2 Kings 23:29 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

In his days Pharaoh-nechoh, king of Egypt, went up, &c.— We have heretofore observed, that Pharaoh in the Egyptian language signifies king: but Nechoh, according to Herodotus, was the proper name of this monarch; though some will have it to be an appellative signifying lame, because this Pharaoh, as they suppose, had a lameness, proceeding from some wound which he had received in war. The same historian tells us, that he was the son and successor of Psammeticus, king of Egypt, and a man of a bold enterprising spirit; that he made an attempt to join the Nile and the Red Sea by drawing a canal from one to the other; that, though he failed in this design, yet by sending a fleet from the Red Sea through the straits of Babelmandel, he discovered the coast of Africa; and in this his expedition to the Euphrates resolved, by destroying the united force of the Babylonians and Medes, to bid fair for the whole monarchy of Asia. Megiddo was a city in the half tribe of Manasseh, not far from the Mediterranean sea. Houbigant renders the last clause of this verse, and king Josiah, &c.—who slew king Josiah coming against him, as soon as he had him for an adversary; and instead of dead in the next verse, he reads dying, as it appears from 2 Chronicles 35:24 that he died at Jerusalem. See Prideaux and Calmet.