`arrived'.  Moreover, Jeremiah tells us what occupied Nebuchadnezzar on his

journey from one capital to the other:

`Against Egypt, against the army of Pharaoh -necho king of Egypt, which

was by the river Euphrates in Carchemish, which Nebuchadnezzar king of

Babylon smote in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of

Judah' (Jer. 46:2).

Instead therefore of discovering a discrepancy in the narrative of

Scripture, we have the obvious fact that Nebuchadnezzar took time to

accomplish this march from Babylon to Jerusalem, and was obliged to meet and

overcome Pharaoh at Carchemish by the Euphrates before he could arrive.

In Jeremiah 25:3 the prophet reminded Israel that since the thirteenth

year of Josiah (see Jeremiah 1:1,2), the word of the Lord had come urging

them to turn from their evil, and because they had not turned He said:

`Behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the

Lord, and Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will

bring them against this land ... And this whole land shall be a

desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king

of Babylon seventy years' (Jer. 25:9 -11).

What God therefore had threatened, He brought to pass in the fourth

year of Jehoiakim, and the historic record of the captivity of Jehoiakim is

found in 2 Chronicles 36, the last chapter of the Hebrew Bible!

Yet with all this apparent on the surface of Scripture, and needing no

more scholarship than ability to read in one's mother tongue, Kuenen in his

historic Critique de l'Ancien Testament has the audacity to say:

`We know by the book of Jeremiah that no such event (as the siege of

Jerusalem, (Dan. 1:1) took place in the reign of Jehoiakim'.

`We know'!  We also know that it is written, `professing themselves to

be wise they became fools', and by such statements they demonstrate

that they are but `blind leaders of the blind'.

Jehoiakim was appointed king of Judah by Pharaoh-nechoh in the place of

Jehoahaz (2 Kings 23:34).  He did evil in the sight of the Lord, and filled

Jerusalem with innocent blood.  He was succeeded by Jehoiachin.  In the reign

of the latter, Nebuchadnezzar carried out thence all the treasures of the

house of the Lord, whereas Daniel 1:1,2 tells us that at the first he only

carried away a part.

Jehoiachin or Jeconiah is deprived of the Jehovah element in his name,

and under the name Coniah is utterly rejected by the Lord:

`Thus saith the Lord, Write ye this man childless, a man that shall not

prosper in his days: for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon

the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah' (Jer. 22:30).

It is evident that Israel is passing; dominion is leaving them and is

being transferred for the time being to the Gentiles.  This is emphasized by

such statements as Daniel 1:2, `And the Lord gave ... into his hand', or

Jeremiah 25:1, `The fourth year of Jehoiakim ... that was the first year of

Nebuchadnezzar'.  The times of the Gentiles had therefore begun.  And so with