ELIAKIM:
A Palestinian scholar of the third century. His name is connected with no halakot, and with a single haggadah only. He construes the Psalmist's saying (Ps. i. 6), "The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous; but the way of the ungodly shall perish," as teaching that God causes the ways of the wicked to be lost out of sight for the sake of the righteous, that the latter be not misled by them (Midr. Teh. l.c., ed. Buber, p. 22; comp. Berechiah II. on same verse). Eliakim is probably identical with the better-known Jakim (the first syllable being dropped to avoid the frequent and unnecessary repetition of "El" [God], as in 'Anani from 'Ananiel). Jakim was father of Ashian b. Jakim, who once applied to R. Jesa (Assi II.) for a ritualistic decision (Yer. Yeb. xi. 12a). He was senior to Ammi, the latter explaining an observation of the former.
Eliakim classes the Jewish people among themost stubborn of the animal kingdom, which Ammi explains as referring to Jewish pertinacity in religion; that the Jew would submit to crucifixion rather than live as an apostate (Ex. R. xlii. 9; in Beẓah 25b Simeon ben Laḳish makes a remark very similar to Jakim's). Elsewhere (Pesiḳ. R. xxi. 107a) Eliakim is found to differ with Judah (b. Shalom) in surveying the scope of the prohibition (Ex. xx. 17), "Thou shalt not covet." Judah argues that its transgression leads to the violation of the seven prohibitions contained in the Decalogue; viz., in the second, third, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth commandments. Eliakim asserts that he who violates the prohibition, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife," is as if he had violated all the ten commandments. This declaration is followed in the Pesiḳta (l.c.) by citations illustrating Eliakim's doctrine.
