstrations seriously, and sent a disdainful message recommending him to remain neutral:  “What have I to do with thee, thou King of Judah?  I come not against thee this day, but against the house wherewith I have war:  and God hath commanded me to make haste:  forbear thee from meddling with God who is with me, that He destroy thee not!"*

     * The message of Necho to Josiah is known to us from 2
     Chron. xxxv. 20-22.

Having despatched the message, probably at the moment of entering the Shephelah, he continued in a northerly direction, nothing doubting that his warning had met a friendly reception; but however low Nineveh had fallen, Josiah could not feel that he was loosed from the oaths which bound him to her, and, trusting in the help of Jahveh, he threw himself resolutely into the struggle.  The Egyptian generals were well acquainted with the route as far as the farther borders of Philistia, having passed along it a few years previously, at the time of the campaign of Psammetichus; but they had no experience of the country beyond Ashdod, and were solely dependent for guidance on the information of merchants or the triumphant records of the old Theban Pharaohs.  These monuments followed the traditional road which had led their ancestors from Gaza to Megiddo, from Megiddo to Qodshu, from Qodshu to Carchemish, and they were reckoning on passing through the valley of the Jordan, and then that of the Orontes, without encountering any resistance, when, at the entrance to the gorges of Carmel, they were met by the advance guard of the Judaean army.

Josiah, not having been warned in time to meet them as they left the desert, had followed a road parallel to their line of march, and had taken up his position in advance of them on the plain of Megiddo, on the very spot where Thutmosis III. had vanquished the Syrian confederates nearly ten centuries before.  The King of Judah was defeated and killed in the confusion of the battle, and the conqueror pushed on northwards without, at that moment, giving the fate of the scattered Jews a further thought.* He rapidly crossed the plain of the Orontes by the ancient caravan track, and having reached the Euphrates, he halted under the walls of Carchemish.  Perhaps he may have heard there of the fall of Nineveh, and the fear of drawing down upon himself the Medes or the Babylonians prevented him from crossing the river and raiding the country of the Balikh, which, from the force of custom, the royal scribes still persisted in designating by the disused name of Mitanni.**