NECHAO. - Pharaoh of Egypt of the 26th Dynasty (609-595 B.C.), the second of that name, son of Psammetico I, whose work he continued.
Herodotus (II, 158) recalls, first of all, his excavation of a navigable channel from the Nile to the Red Sea (a kind of anticipation of the Suez Canal), and elsewhere his initiative in sending Phoenician sailors to circumnavigate Africa (IV, 42). Soon after, he undertook a campaign against Nabopolassar, king of Assyria (Herodotus, II, 159), and when King Josiah of Judah, despite the Pharaoh’s protestations that he was not marching against him (2 Chron. 35:20-25; cf. Jer. 42:11), went out against him (2 Kings 23:29), Necho was victorious at Megiddo on the Kishon near Carmel and killed Josiah (2 Chron. 35:23-24), leaving the kingdom to his son Jehoahaz, whom Necho bound in Riblah in the land of Hamath and later had die in Egypt (2 Kings 23:33-34; 2 Chron. 36:3); instead, he placed another son of Josiah, Eliakim, on the throne under the name of Jehoiakim, on condition that he pay a heavy tribute of gold and silver (2 Kings 23:34-36; 2 Chron. 36:3-4). To celebrate the victory, Necho dedicated the armor to Apollo Didymus (Herodotus, II, 159). Later he was defeated at Carchemish by Nebuchadnezzar II in 605 (Jer. 46:2-26) and forced to cede Syria; after which he withdrew into Egypt and never again left it (2 Kings 24:7).