Did Jehoiakim die in Babylon or near Jerusalem?

Chronicles does not say that Jehoiakim was taken to Babylon. It says that Nebuchadnezzar bound him “to carry him to Babylon”: the Hebrew is an infinitive of purpose, telling what was intended, not what was done. The next verse says Nebuchadnezzar did carry the temple vessels to Babylon, but it says nothing of the king. And Chronicles closes the reign with the usual words for a king who died on the throne: “Jehoiachin his son reigned in his stead” (2 Chronicles 36:8). Kings fills in the story: Jehoiakim became Nebuchadnezzar’s vassal for three years and then rebelled (2 Kings 24:1). Keil and Delitzsch conclude that he was bound when Jerusalem was first taken (compare Daniel 1:1–2), but was then left to rule as a vassal.

He died some years later, when bands of raiders and the Babylonian army were again closing on Jerusalem (2 Kings 24:2, 10). ‘Slept with his fathers’ is a phrase for death; it says nothing about how a king died or whether he had an honourable burial. It is used of Ahab, who died of a wound in battle (1 Kings 22:34–40). Unusually, Kings records no burial for Jehoiakim, and that silence fits Jeremiah’s word that his body would be thrown out unburied beyond the gates. Keil and Delitzsch think he most likely fell in fighting before the siege and was left lying outside the city. The Jewish historian Josephus, writing in the first century, also says that his body was thrown out before the walls without burial.

So Jehoiakim was bound for Babylon but not taken there. He died at Jerusalem, as Jeremiah had foretold.

Killed when bound

George Rawlinson, as reported by Haley, thought that Jehoiakim was bound for deportation but was killed instead and his body dishonoured; later his remains may have been gathered into the royal tomb. Josephus too places his death at Nebuchadnezzar’s hands.

Scripture does not record exactly how or when Jehoiakim died, so the details given above are likely rather than certain.