| In a desperate effort to aid the collapsing Assyrian Empire, Necho II marched up from Egypt with an army of reinforcements. Necho arrived too late to save his Assyrian ally, but at Megiddo, in northern Palestine on the ancient road from Egypt to Mesopotamia, he encountered the Judahite army, commanded by King Josiah. The Judahites were crushed and Josiah was killed by an arrow. Four years later, however, the Egyptians were driven out of Asia by the neo-Babylonian Empire of Chaldea in the Battle of Carchemish. |