Vers. 1-7. Elisha causes an Iron Axe to float. — The following account gives us an insight into the straitened life of o o o the pupils of the prophets. Vers. 1-4. As the common dwelling-place had become too small for them, they resolved, with Elisha's consent, to build a new house, and went, accompanied by the prophet, to the woody bank of the Jordan to fell the wood that was required for the building. The place where the common abode had become too small is not given, but most of the commentators suppose it to have been Gilgal, chiefly from the erroneous assumption that the Gilgal mentioned in ch. ii. 1 was in the Jordan valley to the east of Jericho. Thenius only cites in support of this the reference in TW DUB>* (dwell with thee) to ch. iv. 38; but this decides nothing, as the pupils of the prophets sat before Elisha, or gathered together around their master in a common home, not merely in Gilgal, but also in Bethel and Jericho. We might rather think of Jericho, since Bethel and Gilgal (Jiljilia) were so far distant from the Jordan, that there is very little probability that a removal of the meetingplace to the Jordan, such as is indicated by Eiipo S& tt|rhfe^3, would ever have been thought of from either of these localities. — Ver. 5. In the felling of the beams, the iron, i.e. the axe, of one of the pupils of the prophets fell into the water, at which he exclaimed with lamentation: " Alas, my lord (i.e. Elisha), and it was begged!" The sorrowful exclamation implied a petition for help. ijianTIRJ: "and as for the iron, it fell into the water " so that even here HN does not stand before the nominative, but
1 u This was not the punishment of his immoderate ZopoooKius (receiving of gifts) merely, but most of all of his lying. For he who seeks to deceive the prophet in relation to the things which belong to his office, is said to lie to the Holy Ghost, whose instruments the prophets are" (vid. Acts v. 3). — Grotius.
serves to place the noun in subjection to the clause (cf. Ewald, §277, a), 7W& does not mean borrowed, but begged. The meaning to borrow is attributed to bxw from a misinterpretation of particular passages (see the Comm. on Ex. iii. 2 2). The prophets' pupil had begged the axe, because from his poverty he was unable to buy one, and hence the loss was so painful to him. — Vers. 6, 7. When he showed Elisha, in answer to his inquiry, the place where it had fallen, the latter cut off a stick and threw it thither (into the water) and made the iron flow, i.e. float (^P from *pv, to flow, as in Deut. xi. 4); whereupon the prophets' pupil picked the axe out of the water with his hand. The object of the miracle was similar to that of the stater in the fish's mouth (Matt. xvii. 27), or of the miraculous feeding, namely, to show how the Lord could relieve earthly want through the medium of His prophet. The natural interpretation of the miracle, which is repeated by Thenius, namely, that " Elisha struck the eye of the axe with the long stick which he thrust into the river, so that the iron was lifted by the wood," needs no refutation, since the raising of an iron axe by a long stick, so as to make it float in the water, is impossible according to the laws of gravitation.
Vers. 8-23. Elisha's Action in the War with the Syrians. ■ — Vers. 8-10. In a war which the Syrians carried on against the Israelitish king Joram (not Jehoahaz, as Ewald, Gesch. iii. p. 557, erroneously supposes), by sending flying parties into the land of Israel (cf. ver. 23), Elisha repeatedly informed king Joram of the place where the Syrians had determined to encamp, and thereby frustrated the plans of the enemy, ^jnri... DipD"?K: "at the place of so and so shall my camp be." ^{^,;P3 as in 1 Sam. xxi. 3 (see at Euth iv. 1). flunn the encamping or the place of encampment (cf. Ewald, § 161, a), is quite appropriate, so that there is no need either for the alteration into ^?fj^, "ye shall hide yourselves " (Then.), or into ^nhjri^ with the meaning which is arbitrarily postulated, " ye shall place an ambush " (Ewald, Gesch. iii. p. 55S), or for the much simpler alteration into y Enn, " pitch the camp for me " (Bottcher). The singular suffix in "riinn refers to the king as leader of the war: " my camp " = the canip of my army. " Beware of passing over ("^y) this place," i.e. of leaving it unoccupied, " for there have the Syrians determined to make their invasion." BWJ, from nn:, going down, with dagesh cuphon., whereas Ewald (§ 187,6) is of opinion that B^nn^ instead of being an intrans. part. Kal, might rather be a part. NipJi. of nn, which would not yield, however, any suitable meaning. Thenius renders **3?0, "to pass by this place," which would be grammatically admissible, but is connected with his conjecture concerning ^inr^ and irreconcilable with ver. 10. When the king of Israel, according to ver. 10, sent to the place indicated on account of Elisha's information, he can only have sent troops to occupy it; so that when the Syrians arrived they found Israelitish troops there, and were unable to attack the place. There is nothing in the text about the Syrians bursting forth from their ambush. "i^TH means to enlighten, instruct, but not to warn. DSP— ICBO, "he took care there," i.e. he occupied the place with troops, to defend it against the Syrians, so that they were unable to do anything, " not once and not twice," i.e. several times. — Ver. 11. The king of the Syrians was enraged at this, and said to his servants, " Do ye not show me who of our men (leans) to the king of Israel? " i.e. takes his part. *3?E?D = w "^9, probably according to an Aramaean dialect: see Ewald, 181, b, though he pronounces the reading incorrect, and would read ^?3B, but without any ground and quite unsuitably, as the king would thereby reckon himself among the traitors. — Vers. 12 sqq. Then one of the servants answered, " No, my lord king," i.e. it is not we who disclose thy plans to the king of Israel, " but Elisha the prophet tells him what thou say est in thy bed-chamber;" whereupon the king of Syria inquired where the prophet lived, and sent a powerful army to Dothan, with horses and chariots, to take him prisoner there. Dothan (see Gen. xxxvii. 17), which according to the Onom. was twelve Eoman miles to the north of Samaria, has been preserved under its old name in a Tell covered with ruins to the south-west of Jenin, on the caravan-road from Gilead to Egypt (see Eob. Bill. Res. p. 158, and V. de Velde, Journey, i. pp. 273, 274). — Vers. 15-17. When Elisha's servant went out the next morning and saw the army, which had surrounded the town in the night, he said to the prophet, " Alas, my lord, how shall we do? " But Elisha quieted him, saying, " Fear not, for those with us are more than those with them." He then prayed that the Lord might open his servant's eyes, whereupon he saw the mountain upon which Dothan stood full of fiery horses and chariots round about Elisha. Opening the eyes was translation into the ecstatic state of clairvoyance, in which an insight into the invisible spirit-world was granted him. The fiery horses and chariots were symbols of the protecting powers of Heaven, which surrounded the prophet. The fiery form indicated the super-terrestrial origin of this host. Fire, as the most ethereal of all earthly elements, was the most appropriate substratum for making the spirit-world visible. The sight was based upon Jacob's vision (Gen. xxxii 2), in which he saw a double army of angels encamped around him, at the time when he was threatened with danger from Esau. — Vers. 18-20. When the enemy came down to Elisha, he prayed to the Lord that He would smite them with blindness; and when this took place according to his word, he said to them, This is not the way and this is not the city; follow me, and I will lead you to the man whom ye are seeking; and led them to Samaria, which was about four hours' distance from Dothan, where their eyes were opened at Elisha's prayer, so that they saw where they had been led. lytf Vtvi cannot be understood as referring to Elisha and his servant, who went down to the Syrian army, as J. H. Mich., Budd., F. v. Meyer, and Thenius, who wants to alter lyK into C^yK, suppose, but must refer to the Syrians, who went down to the prophet, as is evident from what follows. For the assumption that the Syrians had stationed themselves below and round the mountain on which Dothan stood, and therefore would have had to come up to Elisha, need not occasion an unnatural interpretation of the words. It is true that Dothan stands upon an isolated hill in the midst of the plain; but on the eastern side it is enclosed by a range of hills, which project into the plain (see V. de Velde, B. i. p. 273). The Syrians who had been sent against Elisha had posted themselves on this range of hills, and thence they came down towards the town of Dothan, which stood on the hill, whilst Elisha went out of the town to meet them. It is true that Elisha's going out is not expressly mentioned, but in ver. 19 it is clearly presupposed. B*"!}.^? is mental blindness here, as in the similar case mentioned in Gen. xix. 11, that is to say, a state of blindness in which, though a man has eyes that can see, he does not see correctly. Elisha's untruthful statement, "this is not the way," etc., is to be judged in the same manner as every other ruse de guerre, by which the enemy is deceived. — Vers. 21-23. Elisha forbade king Joram to slay the enemy that he had brought to him, because he had not taken them prisoners in war, and recommended him to treat them hospitably and then let them return to their lord. The object of the miracle would have been frustrated if the Syrians had been slain. For the intention was to show the Syrians that they had to do with a prophet of the true God, against whom no human power could be of any avail, that they might learn to fear the almighty God. Even when regarded from a political point of view, the prophet's advice was more likely to ensure peace than the king's proposal, as the result in ver. 23 clearly shows. The Syrians did not venture any more to invade the land of Israel with flying parties, from fear of the obvious protection of Israel by its God; though this did not preclude a regular war, like that related in the following account. For *?« see the Comm. on ch. v. 13. Mi W2W W'«n: " art thou accustomed to slay that which thou hast taken captive with sword and bow? " i.e. since thou dost not even slay those whom thou hast made prisoners in open battle, how wouldst thou venture to put these to death? »T13 Dr6 niy} he prepared them a meal, nns is a denom. from i"n3, a meal, so called from the union of several persons, like ccena from /coivrj (vid. Dietr. on Ges. Lex. s. v. ma),
Vers. 24-33. After this there arose so fearful a famine in Samaria on the occasion of a siege by Benhadad, that one mother complained to the king of another, because she would not keep her agreement to give up her son to be eaten, as she herself had already done. — Ver. 25. The famine became great — till an ass's head was worth eighty shekels of silver, and a quarter of a cab of dove's dung was worth five shekels. 3 FWJ, to become for = to be worth. The ass was an unclean animal, so that it was not lawful to eat its flesh. Moreover the head of an ass is the most inedible part of the animal. Eighty shekels were about seventy thalers (£10, 10s. — Tr.), or if the Mosaic bekas were called shekels in ordinary life, thirty-five thalers (£5, 5s.; see Bertheau, Zur GescJi. der 1st. p. 49). According to Thenius, a quarter of a cab is a sixth of a small Dresden measure (Masscheri), not quite ten Parisian cubic inches. Five shekels: more than four thalers (twelve shillings), or more than two thalers (six shillings). The Chethib DWin is to be read *in D*3f%, excrementa columbarum, for which the Kcri substitutes the euphemistic D^V 3*^ Jluxus, profiuvium columbarum. The expression may be taken literally, since dung has been known to be collected for eating in times of terrible famine (yid. Joseph. Bell. Jud. v. 13, 7); but it may also be figuratively employed to signify a very miserable kind of food, as the Arabs call the
Asafcetida Teufelsdreck. But there is no ground for thinking of wasted chick-pease, as Bochart (Hieroz. ii. p. 582, ed. Bos.) supposes (see, on the other hand, Celsii Hierobot. ii. p. 30 sqq.).1 — Ver. 26. As the king was passing by upon the wall to conduct the defence, a woman cried to him for help; whereupon he replied: "* SUPPER, " should Jehovah not help thee, whence shall I help thee? from the threshing-floor or from the winepress?" It is difficult to explain the?N, which Ewald (§355, b) supposes to stand for *6 W. Thenius gives a simpler explanation, namely, that it is a subjective negation and the sentence hypothetical, so that the condition would be only expressed by the close connection of the two clauses (according to Ewald, § 357). "From the threshing-floor or from the wine-press?" i.e. I can neither help thee with corn nor with wine, cannot procure thee either food or drink. He then asked her what her trouble was; upon which she related to him the horrible account of the slaying of her own child to appease her hunger, etc. — Ver. 30. The king, shuddering at this horrible account, in which the curses of the law in Lev. xxvi. 29 and Deut. xxviii. 53, 57 had been literally fulfilled, rent his clothes; and the people then saw that he wore upon his body the hairy garment of penitence and mourning, 1*30, within, i.e. beneath the upper garment, as a sign of humiliation before God, though it was indeed more an opus operatum than a true bending of the heart before God and His judgment. This is proved by his conduct in ver. 31. When, for example, the complaint of the
1 Clericus gives as a substantial parallel the following passage from Plutarch (Artax. c. 24): " he only killed the beasts of burden, so that the head of an ass was hardly to be bought for sixty drachmae;" and Grotius quotes the statement in Plin. h. n. viii. 57, that when Casalinum was besieged by Hannibal a mouse was sold for 200 denaria.
woman brought the heart-breaking distress of the city before him, he exclaimed, " God do so to me... if the head of Elisha remain upon him to-day." Elisha had probably advised that on no condition should the city be given up, and promised that God would deliver it, if they humbled themselves before Him in sincere humility and prayed for His assistance. The king thought that he had done his part by putting on the hairy garment; and as the anticipated help had nevertheless failed to come, he flew into a rage, for which the prophet was to pay the penalty. It is true that this rage only proceeded from a momentary ebullition of passion, and quickly gave place to a better movement of his conscience. The king hastened after the messenger whom he had sent to behead Elisha, for the purpose of preventing the execution of the murderous command which he had given in the hurry of his boiling wrath (ver. 32); but it proves, nevertheless, that the king was still wanting in that true repentance, which would have sprung from the recognition of the distress as a judgment inflicted by the Lord. The desperate deed, to which his violent wrath had impelled him, would have been accomplished, if the Lord had not protected His prophet and revealed to him the king's design, that he might adopt defensive measures. — Ver. 32. The elders of the city were assembled together in Elisha's house, probably to seek for counsel and consolation; and the king sent a man before him (namely, to behead the prophet); but before the messenger arrived, the prophet told the elders of the king's intention: " See ye that this son of a murderer (Joram, by descent and disposition a genuine son of Ahab, the murderer of ISTaboth and the prophets) is sending to cut off my head? " and commanded them to shut the door against the messenger and to force him back at the door, because he already heard the sound of his master's feet behind him. These measures of Elisha, therefore, were not dictated by any desire to resist the lawful authorities, but were acts of prudence by which he delayed the execution of an unrighteous and murderous command which had been issued in haste, and thereby rendered a service to the king himself. — In ver. 33 we have to supply from the context that the king followed close upon the messenger, who came down to Elisha while he was talking with the elders; and he (the king) would of course be admitted at once. For the subject to "i£N8} is not the messenger, but the king, as is evident from ch. vii. 2 and 1 7. The king said: " Behold the calamity from the Lord, why shall I wait still further for the Lord? " — the words of a despairing man, in whose soul, however, there was a spark of faith still glimmering. The very utterance of his feelings to the prophet shows that he had still a weak glimmer of hope in the Lord, and wished to be strengthened and sustained by the prophet; and this strengthening he received.
Ch. vii. 1, 2. Elisha announced to him the word of the Lord: " At the (this) time to-morrow a seah of wheaten flour (nbb, see at 1 Kings v. 2) will be worth a shekel, and two seahs of barley a shekel in the gate, i.e. in the market, at Samaria." A seah, or a third of an ephah = a Dresden peck (Metze), for a shekel was still a high price; but in comparison with the prices given in ch. vi. 2 5 as those obtained for the most worthless kinds of food, it was incredibly cheap. The king's aide-de-camp (£>w: see at 2 Sam. xxiii. 8; ]VW) ^p IB^ an error in writing for 'm ijbsn im, cf. ver. 17, and for the explanation ch. v. 18) therefore replied with mockery at this prophecy: " Behold (i.e. granted that) the Lord made windows in heaven, will this indeed be?" i.e. such cheapness take place. (For the construction, see Ewald, § 3 5 7, b.) The ridicule lay more especially in the " windows in heaven," in which there is an allusion to Gen. vii. 11, sc. to rain down a flood of flour and corn. Elisha answered seriously: " Behold, thou wilt see it with thine eyes, but not eat thereof " (see vers. 1 7 sqq.). The fulfilment of these words of Elisha was brought about by the event narrated in vers. 3 sqq. — Vers. 3—7. " Four men were before the gate as lepers," or at the gateway, separated from human society, according to the law in Lev. xiii. 46, Num. v. 3, probably in a building erected for the purpose (cf. ch. xv. 5), just as at the present day the lepers at Jerusalem have their huts by the side of the Zion gate (yid. Strauss, Sinai u. Golgatha, p. 205, and Tobler, Denklldtter aus Jems. p. 411 sqq.). These men being on the point of starvation, resolved to invade the camp of the Syrians, and carried out this resolution ^3, in the evening twilight, not the morning twilight (Seb. Schm., Cler., etc.), on account of ver. 12, where the king is said to have received the news of the flight of the Syrians during the night. Coming to " the end of the Syrian camp," i.e. to the outskirts of it on the city side, they found no one there. For (vers. 6,7)" the Lord had caused the army of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots and horses, a noise of a great army," so that, believing the king of Israel to have hired the kings of the Hittites and Egyptians to fall upon them, they fled from the camp in the twilight D^prpN, with regard to their life, i.e. to save their life only, leaving behind them their tents, horses, and asses, and the camp as it was. — The miracle, by which God delivered Samaria from the famine or from surrendering to the foe, consisted in an oral delusion, namely, in the fact that the besiegers thought they heard the march of hostile armies from the north and south, and were seized with such panic terror that they fled in the greatest haste, leaving behind them their baggage, and their beasts of draught and burden. It is impossible to decide whether the noise which they heard had any objective reality, say a miraculous buzzing in the air, or whether it was merely a deception of the senses produced in their ears by God; and this is a matter of no importance, since in either case it was produced miraculously by God. The kings of the Hittites are kings of northern Canaan, upon Lebanon and towards Phoenicia; E"Tin jn the broader sense for Canaanites, as in 1 Kings x. 29. The plural, "kings of the Egyptians," is probably only occasioned by the parallel expression " kings of the Hittites," and is not to be pressed. — Vers. 8-11. When these lepers {these, pointing back to vers. 3 sqq.) came into the camp which the Syrians had left, they first of all satisfied their own hunger with the provisions which they found in the tents, and then took different valuables and concealed them. But their consciences were soon aroused, so that they said: We are not doing right; this day is a day of joyful tidings: if we are silent and wait till the morning light, guilt will overtake us; " for it is the duty of citizens to make known things relating to public safety" (Grotius). They then resolved to announce the joyful event in the king's palace, and reported it to the watchman at the city gate. "Vyn "W stands as a generic term in a collective sense for the persons who watched at the gate; hence the following plural D?v, and in ver. 1 1 Qtijjtpn. « And the gate-keepers cried out (what they had heard) and reported it in the king's palace." — Vers. 1 2 sqq. The king imagined that the unexpected departure of the Syrians was only a ruse, namely, that they had left the camp and hidden themselves in the field, to entice the besieged out of the fortress, and then fall upon them and press into the city, n^jfna according to later usage for iTlfe^a (xid. Ewald, § 244, a). In order to make sure of the correctness or incorrectness of this conjecture, one of the king's servants (counsellors) gave this advice: " Let them take (the Vav before Vlj* as in ch. iv. 41) five of the horses left in the city, that we may send and see how the matter stands." The words, " Behold they (the five horses) are as the whole multitude of Israel that are left in it (the -city); behold they are as the whole multitude of Israel that are gone," have this meaning: The five horsemen (for horses stand for horsemen, as it is self-evident that it was men on horseback and not the horses themselves that were to be sent out as spies) can but share the fate of the rest of the people of Samaria, whether they return unhurt to meet death by starvation with the people that still remain, or fall into the hands of the enemy and are put to death, in which case they will only suffer the lot of those who have already perished. Five horses is an approximative small number, and is therefore not at variance with the following statement, that two pair of horses were sent out with chariots and men. The Chethib \^\}J} is not to be altered, since there are other instances in which the first noun is written with the article, though in the construct state (yid. Ewald, § 290, e); and the Keri is only conformed to the following jiDrrOT. — Vers. 14& and 15. They then sent out two chariots with horses, who pursued the flying enemy to the Jordan, and found the whole of the road full of traces of the hurried flight, consisting of clothes and vessels that had been thrown away. The Chethib Ejsnns is the only correct reading, since it is only in the Nijphal that T?n has the meaning to fly in great haste (cf. 1 Sam. xxiii. 26, Ps. xlviii. 6, civ. 7). — Vers. 16, 17. When the returning messengers reported this, the people went out and plundered the camp of the Syrians, and this was followed by the consequent cheapness of provisions predicted by Elisha. As the people streamed out, the unbelieving aide-de-camp, whom the king had ordered to take the oversight at the gate ('T'ipan, to deliver the oversight) for the purpose of preserving order in the crowding of the starving multitude, was trodden down by the people, so that he died, whereby this prediction of Elisha was fulfilled. The exact fulfilment of this prediction appeared so memorable to the historian, that he repeats this prophecy in vers. 18-20 along with the event which occasioned it, and refers again to its fulfilment.
CHAP. VIII. ELISHA HELPS THE SHUNAMMITE TO HER PROPERTY THROUGH THE HONOUR IN WHICH HE WAS HELD; AND PRE- DICTS TO HAZAEL HIS POSSESSION OF THE THRONE. REIGNS OF JO RAM AND AHAZIAH, KINGS OF JUDAH.
Vers. 1-6. Elisha's Influence helps the Shunammite to the Possession of her House and Field. — Vers. 1 and 2. By the advice of Elisha, the woman whose son the prophet had restored to life (ch. iv. 33) had gone with her family into the land of the Philistines during a seven years' famine, and had remained there seven years. The two verses are rendered by most commentators in the pluperfect, and that with perfect correctness, for they are circumstantial clauses, and Djjni is merely a continuation of "OT, the two together preparing the way for, and introducing the following event. The object is not to relate a prophecy of Elisha of the seven years' famine, but what afterwards occurred, namely, how king Joram was induced by the account of Elisha's miraculous works to have the property of the Shunammite restored to her upon her application. The seven years' famine occurred in the middle of Joram's reign, and the event related here took place before the curing of Naaman the Syrian (ch. v.), as is evident from the fact that Gehazi talked with the king (ver. 4), and therefore had not yet been punished with leprosy. But it cannot have originally stood between ch. iv. 37 and iv. 38, as Thenius supposes, because the incidents related in ch. iv. 38-44 belong to the time of this famine (cf. ch. iv. 38), and therefore precede the occurrence mentioned here. By the words, " the Lord called the famine, and it came seven years " (sc. lasting that time), the famine is described as a divine judgment for the idolatry of the nation. — Ver. 3. When the woman returned to her home at the end of the seven years, she went to the king to cry, i.e. to invoke his help, with regard to her house and her field, of which, as is evident from the context, another had taken possession during her absence. — Ver. 4. And just at that time the king was asking Gehazi to relate to him the great things that Elisha had done; and among these he was giving an account of the restoration of the Shunammite's son to life. — Vers. 5, 6. While he was relating this, the woman herself came in to invoke the help of the. king to recover her property, and was pointed out to the king by Gehazi as the very woman of whom he was speaking, which caused the king to be so interested in her favour, that after hearing her complaint he sent a chamberlain with her (saris as in 1 Kings xxii. 9), with instructions to procure for her not only the whole of her property, but the produce of the land during her absence. — For nary without majopiq, see Ewald, § 247, d.
Vers. 7-15. Elisha predicts to Hazael at Damascus the
Possession of the Throne. — Vers. 7 sqq. Elisha then came to
Damascus at the instigation of the Spirit of God, to carry out the commission which Elijah had received at Horeb with regard to Hazael (1 Kings xix. 15). Benhadad king of Syria was sick at that time, and when Elisha's arrival was announced to him, sent Hazael with a considerable present to the man of
The form of the name ^ntn (here and ver. 15) is etymologically correct; but afterwards it is always written without n.
with a more precise description of the minchah — " a burden of forty camels." The present consisted of produce or wares of the rich commercial city of Damascus, and was no doubt very considerable; at the same time, it was not so large that forty camels were required to carry it. The affair must be judged according to the Oriental custom, of making a grand display to the Chethib «"pn &6, Elisha's answer was, * Thou wilt not live, and (for) Jehovah has shown me that he will die;" according to the Keri n*n \?f " tell him: Thou wilt live, but Jehovah," etc.
Keri, p. 62 seq.), and some of the codices, and decide in favour of the Keri. (1) because the conjecture that b was altered into with which a negative stands before the inf. abs. with the finite verb following. But there is not much force in either argument.
The rarity of the position of tit? before the inf. abs. followed by a finite verb, in connection with the omission of the pronoun it? after ibK, might be the very reason why tit? was taken as a pronoun; and the confirmation of this opinion might be found in the fact that Hazael brought back this answer to the king: " Thou wilt live" (ver. 14). The reading in the text tit? (non) is favoured by the circumstance that it is the more difficult of the two, partly because of the unusual position of the negative, and partly because of the contradiction to ver. 14. But the tit? is found in the same position in other passages (Gen. iii. 4, Ps. xlix. 8, and Amos ix. 8), where the emphasis lies upon the negation; and the contradiction to ver. 14 may be explained very simply, from the fact that Hazael did not tell his king the truth, because he wanted to put him to death and usurp the throne. We therefore prefer the reading in the text, since it is not in harmony with the character of the prophets to utter an untruth; and the explanation, " thou wilt not die of thine illness, but come to a violent death," puts into the words a meaning which they do not possess. For even if Benhadad did not die of his illness, he did not recover from it. — Ver. 11. Elisha then fixed Hazael for a long time with his eye, and wept. 'til 1^^ literally, he made his face stand fast, and directed it (upon Hazael) to shaming. tt^ny as in Judg. iii. 25; not in a shameless manner (Thenius), but till Hazael was embarrassed by it. — Ver. 12. When Hazael asked him the cause of his weeping, Elisha replied: " I know the evil which thou wilt do to the sons of Israel: their fortresses wilt thou set on fire (BW3 rw, see at Judg. i. 8), their youths wilt thou slay with the sword, and wilt dash their children to pieces, and cut asunder their women with child" (yj93, split, cut open the womb). This cruel conduct towards Israel which is here predicted of Hazael, was only a special elaboration of the brief statement made by the Lord to Elijah concerning Hazael (1 Kings xix. 17). The fulfilment of this prediction is indicated generally in ch. x. 32, 33, and xiii. 3 sqq.; and we may infer with certainty from Hos. x. 1 4 and xiv. 1, that Hazael really practised the cruelties mentioned. — Vers. 13 sqq. But when Hazael replied in feigned humility, What is thy servant, the dog (i.e. so base a fellow: for X>3 see at 1 Sam. xxiv. 15), that he should do such great things? Elisha said to him, " Jehovah has shown thee to me as king over Aram;" whereupon Hazael returned to his lord, brought him the pretended answer of Elisha that he would live (recover), and the next day suffocated him with a cloth dipped in water. i??^, from *i?3, to plait or twist, literally, anything twisted; not, however, a net for gnats or flies (Joseph., J. D. Mich., etc.), but a twisted thick cloth, which when dipped in water became so thick, that when it was spread over the face of the sick man it was sufficient to suffocate him.
Vers. 16-24. Eeign of Joram of Judah (cf. 2 Chron. xxi. 2-20). — Joram became king in the fifth year of Joram of Israel, while Jehoshaphat his father was (still) king, the latter handing over the government to him two years before his death (see at ch. i. 17), and reigned eight years, namely, two years to the death of Jehoshaphat and six years afterwards.1 The Chethib njB> njblip is not to be altered, since the rule that the numbers two to ten take the noun in the plural is not without exception (cf. Ewald, § 287, i). — Vers. 18, 19. Joram had married a daughter of Ahab, namely Athaliah (ver. 26), and walked in the ways of the house of Ahab, transplanting the worship of Baal into his kingdom. Immediately after the death of Jehoshaphat he murdered his brothers, apparently with no other object than to obtain possession of the treasures which his father had left them (2 Chron. xxi. 2-4). This wickedness of Joram would have been followed by the destruction of Judah, had not the Lord preserved a shoot to the royal house for David's sake. For "VJ Sb nr6 see 1 Kin^s xi. 36. The following word Vji> serves as an explanation of TO \?} " a light with regard to his sons," i.e. by the fact that he kept sons (descendants) upon the throne. — Vers. 20-22. Nevertheless the divine chastisement was not omitted. The ungodliness of Joram was punished partly by the revolt of the Edomites and of the city of Libnah from his rule, and partly by a horrible sickness of which he died (2 Chron. xxi. 12-15). Edom, which had hitherto had only a
1 The words PPRPP TJ^D D&lPirPl have been improperly omitted by the Arabic and Syriac, and by Luther, Dathe, and De Wette from their translations; whilst Schulz, Maurer, Thenius, and others pronounce it a gloss. The genuineness of the words is attested by the LXX. (the Edit. Complut. being alone in omitting them) and by the Chaldee: and the rejection of them is just as arbitrary as the interpolation of flD, which is proposed by Kimchi and vicegerent with the title of king (see ch. iii. 9 and 1 Kings xxii. 48), threw off the authority of Judah, and appointed its own king, under whom it acquired independence, as the attempt of Joram to bring it back again under his control completely failed. The account of this attempt in ver. 21 and 2 Chron. xxi. 9 is very obscure. " Joram went over to Zair, and all his chariots of war with him; and it came to pass that he rose up by night and smote the Edomites round about, and indeed the captains of the war-chariots, and the people fled (i.e. the Judoean men of war, not the Edomites) to their tents." It is evident from this, that Joram had advanced to Zair in Idumasa; but there he appears to have been surrounded and shut in, so that in the night he fought his way through, and had reason to be glad that he had escaped utter destruction, since his army fled to their homes. n"J^T is an unknown place in Idumsea, which Movers, Hitzig, and Ewald take to be Zoar, but without considering that Zoar was in the land of Moab, not in Edom. The Chronicles have instead VTfef oy, " with his captains," from a mere conjecture; whilst Thenius regards JTVys as altered by mistake from *P?yty (" to Seir "), which is very improbable in the case of so well-known a name as ">W. i^ibn {$ & later mode of writing for ^zriDn, probably occasioned by the frequently occurring word WD, " To this day," i.e. to the time when the original sources of our books were composed. Eor the Edomites were subjugated again by Amaziah and Uzziah (ch. xiv. 7 and 22), though under Ahaz they made incursions into Judah again (2 Chron. xxviii. 1 7). — At that time Libnah also revolted. This was a royal city of the early Canaanites, and at a later period it was still a considerable fortress (ch. xix. 8). It is probably to be sought for in the ruins of Aralc el Menshiych, two hours to the west of Bcit- Jibrin (see the Comm. on Josh. x. 29). This city probably revolted from Judah on the occurrence of an invasion of the land by the Philistines, when the sons of Joram were carried off, with the exception of the youngest, Jehoahaz (Ahaziah: 2 Chron. xxi. 16, 17). — Vers. 23, 24. According to 2 Chron. xxi. 18 sqq., Joram died of a terrible disease, in which his bowels fell out, and was buried in the city of David, though not in the family sepulchre of the kings.1
1 " The building of Carthage, Dido, her husband Sichaeus, her brother Pygmalion king of Tyre (scelere ante alios immanior omnes), all coincide with the reign of Joram. This synchronism of the history of Tyre is not without
Vers. 25-29. Eeign of Ahaziah of Judah (cf. 2 Cliron. xxii. 1—6). — Ahaziah, the youngest son of Joram, ascended the throne in the twenty-second year of his age. The statement in 2 Chron. xxii. 2, that he was forty-two years old when he became king, rests upon a copyist's error, namely, a confusion of 3 twenty with d forty. Now, since his father became king at the age of thirty-two, and reigned eight years, Ahaziah must have been born in the nineteenth year of his age. Consequently it may appear strange that Ahaziah had brothers still older than himself (2 Chron. xxi. 17); but as early marriages are common in the East, and the royal princes had generally concubines along with their wife of the first rank, as is expressly stated of Joram in 2 Chron. xxi. 17, he might have had some sons in his nineteenth year. His mother was called Athaliah, and was a daughter of the idolatrous Jezebel. In ver. 2 6 and 2 Chron. xxii. 2 she is called the daughter, i.c grand-daughter, of Omri; for, according to ver. 18, she was a daughter of Ahab. Omri, the grandfather, is mentioned in ver. 26 as the founder of the dynasty which brought so much trouble upon Israel and Judah through its idolatry. — Ver. 27. Ahaziah, like his father, reigned in the spirit of Ahab, because he allowed his mother to act as his adviser (2 Chron. xxii. 3, 4). — Vers. 28, 29. Ahaziah went with Joram of Israel, his mother's brother, to the war with the Syrians at Eamoth. The contest for this city, which had already cost Ahab his life (1 Kings xxii.), was to furnish the occasion, according to the overruling providence of God, for the extermination of the whole of Omri's family. Being wounded in the battle with the Syrians, Joram king of Israel returned to Jezreel to be heated of his wounds. His nephew Ahaziah visited him there, and there he met with his death at the same time as Joram at the hands of Jehu, who had conspired against Joram (see ch. ix. 14 sqq. and 2 Chron, xxii. 7-9). Whether the war with Hazael at Eamoth was for the recapture of this city, which had been taken by the Syrians, or simply for holding it against the Syrians, it is impossible to determine. All
significance here. The Tyrian, Israelitish, and Judasan histories are closely connected at this time. Jezebel, a Tyrian princess, was Ahab's wife, and again her daughter Athaliah was the wife of Joram, and after his death the murderess of the heirs of the kingdom, and sole occupant of the throne. Tyre, through these marriages, introduced its own spirit and great calamity into both the Israelitish kingdoms." — J. D. Michaelis on ver. 24.
that we can gather from ch. ix. 1 4 is, that at that time Ramoth was in the possession of the Israelites, whether it had come into their possession again after the disgraceful rout of the Syrians before Samaria (ch. vii.), or whether, perhaps, it was not recovered till this war. For tnsnH without the article see Ewald, § 277, c. — Ver. 29.?ur)3==T$a ntona, ver. 28; see at 1 Kings xxii. 4.
Vers. 1-10. Anointing of Jehu by command of Elisha. — While the Israelitish army was at Eamoth, Elisha executed the last of the commissions which Elijah had received at Horeb (1 Kings xix. 16), by sending a pupil of the prophets into the camp to anoint Jehu the commander-in-chief of the army as king, and to announce to him, in the name of Jehovah, that he would be king over Israel; and to charge him to exterminate the house of Ahab. — Vers. 1-3 contain the instructions which Elisha gave to the pupil of the prophets, i^f ■? ^ as in 1 Sam. x. 1. HUP Qf nx-i, look round there for Jehu. 1M Inbpn, let him (bid him) rise up from the midst of his brethren, i.e. of his comrades in arms. "H.nzi Tin: the true meaning is, " into the innermost chamber" (see at 1 Kings xx. 30). Ver. 3 contains only the leading points of the commission to Jehu, the full particulars are communicated in the account of the fulfilment in vers. 6 sqq. " And flee, and thou shalt not wait." Elisha gave him this command, not to protect him from danger on the part of the secret adherents of Ahab (Theodore t, Cler.), but to prevent all further discussions, or " that he might not mix himself up with other affairs" (Seb. Schmidt). — Ver. 4. "And the young man, the servant of the prophet, went." The second "»J?J has the article in the construct state, contrary to the rule (vid. Ges. § 110, 2, b). — Vers. 5 sqq. After the communication of the fact that he had a word to Jehu, the latter rose up and went with him into the house, i.e. into the interior of the house, in the court of which the captains were sitting together. There the pupil of the prophets poured oil upon Jehu's head, and announced to him that Jehovah had anointed him king for Israel, and that he was to smite, i.e. exterminate, the house of Ahab, to avenge upon it the blood of the prophets (vid. 1 Kings xviii. 4, xix. 10). — Vers. 8-10 are simply a repetition of the
Vers. 11-15. Jehu's Conspiracy against Joeam. — Ver. 11. When Jehu came out again to his comrades in arms, after the departure of the pupil of the prophets, they inquired Dw'n, i.e. " is it all well? why did this madman come to thee V not because they were afraid that he might have done him some injury (Ewald), or that he might have brought some evil tidings (Thenius), but simply because they conjectured that he had brought some important news. They called the prophet V}WQ} a madman, in derision, with reference to the ecstatic utterances of the prophets when in a state of holy inspiration. Jehu answered evasively, " Ye know the man and his muttering," i.e. ye know that he is mad and says nothing rational. nH? includes both meditating and speaking. — Ver. 12. They were not contented with this answer, however, but said ip^, i.e. thou dost not speak truth. Jehu thereupon informed them that he had anointed him king over Israel in the name of Jehovah. — Ver. 13. After hearing this, they took quickly every man his garment, laid it under him upon the steps, blew the trumpet, and proclaimed him king. The clothes, which consisted simply of a large piece of cloth for wrapping round the body (see at 1 Kings xi. 29), they spread out in the place of carpets upon the steps, which served as a throne, to do homage to Jehu. For these signs of homage compare Matt. xxi. 7 and Wetstein, N. Test, ad h. I The difficult words ni^Dn tnr^lC, as to the meaning of which the early translators have done nothing but guess, can hardly be rendered in any other way than that proposed by Kimchi (lib. rad.), super ipsosmet gradus, upon the steps themselves = upon the bare steps; D"i3 being taken according to Chaldee usacre like the Hebrew Dvy in the sense of substantia rei, whereas the rendering given by Lud. de Dieu, after the Arabic A ^, scctio — super aliqucm e graclibus, is without analogy in Hebrew usage (vid. L. de Dieu ad h. /., and Ges. Thcs. p. 303).1 The meaning is, that without looking for a suitable
1 The objection raised by Thenius, that it is only in combination with personal pronouns that the Chaldaic D"U signifies self either in the Chaldee or Samaritan versions, is proved to be unfounded by till? m Job i. 3 (Targ.). Still less can the actual circumstances be adduced as an objection, since place on which to erect a throne, they laid their clothes upon the bare steps, or the staircase of the house in which they were assembled, and set him thereon to proclaim him king. — Vers. 14, 15. Thus Jehu conspired against Joram, who (as is related again in the circumstantial clause which follows from HM DW to &"}- 'ifen; cf. ch. viii. 28, 29) had been keeping guard at Eamoth in Gilead, i.e. had defended this city against the attacks of Hazael, and had returned to Jezreel to be healed of the wounds which he had received; and said, " If it is your wish (Da^BJ), let no fugitive go from the cit}7, to announce it in Jezreel (viz. what had taken place, the conspiracy or the proclamation of Jehu as king)." It is evident from this, that the Israelites were in possession of the city of Eamoth, and were defending it against the attacks of the Syrians, so that ")OB> m ver- 14 cannot be understood as relating to the siege of Eamoth. The Chethib T3? for Tjnp is not to be altered according to the Keri, as there are many examples to be found of syncope in cases of this kind (vid. Olshausen, Lchrb. d. Hebr. Spr. p. 140).
Vers. 16-29. Slaying of the two Kings, Joram of Israel AtfD Ahaziah of Judah. — Ver. 16. Jehu drove without delay to Jezreel, where Joram was lying sick, and Ahaziah had come upon a visit to him. — Vers. 17-21. As the horsemen, who were sent to meet him on the announcement of the watchman upon the tower at Jezreel that a troop was approaching, joined the followers of Jehu, and eventually the watchman, looking down from the tower, thought that he could discover the driving of Jehu in the approaching troop, Joram and Ahaziah mounted their chariots to drive and meet him, and came upon him by the portion of ground of Kaboth the Jezreelite. The second nyzw in ver. 17 is a rarer form of the absolute state (see Ges. § 80, 2, Anm. 2, and Ewald, § 173, d).— D&K& jrm: " what hast'thou to do with peace? " i.e. to trouble thyself about it. HDJT'K 3D: " turn behind me," sc. to follow me. 'B3 Jnjisn: " the driving is like the driving of Jehu; for he drives like a madman."!WJ^3, in insania, i.e. in actual fact in prcecijpitatione (Vatabl.). " The there is no evidence to support the assertion that there was no staircase in front of the house. The perfectly un-Hebraic conjecture D^'~btf nibjJQn, "as a figure (or representation) of the necessary ascent" (Thenius), has not the smallest support in the Vulgate rendering, ad similitudinem tribunalis.
portion of Naboth" is the vineyard of Naboth mentioned in 1 Kings xxi., which formed only one portion of the gardens of the king's palace. — Ver. 22. To Joram' s inquiry, " Is it peace, Jehu?" the latter replied, " What peace, so long as the whoredoms of thy mother Jezebel and her many witchcrafts continue?" The notion of continuance is implied in "W (see Ewald, § 217, e); COT is spiritual whoredom, i.e. idolatry. Q^^3, incantationes magicce, then witchcrafts generally, which were usually associated with idolatry (cf. Deut. xviii. 10 sqq.). — Ver. 23. Joram detecting the conspiracy from this reply, turned round (VT:jbrp as in 1 Kings xxii. 34) and fled, calling out to Ahaziah TO"]*?, " deceit," i.e. we are deceived, in actual fact betrayed. — Ver. 2 4. But Jehu seized the bow (n^n tV *6d, lit. filled his hand with the bow), and shot Joram " between his arms," i.e. in his back between the shoulders in an oblique direction, so that the arrow came out at his heart, and Joram sank down in his chariot. — Ver. 25. Jehu then commanded his aide-de-camp (^y^, see at 2 Sam. xxiii. 8) Bidkar to cast the slain man into the field of ISTaboth the Jezreelite, and said, " For remember how we, I and thou, both rode (or drove) behind his father Ahab, and Jehovah pronounced this threat upon him." nri*o \jk are accusatives, written with a looser connection for ^nisi *n$} as the apposition Cinn shows: literally, think of me and thee, the riders. The olden translators were misled by SM, and therefore transposed 13T into the first person, and Thenius naturally follows them. O^py D>:?2\ riding in pairs. This is the rendering adopted by most of the commentators, although it might be taken, as it is by Kimchi and Bochart, as signifying the two persons who are carried in the same chariot. Nto, a burden, then a prophetic utterance of a threatening nature (see the Comm. on Nan. i. 1). For the connection of the clauses 'W nirn, see Ewald, § 338, a. In ver. 26 Jehu quotes the word of God concerning Ahab in 1 Kings xxi. 19 so far as the substance is concerned, to show that he is merely the agent employed in executing it. " Truly (&6"DK, a particle used in an oath) the blood of ISTaboth and the blood of his sons have I seen yesterday, saith the Lord, and upon this field will I requite him." The slaying of the sons of Naboth is not expressly mentioned in 1 Kings xxi. 13, " because it was so usual a thing, that the historian might leave it out as a matter of course " (J. D. Mich., Ewald). It necessarily followed, however, from the fact that Naboth's field was confiscated (see at 1 Kings xxi. 14). — Vers. 27, 28. When Ahaziah saw this, he fled by the way to the garden-house, but was smitten, i.e. mortally wounded, by Jehu at the height of Gur near Jibleam, so that as he was flying still farther to Megiddo he died, and was carried as a corpse by his servants to Jerusalem, and buried there. After VG»?, " and him also, smite him," we must supply V133, " and they smote him," which has probably only dropped out through a copyist's error. The way by which Ahaziah fled, and the place where he was mortally wounded, cannot be exactly determined, as the situation of the localities named has not yet been ascertained. The " garden-house " (Jjn ™$) cannot have formed a portion of the royal gardens, but must have stood at some distance from the city of Jezreel, as Ahaziah went away by the road thither, and was not wounded till he reached the height of Gur near Jibleam. "W'TJgp, the ascent or eminence of Gur, is defined by Jibleam. Now, as Ahaziah fled from Jezreel to Megiddo past Jibleam, Thenius thinks that Jibleam must have been situated between Jezreel and Megiddo. But between Jezreel and Megiddo there is only the plain of Jezreel or Esdrelom, in which we cannot suppose that there was any such eminence as that of Gur. Moreover Jibleam or Bileam (1 Chron. vi. 55, see at Josh. xvii. 11) was probably to the south of Jenin, where the old name EJ*y2 has been preserved in the well hour's journey off. And it is quite possible to bring this situation of Jibleam into harmony with the account before us. For instance, it is a priori probable that Ahaziah would take the road to Samaria when he fled from Jezreel, not only because his father's brothers were there (ch. x. 13), but also because it was the most direct road to Jerusalem; and he might easily be pursued by Jehu and his company to the height of Gur near Jibleam before they overtook him, since the distance from Jezreel (Zerin) to Jenin is only two hours and a half (Kob. Pal. iii. p. 828), and the height of Gur might very well be an eminence which he would pass on the road to Jibleam. But the wounded king may afterwards have altered the direction of his flight for the purpose of escaping to Megiddo, probably because he thought that he should be in greater safety there than he would be in Samaria.1
1 In 2 Chron. xxii. 8, 9, the account of the slaying of Ahaziah and his brethren (ch. x. 12 sqq.) is condensed into one brief statement, and then
— In ver. 29 we are told once more in which vear of Joram's reign Ahaziah became king. The discrepancy between " the eleventh year " here and " the twelfth year " in ch. viii. 2 5 may be most simply explained, on the supposition that there was a difference in the way of reckoning the commencement of the years of Joram's reign.
Vers. 30-37. Death of Jezebel. — Ver. 30. When Jehu came to Jezreel and Jezebel heard of it, " she put her eyes into lead polish (i.e. painted them with it), and beautified her head and placed herself at the window." spa is a very favourite eye-paint with Oriental women even to the present day. It is prepared from antimony ore ( J^£, Cohol or Stibium of the Arabs), which when pounded yields a black powder with a metallic brilliancy, which was laid upon the eyebrows and eyelashes either in a dry state as a black powder, or moistened generally with oil and made into an ointment, which is applied with a fine smooth eye-pencil of the thickness of an ordinary goose-quill, made either of wood, metal, or ivory. The way to use it was to hold the central portion of the pencil horizontally between the eyelids, and then draw it out between them, twisting it round all the while, so that the edges of the eyelids were blackened all round; and the object was to heighten the splendour of the dark southern eye, and give it, so to speak, a more deeply glowing fire, and to impart a youthful appearance to the whole of the eyelashes even in extreme old age. Kosellini found jars with eye-paint of this kind in the early Egyptian graves (vicl. Hille, iiber den Gebrauch u. die afterwards it is stated with regard to Ahaziah, that " Jehu sought him, and they seized him when he was hiding in Samaria, and brought him to Jehu and slew him,'1 from which it appears that Ahaziah escaped to Samaria. From the brevity of these accounts it is impossible to reconcile the discrepancy with perfect certainty. On the one hand, our account, which is only limited to the main fact, does not preclude the possibility that Ahaziah really escaped to Samaria, and was there overtaken by Jehu's followers, and then brought back to Jehu, and wounded upon the height of Gur near Jibleam, whence he fled to Megiddo, where he breathed out his life. On the other hand, in the perfectly summary account in the Chronicles,)i"lD^3 N3nn£ Klffl may be understood as referring to the attempt to escape to Samaria and hide himself there, and may be reconciled with the assumption that he was seized upon the way to Samaria, and when overtaken by Jehu was mortally wounded.
Zusammcnsctzung dcr oriental. Augenschminke: Dcutsch. morg. Ztsch. v. p. 236 sqq.). — Jezebel did this that she might present an imposing appearance to Jehu and die as a queen; not to allure him by her charms (Ewald, after Ephr. Syr.). For (ver. 31) when Jehu entered the palace gate, she cried out to him, " Is it peace, thou Zimri, murderer of his lord? " She addressed Jehu as Zimri the murderer of the king, to point to the fate which Jehu would bring upon himself by the murder of the king, as Zimri had already done (vid. 1 Kings xvi. 10-18). — Vers. 32, 33. But Jehu did not deign to answer the worthless woman; he simply looked up to the window and inquired: " Who is (holds) with me? who?" Then two, three chamberlains looked out (of the side windows), and by Jehu's command threw the proud queen out of the window, so that some of her blood spirted upon the wall and the horses (of Jehu), and Jehu trampled her down, driving over her with his horses and chariot. — Ver. 34. Jehu thereupon entered the palace, ate and drank, and then said to his men: " Look for this cursed woman and bury her, for she is a king's daughter." n1n^^ ^ne woman smitten by the curse of God. — Vers. 35, 36. But when they went to bury her, they found nothing but her skull, the two feet, and the two hollow hands. The rest had been eaten by the dogs and dragged away. When this was reported to Jehu, he said: " This is the word of the Lord, which He spake by His servant Elijah," etc. (1 Kings xxi. 23), i.e. this has been done in fulfilment of the word of the Lord. Ver. 37 is also to be regarded as a continuation of the prophecy of Elijah quoted by Jehu (and not as a closing remark of the historian, as Luther supposes), although what Jehu says here does not occur verbatim in 1 Kings xxi. 23, but Jehu has simply expanded rather freely the meaning of that prophecy, rprn (Chethib) is the older form of the 3d pers. fern. Keel, which is only retained here and there (vid. Ewald, § 194, a), ">^K is a conjunction (see Ewald, § 337, a): "that men may not be able to say, This is Jezebel," i.e. that they may no more be able to recognise JezebeL
CHAP. X. 1-27. EXTERMINATION OF THE OTHER SONS OF AHAB, OF THE BRETHREN OF AHAZIAH OF JUDAH, AND OF THE PROPHETS OF BAAL.
Vers. 1-11. Extermination of the Seventy Sons of Ahab in Samaria. — Vers. 1-3. As Ahab had seventy sons in Samaria (0*33 in the wider sense, viz. sons, including grandsons [see at ver. 13], as is evident from the fact that B^D**, foster-fathers, are mentioned, whereas Ahab had been dead fourteen years, and therefore his youngest sons could not have had foster-fathers any longer), Jehu sent a letter to the elders of the city and to the foster-fathers of the princes, to the effect that they were to place one of the sons of their lord upon the throne. There is something very strange in the words D^i?;jn 'KF]P ^j^v**, " to the princes of Jezreel, the old men," partly on account of the name Jezreel, and partly on account of the combination of B^SfO with ^JP. If we compare ver. 5, it is evident that E^j^n cannot be the adjective to 'P *j&, but denotes the elders of the city, so that the preposition b$ has dropped out before D*3pffi. 7NinP *nt* the princes or principal men of Jezreel, might certainly be the chief court-officials of the royal house of Ahab, since Ahab frequently resided in Jezreel. But against this supposition there is not only the circumstance that we cannot discover any reason why the court-officials living in Samaria should be called princes of Jezreel, but also ver. 5, where, instead of the princes of Jezreel, the governor of the city and the governor of the castle are mentioned. Consequently there is an error of the text in bxmv, which ought to read?K "W», though it is older than the ancient versions, since the Chaldee has the reading b^JTir, and no doubt the Alexandrian translator read the same, as the Septuagint has sometimes t?}? 7ro\ea>?, like the Vulgate, and sometimes Xapapeias, both unquestionably from mere conjecture. The " princes of the city " are, according to ver 5, the prefect of the palace and. the captain of the city; the Wg£ " elders," the magistrates of Samaria; and 3Nnx rook, the fosterfathers and tutors appointed by Ahab for his sons and grandsons. 2KnK is governed freely by D*?tpkn. in Ver. 2 the words from MfiW to P&^l1 form an explanatory circumstantial clause: " since the sons of your lord are with you, and with you the war-chariots and horses, and a fortified city and arms," i.e. since you have everything in your hands, — the royal princes and also the power to make one of them king. It is perfectly evident from the words, "the sons of your lord," i.e. of king Joram, that the seventy sons of Ahab included grandsons also. This challenge of Jehu was only a ruse, by which he hoped to discover the feelings of the leading men of the capital of the kingdom, because he could not venture, without being well assured of them, to proceed to Samaria to exterminate the remaining members of the royal family of Ahab who were living there.?V DTO, to fight concerning, i.e. for a person, as in Judg. ix. 17. — Vers. 4, 5. This ruse had the desired result. The recipients of the letter were in great fear, and said, Two kings could not stand before him, how shall we? and sent messengers to announce their submission, and to say that they were willing to carry out his commands, and had no desire to appoint a king. — Vers. 6, 7. Jehu then wrote them a second letter, to say that if they would hearken to his voice, they were to send to him on the morrow at this time, to Jezreel, the heads of the sons of their lord; which they willingly did, slaying the seventy men, and sending him their heads in baskets. *£*&n "IK va n?3K, " the heads of the men of the sons of your lord," i.e. of the male descendants of Ahab, in which S^)K may be explained from the fact that DS^fttppa has the meaning " royal princes" (see the similar case in Judg. xix. 22). In order to bring out still more clearly the magnitude of Jehu's demand, the number of the victims required is repeated in the circumstantial clause, " and there were seventy men of the king's sons with (ns) the great men of the city, who had brought them up." — Vers. 8, 9. When the heads were brought, Jehu had them piled up in two heaps before the city-gate, and spoke the next morning to the assembled people in front of them: " Ye are righteous. Behold I have conspired against my lord, and have slain him, but who has slain all these?" Jehu did not tell the people that the king's sons had been slain by his command, but spake as if this had been done without his interfering by a higher decree, that he might thereby justify his conspiracy in the eyes of the people, and make them believe what he says still further in ver. 10:" See then that of the word of the Lord nothing falls to the ground {i.e. remains unfulfilled) which Jehovah has spoken concerning the house of Ahab; and Jehovah has done what He spake through His servant Elijah." — Ver. 11. The effect of these words was, that the people looked qiuetly on when he proceeded to slay all the rest of the house of Ahab, i.e. all the more distant relatives in Jezreel, and " all his great men/' i.e. the superior officers of the fallen dynasty, and " all his acquaintances," i.e. friends and adherents, and " all his priests," probably court priests, such as the heathen kings had; not secular counsellors or nearest servants (Thenius), a meaning which B^na never has, not even in 2 Sam. viii. 18 and 1 Kings iv. 5.
Vers. 12-17. Extermination of the Brothers of Ahaztah of Judah and of the other Members of Ahab's Dynasty. — Vers. 1 2 sqq. Jehu then set out to Samaria; and on the way, at the binding-house of the shepherds, he met with the brethren of Ahaziah, who were about to visit their royal relations, and when he learned who they were, had them all seized, viz. forty-two men, and put to death at the cistern of the binding-house. N2>5?&}, " he came and went," appears pleonastic; the words are not to be transposed, however, as Bottcher and Thenius propose after the Syriac, but '$*} is added, because Jehu did not go at once to Samaria, but did what follows on the way. By transposing the words, the slaying of the relations of Ahaziah would be transferred to Samaria, in contradiction to vers. 15 sqq. — The words from 'W fpa Nin onwards, and from WiTJ to ■^'T si??, are two circumstantial clauses, in which the subject ffinj is added in the second clause for the sake of greater clearness: " when he was at the binding-house of the shepherds on the road, and Jehu (there) met with the brethren of Ahaziah, he said...." D^n ^V"^ (BrnOa/cdd, LXX.) is explained by Bashi, after the Chaldee KJin DB^a tV29 as signifying locus conventus pastorum, the meeting-place of the shepherds; and Gesenius adopts the same view. But the rest of the earlier translators for the most part adopt the rendering, locus ligationis pastorum, from 1\ty, to bind, and think of a house ubi pastores ligabant oves quando eas tondebant. In any case it was a house, or perhaps more correctly a place, where the shepherds were in the habit of meeting, and that on the road from Jezreel to Samaria; according to Eusebius in the Onom. s.v. BatOaKaO, a place fifteen Roman miles from Legio (Zcjun, Megicldo), in the great plain of Jezreel: a statement which may be correct with the exception of the small number of miles, but which does not apply to the present village of Beit Kad to the east of Jenin (Rob. Pal. iii. p. 157), with which, according to Thenius, it exactly coincides, vwnx *0K, for which we have Tin ^nx \J3, Ahaziah's brothers' sons, in 2 Chron. xxii. 8, were not the actual brothers of Ahaziah, since they had been carried off by the Arabians and put to death before he ascended the throne (2 Chron. xxi. 17), but partly step-brothers, i.e. sons of Joram by his concubines, and partly Ahaziah's nephews and cousins. tiby?, ad salutandum, i.e. to inquire how they were, or to visit the sons of the king (Joram) and of the queen-mother, i.e. Jezebel, therefore Joram's brothers. In ver. 1 they are both included among the " sons " of Ahab. — Vers. 1 5 sqq. As Jehu proceeded on his way, he met with Jehonadab the son of Eechab, and having saluted him, inquired, * Is thy heart true as my heart towards thy heart? " and on his replying B^J, " it is (honourable or true)," he bade him come up into the chariot, saying B*J, " if it is (so), give me thy hand;" whereupon he said still further, " Come with me and see my zeal for Jehovah," and then drove with him to Samaria, and there exterminated all that remained of Ahab's family. Jehonadab the son of Bcchab was the tribe-father of the Eechabites (Jer. xxxv. 6). The rule which the latter laid down for his sons and descendants for all time, was to lead a simple nomad life, namely, to dwell in tents, follow no agricultural pursuits, and abstain from wine; which rule they observed so sacredly, that the prophet Jeremiah held them up as models before his own contemporaries, who broke the law of God in the most shameless manner, and was able to announce to the Eechabites that they would be exempted from the Chaldsean judgment for their faithful observance of their father's precept (Jer. xxxv.). Bechab, from whom the descendants of Jehonadab derived their tribe-name, was the son of Hammath, and belonged to the tribe of the Kenites (1 Chron. ii. 55), to which Hobab the father-in-law of Moses also belonged (Num. x. 29); so that the Eechabites were probably descendants of Hobab, since the Kenites the sons of Hobab had gone with the Israelites from the Arabian desert to Canaan, and had there carried on their nomad life (Judg. i. 16, iv. 11; 1 Sam. xv. 6; see Witsii Miscell. ss. ii. p. 223 sqq.). This Jehonadab was therefore a man distinguished for the strictness of his life, and Jehu appears to have received him in this friendly manner on account of the great distinction in which he was held, not only in his own tribe, but also in Israel generally, that he might exalt himself in the eyes of the people through his friendship.1 — In ^ajJTTiX B^n, " is with regard to thy heart honourable or upright?" T\H is used to subordinate the noun to the clause, in the sense of quoad (see Ewald, § 277, a). D^N^rrtJS a??*Vj " all that remained to Ahab," i.e. all the remaining members of Ahab's house.
Vers. 18-27. Extermination of the Prophets and Priests of Baal and of the Baal-worship. — Vers. 18 sqq. Under the pretence of wishing to serve Baal even more than Ahab had done, Jehu appointed a great sacrificial festival for this idol, and had all the worshippers of Baal throughout all the land summoned to attend it; he then placed eighty of his guards around the temple of Baal in which they were assembled, and after the sacrifice was offered, had the priests and worshippers of Baal cut down by them with the sword. Objectively considered, the slaying of the worshippers of Baal was in accordance with the law, and, according to the theocratical principle, was perfectly right; but the subjective motives which impelled Jehu, apart from the artifice, were thoroughly selfish, as Seb. Schmidt has correctly observed. For since the priests and prophets of Baal throughout the Israelitish kingdom were bound up with the dynasty of Ahab, with all their interests and with their whole existence, they might be very dangerous to Jehu, if on any political grounds he should happen not to promote their objects, whereas by their extermination he might hope to draw to his side the whole of the very numerous supporters of the Jehovah-worship, which had formerly been legally established in Israel, and thereby establish his throne more firmly. The very fact that Jehu allowed the calf-worship to continue, is a proof that he simply used religion as the means of securing his own ends (ver. 29). nivjj W^\J> (ver. 20), " sanctify a festal assembly," i.e. proclaim in the land a festal assembly for Baal (compare Isa. i. 1 3; and for nijfjj = rrw, see at Lev. xxiii. 36). ^"]i?!5, and they proclaimed, sc. the festal meeting. — Ver. 21. The temple of Baal was filled ns? na,
1 According to C. a Lapide, Jehu took him up into his chariot " that he might establish his authority with the Samaritans, and secure a name for integrity by having Jehonadab as his ally, a man whom all held to be both an upright and holy man, that in this way he might the more easily carry out the slaughter of the Baalites, which he was planning, without any one daring to resist him."
" from one edge (end) to the other." ns in this sense is not to be derived from nss, a corner (Cler., Ges.), but signifies mouth, or the upper rim of a vessel. Metaphora sumta a vasibus humor e aliquo plenis: Vatabl. — Ver. 22. nnri7©n"py tk is the keeper of the wardrobe (Arab, prcefectus vestium), for the air. \ey. nnrfe signifies vestiarium (Ges. Thes. p. 764). The reference is not to the wardrobe of the king's palace, out of which Jehu had every one who took part in the feast supplied with a festal dress or new caftan (Deres., Then., etc.), but the wardrobe of the temple of Baal, since the priests of Baal had their own sacred dresses like the priests of almost all religions (as Silius has expressly shown in his Ital. iii. 24-27, of the priests of the Gadetanic Hercules). These dresses were only worn at the time of worship, and were kept in a wardrobe in the temple. — Vers. 23, 24. Jehu then came with Jehonadab to the temple, and commanded the worshippers of Baal to be carefully examined, that there might not be one of the worshippers of Jehovah with (among) them. When the priests of Baal were preparing to offer sacrifice, Jehu had eighty men of his guards stationed before the temple, and laid this injunction upon them: " Whoever lets one of the men escape whom I bring into your hands (we must read h?d* instead of o?&), his life shall answer for his (the escaped man's) life. WW nnn iBtej, as in 1 Kings xx. 39. — Ver. 25. in?D3: when he (the sacrificing priest, not Jehu) had finished the burnt-offering (the singular suffix) may also be taken as indefinite, when one had finished, vid. Ewald, § 294, b), Jehu commanded the runners and aides-de-camp: Come and smite them (the worshippers of Baal), without one coming out (escaping); whereupon they smote them with the edge of the sword, i.e. slew them unsparingly. ^Y^\: and the runners and aides-de-camp threw (those who had been slain) away, and went into the citadel of the temple of BaaL /P31T7P3 TV cannot be the city of the temple of Baal, i.e. that part of the city in which the temple of Baal stood, for the runners were already in the court of the temple of Baal; but it is no doubt the temple-citadel, the true temple-house ("VV from my, locus circumseptus) — templum Baalis magnifice exstructum instar arcis alicujus (Seb. Schm.). — Ver. 26. They then fetched the columns (nhJfD) out of the temple and burned them (the suffix in PMnfe^ refers to the plural nharo taken as an abstract noun, as in ch. iii. 3; cf. Ewald, § 3 1 7, a). They then broke in pieces the?S?3n n?^, column of Baal, i.e. the real image of Baal, probably a conical stone dedicated to Baal, whereas the rns»} which were burned, were wooden columns as vrdpeSpoi or <rvfjLl3(0[jLOL of Baal (see Movers, Phoniz. i. p. 674). — Ver. 27. Lastly, they destroyed the temple itself and made it rt&nnjW, privies, for which the Masoretes have substituted the euphemistic rrifeftrfD, sinks, as a mark of the greatest insult, many examples of which are to be met with among Oriental tribes (vid. Ezra vi. 11, Dan. ii. 5, and Hsevernick in loc). — Thus Jehu exterminated Baal from Israel This remark in ver. 28 forms the introduction to the history of Jehu's reign, with which the last epoch in the history of the ten tribes begins.
3. From the Commencement of the Beigns of Jehu in Israel, and athaliah in judah, to the destruction of the king- DOM of Israel.
In the 161 years which this epoch embraces, from B.C. 883 to 722, the fate of the kingdom of Israel was accomplished. The first hundred years, which comprised the reigns of Jehu and his descendants, Jehoahaz, Jehoash, and Jeroboam il, were the last day of grace for the rebellious ten tribes, at the expiration of which the judgment began to burst upon them. As the anointing of Jehu by Elisha was performed by the command of God, so also was the religious reform, which Jehu vigorously commenced with the extermination of the Baal-worship, a fruit of the labours of the prophets Elijah and Elisha within the sinful kingdom; but this reform stood still half-way, since Jehu merely restored the idolatrous Jehovah- worship introduced by Jeroboam, and neither he himself nor his successors desisted from that sin. In order, therefore, if possible, to complete the work begun by His prophets of converting Israel to its God, the Lord now began to visit the rebellious tribes with severe chastisements, giving them up into the power of the Syrians, who under Hazael not only conquered the whole of the land to the east of the Jordan, but almost annihilated the military force of the Israelites (ch. x. 32, 33, xiii. 3, 7). This chastisement did not remain without fruit. Jehoahaz prayed to the Lord, and the Lord had compassion upon the oppressed for the sake of His covenant with the patriarchs, and sent them deliverers in Joash, who recovered the conquered land from the Syrians after the death of Hazael, and in Jeroboam, who even restored the ancient boundaries of the kingdom (ch. xiii. 4, 5, and 23 sqq., xiv. 25, 26). But with this renewal of external strength, luxuriance and debauchery, partiality in judgment and oppression of the poor began to prevail, as we may see from the prophecies of Hosea and Amos (Amos v. 10 sqq., vi. 1—6; Hos. vi. 7 sqq.); and in addition to the Jehovah-worship, which was performed in an idolatrous manner (Hos. viii. 13, ix. 4, 5), the worship of Baal was carried on most vigorously (Hos. ii. 13, 15, x. 1, 2), so that the people made pilgrimages to Bethel, Gilgal, and even to Beersheba in the south of the kingdom of Judah (Hos. iv. 15; Amos iv. 4, v. 5, viii. 14), and on account of the worship thus zealously performed, relied in carnal security upon the protection of God, and scoffed at the judgments of the Lord which were threatened by the prophets (Amos v. 14, 18). This internal corruption increased with the death of Jeroboam, till all civil order was dissolved. Anarchy, conflicts for the possession of the throne, and repeated regicides, broke up the kingdom and made it ripe for the judgment of destruction, which was gradually accomplished by the Assyrians, whom one party in the reign of Menahem had called to their help, under Pul, Tiglathpileser, and Shalmanasar. — The kingdom of Judah, on the other hand, was purified from the destructive consequences of the alliance with the dynasty of Ahab through the overthrow by the high priest Jehoiada of the godless Athaliah, who had murdered the royal children after the death of Ahaziah and seized upon the government, and, with the renewal of the covenant and the extermination of the worship of Baal under the young king whom Jehoiada had trained, was brought back to the theocratic path; and notwithstanding the fact that in the closing years of Joash and Amaziah idolatry found admission again, was preserved in that path, in which it increased in strength and stability, so that not only were the wounds quickly healed which the war with Israel, occasioned by Amaziah's pride, had inflicted upon it through the conquest and plunder of Jerusalem (ch. xiv 8 sqq.), but during the sixty-eight years comprised in the reigns of Uzziah and Jotham, the people rose to a state of great prosperity and wealth through the pursuit of agriculture and trade, and a thoughtful development of the resources of the land, and the kingdom acquired great external power through the humiliation of the Philistines and the subjugation of the Edomites once more (2 Chron. xxvi.). At the same time, neither of these kings was able entirely to suppress the illegal worship of the high places, although the temple-worship was regularly sustained according to the law; and with the increase of wealth and power, not only did luxuriance and pride set in, but also idolatry and an inclination to heathen ways (Isa. ii. 5-8 and 16 sqq., v. 18 sqq.); so that even in the reigns of Uzziah and Jotham Isaiah predicted the day of the Lord's judgment, which was to fall upon everything lofty and proud (Isa. ii— iv.). This prophecy began to be fulfilled, so far as its first beginnings were concerned, even in the time of Ahaz. Under this weak and idolatrous ruler idolatry gained the upper hand, and the worship of Jehovah was suppressed; and this open apostasy from the Lord was followed by immediate punishment. The allied kings of Israel and Syria forced their way victoriously into Judah, and even stood before the gates of Jerusalem, with the intention of destroying the kingdom of Judah, when Ahaz, despising the help of the Lord, which was offered him by the prophet Isaiah, purchased the assistance of Tiglath-pileser the king of Assyria with silver and gold, and was thereby delivered from his foes. But this made him dependent upon the Assyrians, who would have conquered the kingdom of Judah and destroyed it, as they had already destroyed the kingdom of Israel, had not the Lord hearkened to the prayer of the pious king and miraculously routed the powerful army of Sennacherib before the walls of Jerusalem.
Vers*. 28, 29. Jehu exterminated the worship of Baal from Israel; but the sins of Jeroboam, the golden calves at Bethel and Dan, that is to say, the idolatrous worship of Jehovah, he allowed to remain. " The golden calves, etc.: " this is a supplementary and explanatory apposition to " the sins of Jeroboam." — Vers. 30, 31. Jehu is promised the possession of the throne to the fourth generation of his sons for having exterminated the godless royal house of Ahab (vid. ch. xv. 1 2). The divine sentence, " because thou hast acted well to do right in mine eyes, (because thou) hast done as it was in my heart to the house of Ahab," refers to the deed as such, and not to the subjective motives by which Jehu had been actuated. For it is obvious that it had not sprung from pure zeal for the honour of the Lord, from the limitation added in ver. 31: " but Jehu did not take heed to walk in the law of Jehovah with all his heart, and did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam." — Vers. 32, 33. Therefore (this link of connection follows from the actual fact, though it is not distinctly mentioned in the text) Hazael had now to inflict chastisement upon faithless Israel. In Jehu's days Jehovah began " to cut off in Israel," i.e. to rend away certain portions from the kingdom. " Hazael smote them (the Israelites) on the whole of the border of Israel," i.e. of the kingdom, " from Jordan to the sun-rising {i.e. on the eastern side of the Jordan), the whole of the land of Gilead (H?"'5? n^ i& dependent upon fl3^ which must be supplied from &-]), namely, the territory of the tribes of Gad, Keuben, and Half-Manasseh, from Aroer on the brook Arnon (now Araayr, a ruin on the northern border of the Mojeb (Arnon) valley; see at Num. xxxii. 34), the southern border of the Israelitish land to the east of the Jordan (Deut. ii. 36, iii. 12), both Gilead and Bashan," the two countries into which Gilead in the broader sense was divided (see at Deut. iii. 8-1 7). — These conquests took place during the twenty-eight years' reign of Jehu, since Hazael began to reign before Jehu, viz. while Joram was king, and had already fought successfully against the Israelites at Eamoth in Joram's reign (ch. viii. 28, 29), but not in the later part of Jehu's reign, as Thenius supposes. — Vers. 34-36. Conclusion of the history of Jehu's reign. The length of his reign is not given till the end in this instance (ver. 36), contrary to the usual custom in our books, because his ascent of the throne is not expressly mentioned in what precedes; but the general character of his reign is given in immediate connection with the account of his anointing and of the extermination of Ahab's dynasty.
Vers. 1-3. The Government of Athaliah (cf. 2 Chron. xxii. 10-12). After the death of Ahaziah of Judah, his mother Athaliah, a daughter of Ahab and Jezebel (see at ch. viii. 18 and 26), seized upon the government, by putting to death all the king's descendants with the exception of Joash, a son of Ahaziah of only a year old, who had been secretly carried off from the midst of the royal children, who were put to death, by Jehosheba, his father's sister, the wife of the high priest Jehoiada, and was first of all hidden with his nurse in the bedchamber, and afterwards kept concealed from Athaliah for six years in the high priest's house. The 1 before n3™"! is no doubt original, the subject, Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah, being placed at the head absolutely, and a circumstantial clause introduced with nnK"n: " Athaliah, when she saw that, etc., rose up." napDBH Snpo, all the royal seed, i.e. all the sons and relations of Ahaziah, who could put in any claim to succeed to the throne. At the same time there were hardly any other direct descendants of the royal family in existence beside the sons of Ahaziah, since the elder brothers of Ahaziah had been carried away by the Arabs and put to death, and the rest of the closer bloodrelations of the male sex had been slain by Jehu (see at ch. x. 13). — Jehosheba (Vifn), in the Chronicles njDB^n*), the wife of the high priest Jehoiada (2 Chron. xxii. 11), was a daughter of king Joram and a sister of Ahaziah, but she was most likely not a daughter of Athaliah, as this worshipper of Baal would hardly have allowed her own daughter to marry the high priest, but had been born to Joram by a wife of the second rank. D^niDD (Chethib), generally a substantive, mortes (Jer. xvi. 4; Ezek. xxviiL 8), here an adjective: slain or set apart for death. The Keri D*n»*D is the participle Hophal, as in 2 Chron. xxii. 11. 'on "ttha is to be taken in connection with SJJfi: she stole him (took him away secretly) from the rest of the king's sons, who were about to be put to death, into the chamber of the beds, i.e. not the children's bed-room, but a room in the palace where the beds (mattresses and counterpanes) were kept, for which in the East there is a special room that is not used as a dwelling-room (see Chardin in Harm. Beobb. iii. p. 357). This was the place in which at first it was easiest to conceal the child and its nurse. *"M|HpS, " they (Jehosheba and the nurse) concealed him," is not to be altered into *TT?9?5 after the Chronicles, as Thenius maintains. The masculine is used in the place of the feminine, as is frequently the case. Afterwards he was concealed with her (with Jehosheba) in the house of Jehovah, i.e. in the home of the high-priest in one of the buildings of the court of the temple.
Vers. 4-20. Dethronement of Athaliah and Coronation
OF Joash (compare the account in 2 Chron. xxiii., which is more elaborate in several points). * — Ver. 4. In the seventh year of Athaliah's reign, Jehoiada sent for the captains of the king's body-guard to come to him into the temple, and concluded a covenant with them, making them swear and showing them the king's son, namely, to dethrone the tyrant Athaliah and set the king's son upon the throne, rriwsn *"}fe^ ccnturiones, military commanders of the executioners and runners, i.e. of the royal body-guard. The Chethib ni^NO may be explained from the fact that n**o is abridged from rriJD (yid. Ewald, § 267,d). On DVJ1 n3 = *n!>an] TOn (1 Kings L 38) see the Comm. on 2 Sam. viii. 18; and on p as a periphrasis of the genitive, see Ewald, § 292, a. In 2 Chron xxiii. 1-3 the chronicler not only gives the names of these captains, but relates still more minutely that they went about in the land and summoned the Levites and heads of families in Israel to Jerusalem, probably under the pretext of a festal celebration; whereupon Jehoiada concluded a covenant with the persons assembled, to ensure their assistance in the execution of his plan. — Vers. 5-8. Jehoiada then communicated to those initiated into the plan the necessary instructions for carrying it out, assigning them the places which they were to occupy. " The third part of you that come on the Sabbath {i.e. mount guard) shall keep the guard of the king's house fJ0W is a corruption of ViOB^), and the third part shall be at the gate Sur, and the third part at the gate behind the runners, and (ye) shall keep guard over the house for defence; and the two parts of you, (namely) all who depart on the Sabbath, shall keep the guard of the house of Jehovah for the king; and ye shall surround the king round about, every one with his weapons in his hand; and whoever presses into the ranks shall be slain, and shall be with the king when
1 In both accounts we have only short extracts preserved from a common and more complete original, the extracts having been made quite independently of one another and upon different plans. Hence the apparent discrepancies, which have arisen partly from the incompleteness of the two abridged accounts, and partly from the different points of view from which the extracts were made, but which contain no irreconcilable contradictions. The assertion of De Wette, which has been repeated by Thenius and Bertheau, that the chronicler distorted the true state of the case to favour the Levites, rests upon a misinterpretation of our account, based upon arbitrary assumptions, as I have already shown in my apologetischer Versuch iiber die Chronilc (p. 361 sqq.).
he goes out and in," i.e. in all his steps. The words natfn *K3 and n3#n *N¥\ "those coming and those going out on the Sabbath/' denote the divisions of the watch, those who performed duty on the Sabbath and those who were relieved on the Sabbath; not the military guard at the palace however, but the temple-guard, which consisted of Levites. For David had divided the priests and Levites into classes, every one of which had to perform service for a week and was relieved on the Sabbath: compare 1 Chron. xxiii.-xxvi. with Josephus (Ant. vii. 1 4, 7), who expressly says that every one of the twenty-four classes of priests had to attend to the worship of God " for eight days, from Sabbath to Sabbath," also with Luke i. 5. On the other hand, we do not know that there was any similar division and obligation to serve in connection with the royal body-guard or with the army. The current opinion, that by those who come on the Sabbath and those who go out on the Sabbath we are to understand the king's halberdiers or the guard of the palace, is therefore proved to be unfounded and untenable. And if there could be any doubt on the matter, it would be removed by vers. 7 and 10. According to ver. 7, two parts of those who went away (were relieved) on the Sabbath were to undertake the guarding of the house of Jehovah about the king, i.e. to keep guard over that room in the temple where the king then was. Could Jehoiada have used the royal body-guard, that was being relieved from guarding the palace, for such a purpose as this? Who can imagine that this is a credible thing? According to ver. 10, Jehoiada gave to the captains over a hundred the weapons of king David, which were in the house of Jehovah. Did the palace-guard then return without weapons? In 2 Chron. xxiii. 4, " those coming on the Sabbath " are correctly described as the priests and Levites coming on the Sabbath, i.e. the priests and Levites who entered upon their week's duty at the temple on the Sabbath. According to this explanation of the words, which is the only one that can be grammatically sustained, the facts were as follows: "When Jehoiada had initiated the captains of the royal halberdiers, and with their help the heads of families of the people generally, into his plan of raising the youthful Joash to the throne and dethroning Athaliah, he determined to carry out the affair chiefly with the help of the priests and Levites who entered upon their duty in the temple on the Sabbath, and of those who left or were relieved at the same time, and entrusted the command over these men to the captains of the royal halberdiers, that they might occupy the approaches to the temple with the priests and Levites under their command, so as to prevent the approach of any military from the king's palace and protect the youthful king. These captains had come to the temple without weapons, to avoid attracting attention. Jehoiada therefore gave them the weapons of king David that were kept in the temple.
With regard to the distribution of the different posts, the fact that two-thirds are spoken of first of all in vers. 5, 6, and then two parts in ver. 7, occasions no difficulty. For the two-thirds mentioned in vers. 5, 6 were those who came on the Sabbath, whereas the " two divisions " (niTn *fl$) referred to in ver. 7 were all who went away on the Sabbath. Consequently the priests and Levites, who came on the Sabbath and entered upon the week's service, were divided into three sections; and those who should have been relieved, but were detained, into two. Probably the number of those who came this time to perform service at the temple was much larger than usual, as the priests were initiated into Jehoiada's secret; so that it was possible to make three divisions of those who arrived, whereas those who were about to depart could only be formed into two. The three divisions of those who were entering upon duty are also distinctly mentioned in the Chronicles; whereas, instead of the two divisions of those who were relieved, " all the people " are spoken of. The description of the different posts which were assigned to these several companies causes some difficulty. In general, so much is clearly indicated in vers. 7 and 8, that the two divisions of those who were relieved on the Sabbath were to keep guard over the young king in the_house of Jehovah, and therefore to remain m the inner spaces of the temple- court for his protection; whereas the three divisions of tEose who were entering upon duty were charged with the occupation of the external approaches to the temple. Onethird was to " keep watch over the king's house," i.e. to observe whatever had to be observed in relation to the king's palace; not to occupy the king's palace, or to keep guard in the citadel at the palace gate (Thenius), but to keep watch towards the_ royal palace, i.e. to post themselves so that no one could force a w^ay into Trie temple, with which the indefinite ^g? 1^33 in the
Chronicles harmonizes, if we only translate it * against (at) the king's house." The idea that the palace was guarded is precluded not only by ver. 13, according to which Athaliah came out of the palace to the people to the house of Jehovah, which she would not have been able to do if the palace had been guarded, but also by the circumstance that, according to ver. 19, the chief men were in the temple with the whole of the (assembled) people, and did not go out of the house of Jehovah into the king's house till after the anointing of Joash and the death of Athaliah. The other third was to station itself at the gate Sur ("ftD), or, according to the Chronicles, Yesoct i^0]), t^nniSation-gate. There is no doubt as to the identity of the gate Sur and the gate Yesod; only we cannot decide whether one of these names has simply sprung from a copyist's error, or whether the gate had two different names. The name *RD* IJfB^ foundation-gate, suggests a gate in the outer court of the temple, at the hollow of either the Tyropceon or the Kedron; for the" context precludes our thinking of a palace gate. The third division was to be posted " at the gate behind the runners;" or, as it is stated in ver. 19, "at the gate of the runners." It is very evident from ver. 19 that this gate led from the temple-court to the royal palace upon Zion, and was thereforennr the western side of the court of the temple. This also follows from ver. 4 of the Chronicles, according to which this division was to act as "doorkeepers of the thresholds" (T8W D^pn), ie. to keep guard at the gate of the thresholds. For we may safely infer, from a comparison with 1 Chron. ix. 19, that D^QDn were the thresholds of the ascent to the temple. The last clause, " and shall keep guard over the house for defence," refers to all three divisions, and serves to define with greater precision the object for which they were stationed there. nDD is not a proper name (LXX., Luther, and others), but an appellative in the sense of defence or resistance, from nw, d&pellcre. The meaning is, that they were to ^uard the house, to keep off the people, and not to let any of thejparty of Athaliah force a way into the temple. — In ver 7, 'E?n ^¥* pb is an explanatory" apposition to E33 rriTn ^nyh, " and the two parts in (of) you," namely, all who go out on the Sabbath, i.e. are relieved from duty. Their task, to_nV>gprvp f^p wa.t,p.}i nf the hnnse nf Jehovah with regard to the king, is more precisely defined in ver. 8 as signifying, that they were to surround the king with weapons in their hands, and slay every one who attempted to force a way into their ranks, ifitazn ins>*3;?>. in all his undertakings, or in all his steps; Kfal DK¥ being applied to the actions and pursuits of a man, as in Deut. xxviii. 6, xxxi. 2, etc. (see the Comm. on Num. xxvii. 17). Thenius has explained this incorrectly: " in his going out of the temple and entering into the palace." — Vers. 9-11. The execution of these plans. The high priest gave the captains " the spears and shields (Q'P^: see a^ 2 Sam. viii. 7) which (belonged) to king David, that were in the house of Jehovah," i.e. the weapons which David had presented to the sanctuary as dedicatory offerings. " Instead of fpjnn we ought probably to read nh^nn (cf. Mic. iv. 3, Isa. ii. 4), after the BTOnn of the Chronicles, since the collective force of JV:n is very improbable in prose, and a n might easily drop out through a copyist's error. Jehoiada gave the captains weapons from the temple, because, as has been already observed, they had come unarmed, and not, as Thenius imagines, to provide them with old and sacred weapons instead of their ordinary ones. In ver. 11 the position of all the divisions is given in a comprehensive manner, for the purpose of appending the further course of the affair, namely, the coronation of the king. " Thus the halberdiers stood, every one with his weapons in his hand, from the right wing of the house to the left wing, towards the altar (of burnt-offering) and the (temple-) house, round about the king," i.e. to cover the king on all sides. For it is evident that we are not to understand S'QD ^b^'bv as signifying the encircling of the king, from the statement in ver. 12, according to which Jehoiada did not bring out the king's son till after the men had taken up their positions. The use of D^Vjn, to signify the captains with the armed priests and Levites put under their command for this purpose, is an uncommon one, but it may be explained from the fact that D^ had retained the general meaning of royal halberdiers; and the priests and Levites under the command of the captains of the royal body-guard by this very act discharged the duty of the royal body-guard itself. The chronicler has used the indefinite expression &yn"?3, the whole of the people assembled in the temple-court. — Ver. 12. After the approaches to the temple had all been occupied in this manner, Jehoiada brought out the king's son from his home in the temple; or, he brought him forth, set the crown upon him, and handed him the testimony, i.e. the book of the law, as the rule of his life and action as king, according to the precept in Deut. xvii. 18, 19. rvnyrrn&o is connected with \fi] "IgiTTilj 17^, because ivy \W has the general meaning " delivered to him, handed him," and does not specially affirm the putting on of the crown. tt'W, they made him king. The subject is the persons present, though, as a matter of course, the anointing was performed by Jehoiada and the priests, as the Chonicles expressly affirm. Clapping the hands was a sign of joyful acclamation, like theory, " Long live the king" (cf. 1 Kings i. 39).
Vers. 13-16. Death of Athaliah. — Vers. 13, 14. As soon as Athaliah heard the loud rejoicing of the people, she came to the people into the temple, and when she saw the youthful king in his standing-place surrounded by the princes, the trumpeters, and the whole of the people, rejoicing and blowing the trumpets, she rent her clothes with horror, and cried out, Conspiracy, conspiracy! By? TV"!'? does not mean the people running together, but the original reading in the text was probably By™?y\\}} the people and the halberdiers, and the Vav dropped out through an oversight of the copyist. By TT]7} we are to understand the captains of the halberdiers with the armed Levites, as in ver. 11; and Dyn is the people who had assembled besides (cf. ver. 19). In the Chronicles ^?n D^mpm D^nn is in apposition to Dyn: the noise of the people, the halberdiers, and those who praised the king. The *W®V, upon which the king stood, was not a pillar, but an elevated standing-place (suggestus) for the king at the eastern gate of the inner court (W3Q3, 2 Chron. xxiii, 13 compared with Ezek. xlvi. 2), when he visited the temple on festive occasions (cf. ch. xxiii. 3), and it was most probably identical with the brazen scaffold ("tf*?) mentioned in 2 Chron. vi. 13, which would serve to explain t3SB^33, " according to the right " (Angl. V. " as the manner was "). D"nfrn are not merely the captains mentioned in vers. 4, 9, and 10, but these together with the rest of the assembled heads of the nation (™2Nn *6ftO, 2 Chron. xiii. 2). nnvvnn^ the trumpets, is an abbreviated expression for those blowing the trumpets, the trumpeters. The reference is to the Levitical musicians mentioned in 1 Chron. xiii. 8, xv. 24, etc.; for they are distinguished from 'W1 D?0 '?, " all the people of the land rejoicing and blowing the trumpets," i.e. not all the military men of the land who were present in Jerusalem (Thenius), but the mass of the people present in the temple (Bertheau). — Ver. 15. Jehoiada then commanded the captains
<D0 *7.Pbj those placed over the army, i.e. the armed men of the Levites, to lead out Athaliah between the ranks, and to slay every one who followed her, i.e. who took her part (ft?£, inf. abs. instead of imperative); for, as is added supplementally in explanation of this command, the priest had (previously) said: " Let her not be slain in the house of Jehovah." The temple was not to be denied with the blood of the usurper and murderess.— Ver. 16. Thus they made way for her on both sides, or, according to the correct explanation given by the Chaldee, WW] B?I* ™?> they formed lines (Spalier, fences) and escorted her back, and she came by the way of the horses' entrance into the palace, and was there put to death. D^piDn Kino is explained in the Chronicles by D^piDn "W Nin», entrance of the horse-gate. The entrance for the horses, i.e. the way which led to the royal mews, is not to be identified with the horse-gate mentioned in Xeh. iii. 28; for this was a gate in the city wall, whereas the road from the temple to the royal mews, which were no doubt near the palace, was inside the wall.
Vers. 17-20. Renewal of the covena,nt, extermination of the worship of Baal, and entrance of the king into the palace. — Ver.
17. After Jehoash was crowned and Athaliah put to death, Jehoiada concluded the covenant (1) between Jehovah on the one hand and the king and people on the other, and (2) between the king and the people. The former was simply a renewal of the covenant which the Lord had made with Israel through Moses (Ex. xxiv.), whereby the king and the people bound themselves njHv Djf? nvnp, £& to live as the people of the Lord, or to keep His law (cf. Deut. iv. 20, xxvii. 9, 10), and was based upon the " testimony " handed to the king. This covenant naturally led to the covenant between the king and the people, whereby the king bound himself to rule his people according to the law of the Lord, and the people vowed that they would be obedient and subject to the king as the ruler appointed by the Lord (cf. 2 Sam. v. 3). The renewal of the covenant with the Lord was necessary, because under the former kings the people had fallen away from the Lord and served Baal. The immediate consequence of the renewal of the covenant, therefore, was the extermination of the worship of Baal, which is mentioned at once in ver. 18, although its proper place in order of time is after ver.
18. All the people (fJ$J DJTPS, as in ver. 14) went to the temple of Baal, threw down his altars, broke his images (the columns of