Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Vers. 1-4 (1-5). Reign of Joash. — Ver. 1 (1, 2). His age on ascending the throne, viz. seven years (cf. ch. xi. 4). — Commencement and length of his reign. His mother's name was Zibiah of Beersheba. — Ver. 2 (3). Joash did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord '131 *\f% W~b, " all his days that," etc., i.e. during the whole period of his life that Jehoiada instructed him (for "1B>N after substantives indicating time, place, and mode, see Ewald, § 331, c, 3; and for the use of the suffix attached to the noun defined by 'W "U^j, compare ch. xiii. 14); not " all his life long, because Jehoiada had instructed him," although the Athnach under WpJ favours this view. For Jehoiada had not instructed him before he began to reign, but he instructed him after he had been raised to the throne at the a<*e of seven years, that is to say, so long as Jehoiada himself lived. The yTirv ^"PS of the Chronicles is therefore a correct explanation. But after Jehoiada's death, Joash yielded to the petitions of the princes of Judah that he would assent to their worshipping idols, and at length went so far as to stone the son of his benefactor, the prophet Zechariah, on account of his candid reproof of this apostasy (2 Chron. xxiv. 17-22). — Ver. 3 (4). But the worship on the high places was not entirely suppressed, notwithstanding the fact that Jehoiada instructed him (on this standing formula see the Conim. on 1 Kings xv. 14).

Vers. 4-16 (5-17). Repairing of the temple (cf. 2 Chron. xxiv. 5-14). — Vers. 4, 5. That the temple, which had fallen into ruins, might be restored, Joash ordered the priests to collect all the money of the consecrated gifts, that was generally brought into the house of the Lord, and to effect therewith all the repairs that were needed in the temple. The general expression DvjHjpn *\l)2) money of the holy gifts, i.e. money derived from holy gifts, is more specifically defined by ftfl T3fr sjds, according to which it consisted of three kinds of payments to the temple: viz. (1) "i?iy *]p3, i.e. money of persons mustered (or numbered in the census); "^iy is an abbreviated expression for "^iyn DHpBn, * he who passes over to those who are numbered *' (Ex. xxx. 13), as it has been correctly interpreted by the Chald., liashi, Abarb., and others; whereas the explanation " money that passes " (Luther), or current coin, which Thenius still defends, yields no suitable sense, since it is impossible to see why only current coin should be accepted, and not silver in bars or vessels, inasmuch as Moses had accepted gold, silver, copper, and other objects of value in nati/ra, for the building of the tdu rnacle (Ex. xxv. 2, 3, xxxv. 5, xxxvi. 5, 6). The brevity of the expression may be explained from the fact, that ■niy?]D3 had become a technical term on the ground of the passage in the law already The objection raised by

Thenius, that the explanation adopted would be without any parallel, would, if it could be sustained, also apply to his own explanation " current money," in which "i^iy is also taken as an abbreviation of "ins? taj) jn Gen. xxiii. 16. There is still less ground for the other objection, that if ">3W *p3 denoted one kind of temple-revenue, '3 or thf would necessarily have been used. (2))2TJJ... thtt " every kind of souls' valuation money;" fc*K is more precisely defined by ^")V, and the position in which it stands before *pi) resembles the ITIJ3 in Gen. xv. 10 — literally, soul money of each one's valuation. Thenius is wrong in his interpretation, " every kind of money of the souls according to their valuation," to which he appends the erroneous remark, that ^"N is also used in Zech. x. 1 and Joel ii. 7 in connection with inanimate objects as equivalent to fe ^3"W •. • B***, every kind of valuation, because both in the redemption of the male first-born (Num. xviii. 15, 16) and also in the case of persons under a vow a payment had to be made according to the valuation of the priest. (3) * All the money that cometh into any one's mind to bring into the house of the Lord," i.e. all the money which was offered as a free-will offering to the sanctuary. This money the priests were to take to themselves, every one from his acquaintance, and therewith repair all the dilapidations that were to be found in the temple. In the Chronicles the different kinds of money to be collected for this purpose are not specified; but the whole is embraced under the general expression "the taxes of Moses the servant of God, and of the congregation of Israel, to the tent of the testimony," which included not only the contribution of half a shekel for the building of the temple, which is prescribed in Ex. xxx. 12 sqq., but also the other two taxes mentioned in this account.1 Again, according to ver. 7 of the Chronicles, Joash gave the following reason for his command: " For Athaliah, the wicked woman, and her sons have demolished the house of God, and all the dedicated gifts of the house of Jehovah have they used for the Baals." We are not told in what the violent treatment or demolition (P.?) of the temple by Athaliah and her sons consisted. The circumstance that considerable repairs even of the stonework of the temple were required in the time of Joash, about 130 or 140 years after it was built, is quite conceivable without any intentional demolition. And in no case can we infer from these words, as Thenius has done, that Athaliah or her sons had erected a temple of Baal within the limits of the sanctuary. The application of all the dedicatory offerings, of the house of Jehovah to the Baals, involves nothing more than that the gifts which were absolutely necessary for the preservation of the temple and temple-service were withdrawn from the sanctuary of Jehovah and applied to the worship of Baal, and therefore that the decay of the sanctuary would necessarily follow upon the neglect of the worship. — Vers. 6 sqq. But

1 There is no ground either in the words or in the facts for restricting the perfectly general expression "taxes of Moses and of the congregation of Israel" to the payment mentioned in Ex. xxx. 12, as Thenius and Bertheau have done, except perhaps the wish to find a discrepancy between the two accounts, for the purpose of being able to accuse the chronicler, if not of intentional falsification, as De Wette does, at any rate of perverting the true state of the c-ase. The assertion of Thenius, that the yearly payment of half a shekel, which was appointed in the law and regarded as atonement-money, appears to be directly excluded in our text, is simply founded upon the interpretation given to "Qiy PjD3 as current money, which we have already proved when the twenty-third year of the reign of Joash arrived, and the dilapidations had not been repaired, the king laid the matter before the high priest Jehoiada and the priests, and directed them not to take the money any more from their acquaintance, but to give it for the dilapidations of the temple; " and the priests consented to take no money, and not to repair the dilapidations of the house," i.e. not to take charge of the repairs. AVe may see from this consent how the command of the king is to be understood HithtTto the priests had collected the money to pay for the repairing of the temple; but inasmuch as they had not executed the repairs, the king took away from them both the colL of the money and the obligation to repair the temple. The reason for the failure of the first measure is not mentioned in our text, and can only be inferred from the new arrangement made by the king (ver. 9): "Jehoiada took a chest, — of course by the command of the king, as is expressly mentioned in - Ohron xxiv. 8, — bored a hole in the door (the lid tih< and placed it by the side of the altar (of burntoffering) on the right by ti. entrance of every one into the house of Jehovah. that the priests keeping the threshold might put thither (i*\ into the i all the money that was brought into the house of Jehovah.*1 — Ver. LO, "And when they saw that there waa much money in the chest, the king's writer and the high pn and bound up and reckoned the moi tli.it was found IB the ho lovah." tX(ii to bind Up the money in bags (cf. eh. v. 23). indingis mentioned before the reckoning the pieces of money were not counted singly, but packed at "net' into bags, winch were then weigl for the purpose Of estimating the amount received — Vers. 11,

1 2. " Th> money weighed into the hands of those who did the work, who placed over the hou Jehovah,* it was requi] the cai rs and builders, who worked at the house, and to the I and the hewers of stone, and for the purchase of wood and hewn Btones, to repair the dilapidaqs of the house, and for all that might be spent (WP, ie. be given out) for the house for repairing it." It is quite clear from this, that the a^. of J. D. Miehaelis, De Wette, and others, that the priests had embezzled the money collected, is perfectly imaginary. For if the king had cherished any such suspicion against the ] he would not have asked for their consent to an alteration of the first arrangement or to the new measure; and still less would he have commanded that the priests who kept the door should put the money into the chest, for this would have been no safeguard against embezzlement. For if the door-keepers wished to embezzle, all that they would need to do would be to put only a part of the money into the chest. The simple reason and occasion for giving up the first arrangement and introducing the new arrangement with the chest, was that the first measure had proved to be insufficient for the accomplishment of the purpose expected by the king. For inasmuch as the king had not assigned any definite amount for the repairing of the temple, but had left it to the priests to pay for the cost of the repairs out of the money that was to be collected, one portion of which at least came to themselves, according to the law, for their own maintenance and to provide for the expenses of worship, it might easily happen, without the least embezzlement on the part of the priests, that the money collected was paid out again for the immediate necessities of worship and their own maintenance, and that nothing remained to pay for the building expenses. For this reason the king himself now undertook the execution of the requisite repairs. The reason why the chest was provided for the money to be collected was, first of all, that the money to be collected for the building might be separated from the rest of the money that came in and was intended for the priests; and secondly, that the contributions to be gathered for the building might be increased, since it might be expected that the people would give more if the collections were made for the express purpose of restoring the temple, than if only the legal and free-will offerings were simply given to the priests, without any one knowing how much would be applied to the building. — And because the king had taken the building into his own hand, as often as the chest was full he sent his secretary to reckon the money along with the high priest, and hand it over to the superintendents of the building.

If we compare with this the account in the Chronicles, it helps to confirm the view which we have obtained from an unprejudiced examination of the text as to the affair in question According to ver. 5 of the Chronicles, Joash had commanded the priests and Levites to accelerate the repairs; " but the Levites did not hurry." This may be understood as signifying that they were dilatory both in the collection of the money and in the devotion of a portion of their revenues to the repairing of the temple. But that the king took the matter in hand himself, not so much because; of the dilatoriness or negligence of the priests as because his first measure, regarded as an expedient, did not answer the purpose, is evident from the fact that, according to the Chronicles, he did not content himself with placing the chest at the entrance, but had a proclamation made at the same time in Judah and Jerusalem, to offer the tax of Moses for the repair of the temple (ver. 9) — evidently with no other intention than to procure more liberal contributions. For, according to ver. 10, all the chief men and all the people rejoiced thereat, and cast their gifts into the chest, i.e. they offered their gifts with joy for the purpose that had been proclaimed.— The other points of difference between the Chronicles and our text are unimportant. For instance, that they placed the chest " at the gate of the house of Jehovah on the outside." The nyirj merely defines the expression in our text, IV3 t'"X"Nn2 pp^a '", "to the right at the entrance into the temple," more minutely, by showing that the ark was not placed on the inner side of the entrance into the court of the priests, but against the outer wall of it. This is not at variance with n^n?? S'X in ver. 10; for even apart from the account in the Chronicles, and according to our own text, this cannot be understood as signifying that the ark had been placed in the middle of the court, as Thenius explains in opposition to 'W B^ITKtaa, but can only mean at the entrance which was on the right side of the altar, i.e. at the southern entrance into the inner court. Again, the further variation, that according- to the Chronicles (ver. 11), when the chest was full, an officer of the high priest came with the scribe (not the high priest himself), furnishes simply a more exact delinition of our account, in which the high priest is named; just as, according to ver. 10, the high priest took the chest and bored a hole in the lid, which no intelligent commentator would understand as signifying that the high priest did it with his own hand. But there is a real difference between vers. 14 and 15 of our text and ver. 14 of the Chronicles, though the solution of this suggests itself at once on a closer inspection of the words. According to our account, there were no golden or silver vessels, basons, knives, bowls, etc., made with the money that was brought in, but it was given for the repairing of the house. In the Chronicles, on the contrary, it ia stated that " when they had finished the repairs, they brought the remnant of the money to the king and Jehoiada, and he (the kinsf) used it for vessels for the house of the Lord, for vessels of the service," etc. But if we take proper notice of ETO33 here, there is no ground for saying that there is any contradiction, since the words of our text affirm nothing more than that none of the money that came in was applied to the making of vessels of worship so long as the repairing of the building went on. What took place afterwards is not stated in our account, which is limited to the main fact; this we learn from the Chronicles. — Ver. 15. No return was required of the inspectors as to the money handed over to them, because they were convinced of their honesty. — Ver. 16. The money obtained from trespassofferings and sin-offerings was not brought into the house of Jehovah, i.e. was not applied to the repairing of the temple, but was left for the priests. In the case of the trespass-offering compensation had to be made for the earthly debt according to the valuation of the priest, with the addition of a fifth in money; and this was assigned to the priests not only in the case of a?yo committed against Jehovah, but also when a neighbour had been injured in his property, if he had died in the meantime (see at Lev. v. 16 and Num. v. 9). On the other hand, in the case of the sin-offerings the priests received no money according to the law. Most of the commentators therefore assume, that those who lived at a distance had sent money to the priests, that they might offer sin-offerings with it, and what money was over they had retained for themselves. But there is not the slightest trace of any such custom, which is quite at variance with the idea of the sin-offering. It may probably have become a customary thing in the course of time, for those who presented these offerings to compensate the officiating priest for his trouble by a free-will gift.

Vers. 17 and 18. The brief account of HazaeTs campaign against Jerusalem is completed by 2 Chron. xxiv. 23, 24. Hazael had gone down along the coast after defeating Israel (see ch. xiii. 3), for the purpose of making war upon Judah also, and had taken Gath, which Rehoboam had fortified (2 Chron. xi. 8). He then set his face, i.e. determined, to advance to Jerusalem; and Joash took the temple treasures, etc. According to the Chronicles, he sent an army against Judah and Jerusalem, which destroyed all the princes of the nation and sent much booty to the king to Damascus, as the small army of the Syrians had smitten the very large army of Judah. To protect Jerusalem, after this defeat, from being taken by the Syrians, Joash sent all the treasures of the temple and palace to Hazael, and so purchased the withdrawal of the Syrians. In this way the two brief accounts of the war may be both reconciled and explained; whereas the opinion, still repeated by Thenius, that the two passages treat of different wars, has no tenable ground to rest upon. The Philistian city of Gath (see the Comm. on Josh. xiii. 3) appears to have belonged at that time to the kingdom of Judah, so that the Gathites were not among the Philistines who made an incursion into Judah in the reign of Joram along with the Arabian tribes of the south (2 Chron. xxi. 16). And it is impossible to determine when Gath was wrested from the Syrians again; probably in the time of Joash the son of Jehoahaz of Israel, as lie recovered from the Syrians all the cities which they hail taken from the Israelites under Jehoahaz (ch. xiii. 25), and even smote Amaziah the king of Judaea at IVthshemesh and took him prisoner (ch. xiv. 13; 2 CbroiL xxv. 21 sqq.). "All the consecrated things, which Jehoshaphat, Joram, and Ahaziah had consecrated, and his own consecrated things," /.*. what he (Joash) himself had consecrated. The existence of such temple treasures is not at variance cither with the previous account of tlie repairing of the temple, for Joash would not use the consecrated offerings for the restoration of the temple, as the current revenue of the temple was sufficienl for the purpose, or with 2 Chron. xxiv. 7, where it is stated that Athaliah and her sons had applied all the 'BHiJ ni.T rva to the Baals (see at ch. xii. 5, p. 367); for even if we are to understand by the sons of Athaliah not bastard sons (Ewald, Gcsch. iii. p. 582), but the brethren of Joram whom the Philistines and Arabians had carried off, Ahaziah and Joram, although they both of them served Baal, may, from political considerations, have now and then made consecrated gifts to the temple, if only in a passing fit of religious fear.

Vers. 19-21. Conspiracy against Joash. — Not long after the departure of the Syrians, who had left Joash, according to 2 Chron. xxiv. 25, with many wounds, his servants formed a conspiracy against him and slew him upon his bed in the house Millo, which goeth down to Silla. This description of the locality is perfectly obscure for us. The conjecture that fcODTPa was the house in the castle of Millo which is so frequently mentioned (see at 1 Kings ix. 15 and 2 Sam. v. 9), is precluded by the fact that this castle is always called K?t?n (with the article). N?9 is regarded by many as an abbreviation of n?DD, " which goes down by the road;" and Thenius supposes that the reference is to the road which ran diagonally through the city from the Joppa gate to the Haram-area, corresponding to the present David's road. Others regard Npp as the proper name of a place in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem. It is impossible to get any certain meaning out of it, unless we alter the text according to arbitrary assumptions, as Thenius has done. The conspirators were Jozachar the son of Shimeath, and Jehozabad the son of Shomer, according to ver. 21; but according to the Chronicles (ver. 26), they were Zabad the son of Shimeath the Ammonitess, and Jehozabad the son of Shimrith the Moabitess. The identity of the first names is perfectly obvious. ^J is a copyist's error for "9*, and this is the contracted form of "DTI*. The difference in the second: son of Shomer according

to our text, and son of the Shimrith according to the Chronicles, has probably also arisen from a slip of the pen, since "IDE> might easily be occasioned by the dropping out of the D from the defectively written THDW, although it is also possible that Shomer may be the name of the grandfather. Joash was buried with his fathers in the city of David; but according to ver. 25 of the Chronicles he was not buried in the graves of the kings. The two statements are not irreconcilable; and there may be good historical ground for the account in the Chronicles, as Bertheau acknowledges with perfect justice, in spite of the suspicion which has been cast upon it by Thenius.

Vers. 1-9. Eeign of Jehoahaz. — Jehu was followed by Jehoahaz his son, " in the twenty -third year of Joash of Judah." This synchronistic statement is not only at variance with ver. 10, but cannot be very well reconciled with ch. xii. 1. If Jehoahaz began to reign in the twenty-third year of Joash king of Judah, and reigned seventeen years, his son cannot have followed him after his death in the thirty- seventh year of Joash of Judah, as is stated in ver. 10, for there are only fourteen years and possibly a few months between the twenty-third and thirty- seventh years of Joasli; and even if he ascended the throne at the commencement of the twenty-third year of the reign of Joash and died at the end of the thirty-seventh, they could only be reckoned as fifteen and not as seventeen years. Moreover, according to ch. xii. 1, Joash of Judah began to reign in the seventh year of Jehu, and therefore Athaliah, who ascended the throne at the same time as Jehu, reigned fully six years. If, therefore, the first year of Joash of Judah coincides with the seventh year of Jehu, the twenty-eighth year of Jehu must correspond to the twenty-second year of Joash of Judah; and in this year of Joash not only did Jehu die, but his son Jehoahaz ascended the throne. Consequently we must substitute the twenty-second year of Joash, or perhaps, still more correctly, the twenty-first year (Josephus), for the twenty-third.1 If Jehu died in the earliest months of the twenty-eighth year of his reign, so that he only reigned twenty-seven years and one or two months, his death and his son's ascent of the throne might

1 On the other hand, Thenius, who follows des Yignoles and Winer, not only defends the correctness of the account " in the twenty-third year of Joash," because it agrees with the twenty-eight years' reign of Jehu (ch. x. 36), but also holds fast the seventeen years' duration of the reign of Jehoahaz on account of its agreement with ch. xiv. 1; for 6 years (Athaliah) + 40 years (Joash) = 4G years, and 28 years (Jehu) + 17 years (Jehoahaz) = 45 years; so that, as is there affirmed, Amaziah the son of Joash ascended the throne in the second year of Joash the sou of Jehoahaz. But to arrive at this result he assumes that there is an error in ver. 10, namely, that instead of the thirty-seventh year we ought to read the thirty-ninth year there, according to the edit, Aldina of the LXX. But apart from the fact that, as we have shown above in the text, the datum "in the twenty-third year of Joash" does not harmonize with the twenty-eight years1 reign of Jehu, this solution of the difference is overthrown by the circumstance that, in order to obtain this agreement between ver. 1 and ver. 14, Thenius reckons the years of the reigus not only of Athaliah and Joash, but also of Jehu and Jehoahaz, as full years (the former 1G + 40, the latter 28 + 17); whereas, in order to bring the datum in ver. 1 (in the twenty-third year of Joash) into harmony with the emendation proposed in ver. 10 (in the thirty-ninth year of Joash), he reckons the length of the reign of Jehoahaz as only sixteen years (instead of seventeen). For example, if Jehoahaz reigned seventeen years, supposing that he ascended the throne in the twenty-third year of Joash of Judah, he died in the fortieth year of Joash (not the thirty-ninth), and his son began to reign the same year. In that case Amaziah would have begun to reign in the first year of Jehoash of Israel, and not in the second, as is stated in ch. xiv. 1.— The reading of the LXX. (ed. Aid. ver. 10), " in the thirty-ninth year," is therefore nothing but a mistaken emendation resorted to for tho purpose of removing a discrepancy, but of no critical value.

fall even in the closing months of the twenty-first year of the reign of Joash of Judah. And from the twenty-first to the thirty-seventh year of Joash, Jehoahaz may have reigned sixteen years and a few months, and his reign be described as lasting seventeen years. — Vers. 2, 3. As Jehoahaz trod in the footsteps of his forefathers and continued the sin of Jeroboam (the worship of the calves), the Lord punished Israel during his reign even more than in that of his predecessor. The longer and the more obstinately the sin was continued, the more severe did the punishment become. He gave them (the Israelites) into the power of the Syrian king Hazael and his son Benhadad D^rrfc), « the whole time/' sc. of the reign of Jehoahaz (yid. ver. 22); not of the reigns of Hazael and Benhadad, as Thenius supposes in direct opposition to vers. 24 and 25. According to ver. 7, the Syrians so far destroyed the Israelitish army, that only fifty horsemen, ten war-chariots, and ten thousand foot soldiers were left. — Vers. 4 sqq. In this oppression Jehoahaz prayed to the Lord (M \JS rfen as in 1 Kings xiii. 6); and the Lord heard this prayer, because He saw their oppression at the hands of the Syrians, and gave Israel a saviour, so that they came out from the power of the Syrians and dwelt in their booths again, as before, i.e. were able to live peaceably again in their houses, without being driven off and led away by the foe. The saviour, JPBHD, was neither an angel, nor the prophet Elisha, nor quidarn e ducibus Joasi, as some of the earlier commentators supposed, nor a victory obtained by Jehoahaz over the Syrians, nor merely Jeroboam (Thenius); but the Lord gave them the saviour in the two successors of Jehoahaz, in the kings Jehoash and Jeroboam, the former of whom wrested from the Syrians all the cities that had been conquered by them under his father (ver. 25), while the latter restored the ancient boundaries of Israel (ch. xiv. 25). According to vers. 22-25, the oppression by the Syrians lasted as long as Jehoahaz lived; but after his death the Lord had compassion upon Israel, and after the death of Hazael, when his son Benhadad had become king, Jehoash recovered from Benhadad all the Israelitish cities that had been taken by the Syrians. It is obvious from this, that the oppression which Benhadad the son of Hazael inflicted upon Israel, according to ver. 3, falls within the period of his father's reign, so that it was not as king, but as commander-in-chief under his father, that he oppressed Israel, and therefore he is not even called king in ver. 3. — Ver. 6. " Only they departed not," etc., is inserted as a parenthesis and must be expressed thus: " although they departed not from the sin of Jeroboam." — Ver. 7. " For (*3) he had not left," etc., furnishes the ground for ver. 5: God gave them a saviour,... although they did not desist from the sin of Jeroboam,... for Israel had been brought to the last extremity; He (Jehovah) had left to Jehoahaz people (pv, people of war), only fifty horsemen, etc. For *pnn instead of KWfl (ver. G), see at 1 kings xxi. 21. The suffix 33 in ver. 6 refers to riNtsn just as that in H3DO in ver. 2 (see at ch. iii. 3). "And even the Asherah was (still) standing at Samaria," probably from the time of Ahab downwards (1 Kings xvi. 33), since Jehu is not said to have destroyed it (ch. x. 26 sqq.). 'W D9&5, * and had made them like dust for trampling upon," — an expression denoting utter destruction. — Vers. 8 and 9. Close of the reign of Jehoahaz. Jehoahaz had probably shown his might in the war with the Syrians, although he had been overcome.

Vers. 10-13. Reicjn of Jkhoash or Joash of Israel. — On the commencement of his reign see at ver. 1. He also walked in the sins of Jeroboam (compare ver. 11 witli vers. 2 and 6). The war with Amaziah referred to in ver. 12 is related in the history of this king in ch. xiv. 8-14; and the close of the reign of Joash is also recorded there (vera L5 and 16) with the standing formula. And even here it ought not to be introduced till the end of the chapter, instead of in vera 12 and 13, inasmuch as the verses which follow relate several things belonging to the reign of Joash. But as they are connected with the termination of Elisha'8 life, it was quite admissible to wind up the reign of Joash with ver. 13.

Vers. 14-21. Illnebs and Death of the Prophet Elisha. — Ver. 14. When Elisha was taken ill with the sickness of which he was to die, king Joash visited him and wept over his face, i.e. bending over the sick man as he lay, and exclaimed, " My father, my father! the chariot of Israel and horsemen thereof!" just as Elisha had mourned over the departure of Elijah (ch. ii. 1 2). This lamentation of the king at the approaching death of the prophet shows that Joash knew how to value his labours. And on account of this faith which was manifested in his recognition of the prophet's worth, the Lord gave the king another gracious assurance through the dying Elisha, which was confirmed by means of a symbolical action. — Vers. 1 5 sqq. " Take — said Elisha to Joash — bow and arrows,... and let thy hand pass over the bow " p?"IO)* i.e. stretch the bow. He then placed his hands upon the king's hands, as a sign that the power which was to be given to the bow-shot came from the Lord through the mediation ot the prophet. He then directed him to open the window towards the east and shoot, adding as he shot off the arrow: " An arrow of salvation from the Lord, and an arrow of salvation against the Syrians; and thou wilt smite the Syrians at Aphek (see at 1 Kings xx. 2 6) to destruction." The arrow that was shot off was to be a symbol of the help of the Lord against the Syrians to their" destruction. This promise the king was then_1^rap^opriate to himself through an act of his own. Elisha therefore directed him (ver. 18) to " take the arrows;" and when he had taken them, said: nyiK Ijn, " strike to the earth," i.e. shoot the arrows to the ground, not " smite the earth with the bundle of arrows " (Thenius), which neither agrees with the shooting of the first arrow, nor admits of a grammatical vindication; for nsn when used of an arrow, signifies to shoot and to strike with the arrow shot off, i.e. to wound or to kill (cf. ch. ix. 24, 1 Kings xxii. 34). The shooting of the arrows to the earth was intended to symbolize the overthrow of the Syrians. " And the king shot three times, and then stood (still)," i.e. left off shooting. — Ver. 19. Elisha was angry at this, and said: " Thou shouldst shoot five or six times, thou wouldst then have smitten the Syrians to destruction; but now thou wilt smite them three times." niarp • it was to shoot, i.e. thou shouldst shoot; compare Ewald, § 237, c; and for n*3n TK, then hadst thou smitten, vid. Ewald, § 358, a. As the king was told that the arrow shot off signified a victory over the Syrians, he ought to have shot off all the arrows, to secure a complete victory over them. When, therefore, he left off after shooting only three times, this was a sign that he was wanting in the proper zeal for obtaining the divine promise, i.e. in true faith in the omnipotence of God to fulfil His promise.1 Elisha was angry at this weakness of the king's faith, and told him that hyjp.fl.vino; off so soon he had deprived himself of a perfect victory over the Syrians. — Vers. 20,

1 " When the king reflected upon the power of the kings of Syria, since he had not implicit faith in Elisha, he thought that it was enough if he struck the earth three times, fearing that the prophecy might not be fulfilled if he should strike more blows upon the ground." — Clekicus.

21. Elisha then died at a great age. As he had been called by- Elijah to be a prophet in the reign of Ahab and did not die till that of Joash, and forty-one years elapsed between the year that Ahab died and the commencement of the reign of Joash, he must have held his prophetical office for at least fifty years, and have attained the age of eighty. " And they buried him just as marauding bands of Moabites entered the land. And it came to pass, that at the burial of a man they saw the marauding bands coming, and placed the dead man in the greatest haste in the grave of Elisha," for the purpose of escaping from the enemy. But when the (dead) man touched the bones of Elisha, he came to life again, and rose up upon his feet. 'W 2Nio Httfl is a circumstantial clause. The difficult expression Hjtf K3, "a year had come," can only have the meaning given by the LXX. and Chald: " when a year had come," and evidently indicates that the burial of Elisha occurred at the time when the yearly returning bands of Moabitish marauders invaded the land. Ewald (Krit. Qramm. p. 528) would therefore read Kfa, a coming of the year, in which case the words would be grammatically subordinate to the main clause. Luther renders it " the same year," in ipso anno, after the Vulgate and Svriac, as if the reading had been njtf PI3. DH, they, the people who had just buried a man. ^Y^\ not threw, but placed hastily. PIJ ijjj: and the man went and touched. *|7J serves as a pictorial delineation of the thought, that as soon as the dead man touched the bones of Elisha he came to life. 1?? is not only applied to the motion of inanimate objects, but also to the gradual progress of any transaction. The conjecture of Thenius and Hitzig, OpJJI, " and they went away," is quite unsuitable. The earlier Israelites did not bury their dead in coffins, but wrapped them in linen cloths and laid them in tombs hewn out of the rock. The tomb was then covered with a stone, which could easily be removed. The dead man, who was placed thus hurriedly in the tomb which had been opened, might therefore easily come into contact with the bones of Elisha. The design of this miracle of the restoration of the dead man to life was not to show how even in the grave Elisha surpassed his master Elijah in miraculous power (Ephr. Syr. and others), but to impress the seal of divine attestation upon the prophecy of the dying prophet concerning the victory of Joash over the Syrians (Wisd. xlviii. 13, 14), since the Lord thereby bore witness that He was not the God of the dead, but of the living, and that His spirit was raised above death and corruptibility.— The opinion that the dead man was restored to life again in a natural manner, through the violent shaking occasioned by the fall, or through the coolness of the tomb, needs no refutation. Vers. 22-25. The prophecy which Elisha uttered before his death is here followed immediately by the account of its fulfilment, and to this end the oppression of the Israelites by Hazael is mentioned once more, together with that turn of affairs which took place through the compassion of God after the death of Hazael and in the reign of his son Benhadad. J"!)? is a pluperfect: " Hazael had oppressed " (for the fact itself compare vers. 4 and 7). For the sake of the covenant made with the patriarchs the Lord turned again to the Israelites, and would not destroy them, and did not cast them away from His face "W nny (" till now "), as was the case afterwards, but delivered them from the threatening destruction through the death of Hazael. For in the reign of his son and successor Benhadad, Joash the son of Jehoahaz took from him again (3B>J1 is to be connected with npw) the cities which he (Hazael) had taken from Jehoahaz in the war. These cities which Hazael had wrested from Jehoahaz were on this side of the Jordan, for Hazael had conquered all Gilead in the time of Jehu (ch. x. 32, 33). Joash recovered the former from Benhadad, whilst his son Jeroboam reconquered Gilead also (see at ch. xiv. 25).

— Vers. 1-7. Length and spirit of his reign, and his victory over the Edomites. — Ver. 1. Amaziah began to reign in the second year of Joash of Israel. Now as Joash of Israel ascended the throne, according to ch. xiii. 1 0, in the thirty-seventh year of Joash of Judah, the latter cannot have reigned thirty-nine full years, which might be reckoned as forty (ch. xii. 1), according to the principle mentioned at p. 186 sq. of reckoning the current years as complete years, if the commencement of his reign took place a month or two before Nisan, and his death occurred a month or two after, without its being necessary to assume a regency. — Vers. 2.

3. Amaziah reigned twenty-nine years in the same theocratical

according to the correct explanation in 2 Chron. xxv. 2, not with D.?8? 22b (see at 1 Kings xi. 4), since Amaziah, like his father Joash (see at ch. xii. 3), fell into idolatry in the closing years of his reign (cf. 2 Chron. xxv. 14 sqq.). — Only the high places were not taken away, etc. — Vers. 5,6. After establishing his own government, he punished the murderers of his father with death; but, according to the law in Deut. xxiv. 16, he did not slay their children also, as was commonly the custom in the East in ancient times, and may very frequently have been done in Israel as well. The Chcthib n^ is correct, and the Keri no* is an unnecessary alteration made after Deuteronomy. — Ver. 7. The brief account of the defeat of the Edomites in the Salt Valley and of the taking of the city of Scla is completed by 2 Chron. xxv. 6-16. According to the latter, Amaziah sought to strengthen his own considerable army by the addition of 100,000 Israelitish mercenaries; but at the exhortation of a prophet he sent the hired Israelites away again, at which they were so enraged, that on their way home they plundered several of the cities of Judah and put many men to death. The Edomites had revolted from Judah in the reign of Joram (ch. viii. 20 sqq.); Amaziah now sought to re-establish his rule over them, in which he was so far successful, that he completely defeated them, slaving 10,000 in the battle and then taking their capital, bo that his successor Uzziah was also able to incorporate the Edomitish port of Elath in his own kingdom once more (ver. 22). On the Salt Valley fffyfTH for nferrtfl in the Chronicles), a marshy salt plain in the south of the Dead Sea, see at 2 Sam. viii. 13. According to ver. 12 of the Chronicles, in addition to the 10,000 who were slain in battle, 10,000 Edomites were taken prisoners and cast headlong alive from the top of a rock, jfen (the rock) with the article, because the epithet is founded upon the peculiar nature of the city, was probably the capital of the Edomites, called by the Greeks 77 JJerpa, and bore this name from its situation and the mode in which it was built, since it was erected in a valley surrounded by rocks, and that in such a manner that the houses were partly hewn in the natural rock. Of this commercial city, which was still flourishing in the first centuries of the Christian era, splendid ruins have been preserved in a valley on the eastern side of the ghor which runs down to the Elanitic Gulf, about two days' journey from the southern extremity of the Dead Sea, on the east of Mount HorJ to which the Crusaders gave the name of vallis

Vers. 8-14. War with Joash of Israel. — Ver. 8. Amaziah then sent a challenge to the Israelitish king Joash to go to war with him. The outward reason for this was no doubt the hostile acts that had been performed by the Israelitish troops, which had been hired for the war with Edom and then sent back again (2 Chron. xxv. 13). But the inward ground was the pride which had crept upon Amaziah in consequence of his victory over the Edomites, and had so far carried him away, that he not only forgot the Lord his God, to wThom he was indebted for this victory, and brought to Jerusalem the gods of the Edomites which he had taken in the war and worshipped them, and silenced with threats the prophet who condemned this idolatry (2 Chron. xxv. 14 sqq.), but in his proud reliance upon his own power challenged the Israelitish king to war. — Vers. 9, 10. Jehoash (Joash) answered his insolent challenge, u Come, we will see one another face to face," i.e. measure swords with one another in war, with a similar fable to that with which Jotham had once instructed his fellow-citizens (Judg. ix. 8 sqq.). " The thorn-bush on Lebanon asked the cedar on Lebanon for its daughter as a wife for his son, and beasts of the field went by and trampled down the thorn-bush." This fable is, of course, not to be interpreted literally, as though Amaziah were the thorn-bush, and Jehoash the cedar, and the wild beasts the warriors; but the thorn-bush putting itself upon an equality with the cedar is a figurative representation of a proud man overrating his strength, and the desire expressed to the cedar of a wish surpassing the bounds of one's condition; so that Thenius is not warranted in inferring from this that Amaziah had in his mind the subjugation of Israel to Judah again. The trampling down of the thorn-bush by a wild beast is only meant to set forth the sudden overthrow and destruction which may come unexpectedly upon the proud man in the midst of his daring plans. Ver. 10 contains the application of the parable. The victory over Edom has made thee high-minded, 13? ^KW): thy heart has lifted thee up, equivalent to, thou hast become highminded. "1?7);?, " be honoured," i.e. be content with the fame thou hast acquired at Edom, " and stay at home." "Wherefore shouldst thou meddle with misfortune? n"J.51?1?, to engage in conflict or war. Misfortune is thought of as an enemy, with whom he wanted to fight. — Vers. 11, 12. But Amaziah paid no attention to this warning. A battle was fought at Bcth-shcmcsk (Ain-Shems, on the border of Judah and Dan, see at Josh. xv. 1 0); Judah was smitten by Israel, so that every one fled to his home. — Yer. 13. Jehoash took king Amaziah prisoner, and then came to Jerusalem, and had four hundred cubits of the wall broken down at the gate of Ephraim to the corner gate, and then returned to Samaria with the treasures of the palace and temple, and with hostages. The Chctliib W3*l is to be pointed tojl, the vowel i being placed after s», as in several other cases (see Ewald, §18, h). There is no ground for altering TOW after the Chronicles (Thenius), although the reading in the Chronicles elucidates the thought. For if Jehoash took Amaziah prisoner at Beth-shemesh and then came to Jerusalem, he no doubt brought his prisoner with him, for Amaziah remained Icing and reigned for fifteen years after the death of Jehoash (ver. 17). The Ephraim gate, which is generally supposed to be the same as the gate of Benjamin (Jer. xxxvii. 13, xxxviii. 7; Zech. xiv. 10; compare Nek viii. 16, xii. 39), stood in the middle of the north wall of Jerusalem, through which the road to Benjamin and Ephraim ran; and the corner gate was at the north-western corner of the same wall, as we may see from Jer. xxxi. 38 and Zech. xiv. 1 0. If, then, Jehoash had four hundred cubits of the wall thrown down at the gate Ephraim to the corner gate, the distance between the two gates was not more than four hundred cubits, which applies to the northern wall of Zion, but not to the second wall, which defended the lower city towards the north, and must have been longer, and which, according to 2 Chron. xxxii. 5, was probably built for the first time by Hezekiah (rid. Krafft, Topographie v. Jerus. pp. 117 sqq.). Jehoash destroyed this portion of the Zion wall, that the city might be left defenceless, as Jerusalem could be most easily taken on the level northern side.1 — The treasures of the temple and palace, which Jehoash took away, cannot, according to ch. xii. 19, have

1 Thenius takes a different view. According to the description which Josephus gives of this event {Ant. ix. 9, 3), he assumes that Jehoash had the four hundred cubits of the city wall thrown down, that he might get a magnificent c'ate (?) for himself and the invading army; and he endeavours to support this assumption by stating that the space between the Ephraim gate and the corner gate was much more than four hundred cubits. But this been very considerable. fti3"iJJFin ^3, sons of the citizenships, i.e. hostages (obsidcs, Vulg.). He took hostages in return for the release of Amaziah, as pledges that he would keep the peace.

Vers. 15-17. The repetition of the notice concerning the end of the reicrn of Joash, together with the formula from ch. xiii. 12 and 13, may probably be explained from the fact, that in the annals of the kings of Israel it stood after the account of the war between Jehoash and Amaziah. This may be inferred from the circumstance that the name of Joash is spelt invariably £wrv here, whereas in the closing notices in ch. xiii. 12 and 13 we have the later form BW*, the one which was no doubt adopted by the author of our books. But he might be induced to give these notices once more as he found them in his original sources, from the statement in ver. 17, that Amaziah outlived Jehoash fifteen years, seeing therein a manifestation of the grace of God, who would not destroy Amaziah notwithstanding his pride, but delivered him, through the death of his victor, from further injuries at his hands. As Amaziah ascended the throne in the second year of the sixteen years' reign of Jehoash, and before his war with Israel made war upon the Edomites and overcame them, the war with Israel can only fall in the closing years of Jehoash, and this king cannot very long have survived his triumph over the king of Judah.

Vers. 18-22. Conspiracy against Amaziah. — Ver. 19. Amaziah, like his father Joash, did not die a natural death. They made a conspiracy against him at Jerusalem, and he tied to Lachish, whither murderers were sent after him, who slew him there. The earlier commentators sought for the cause of this conspiracy in the unfortunate result of the war with Jehoash; but this conjecture is at variance with the circumstance that the conspiracy did not break out till fifteen years or more after that event. It is true that in 2 Chron. xxv. 2 7 we read " from the time that Amaziah departed from the Lord, they formed a conspiracy against him; " but even this statement cannot be understood in any other way than that Amaziah's apostasy gave occasion for discontent, which eventually led to a conspiracy.

assertion is based upon an assumption which cannot be sustained, namely, that the second wall built by Hezekiah (2 Chron. xxxii. 5) was already in existence in the time of Amaziah, and that the gates mentioned were in this wall. The subjective view of the matter in Josephus has no more worth than that of a simple conjecture.

For his apostasy began with the introduction of Edomitish deities into Jerusalem after the defeat of the Edomites, and therefore before the war with Jehoash, in the first part of his reign, whereas the conspiracy cannot possibly have lasted fifteen years or more before it came to a head. Lachish, in the lowlands of Judah, has probably been preserved in the ruins of Um Lakis (see at Josh x. 3). — Ver. 20. " They lifted him upon the horses," i.e. upon the hearse to which the king's horses had been harnessed, and brought him to Jerusalem, where he was buried with his fathers, i.e. in the royal tomb. — Ver. 21. All the people of Judah, i.e. the whole nation, not the whole of the men of war (Thenius), thereupon made his son Azariah (Uzziah) king, who was only sixteen years old. nnry or ^pW is the name given to this king here and ch. xv. 1, 6, 8, 17, 23, and 27, and 1 Chron. iii. 12; whereas in ch. xv. 13, 30, 32, 34, 2 Chron. xxvi. 1, 3, 11, etc., and also Isa. i. 1, vi. 1, Hos. i. 1, Amos i. 1, and Zech. xiv. 5, he is called HHXJ or *HH5[ (Uzziah). This variation in the name is too constant to be attributable to a copyist's error. Even the conjecture that Azariah adopted the name Uzziah as king, or that it was given to him by the soldiers after a successful campaign (Thenius), does not explain the use of the two names in our historical books. We must rather assume that the two names, which are related in meaning, were used promiscuously. nn?g signifies " in Jehovah is help; " HMV) « whose strength is Jehovah." This is favoured by the circumstance adduced by Bertheau, that among the descendants of Kohath we also find an Uzziah who bears the name Azariah (1 Chron. vi. 9 and 21), and similarly among the descendants of Heman an Uzziel with the name Azarel (1 Chron. xxv. 4 and 18). — Ver. 22. Immediately after his ascent of the throne, Uzziah built, i.e. fortified, Elath, the Idumaean port (see at 1 Kings ix. 26), and restored it to Judah again. It is evident from this that Uzziah completed the renewed subjugation of Edom which his father had begun. The position in which this notice stands, immediately after his ascent of the throne and before the account of the duration and character of his reign, may be explained in all probability from the importance of the work itself, which not only distinguished the commencement of his reign, but also gave evidence of its power.

The statement that Jeroboam the son of Joash (Jehoash) ascended the throne in the fifteenth year of Amaziah, agrees with ver. 17, according to which Amaziah outlived Jehoash fifteen years, since Amaziah reigned twenty-nine years. On the other hand, the forty-one years' duration of his reign does not agree with the statement in ch. xv. 8, that his son Zachariah did not become king till the thirty-eighth year of Azariah (Uzziah); and therefore Thenius proposes to alter the number 41 into 51, Ewald into 53. For further remarks, see ch. xv. 8. Jeroboam also adhered firmly to the image-worship of his ancestors, but he raised his kingdom again to great power. — Ver. 25. He brought back (pNfif), i.e. restored, the boundary of Israel from towards Hamath in the north, to the point to which the kingdom extended in the time of Solomon (1 Kings viii. 65), to the sea of the Arabah (the present Ghor), i.e. to the Dead Sea (compare Deut. iii. 17, and iv. 49, from which this designation of the southern border of the kingdom of the ten tribes arose), " according to the word of the Lord, which He had spoken through the prophet Jonah," who had probably used this designation of the southern boundary, which was borrowed from the Pentateuch, in the announcement which he made. The extent of the kingdom of Israel in the reign of Jeroboam is defined in the same manner in Amos vi. 14, but instead of rmyn D* the n?"J^ sty is mentioned, i.e. in all probability the Wady el Ahsy, which formed the boundary between Moab and Edom; from which we may see that Jeroboam had also subjugated the Moabites to his kingdom, which is not only rendered probable by ch. iii. 6 sqq., but is also implied in the words that he restored the former boundary of the kingdom of Israel. — On the prophet Jonah, the son of Amittai, see the Comm. on Jon. i. 1. Gath-Hepher, in the tribe of Zebulun, is the present village of Meshed, to the north of Nazareth (see at Josh. xix. 1 3). — Vers. 26, 27. The higher ground for this strengthening of Israel in the time of Jeroboam was to be found in the compassion of God. The Lord saw the great oppression and helpless condition of Israel, and had not yet pronounced the decree of rejection. He therefore sent help through Jeroboam. *ind nib without the article, and governed by rW ^ (see Ewald, § 293, a), signifies very bitter, HID having taken the meaning of "HO. This is the explanation adopted in all the ancient versions, and also by Dietrich in Ges. Lex. Ul "WJJ DDfcfl, verbatim from Deut.

xxxii. 36, to show that the kingdom of Israel had been brought to the utmost extremity of distress predicted there by Moses, and it was necessary that the Lord should interpose with His help, if His people were not utterly to perish. W| to: He had not yet spoken, i.e. had not yet uttered the decree of rejection through the mouth of a prophet. To blot out the name under the heavens is an abbreviated expression for: among the nations who dwelt under the heavens. — Vers. 28, 29. Of the rest of the history of Jeroboam we have nothing more than an intimation that he brought back Damascus and Hamath of Judah to Israel, i.e. subjugated it again to the kingdom of Israel nTOirt is a periphrastic form for the genitive, as proper names do not admit of any form of the construct state, and in this case the simple genitive would not have answered so well to the fact. For the meaning is: " whatever in the two kingdoms of Damascus and Hamath had formerly belonged to Judah in the times of David and Solomon." By Damascus and Hamath we are not to understand the cities, but the kingdoms; for not only did the city of Hamath never belong to the kingdom of Israel, but it was situated outside the boundaries laid down by Moses for Israel (see at Num. xxxiv. 8). It cannot, therefore, have been re-conquered (3'^n) by Jeroboam. It was different with the city of Damascus, which David had conquered and even Solomon had not permanently lost (see at 1 Kings xi. 24). Consequently in the case of Damascus the capital is included in the kingdom. — Ver. 29. As Jeroboam reigned forty-one years, his death occurred in the twenty-seventh year of Uzziah. If, then, his son did not begin to reign till the thirty-eighth year of Uzziah, as is stated in ch. xv. 8, he cannot have come to the throne immediately after his father's death (see at ch. xv. 8).

C1IAP. XV. REIGNS OF AZARIAH OF JUDAH, ZACHARIAH, SHALLUM, MENAHEM, PEKAHIAH, AND PEKAH OF ISRAEL, AND JOTHAM OF JUDAH.

Vers. 1-7. Reign of Azariah (Uzziah) of Judah (cf. 2 Chron. xxvi.). — The statement that * in the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam Azariah began to reign" is at variance with ch. xiv. 2, 16, 17, and 23. If, for example, Azariah ascended the throne in the fifteenth year of Joash of Israel, and with his twenty-nine years' reign outlived Joash fifteen years (ch. xiv. 2, 1 7); if, moreover, Jeroboam followed his father Joash in the fifteenth year of Amaziah (ch. xiv. 23), and Amaziah died in the fifteenth year of Jeroboam; Azariah (Uzziah) must have become king in the fifteenth year of Jeroboam, since, according to ch. xiv. 21, the people made him king after the murder of his father, which precludes the supposition of an interregnum. Consequently the datum " in the twenty-seventh year " can only have crept into the text through the confounding of the numerals 1B (15) with D (27), and we must therefore read " in the fifteenth year." — Vers. 2 sqq. Beside the general characteristics of Uzziah's fifty-two years' reign, which are given in the standing formula, not a single special act is mentioned, although, according to 2 Chron. xxvi, he raised his kingdom to great earthly power and prosperity; probably for no other reason than because his enterprises had exerted no permanent influence upon the development of the kingdom of Judah, but all the useful fruits of his reign were destroyed again by the ungodly Ahaz. Uzziah did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as his father Amaziah had done. For as the latter was unfaithful to the Lord in the closing years of his reign, so did Uzziah seek God only so long as Zechariah, who was experienced in divine visions, remained alive, and God gave success to his enterprises, so that during this time he carried on successful wars against the Philistines and Arabians, fortified the walls of Jerusalem with strong towers, built watch-towers in the desert, and constructed cisterns for the protection and supply of his numerous flocks, promoted agriculture and vine-growing, and organized a numerous and well-furnished army (2 Chron. xxvL 5-15). But the great power to which he thereby attained produced such haughtiness, that he wanted to make himself high priest in his kingdom after the manner of the heathen kings, and usurping the sacred functions, which belonged according to the law to the Levitical priests alone, to offer incense in the temple, for which he was punished with leprosy upon the spot (ver. 5 compared with 2 Chron. xxvi. 16 sqq.). The king's leprosy is described in our account also as a punishment from God. "* VW): Jehovah smote him, and he became leprous. This presupposes an act of guilt, and confirms the fuller account of this guilt given in the Chronicles, which Thenius, following the example of De Wette and Winer, could only call in question on the erroneous assumption " that the powerful king wanted to restore the regal high-priesthood exercised by David and Solomon." Oehler (Herzog's Cycl.)

has already shown that such an opinion is perfectly " groundless/' since it is nowhere stated that David and Solomon performed with their own hands the functions assigned in the law to the priests in connection with the offering of sacrifice, as the cooperation of the priests is not precluded in connection with the sacrifices presented by these kings (2 Sam. vi. 17, and 1 Kings iii. 4, etc.). — Uzziah being afflicted with leprosy, was obliged to live in a separate house, and appoint his son Jotham as president of the royal house to judge the people, i.e. to conduct the administration of the kingdom. — The time when this event occurred is not stated either in our account or in the Chronicles. But this punishment from God cannot have fallen upon him before the last ten years of his fifty-two years' reign, because his son, who was only twenty-five years old when his father died (ver. 33, and 2 Chron. xxvii. 1), undertook the administration of the affairs of the kingdom at once, and therefore must have been at least fifteen years old. rcLT'snn n*a is taken by Winer, Gesenius, and others, after the example of Iken, to signify nosocomium, fecit, n. debilis, imbceillis fuit. But this meaning cannot be traced in Hebrew, where V2? is used in no other sense than free, set at liberty, manumissutL Consequently the rendering adopted by Aquila is correct, oikos iXevOepias; and the explanation given by Kimchi of this epithet is, that the persons who lived there were those who were sent away from human society, or perhaps more correctly, those who were released from the world and its privileges and duties, or cut off from intercourse with God and man. — Ver. 7. "When Uzziah died, he was buried with his fathers in the city of David, but because he died of leprosy, not in the royal family tomb, but, as the Chronicles (ver. 23) add to complete the account, "in the burial -field of the kings;" so that he was probably buried in the earth according to our mode. His son Jotham did not become king till after Uzziah' s death, as he had not been regent, but only the administrator of the affairs of the kingdom during his father's leprosj'.

Vers. 8-12. Reign of Zachariah of Israel. — Ver. 8. "In the thirty-eighth year of Uzziah, Zachariah the son of Jeroboam became king over Israel six months." As Jeroboam died in the twenty-seventh year of Uzziah, according to our remarks on cm xiv. 29, there is an interregnum of eleven years between his death and the ascent of the throne by his son, as almost all the chronologists since the time of Usher have assumed. It is true that this interregnum may be set aside by assuming that Jeroboam reigned fifty-one or fifty-three years instead of forty-one, without the synchronism being altered in consequence. But as it is not very probable that the numeral letters 33 or 33 should be confounded with KD, and as the conflict for the possession of the throne, which we meet with after the very brief reign of Zachariah, when taken in connection with various allusions in the prophecies of Hosea, rather favours the idea that the anarchy broke out immediately after the death of Jeroboam, we regard the assumption of an interregnum as resting on a better foundation than the removal of the chronological discrepancy by an alteration of the text. — Vers. 9 sqq. Zachariah also persevered in the sin of his fathers in connection with the calf-worship; therefore the word of the Lord pronounced upon Jehu (ch. x. 3 0) was fulfilled in him. — Shallum the son of Jabesh formed a conspiracy and put him to death MfvJjJ, before people, i.e. openly before the eyes of all.1 As Israel would not suffer itself to be brought to repentance and to return to the Lord, its God and King, by the manifestations of divine grace, in the times of Joash and Jeroboam, any more than by the severe judgments that preceded them, and the earnest admonitions of the prophets Hosea and Amos; the judgment of rejection could not fail eventually to burst forth upon the nation, which so basely despised the grace, long-suffering, and covenant-faithfulness of God. We therefore see the kingdom hasten with rapid steps towards its destruction after the death of Jeroboam. In the sixty-two years between the death of Jeroboam and the conquest of Samaria by Shalmaneser anarchy prevailed twice, in all for the space of twenty years, and six kings followed one another, only one of whom, viz. Menahem, died a natural death, so as to be succeeded by his son upon the throne. The other five were dethroned and murdered by rebels, so that, as Witsius has truly said, with the murder of Zachariah not only was the declaration of Hosea (i. 4) fulfilled, " I visit the blood-guiltiness of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu," but also the parallel utterance, " and I destroy the kingdom of the house of Israel," since the

1 Ewald in the most marvellous manner has made DJT^Qp into a king {Gesch. iii. p. 598).

monarchy in Israel really ceased with Zachariah. "For the successors of Zachariah were not so much kings as robbers and tyrants, unworthy of the august name of kings, who lost with ignominy the tyranny which they had wickedly acquired, and as wickedly exercised" — Witsius, Je/ca</>u\. p. 320.

Vers. 13-16. Keign of Shallum. — Shallum reigned only a full month (D^nv, as in Deut. xxi 13; see at Gen. xxix. 14). Menahem the son of Gadi then made war upon him from Tirzah; and by him he was smitten and slain. Menahem must have been a general or the commander-in-chief, as Josephus affirms. As soon as he became king he smote Tiplisach, — i.e. Thapsacus on the Euphrates, which has long since entirely disappeared, probably to be sought for in the neighbourhood of the present Rakka, by the ford of el Hamman, the north-eastern border city of the Israelitish kingdom in the time of Solomon (1 Kings v. 4), which came into the possession of the kingdom of Israel again when the ancient boundaries were restored by Jeroboam n. (ch. xiv. 25 and 28), but which had probably revolted again during the anarchy which arose after the death of Jeroboam, — " and all that were therein, and the territory thereof, from Tirzah; because they opened not (to him), therefore he smote it, and had them that were with child ripped up." WWO does not mean that Menahem laid the land or district waste from Tirzah to Tiphsach, but is to be taken in connection with R3J in this sense: he smote Tiphsach proceeding from Tirzah, etc. The position of this notice, namely, immediately after the account of the usurpation of the throne by Menahem and before the history of his reign, is analogous to that concerning Elath in the case of Uzziah (ch. xiv. 22), and, like the latter, is to be accounted for from the fact that the expedition of Menahem against Tiphsach formed the commencement of his reign, and, as we may infer from ver. 19, became very eventful not only for his own reign, but also for the kingdom of Israel generally. The reason why he proceeded from Tirzah against Tiphsach, was no doubt that it was in Tirzah, the present Tallusa, which was only three hours to the east of Samaria (see at 1 Kings xiv. 17), that the army of which Menahem was commander was posted, so that he had probably gone to Samaria with only a small body of men to overthrow Shallum, the murderer of Zachariah and usurper of the throne, and to make himself king. It is possible that the army commanded by Menahem had already been collected in Tirzah to march against the city of Tiphsach, which had revolted from Israel when Shallum seized upon the throne by the murder of Zachariah; so that after Menahem had removed the usurper, he carried out at once the campaign already resolved upon, and having taken Tiphsach, punished it most cruelly for its revolt. On the cruel custom of ripping up the women with child, i.e. of cutting open their wombs, see ch. viii. 12, Amos i. 13, and Hos. xiv. 1. Tiphsach, Thapsacus, appears to have been a strong fortress; and from its situation on the western bank of the Euphrates, at the termination of the great trade-road from Egypt, Phoenicia, and Syria to Mesopotamia and the kingdoms of Inner Asia (Movers, Phoniz. ii. 2, pp. 164,165; and Eitter, Erdkunde, x. pp. 1114-15), the possession of it was of great importance to the kingdom of Israel.1

Vers. 17-22. Reign of Menahem. — Menahem's reign lasted ten full years (see at ver. 23), and resembled that of his pre-

1 There is no foundation for the view propounded by Ewald (Gesch. iii. p. 599), Simson (Hosea, pp. 20, 21), Thenius, and many others, that Tiphsach was a city between Tirzah and Samaria, which Menahem laid waste on his march from Tirzah to Samaria to dethrone Shallum; for it rests upon nothing more than the perfectly unwarrantable and un grammatical combination of nvino with n^inaVIK, "its boundaries toward Tirzah" (Sims.), and upon the two worthless objections: (1) that the great distance of nVtnD from 7\y precludes the rendering " going out from Tirzah;" and (2) that Menahem was not the man to be able to conquer Thapsacus on the Euphrates. But there is no foundation for the latter assertion, as we have no standard by which to estimate the strength and bravery of the Israelitish army commanded by Menahem. And the first objection falls to the ground with the correct rendering of nv^ri)0, viz. "proceeding from Tirzah," which is preferred even by Ewald and Thenius. With this rendering, the words by no means affirm that Menahem smote Tiphsach from Tirzah on the way to Samaria. This is merely an inference drawn from ver. 13, according to which Menahem went from Tirzah to Samaria to overthrow Shallum. But this inference is open to the following objections: (1) that it is very improbable that there was a strong fortress between Tirzah and Samaria, which Menahem was obliged to take on his march before he could overthrow the usurper in the capital of the kingdom; and (2) that the name Tiphsach, trojectus, ford, is by no means a suitable one for a city situated on the mountains between Tirzah and Samaria, and therefore, in order to carry out the hypothesis in question, Thenius proposes to alter Tiphsach into Tappuachj without any critical warrant for so doing.

decessors in its attitude towards God. In ver 18, the expression VDP3 (all his days) is a very strange one, inasmuch as no such definition of time occurs in connection with the usual formula, either in this chapter (cf. vers. 24 and 28) or elsewhere (cf. ch. iii. 3, x. 31, xiii. 2, 11, etc.). The LXX. have instead of this, iv rat? rftiepcus clvtov (in his days). If we compare ver. 29, N3 nga *D*3 (in the days of Pekah came, etc.), NJ W3J3 might possibly be regarded as the original reading, from which a copyist's error N2 W£v3 arose, after which roj^vS was connected with the preceding clause. — Ver. 19. In the time of Menahem, Pul king of Assyria invaded the land, and Menahem gave him 1000 talents of silver — more than two and a half millions of thalers (£375,000) — "that his hands might be with him, to confirm the kingdom in his hand." These words are understood by the majority of commentators from the time of Ephraem Syrus, when taken in connection with Hos. v. 13,.as signifying that Menahem invited Pul, that he might establish his government with his assistance. But the words of Hosea, "Ephraim goes to the Assyrian," sc. to seek for help (ch. v. 13, cf. vii. 11 and viii. 9), are far too general to be taken as referring specially to Menahem; and the assumption that Menahem invited Pul into the land is opposed by the words in the verse before us, '* Pul came over the land." Even the further statement that Menahem gave to Ful 10U0 talents of silver when he came into the land, that he might help him to establish his government, presupposes at the most that a party opposed to Menahem had invited the Assyrians, to overthrow the usurper. At any rate, we may imagine, in perfect harmony with the words of our account, that Pul marched against Israel of his own accord, possibly induced to do so by Meiiahem's expedition against Thapsacus, and that his coming was simply turned to account as a good opportunity for disputing Meiiahem's possession of the throne he had usurped, so that Menahem, by paying the tribute mentioned, persuaded the Assyrian to withdraw, that he might deprive the opposing party of the Assyrian support, and thereby establish his own rule. — Ver. 20. To collect the requisite amount, Menahem imposed upon all persons of property a tax of fifty shekels each. N>%s with?y, he caused to arise, i.e. made a collection, fc^y'n in a causative sense, from W, to arise, to be paid (ch. xii. 13). b\n nfcu: not warriors, but men of property, as in Ruth ii. 1, 1 Sam. ix. 1. ins vhxb for the individual. Pul was the first king of Assyria who invaded the kingdom of Israel and prepared the way for the conquest of this kingdom by his successors, and for the extension of the Assyrian power as far as Egypt. According to the thorough investigation made by Marc. v. Niebuhr (Gesch. Assurs u. Babels, pp. 128 sqq.), Pul, whose name has not yet been discovered upon the Assyrian monuments, was the last king of Nineveh of the family of the Derketades, who still ruled over Babylon according to Berosus, and the last king but one of this dynasty.1

Ters. 23-26. Reign of Pekahiah. — Pekahiah the son of Menahem began to reign " in the fiftieth year of Uzziah." As Menahem had begun to reign in the thirty-ninth year of Uzziah and reigned ten years, he must have died in the forty-ninth year of Uzziah; and therefore, if his son did not become king till the fiftieth year, some months must have elapsed between the death of Menahem and Pekahiah' s ascent of the throne, probably because, in the existing disorganization of the kingdom, the possession of the throne by the latter was opposed. Pekahiah reigned in the spirit of his predecessors, but only for two years, as his aide-de-camp (^w, see at 2 Sam. xxiii. 8) Pekah conspired against him and slew him in the citadel (P^"J^, see at 1 Kings xvi. 8) of the king's palace, with Argob and Aryeh. Argob and Aryeh were not fellow-conspirators of Pekah, who helped to slay the king, but principes Pekachjce, as Seb. Schmidt expresses it, probably aides-de-camp of Pekahiah, who were slain by the conspirators when defending their king. "We must take the words in this sense on account of what follows:)®V) 'til D^on, "and with him (Pekah) were fifty men of the Gileadites " (i.e. they helped him). The Gileadites probably belonged

1 It is true that some trace of bis expedition has been found in the monuments, since an inscription has been deciphered with tolerable certainty, stating that king Minikhimmi of Samirina (Menahem of Shomron or Samaria) paid tribute to an Assyrian king. But the name of this Assyrian king is not determined with certainty, as Rawlinson and Oppert read it Tiglat-palassar, and suppose Tiglath-pileser to be intended; whereas M. v. Niebuhr (p. 132, note 1) imagines it to be the full name of Pul, since no Assyrian king ever had a name of one syllable like Pul as his official name, and even before that Hincks had detected in the name Minikhimmi the king Menahem who had to purchase the friendship of the Assyrian ruler Pul with 1000 talents of silver. (Comp. J. Brandis, iiber d. histor. Gewinn aus der Entzifferung der assyr. Inschriften, Berl. 1856, p. 50.)

to the king's body-guard, and were under the command of the aides-de-camp of Pekah.

Vers. 27-31. Eeign of Pekah. — Pekah the son of Pemaliah reigned twenty years.1 During his reign the Assyrian king Ti'/lath-pilescr came, and after conquering the fortified citus round Lake Merom took possession of Gilead and Galilee, namely the whole land of Naphtali, ami led the inhabitants captive to Assyria. Tiglath-pileser P9^s rbin or ■»£■ nb:n, ch. xvi. 7; iDtot* or TO^i n^n, l Chron. v. 26, and 2 Chron. xxviii 20;

ins and others " ruler of the Tigris," although the reading of the name upon the monuments is still uncertain, and the explanation given i very uncertain one, since Tiglat or Tilhardy identical with DiglcUh= hut is probably a name of the godd< ding U) 11 v.

buhr(pp L56, 157), the last king of the D dynasty, who, when the M '•■ and Babylonians threw off the Assyrian supremacy after the death of Pul mpted to n itoie and end tl. tent dominion.1 I! ition againsl [ai

Aha/., but rii. l, i which Boses the murderer of Pekah b king in the twelfth year of Aha/ and reig

Lengthened Pekah*! reign I s, whereas Theniua propoeei to alter twenty into thirty. Hut by obtain an actual agreement either with v. r. SO «>r with ch. xvii. l. ao that in both these paasagi - Theniua ng that be i i>Kr unii. r the murder of Pekah, and not in the twelfth, as ia stated inch. xvii. l. [tie only with a reign of twenty- eig] - and a few months (one year of Usiah, sixteen of.lotham, and eleven I might be called twuity-nin I hat the commencement of H' could fall in the twelfth year of Ahaz. But the dis- cre] rith ver. 80, that Hosea conspired against Pekah and slew him in the twentieth year.am, w not removed thereby. For further remarks the dynasty changed With the overthrow of the Derketades, but he places it considerably earlier, about the year 900 or 950 B.C., because on the one hand Niebuhrs reasons for his view cannot be sustained, and on the fulls, according to ver. 29 and ch. xvL 9, in the closing years of Pekah, when Ahaz had come to the throne in Judah. The enumeration of his conquests in the kingdom of Israel commences with the most important cities, probably the leading fortifications. Then follow the districts of which he took possession, and the inhabitants of which he led into captivity. The cities mentioned are Ijon, probably the present Ayun on the northeastern edge of the Merj Ayun; Abcl-Bcth-Maacah, the present Abil el Kamli, on the north-west of Lake Huleh (see at 1 Kings xv. 20); Janoach, which must not be confounded with the Janocha mentioned in Josh. xvi. 6, 7, on the border of Ephraim and Manasseh, but is to be sought for in Galilee or the tribeterritory of Naphtali, and has not yet been discovered; Kedesh, on the mountains to the west of Lake Huleh, which has been preserved as an insignificant village under the ancient name (see at Josh. xii. 22); Hazor, in the same region, but not yet traced with certainty (see at Josh. xi. 1). Gilead is the whole of the land to the east of the Jordan, the territory of the tribes of Eeuben, Gad, and half-Manasseh (1 Chron. v. 26), which had only been wrested from the Syrians again a short time before by Jeroboam il, and restored to Israel (ch. xiv. 25, compared with ch. x. 33). '"VY^n (the feminine form of 7yW, see Ewald, § 173, A) is more precisely defined by the apposition " all the land of Naphtali " (see at 1 Kings ix. 11). — In the place of nwx, « to the land of Assyria," the different regions to wThich the captives were transported are given in 1 Chron. v. 26. For further remarks on this point see at ch. xvii. 6. — Ver. 30. Pekah met with his death in a conspiracy organized by Hosea the son of Elah, who made himself king " in the twentieth year of Jotham." There is something very strange in this chronological datum, as Jotham only reigned sixteen years (ver. 33), and Ahaz began to reign in the seventeenth year of other hand there are distinct indications that the change in the reigning family must have taken place about this time: viz. 1. in the ruins of the southern city of Nineveh, at Kalah, where we find the remains of the palaces of two rulers, who sat upon the throne of Assyria between the years 900 and 830, whereas the castles of Ninos and his descendants must undoubtedly have stood in the northern city, in Nineveh; 2. in the circumstance that from the time mentioned the Assyrian kingdom advanced with fresh warlike strength and in a fresh direction, which would agree with the change in the dynasty. — Which of these two assumptions is the correct one, cannot yet be decided in the present state of the researches on this subject.

Pekah (ch. xvi. 1); so that Pekah's death would fall in the fourth year of Ahaz. The reason for this striking statement can only be found, as Usher lias shown {Chronol. sacr. p.. 80), in the fact that nothing has yet been said about Jothani's successor Ahaz, because the reign of Jotham himself is not mentioned till vers. 32 sqq.1

Vers. 32-38. Reign of Jotham of Judab (cf. 2 Chron. xxvii.). — Ver. 32. " In the second year of Pekah Jotham begao to reign." This agrees with the statement in ver. 2 7, that Pekah line king in the last year of I'zziah, supposing that it occurred at the common at of the year, Jothani's sixt- is therefore came to ■ close in the seventeenth year of Pekah's reign (ch. xvi. 1). B q was Like that of his father

Uzziah (compare vera 3 with vera 3, 4), except, as is added in Chron. ver. 2. that he did not force himself into the temple of ti. I iah had dene (2 Chron. xxvi. 16).

1 Other attempts to lifficulty are either arbitrary and precarious, arlier chronologista quoted by Winer (/•'. IT. a s.

Jotham ' f Vaihinger in Hen am), that the words rPTjnp - — pliminsted aa an interpolation, in which the datam " in the twentieth year " 1 perfectly Enigmatical; and in the twentieth yea* of J ithasa, we should n. the twentieth year of

•ham." whi carried out by

2, 17; 2 Chron. Kxrii Lai r, the aaaumption of

Thenius, that tl ~:.i PTIJJ through a double mi I the copyist and an arbitrary alteration of what had I thus falsely written, which is much I plicated to appear at aD credible, d if the reasons whi upi*»sed to ible had been m forcible and correct than they res m, viz. that the statement in what year of t cutis ruler a king came to the throne is alwa given when the history of this king commences, is disproyed by ch. i. 17 •. the E, that the name of the king;

!urn the accession of another il d is invariably introduced

\\ntb the epithet king of Judah or king * f I.-rael, is shown by ch. xii. 2 and xvi. 1 to be not in accordance with fact; and the third, that this very king is never del by the introduction of his father's name, as he is here, except where the intention is to prevent misunderstanding, as in ch. xiv. 1. 23, or in the case of usurpers without ancestors (ver. 32, xvi. 1 and 1"0, is also incorrect in its first portion, for in the case of Amaziah in ch. xiv. 23 there was no misunderstanding to prevent, and even in the case of Joash In ch. xiv. 1 the epithet king of Israel would have been quite sufficient to guard against any misunderstanding.

All that is mentioned of his enterprises in the account before us is that he built the upper gate of the house of Jehovah, that is to say, that he restored it, or perhaps added to its beauty. The upper gate, according to Ezek. ix. 2 compared with ch. viii. 3, 5, 14 and 16, is the gate at the north side of the inner or upper court, where all the sacrifices were slaughtered, according to Ezek. xl. 38-43. We also find from 2 Chron. xxvii. 3 sqq. that he built against the wall of Ophel, and several cities in the mountains of Judah, and castles and towers in the forests, and subdued the Ammonites, so that they paid him tribute for three years. Jotham carried on with great vigour, therefore, the work which his father had began, to increase the material prosperity of his subjects. — Ver. 37. In those days the Lord began to send against Judah Rezin, etc. It is evident from the position of this verse at the close of the account of Jotham, that the incursions of the allied Syrians and Israelites into Judah under the command of Rezin and Pekah commenced in the closing years of Jotham, so that these foes appeared before Jerusalem at the very beginning of the reign of Ahaz. — It is true that the Syrians had been subjugated by Jeroboam ir. (ch. xiv. 28); but in the anarchical condition of the Israelitish kingdom after his death, they had no doubt recovered their independence. They must also have been overcome by the Assyrians under Pul, for he could never have marched against Israel without having first of all conquered Syria. But as the power of the Assyrians was greatly weakened for a time by the falling away of the Medes and Babylonians, the Syrians had taken advantage of this weakness to refuse the payment of tribute to Assyria, and had formed an alliance with Pekah of Israel to conquer Judah, and thereby to strengthen their power so as to be able to offer a successful resistance to any attack from the side of the Euphrates. — But as ch. xvi. 6 sqq. and ch. xvii. show, it was otherwise decreed in the counsels of the Lord.

With the reign of Ahaz a most eventful change took place in the development of the kingdom of Juaah. Under the vigorous reigns of Uzziah and Jotham, by whom the earthly prosperity of the kingdom had been studiously advanced, there had been, as we may see from the prophecies of Isaiah, chs. ii.-vi., which date from this time, a prevalence of luxury and self-security, of unrighteousness and forgetfulness of God, among the upper classes, in consequence of the increase of their wealth. Under Ahaz these sins grew into open apostasy from the Lord; for this weak and unprincipled ruler trod in the steps of the kings of Israel, and introduced image- worship and idolatrous practices of every kind, and at length went so far in his ungodliness as to shut up the doors of the porch of the temple and suspend the templeworship prescribed by the law altogether. The punishment followed this apostasy without delay. The allied Syrians and Israelites completely defeated the Judaeans, slew more than a hundred thousand men and led away a much larger number of prisoners, and then advanced to Jerusalem to put an end to the kingdom of Judah by the conquest of the capital. In this distress, instead of seeking help from the Lord, who promised him deliverance through the prophet Isaiah, Ahaz sought help from Tiglath-pileser the king of Assyria, who came and delivered him from the oppression of Kezin and Pekah by the conquest of Damascus, Galilee, and the Israelitish land to the east of the Jordan, but who then oppressed him himself, so that Ahaz was obliged to purchase the friendship of this conqueror by sending him all the treasures of the temple and palace. — In the chapter before us we have first of all the general characteristics of the idolatry of Ahaz (vers. 2-4), then a summary account of his oppression by Eezin and Pekah, and his seeking help from the king of Assyria (vers. 5-9), and lastly a description of the erection of a heathen altar in the court of the temple on the site of the brazen altar of burnt-offering, and of other acts of demolition performed upon the older sacred objects in the templecourt (vers. 10-18). The parallel account in 2 Chron. xxviiL supplies many additions to the facts recorded here.

Vers. 1—4. On the time mentioned, " in the seventeenth year of Pekah Ahaz became king," see at ch. xv. 32. The datum " twenty years old " is a striking one, even if we compare with it ch. xviii. 2. As Ahaz reigned only sixteen years, and at his death his son Hezekiah became king at the age of twenty-five years (ch. xviii. 2), Ahaz must have begotten him in the eleventh year of his age. It is true that in southern lands this is neither impossible nor unknown,1 but in the case of the kings of Judah

1 In the East they marry girls of nine or ten years of age to boys of twelve or thirteen (Volney, Reise, ii. p. 360). Among the Indians husbands of ten years of age and wives of eight are mentioned (Thevenot, Reisen, iii. pp. 100 it would be without analogy. The reading found in the LXX., Syr., and Arab, at 2 Chron. xxviii. 1, and also in certain codd., viz. five and twenty instead of twenty, may therefore be a preferable one. According to this, Hezekiah, like Ahaz, was born in his father's sixteenth year. — Ver. 3. " Ahaz walked in the way of the kings of Israel," to which there is added by way of explanation in 2 Chron. xxviii. 2, " and also made molten images to the Baals." This refers, primarily, simply to the worship of Jehovah under the image of a calf, which they had invented; for this was the way in which all the kings of Israel walked. At the same time, in ch. viii. 1 8 the same formula is so used of Joram king of Judah as to include the worship of Baal by the dynasty of Ahab. Consequently in the verse before us also the way of the kings of Israel includes the worship of Baal, which is especially mentioned in the Chronicles. — " He even made his son pass through the fire," i.e. offered him in sacrifice to Moloch in the valley of Benhinnom (see at ch. xxiii. 10), after the abominations of the nations, whom Jehovah had cast out before Israel. Instead of faa we have the plural Vja in 2 Chron. xxviii. 3, and in ver. 16 "WK WO, kings of Asshur, instead of TOK Tpt^ although only one, viz. Tiglath-pileser, is spoken of. This repeated use of the plural shows very plainly that it is to be understood rhetorically, as expressing the thought in the most general manner, since the number was of less importance than the fact.1 So far as the fact is concerned, we have here the first instance of an actual Moloch-sacrifice among the Israelites, i.e. of one performed by slaying and burning. For although the phrase and 165). In Abyssinia boys of twelve and even ten years old marry (Riippell, Alessynien, ii. p. 59). Among the Jews in Tiberias, mothers of eleven years of age and fathers of thirteen are not uncommon (Burckh. Syrien, p. 570); and Lynch saw a wife there, who to all appearance was a mere child about ten years of age, who had been married two years already. In the epist. ad N. Carbonelli, from Hieronymi epist. ad Vitalem, 132, and in an ancient glossa, Bochart has also cited examples of one boy of ten years and another of nine, qui nutricem suam gravidavit, together with several other cases of a similar kind from later writers. Cf. Bocharti Opp. i. (Geogr. sacr.) p. 920, ed. Lugd. 1692.

1 The Greeks and Romans also use the plural instead of the singular in their rhetorical style of writing, especially when a father, a mother, or a son is spoken of. Cf. Cic. de prov. cons. xiv. 35: si ad jucundissimos liberos, si ad clarissimum generum redire properaret, where Julia, the only daughter of Caesar, and the wife of Pompey the Great, is referred to; and for other examples see Caspari, der Syr. Ephraimit. Krieg, p. 41.

PK3 Tayn or ^s? does not in itself denote the slaying and burning of the children as Moloch-sacrifices, but primarily affirms nothing more than the simple passing through fire, a kind of februation or baptism of fire (see at Lev. xviii. 21); such passages as Ezek. xvi. 21 and Jer. vii. 31, where sacrificing in the valley of Benhinnom is called slaying and burning the children, show most distinctly that in the verse before us wW3 I^PSl is to be taken as signifying actual sacrificing, i.e. the burning of the children slain in sacrifice to Moloch, and, as the emphatic Dtt indicates, that this kind of idolatrous worship, which had never been heard of before in Judah and Israel, was introduced by Ahaz.1 In the Chronicles, therefore, TOJJJ is correctly explained by "TO'i " he burned; " though we cannot infer from this that "i^yn is always a mere conjecture for TJOlJ, as Geiger does (Urschrift u. Ucbcrs. der Bibel, p. 305). The offering of his son for Moloch took place, in all probability, during the severe oppression of Ahaz by the Syrian-, and was intended to appease the wrath of the gods, as was done by the king of the Moabites in similar circumstances (ch. iii. 2 7). — In ver. 4 the idolatry

1 M If this idolatry had occurred among the Israelites before the time of Ahaz, its abomination! would certainly not have been paaBed over by the biblical writers, who so frequently mention other forms of idolatry." These are the correct words of Movers (PAd'Miz. i. p. 66), who only errs in the fact that on the one hand he supposes the origin of human sacrifices in the time of Ahaz to have been inwardly connected with the appearance of the Assyrians, and traces them to the acquaintance of tin- Israelites with the Assyrian fire-deities Adrammelech and Anamimlcch (eh. xvii. 81), and on the other hand gives this explanation of the phr, through the lire for Moloch," which is used to denote the sacrificing of children: ki the burning of children was regarded asanaata^e, whereby, after the separation of the impure and earthly dross of the body, the children attained to union with the deity " (p. 329). To this J. G. Muller has correctly replied (in H» I '/clop.): " This mystic, pantheistic, moralizing view of human sacrifices is not the ancient and original view of genuine heathenism. It is no more the view of Hither Asia than the Mexican view (t.e. the one which lay at the foundation of the custom of the ancient Mexicans, of passing the new-born boy four times through the fire). The Phoenician myths, which Movers (p. 329) quotes in support of his view, refer to the offering of human sacrifices in worship, and the moral view is a later addition belonging to Hellenism. The sacrifices were rather given to the gods as food, as is evident from innumerable passages (compare the primitive religions of America), and they have no moral aim, but are intended to reward or bribe the gods with costly presents, either because of calamities that have already passed, or because of those that are anticipated with alarm; and, as Movers himself admits (p. 301), to make atonement for ceremonial sins, i.e. to follow smaller sacrifices by those of greater value."

is described in the standing formulae as sacrificing upon high places and hills, etc., as in 1 Kings xiv. 23. The templeworship prescribed by the law could easily be continued along with this idolatry, since polytheism did not exclude the worship of Jehovah. It was not till the closing years of his reign that Ahaz went so far as to close the temple-hall, and thereby suspend the temple-worship (2 Chron. xxviii. 24); in any case it was not till after the alterations described in vers. 11 sqq. as having been made in the temple.

Vers. 5-9. Of the war which the allied Syrians and Israelites waged upon Ahaz, only the principal fact is mentioned in ver. 5, namely, that the enemy marched to Jerusalem to war, but were not able to make war upon the city, i.e. to conquer it; and in ver. 6 we have a brief notice of the capture of the port of Elath by the Syrians. We find ver. 5 again, with very trifling alterations, in Isa. vii. 1 at the head of the prophecy, in which the prophet promises the king the help of God and predicts that the plans of his enemies will fail. According to this, the allied kings intended to take Judah, to dethrone Ahaz, and to instal a vassal king, viz. the son of Tabeel. We learn still more concerning this war, which had already begun, according to ch. xv. 37, in the closing years of Jotham, from 2 Chron. xxviii. 5-15; namely, that the two kings inflicted great defeats upon Ahaz, and carried off many prisoners and a large amount of booty, but that the Israelites set their prisoners at liberty again, by the direction of the prophet Oded, and after feeding and clothing them, sent them back to their brethren. It is now generally admitted that these statements are not at variance with our account (as Ges., Winer, and others maintain), but can be easily reconciled with it, and simply serve to complete it.1 The only questions in dispute are, whether the two accounts refer to two different campaigns, or merely to two different events in the same campaign, and whether the battles to which the Chronicles allude are to be placed before or after the siege of Jerusalem mentioned in our text. The first question cannot be absolutely decided, since there are no decisive arguments to

1 Compare C. P. Caspari's article on the Syro-Ephraimitish war in the reigns of Jotham and Ahaz (Univers. Progr. von Christiania, 1849), where the different views concerning the relation between the two accounts are fully discussed, and the objections to the credibility of the account given in the Chronicles most conclusively answered.

be found in favour of either the one supposition or the other; and even " the one strong argument" which Caspari finds in Isa. vii. 6 against the idea of two campaigns is not conclusive. For if the design which the prophet there attributes to the allied kings, " we will make a breach in Judah," i.e. storm his fortresses and his passes and conquer them, does obviously presuppose, that at the time when the enemy spake or thought in this manner, Judah was still standing uninjured and unconquered, and therefore the battles mentioned in 2 Chron. xxviii. 5, 6 cannot yet have been fought; it by no means follows from the connection between Isa. vii 6 and ver. 1 (of the same chapter) that ver. 6 refers to plans which the enemy had only just formed at the time when Isaiah spoke (ch. vii. 4 sqq.). On the contrary, Isaiah is simply describing the plans which the enemy devised and pursued, and which they had no doubt formed from the very commencement of the war, and now that they were marching against Jerusalem, hoped to attain by the conquest of the capitaL All that we can assume as certain is, that the war lasted longer than a year, since the invasion of Judah by these foes had already commenced before the death of Jotham, and that the greater battles (2 Chron. xxviii. 5, 6) were not fought till the time of Ahaz, and it was not till his reign that the enemy advanced to the siege of Jerusalem. — With regard to the second question, it cannot be at all doubtful that the battles mentioned preceded the advance of the enemy to the front of Jerusalem, and therefore our account merely mentions the last and principal event of the war, and that the enemy was compelled to retreat from Jerusalem by the fact that the king of Assyria, Tiglath-pileser, whom Ahaz had called to his help, marched against Syria and compelled Rezin to hurry back to the defence of his kingdom. — It is more difficult to arrange the account of the capture of Elath by the Syrians (ver. 6) among the events of this war. The expression nys W7\7\ merely assigns it in a perfectly general manner to the period of the war. The supposition of Thenius, that it did not take place till after the siege of Jerusalem had been relinquished, and that Rezin, after the failure of his attempt to take Jerusalem, that he might not have come altogether in vain, marched away from Jerusalem round the southern point of the Dead Sea and conquered Elath, is impossible, because he would never have left his own kingdom in such a defenceless state to the advancing Assyrians. We must therefore place the taking of Elath by Eezin before his march against Jerusalem, though we still leave it undecided how Kezin conducted the war against Ahaz: whether by advancing along the country to the east of the Jordan, defeating the Judaeans there (2 Chron. xxviii. 5), and then pressing forward to Elath and conquering that city, while Pekah made a simultaneous incursion into Judah from the north and smote Ahaz, so that it was not till after the conquest of Elath that Kezin entered the land from the south, and there joined Pekah for a common attack upon Jerusalem, as Caspari supposes; or whether by advancing into Judah along with Pekah at the very outset, and after he had defeated the army of Ahaz in a great battle, sending a detachment of his own army to Idumaea, to wrest that land from Judah and conquer Elath, while he marched with the rest of his forces in combination with Pekah against Jerusalem. — " Eezin brought Elath to Aram and drove the Jews out of Elath, and Aramaeans came to Elath and dwelt therein to this day." 3^n does not mean " to lead back " here, but literally to turn, to bring to a person; for Elath had never belonged to Aram before this, but was an Edomitish city, so that even if we were to read Dftg for D*}K, yvfa could not mean to bring back. But there is no ground whatever for altering D"}Np into D^*$ (Cler., Mich., Ew., Then., and others), whereas the form DiK is at variance with such an alteration through the assumption of an exchange of "» and 1, because Di"»K is never written defective D'lK except in Ezek. xxv. 14. There are also no sufficient reasons for altering D^onw into D^inw (Keri); D^hN is merely a Syriac form for DM2HK with the dull Syriac w-sound, several examples of which form occur in this very chapter, — e.g. Wti\\)7\ for DVpi^n ver. 7, ptoi for pvxn ver. 10, and n^N for n?*K ver. 6, — whereas D™, with additions, is only written jplene twice in the ancient books, and that in the Chronicles, where the scriptio plena is generally preferred (2 Chron. xxv. 14 and xxviii. 17), but is always written defective (DWx). Moreover the statement that " D^DVIK (Edomites, not the Edomites) came thither," etc., would be very inappropriate, since Edomites certainly lived in this Idumaean city in perfect security, even while it was under Judaean government. And there would be no sense in the expression "the Edomites dwelt there to this day" since the Edomites remained in their own land to the time of the captivity.

All this is applicable to Aramaeans alone. As soon as Rezin had conquered this important seaport town, it was a very natural thing to establish an Aramaean colony there, which obtained possession of the trade of the town, and remained there till the time when the annals of the kings were composed (for it is to this that the expression njn Qfrrng refers), even after the kingdom of Eezin had long been destroyed by the Assyrians, since Elath and the Aramaeans settled there were not affected by that blow.1 As soon as the Edomites had been released by Rezin from the control of Judah, to which they had been brought back by Amaziah and Uzziah (ch. xiv. 7, 22), they began plundering Judah again (2 Chron. xxviii. 17); and even the Philistines took possession of several cities in the lowland, to avenge themselves for the humiliation they had sustained at the hand of Uzziah (2 Chron. xxviii. 18). — Ver. 7. In this distress Ahaz turned to Tiglath-pileser, without regarding either the word of Isaiah in ch. vii. 4 sqq., which promised salvation, or the prophet's warning against an alliance with Assyria, and by sending the gold and silver which were found in the treasures of the temple and palace, purchased his assistance against Rezin and Pekah. Whether this occurred immediately alter the invasion of the land by the allied kings, or not till after they had defeated the Jud;ean army and advanced against Jerusalem, it is impossible to discover either from this verse or from 2 Chron. xxviii. 16; but probably it was after the first great victory gained by the foe, with which Isa. vii. and viii. agree. — On WAP for D*?P see Ewald, § 151, b.— Ver. 9. Tiglath-pileser then marched against Damascus, took the city, slew Rezin, and led the inhabitants away to Kir, as Amos had prophesied (Amos i. 3-5). Vp, Kir, from which, according to Amos ix. 7, the Aramaeans had emigrated to Syria, is no doubt a district by the river Kur (Kvpos, Ktppos), which taking its rise in Armenia, unites with the Araxes and flows into the Caspian Sea, although from the length of the river Kur it is impossible to define precisely the locality in which they were