end, but only the expiry, the running out of the end; and finally, that the supposition that && here and in ver. 15 denotes a year is without foundation. Schmidt and Ramb. have already given a better explanation: quumque esset tempus, quo exiit finis s. quum exiret ac compleretur terminus ille, in epistola Elice v. 15 prcefixus; but in this case also we should expect Q*Bjn Pi?, since DW D^pv should point back to D^DJ bv D^, and contain a more exact definition of the terms employed in ver. 15, which are not definite enough. We therefore take YVH n**-? by itself, and translate: At the time of the end, i.e. when the end, sc. of life or of the disease, had come about two days, i.e. about two days before the issue of the end of the disease, then the bowels went out of the body — they flowed out from the body as devoured by the disease. v?n DV? in, during the sickness, consequently before the decease (cf. for &y in this signification, Ps. Ixxii. 5, Dan. iii. 33). Trusen (Sitten, Gebr. und Krankh. der alien Hebraer, S. 212 f.) holds this disease to have been a violent dysentery (diarrhoea), " being an inflammation of the nervous tissue (Nerven7iaut) of the whole great intestine, which causes the overlying mucous membrane to decay and peel off, which then falls out often in tube-shape, so that the intestines appear to fall from the body." His people did not make a burning for him like the burning of his fathers, cf. xvi. 14; that is, denied him the honours usual at burial, because of their discontent with his evil reign. — Ver. 20. The repetition of his age and the length of his reign (cf. ver. 6) is accounted for by the fact that the last section of this chapter is derived from a special source, wherein these notes likewise were contained. The peculiarity of the language and the want of the current expressions of our historian also favour the idea that some special authority has been used here. tc And he departed, mourned by none." Luther erroneously translates, " and walked in a way which was not right " (und wandelt das nicht fein war), after the " ambulavit noji recte " of the Vulg.; for "Tnpn denotes, not a good walk, but desiderium. rron N73, sine desiderio. i.e. a nemine dcsideratus.
"n?n, to depart, i.e. die, as Gen. xv. 2. Moreover, though he was buried in the city of David, yet he was not laid in the graves of the kings, by which act also a judgment was pronounced upon his reign; cf. xxiv. 25 and xxvi. 23.
Vers* 1-9. Ahaziah9 s reign of a yea?', and his death. — The account of Ahaziah in 2 Kings viii. 26-29 agrees with our narrative, except that there the reflections of the chronicler on the spirit of his government are wanting; but, on the contrary, the account of his deatli is very brief in the Chronicle (vers. 6-9), while in 2 Kings ix. and x. the extirpation of the Ahabic house by Jehu, in the course of which Ahaziah was slain with his relatives, is narrated at length. — Ver. 1. Instead of the short stereotyped notice, u and Ahaziah his son was king in his stead," with which 2 Kings viii. 24 concludes the history of Joram, the Chronicle gives more exact information as to Ahaziah's accession: " The inhabitants of Jerusalem made Ahaziah, his youngest son (who is called in xxi. 17 Jehoahaz), king in his stead; for all the elder (sons), the band which had come among the Arabs to the camp had slain." In ttvD* we have a hint that Ahaziah's succession was disputed or doubtful; for where the son follows the father on the throne without opposition, it is simply said in the Chronicle also, u and his son was king in his stead." But the only person who could contest the throne with Ahaziah, since all the other sons of Joram who would have had claims upon it were not then alive, was his mother Athaliah, who usurped the throne after his death. All the elder sons (DWN"]n? the earlier born) were slain by the troop which had come among (with) the Arabians (see xxi. 16 f.) into the camp, — not of the Philistines (Cler.), but of the men of Judah; that is, they wrere slain by a reconnoitring party, which, in the invasion of Judah by the Philistines and Arabs, surprised the camp of the men of Judah, and slew the elder sons of Joram, who had marched to the war. Probably they did not cut them down on the spot, but (according to xxi. 17) took them prisoners and slew them afterwards.— Yer. 2. The number 42 is an orthographical error for 22 (n having been changed into d), 2 Kings viii. 26. As Joram was thirty-two years of age at his accession, and reigned eight years (xxi. 20 and 5), at his death his youngest son could not be older than twenty-one or twenty-two years of age, and even then Joram must have begotten him in his eighteenth or nineteenth year. It is quite consistent with this that Joram had yet older sons; for in the East marriages are entered upon at a very early age, and the royal princes -were wont to have several wives, or, besides their proper wives, concubines also. Certainly, had Ahaziah had forty-two older brothers, as Berth, and other critics conclude from 2 Kings x. 13 f., then he could not possibly have been begotten, or been born, in his father's eighteenth year. But that idea rests merely upon an erroneous interpretation of the passage quoted; see on ver. 8. Ahaziah's mother Athaliah is called the daughter, i.e. granddaughter, of Omri, as in 2 Kings viii. 26, because he was the founder of the idolatrous dynasty of the kingdom of the ten tribes. — Ver. 3. He also (like his father Joram, xxi. 6) walked in the ways of the house of Ahab. This statement is accounted for by the clause: for his mother (a daughter of Ahab and the godless Jezebel) wTas his counsellor to do evil, i.e. led him to give himself up to the idolatry of the house of Ahab. — Ver. 4. The further remark also, u he did that which was displeasing in the sight of the Lord, like the house of Ahab," is similarly explained; for they (the members of the house of Ahab related to him through his mother) were counsellors to him after the death of his father to his destruction, cf. xx. 23; while in 2 Kings viii. 27, the relationship alone is spoken of as the reason of his evil-doing. How far this counsel led to his destruction is narrated in ver. 5 and onwards, and the narrative is introduced by the words, u He walked also in their counsel;" whence it is clear beyond all doubt, that Ahaziah entered along with Joram, Ahab's son, upon the war which was to bring about the destruction of Ahab's house, and to cost him his life, on the advice of Ahab's relations. There is no doubt that Joram, Ahab's son, had called upon Ahaziah to take part in the war against the Syrians at Ramoth Gilead (see on xviii. 28), and that Athaliah with her party supported his proposal, so that Ahaziah complied. In the war the Aramaeans (Syrians) smote Joram; i.e., according to ver. 6, they wounded him (BWH is a contraction for tfEHKilj 2 Kings viii. 28). In consequence of this Joram returned to Jezreel, the summer residence of the Ahabic royal house (1 Kings xviii. 45), the present Zerin; see on Josh, xix. 18. D*3©n *3 has no meaning, and is merely an error for D^atsn |»? 2 Kings viii. 29, which indeed is the reading of several Codd.: to let himself be cured of his strokes (wounds). *nj"K?j too, is an orthographical error for tfljnw: and Ahaziah went down to visit the wounded Joram, his brother-in-law. Whether he went from Jerusalem or from the loftily-situated Ram ah cannot be with certainty determined, for we have no special account of the course of the war, and from 2 Kings ix. 14 f. we only learn that the Israelite army remained in Ramoth after the return of the wounded Joram. It is therefore probable that Ahaziah wrent direct from Ramoth to visit Joram, but it is not ascertained; for there is nothing opposed to the supposition that, after Joram had been wounded in the battle, and while the Israelite host remained to hold the city against the Syrian king Hazael, Ahaziah had returned to his capital, and thence went after some time to visit the wounded Joram in Jezreel.
Vers. 7-9. Without touching upon the conspiracy against Joram, narrated in 2 Kings ix., at the head of which was Jehu, the captain of the host, whom God caused to be anointed king over Israel by a scholar of the prophets deputed by Elisha, and whom he called upon to extirpate the idolatrous family of Ahab, since it did not belong to the plan of the Chronicle to narrate the history of Israel, our historian only briefly records the slaughter of Ahaziah and his brother's sons by Jehu as being the result of a divine dispensation. — Ver. 7. " And of God was (came) the destruction (noon, a being trodden down, a formation which occurs here only) of Ahaziah, that he went to Joram;" i.e. under divine leading had Ahaziah come to Joram, there to find his death, 'til W331, And when he was come, he went out with Joram against Jehu (instead of WTP"?K we have in 2 Kings ix. 21 the more distinct KVP nKlj??, towards Jehu) the son of Nimshi, whom God had anointed to extirpate the house of Ahab (2 Kings ix. 1-10). — Ver. 8. When Jehu was executing judgment upon the house of Ahab (BSKo usually construed with MKj to be at law with any one, to administer justice; cf. Isa. Ixvi. 16, Ezek. xxxviii. 22), he found the princes of Judah, and the sons of the brothers of Ahaziah, serving Ahaziah, and slew them. DTn&'D, i.e. in the train of King Ahaziah as his servants. As to when and where Jehu met the brothers' sons of Ahaziah and slew them, we have no further statement, as the author of the Chronicle mentions that fact only as a proof of the divinely directed extirpation of all the members of the idolatrous royal house. In 2 Kings x. 12-14 we read that Jehu, after he had extirpated the whole Israelite royal house — Joram and Jezebel, and the seventy sons of Ahab — went to Samaria, there to eradicate the Baal-worship, and upon his way thither met the brothers of Ahaziah the king of Judah, and caused them to be taken alive, and then slain, to the number of forty-two. These '■ntjt vynM, forty-two men, cannot have been actual brothers of Ahaziah, since all Ahaziali's brethren had, according to ver. 1 and xxi. 17, been slain in the reign of Joram, in the invasion of the Philistines and Arabians. They must be brothers only in the wider sense, i.e. cousins and nephews of Ahaziah, as Movers (S. 258) and Ewald recognise, along with the older commentators. The Chronicle, therefore, is quite correct in saying, " sons of the brethren o! Ahaziah," and along with these princes of Judah, who, according to the context, can only be princes who held offices at court, especially such as were entrusted with the education and guardianship of the royal princes. Perhaps these are included in the number forty-two (Kings). But even if this be not the case, we need not suppose that there were forty-two brothers' sons, or nephews of Ahaziah, since B^nK includes cousins also, and in the text of the Chronicle no number is stated, although forty-two nephews would not be an unheard-of number; and we do not know how many elder brothers Ahaziah had. Certainly the nephews or brothers' sons of Ahaziah cannot have been very old, since Ahaziah's father Joram died at the age of forty, and Ahaziah, who became king in his twenty-second year, reigned only one year. But from the early development of posterity in southern lands, and the polygamy practised by the royal princes, Joram might easily have had in his fortieth year a considerable number of grandsons from five to eight years old, and boys of from six to nine years might quite well make a journey with their tutors to Jezreel to visit their relations. In this way the divergent statements as to the slaughter of the brothers and brothers' sons of Ahaziah, contained in 2 Kings ix. and in our 8th verse, may be reconciled, without our being compelled, as Berth, thinks we are, to suppose that there were two different traditions on this subject. — Yer. 9. And he (Jehu) sought Ahaziah, and they (Jehu's body-guard or his warriors) caught him while he was hiding in Samaria, and brought him to Jehu, and slew him. Then they (his servants, 2 Kings ix. 27) buried him, for they said: He is a son of Jehoshaphat, who sought Jahve with all his heart. We find more exact information as to Ahaziah's death in 2 Kings ix. 27 f., according to which Ahaziah, overtaken by Jehu near Jibleam in his flight before him, and smitten, i.e. wounded, fled to Megidclo, and there died, and was brought by his servants to Jerusalem, and buried with his fathers in the city of David. For the reconciliation of these statements, see on 2 Kings ix. 27 f. The circumstance that in our account first the slaughter of the brothers' sons, then that of Ahaziah is mentioned, while according to 2 Kings ix. and x. the slaughter of Ahaziah would seem to have preceded, does not make any essential difference; for the short account in the Chronicle is not arranged chronologically, but according to the subject, and the death of Ahaziah is mentioned last only in order that it might be connected with the further events which occurred in Judah. The last clause of ver. 9, " and there was not to the house of Ahab one who would have possessed power for the kingdom," i.e. there was no successor on the throne to whom the government might straightway be transferred, forms a transition to the succeeding account of Athaliah's usurpation.
Vers. 10-12. The six years' tyranny of Athaliah. — In regard to her, all that is stated is, that after Ahaziah's death she ascended the throne, and caused all the royal seed of the house of Judah, i.e. all the male members of the royal house, to be murdered. From this slaughter only Joash the son of Ahaziah, an infant a year old, was rescued, together with his nurse, by the princess Jehoshabeath, who was married to the high priest Jehoiada. He was hidden for six years, and during that time Athaliah reigned. The same narrative, for the most part in the same words, is found in 2 Kings xi. 1—3, and has been already commented upon there.
CHAP. XXIII. AND XXIV. — THE FALL OF ATHALIAH, AND THE CORONATION AND REIGN OF JOASH.
After Joash had been kept in hiding for six years, the high priest Jehoiada came to the resolution to make an end of the tyranny of Athaliah, and to raise the young prince to the throne. The carrying out of this resolution is narrated in chap, xxiii., and thereafter in chap. xxiv. All that is important as to the reign of Joash is communicated.
Chap, xxiii. Joash raised to the throner and Athaliah slain. — In 2 Kings xi. 4-20 we have another account of these events, in which the matter is in several points more briefly narrated, and apparently differently represented. According to both narratives, the thing was undertaken and carried out by the high priest Jehoiada; but according to 2 Kings xi., the high priest would appear to have mainly availed himself of the co-operation of the royal body-guard in the execution of his plan, while according to the Chronicle it is the Levites and the heads of the fathers'-houses who are made use of. Thereupon De Wette, Movers, Thenius, and Bertheau consequently maintain that the author of the Chronicle, proceeding on the view that the high priest, the chief of so many priests and Levites, would not have recourse to the assistance of the royal body-guard, has altered the statements in the second book of Kings accordingly, and wishes to represent the matter in a different way. But this assertion can be made with an appearance of truth only on the presupposition, already repeatedly shown to be erroneous, that the author of.he Chronicle has made the account in 2 Kin^s xi. the basis of his narrative, and designedly altered it, and can scarcely be upheld even by the incorrect interpretation of various words. That 2 Kings xi. is not the source from which our account has been derived, nor the basis on which it is founded, is manifest from the very first verses of the chronicler's narrative, where the names of the five princes over hundreds, with whose co-operation Jehoiada elaborated his plan and carried it into execution, are individually enumerated; while in 2 Kings xi., where the preparations for the accomplishment of the work are very briefly treated of, they will be sought for in vain. But if, on the contrary, the two accounts be recognised to be extracts confining themselves to the main points, excerpted from a more detailed narrative of the event from different points of view, the discrepancies may be at once reconciled. Instead, of the short statement, 2 Kings xi. 4, that the high priest Jehoiada ordered the centurions of the royal body-guard to come to him in the temple (N?2 •. • ni?)j made a covenant with them, caused them to swear, and showed them the king's son, we read in the Chronicle (vers. 1-3), that the high priest Jehoiada took five centurions, whose names are stated with historical exactitude, into covenant with him, i.e. sent for them and made a covenant with them, and that these men then went throughout Judah, and summoned the Levites from all the cities of Judah, and the heads of the fathers'- houses of Israel, to Jerusalem; whereupon Jehoiada with the whole assembly made a covenant with the king in the house of God, and Jehoiada said to the people, " The king's son shall be king, as Jahve hath said of the sons of David." That this more expanded narrative can without difficulty be reconciled with the summary statement in 2 Kings xi. 4, is perfectly manifest. By various devices, however, Berth, tries to bring out some discrepancies. In the first place, in the words, " Jehoiada sent and brought the princes of hundreds" (Kings, ver. 4), he presses the fw, which is not found in the Chronicle, translates it by " he sent out," and interprets it with ver. 2 of the Chronicle; in the second, he takes?nipn~zD in ver. 3 of the Chronicle to mean u the whole congregation," whereas it denotes only the assembly of the men named in vers. 1 and 2; and, thirdly, he opposes the expression, " they made a covenant with the king" (ver. 3, Chron.), to the statement (ver. 2, Kings) that Jehoiada made a covenant to the princes, by making this latter statement mean that Jehoiada made a covenant with the princes, but not with the kin£, as if this covenant concerning the coronation of Joash as king might not be called, by a shorter mode of expression, a covenant with the king, especially when the declaration, a the son of the king shall reign," follows immediately. — Vers. 4-7. The case is similar with the contradictions in the account of the carrying out of the arrangements agreed upon. In Bertheau's view, this is the state of the case: According to 2 Kings xi. 5-8, the one part of the body-guard, which on Sabbath mounted guard in the royal palace, were to divide themselves into three bands: one third was to keep the guard of the royal house, which was certainly in the neighbourhood of the main entrance; the second third was to stand at the gate Sur, probably a sidegate of the palace; the third was to stand behind the door of the runners. The other part of the body-guard, on the other hand — all those who were relieved on the Sabbath — were to occupy the temple, so as to defend the young king. But according to the representation of the Chronicle, (1) the priests and the Levites were to divide themselves into three parts: the first third, those of the priests and Levites, who entered upon their duties on the Sabbath, were to be watchers of the thresholds (cf. on 1 Chron. ix. 19 f.), i.e. were to mount guard in the temple as usual; the second third was to be in the house of the king (i.e. where the first third was to keep watch, according to 2 Kings); the third was to be at the gate Jesod. Then (2) the whole people were to stand in the courts of the temple, and, according to ver. 6, were to observe the ordinance of Jahve (chap. xiii. 11), by which they wTere forbidden to enter the temple. From this Bertheau then concludes: "The guarding of the house of Jahve for the protection of the king (2 Kings xi. 7) has here become a iW niOB'b." But in opposition to this, we have to remark that in 2 Kin^s xi. 5-8 it is not said that the royal body-guard was to be posted as guards in the royal palace and in the temple; that is only a conclusion from the fact that Jehoiada conferred on the matter with the riix?3n nt^of the executioners and runners, i.e. of the royal satellites, and instructed these centurions, that those entering upon the service on Sabbath were to keep watch in three divisions, and those retiring from the service in two divisions, in the following places, which are then more accurately designated. The one division of those entering upon the service were to stand, according to 2 Kings, by the gate Sur; according to the Chronicle, by the gate Jesod. The second, according to 2 Kings, was to keep the guard of the king's house; according to the Chronicle, it was to be in or by the king's house. The third was, according to 2 Kings, to be by (in) the gate behind the runners, and to keep the guard of the house Massach; according to the Chronicle, they were to serve as watchers of the thresholds. If, as is acknowledged by all, the gate "no is identical with the gate *ns\l? — although it can neither be ascertained whether the difference in name has resulted merely from an orthographical error, or rests upon a double designation of one gate; nor yet can it be pointed out what the position of this gate, which is nowhere else mentioned, was, — then the Chronicle and 2 Kings agree as to the posts which were to occupy this door. The position also of the third part, ^ftn iraa (Chron.), will not be different from that of the third part, to which was committed the guarding of the king's house (Kings). The place where this third part took up its position is not exactly pointed out in either narrative, yet the statement, " to keep the watch of the house (temple) for warding off " (Kings), agrees with the appointment u to be guards of the thresholds" (Chron.), since the guarding of the thresholds has no other aim than to prevent unauthorized persons from entering. Now, since the young king, not merely according to the Chron., but also according to 2 Kino's xi. 4, — where we are told that Jehoiada showed the son of the king to the chief men whom he had summoned to the house of Jahve, — was in the temple, and only after his coronation and Athaliah's death was led solemnly into the royal palace, we might take the king's house, the guard of which the one third of those entering upon the service were to keep (Kings, ver. 7), to be the temple building in which the young king was, and interpret ^fen n*33 in accordance with that idea. In that case, there would be no reference to the settling of guards in the palace; and that view would seem to be favoured by the circumstance that the other third part of those entering upon their service on the Sabbath were to post themselves at the gate, behind the runners, and keep the guard of the house fflSO. That nDD is not a nom. propr., but appellate from noj, to ward off, signifying warding off, is unanimously acknowledged by modern commentators; only Thenius would alter non into ribp, " and shall ward off." Gesenius, on the contrary, in his Thesaurus, takes the word to be a substantive, cum n^D^b per appositionem conjunctum, in the signification, the guard for warding off, and translates, et vos agetis custodiam templi ad depellendum sc. populum (to ward off). If this interpretation be correct, then these words also do not treat of a palace guard; and to take n^nn to signify the temple is so evidently suggested by the context, according to which the high priest conducted the whole transaction in the temple, that we must have better grounds for referring the words to the royal palace than the mere presumption that, because the high priest discussed the plan with the captains of the royal body-guard, it must be the occupation of the royal palace which is spoken of. But quite apart from the Chronicle, even the further account of the matter in 2 Kings xi. is unfavourable to the placing of guards in the royal palace. According to ver. 9, the captains did exactly as Jehoiada commanded. They took each of them their men — those coming on the Sabbath, and those departing — and went to the priest Jehoiada, who gave them David's weapons out of the house of God (ver. 10), and the satellites stationed themselves in the court of the temple, and there the king was crowned. The unambiguous statement, ver. 9, that the captains, each with his men — i.e. those coming on Sabbath (entering upon the service), and those departing — came to the high priest in the temple, and there took up their position in the court, decisively excludes the idea that " those coming on the Sabbath" had occupied the guard-posts in the royal palace, and demands that the divisions mentioned in vers. 5 and 6 should be posted at different parts and gates of the temple. That one third part had assigned to it a place behind the gate of the runners is not at all inconsistent with the above idea; for even if the gate behind the runners be identical with the gate of the runners (Kings, ver. 19), it by no means follows from that that it was a gate of the palace, and not of the outer court of the temple. In accordance with this view, then, vers. 5 and 6 (Kings) do not treat of an occupation of the royal palace, but of a provision for the security of the temple by the posting of guards. It is, moreover, against the supposition that the entrances to the palace were occupied by guards, that Athaliah, when she heard from her palace the noise of the people in the temple, came immediately into the temple, and was dragged forth and slain by the captains there in command. For what purpose can they have placed guards by the palace gates, if they did not desire to put any hindrance in the way of the queen's going forth into the temple? The hypotheses of Thenius, that it was done to keep away those who were devoted to Athaliah, to make themselves masters of the palace, and to hinder Athaliah from taking any measures in opposition to them, and to guard the place of the throne, are nothing but expedients resulting from embarrassment. If there was no intention to put any hindrance in the way of the queen leaving the palace, there could have been none to prevent her taking opposing measures. For the rest, the result obtained by careful consideration of the account in 2 Kings xi., that in vers. 5 and 6 an occupation by guards, not of the royal palace, but of the temple, is spoken of, does not stand or fall with the supposition that?]ten 1V3 was the dwelling of the young king in the temple building, and not the palace. The expression T\s2 H'lDK'O "i»$ "n^n, to guard the guard of the king's house, i.e. to have regard to whatever is to be regarded in reference to the king's house, is so indefinite and elastic, that it may have been used of a post which watched from the outer court of the temple what was going on in the palace, which was over against the temple. With this also the corresponding?l?E>n nsD3? in the short account of the distribution of the guards given by the chronicler (ver. 5), may be reconciled, if we translate it " at the house of the king," and call to mind that, according to 2 Kings xvi. 18 and 1 Kings x. 5, there was a special approach from the palace to the temple for the king, which this division may have had to guard. But notwithstanding the guarding of this way, Athaliah could come from the palace into the court of the temple by another way, or perhaps the guards were less
And not less groundless is the assertion that the priest Jehoiada availed himself in the execution of his plan, according to 2 Kings xi., mainly of the co-operation of the royal body-guard, according to the Chronicle mainly of that of the Levites; or that the chronicler, as Thenius expresses it, a has made the body-guards of 2 Kings into Levites, in order to divert to the priesthood the honour which belonged to the Praetorians." The niMsn *y&9 mentioned by name in the Chronicle, with whom Jehoiada discussed his plan, and who had command of the guards when it was carried out, are not called Levites, and may consequently have been captains of the executioners and runners, i.e. of the royal body-guard, as they are designated in 2 Kings xi. 4. But the men who occupied the various posts are called in both texts D3$n ^3 (Kings, ver. 5; Chron. ver. 4): in 2 Kings, vers. 7 and 9, the corresponding fl2Hpn '■N^ is added; while in the Chronicle the T)2&n "N3 are expressly called Levites, the words D5wi D^nb? being added. But we know from Luke i. 5, compared with 1 Chron. xxiv. (see above, p. 263), that the priests and Levites performed the service in the temple in courses from one Sabbath to another, while we have no record of any such arrangement as to the service of the Praetorians; so that we must understand the words " coming on the Sabbath " (entering upon the service), and ci going on the Sabbath" (those relieved from it), of the Levites in the first place. Had it been intended that by these words in 2 Kings xi. we should understand Praetorians, it must necessarily have been clearly said. From the words spoken to the centurions of the body-guard, " the third part of you," etc., it does not follow at all as a matter of course that they were so, any more than from the fact that in Kings, ver. 11, the posts set are called &T!\!? the runners = satellites. If we suppose that in this extraordinary case the Levitic temple servants were placed under the command of centurions of the royal body-guard, who were in league with the high priest, the designation of the men they commanded by the name cyi, satellites, is fully explained; the men having been previously more accurately described as those who were entering upon and being relieved from service on the Sabbath. In this way I have explained the matter in my apologet. Versuch ilber die Citron. S. 362 ff., but this explanation of it has neither been regarded nor confuted by Thenius and Bertheau. Even the mention of ^-)3 and D*T1 along with the captains and the whole people, in Kings, ver. 19, is not inconsistent with it; for we may without difficulty suppose, as has been said in my commentary on that verse, that the royal body-guard, immediately after the slaughter of Athaliah, went over to the young king just crowned, in order that they, along with the remainder of the people who were assembled in the court, might lead him thence to the royal palace. There is only one statement in the two texts which can scarcely be reconciled with this conjecture, — namely, the mention of the E^n and of the people in the temple before Athaliah was slain (ver. 12 Chron. and ver. 13 Kings), since it follows from that that runners or satellites belonging to the body-guard were either posted, or had assembled with the others, in the court of the temple. To meet this statement, we must suppose that the centurions of the body-guard employed not merely the Levitic temple guard, but also some of the royal satellites, upon whose fidelity they could rely, to occupy the posts mentioned in vers. 5-7 (Kings) and vers. 4 and 5 (Chron.); so that the company under the command of the centurions who occupied the various posts in the temple consisted partly of Levitic temple guards, and partly of royal body-guards. But even on this view, the suspicion that the chronicler has mentioned the Levites instead of the bodyguard is shown to be groundless and unjust, since the D^yj also are mentioned in the Chronicle.
According to this exposition, the true relation between the account in the Chronicle and that in the book of Kin^s would seem to be something like this: Both accounts mention merely the main points of the proceedings, — the author of the book of Kings emphasizing the part played in the affair by the royal body-guard; the author of the Chronicle, on the other hand, emphasizing that played by the Levites: so that both accounts mutually supplement each other, and only when taken together give a full view of the circumstances. We have still to make the following remarks on the narrative of the Chronicle in detail. The statement (Kings, ver. 5) that all those relieved on the Sabbath were to keep guard of the house of Jahve, in reference to the king, in two divisions, is in Chronicles, ver. 5, thus generalized: u all the people were in the courts of the house of Jahve." Di?n~p3 is all the people except the before-mentioned bodies of men with their captains, and comprehends not only the remainder of the people mentioned in 2 Kings xi. 13 and 19, who came to the temple without any special invitation, but also the body of guards who were relieved from service on Sabbath. This is clear from ver. 8 of the Chronicle, where we have the supplementary remark, that those departing on the Sabbath also, as well as those coming, did what Jehoiada commanded. In addition to this, in ver. 6 this further command of Jehoiada is communicated: Let no one enter the house of Jahve (mrp J"P3 is the temple building, i.e. the holy place and the most holy, as distinguished from the courts), save the priests, and they that minister of the Levites, i.e. of those Levites who perform the service, who are consecrated thereto; but all the people shall keep the watch of the Lord, i.e. keep what is to be observed in reference to Jahve, i.e. here, to keep without the limits appointed in the law to the people in drawing near to the sanctuaries. The whole verse, therefore, contains only an elucidation of the command that all the people were to remain in the courts, and not to press farther into the sanctuary. — Ver. 7. " And the Levites shall compass the king round about, each with his weapons in his hand." The Levites are the bodies of guards mentioned in vers. 4, 5. If we keep that in view, then the following words, " every one who cometh into the house shall be put to death," Bay the same as the words, a every one who cometh within the ranks" (Kings, ver. 8). A contradiction arises only if we misinterpret ^ipn, and understand it of the forming of a circle around the king; whereas ^jan, like Bri^n (Kings), is to be understood, according to the context, of the setting of the guards both at the temple gate and in the courts, so that whoever entered the court of the temple came within the ranks of the guards thus placed. — Vers. 8-10. The account of the occupation of the temple thus arranged agrees with vers. 9-11, Kings. Instead of rriwsn *lfe> (Kings), in ver. 8 are very fittingly named " the Levites (as in ver. 5) and all Judah," viz. in its chiefs, since the high priest had assured himself of the support of the heads of the fathers'-houses of Israel (ver. 2). Further, to the statement that those who were departing from the service also took part in the affair, it is added, u for Jehoiada had not dismissed the courses." rrippnftn are the divisions which, according to the arrangement made by David (1 Chron. xxiv.-xxvi.), had charge of the temple service at that time. To the captains Jehoiada gave the spears and shields which had been presented to the temple by David as offerings, because they had come into the temple without weapons; see on 2 Kings xi. 10. ^V.% " and he caused the whole people to take position," is connected formally with JW, ver. 9; while in Kings, ver. 11, we have simply **H?25. — Ver. 11. The coronation of Joash, as in ver. 12 (Kings). The subject of }&0¥isl and *3W is those present, while in tfXto and 1^5 (Kings)> Jehoiada as leader of the whole is referred to. In the Chronicle, Jehoiada and his sons, i.e. the high priest with the priests assisting him, are expressly named as subject to *3v8J and *nn$ftp5j where in Kings also the plural is used; while, on the contrary, u the clapping of the hands" as a sign of joyful acclamation (Kings) is omitted, as being unimportant. — Vers. 12-15. Slaughter of Athaliah, as in 2 Kings xi. 13-16. In ver. 13 of the Chronicle, the statement that the assembled people played on instruments is expanded by the addition, " and singing with instruments of song, and proclaiming aloud to praise," i.e. and praising. N-f^l, ver. 14, is an orthographical error for wp (Kings).
Vers. 16-21. The renewal of the covenant, extirpation of Baalworship, and the solemn entry of the king into his palace, as in 2 Kings xi. 17-20, and already commented on in that place. The remark as to the renewal of the covenant is in ver. 16 (Chron.) somewhat more brief than in Kings, ver. 17; and fo*3j between himself, the same as between himself, the high priest, as representative of Jehovah. In Kings, ver. 17, the matter is more clearly expressed. In ver. 18 f., the statement, " the priest set overseers over the house of Jahve" (Kings), is expanded by the addition of the words, " by means of the Levitic priests whom David had distributed for the house of Jahve to offer sacrifices;... and he placed doorkeepers at the doors of the house of Jahve," etc. The meaning is: Jehoiada again introduced the old arrangement of the public worship in the temple as David had settled it, it having either fallen into decay or wholly ceased under the rule of the idolatrous Athaliah. As to the remainder, see on 2 Kings xi. 19 and 30.
Chap. xxiv. The reign of Joash; cf. 2 Kings xii. — In both accounts only two main events in Joash's reign of forty years are narrated at any length, — the repair of the temple, and the campaign of the Syrian king Hazael against Jerusalem. Besides this, at the beginning, we have a statement as to the duration and spirit of his reign; and in conclusion, the murder of Joash in consequence of a conspiracy is mentioned. Both accounts agree in all essential points, but are shown to be extracts containing the most important part of a more complete history of Joash, by the fact that, on the one hand, in 2 Kings xii. single circumstances are communicated in a more detailed and more exact form than that in which the Chronicle states them; while, on the other hand, the account of the Chronicle supplements the account in 2 Kings xii. in many respects. To these latter belong the account of the marriage of Joash, and his many children, the account of the death of Jehoiada at the age of 130 years, and his honourable burial with the kings, etc.; see on ver. 15.
Vers. 4—14. As to the repair of the temple, see the commentary on 2 Kings xii. 5-17, where both the formal divergences and the essential agreement of the two narratives are pointed out. — Yer. 11. '131 R*3J nyn Wjj translate: It came to pass at the time when they brought the chest to the guard of the king by the Levites, i.e. to the board of oversight appointed by the king from among the Levites. T\V stat. constr. before a sentence following. D^3 Div does not denote every day, but every time when there was much money in the chest. — Ver. 13. nariM pyni, and there was a band laid upon the work, i.e. the restoration of the house of God was furthered; cf. for this symbolical expression, Neh. iv. 1, Jer. viii. 7. — Ver. 14. Dv? VH?5W, therefrom (the king) caused to be made (prepared) vessels for the house of Jahve, (namely) vessels of the service, i.e., according to Num. iv. 12, in the holy place, and for the offering of burnt-offering, i.e. altar vessels, and (besides) bowls, and (other) vessels of gold and silver. The last clause of ver. 14 leads on to the following: " They (king and people) offered burnt-offering continually so long as Jehoiada lived."
Vers. 15-22. Jehoiada }s death: the fall of the people into idolatry: the protest of the prophet Zechariah against it, and the stoning of him. — This section is not found in 2 Kings xii., but is important for the understanding of the later history of Joash (ver. 23 ff.). With the death of the grey-haired high priest came a turning-point in the reign of Joash. Jehoiada had saved the life and throne of Joash, preserved to the kingdom the royal house of David, to which the promises belonged, and had put an end to the idolatry which had been transplanted into Judali by Joram's marriage into the royal house of Ahab, restoring the Jahve-worship. For this he was honoured at his death, his body being laid in the city of David among the kings: u For he had done good in Israel, and towards God and His house" (the temple). According to 2 Kings xii. 7, he still took an active part in the repair of the temple in the twenty-third year of Joash, and according to ver. 14 he lived for some time after the completion of that work. But after his death the people soon forgot the benefits they owed him. — Ver. 17 f. The princes of Judah besought the king to allow them to worship the Astartes and idols, and the king hearkened to them, did not venture to deny their request.?]?B? ^Q6?^j they bowed themselves before the king, i.e they besought him. What they thus beseechingly requested is not stated, but may be gathered from what they did, according to ver. 18. They forsook Jahve the God of their fathers, etc. There came wrath upon Judah because of this their trespass. *|¥£, a wrathful judgment of the Lord, cf. xxix. 8, viz. the invasion of the land by Hazael, ver. 23 ff. On the construction HNT DnDttfc, cf. Ew. § 293, c, S. 740. Against this defection prophets whom the Lord sent did indeed lift up their testimony, but they would not hearken to them. Of these prophets, one, Zechariah the son of the high priest Jehoiada, is mentioned by name in ver. 20 ff., wrho, seized by the Spirit of the Lord, announced to the people divine punishment for their defection, and was thereupon, at the king's command, stoned in the court of the temple. With T\wJ? mi cf. 1 Chron. xii. 18, and the commentary on Judg. vi. 34. UV? pV®, above the people, viz., as we learn from ver. 21, in the inner, higher-lying court, so that he was above the people who were in the outer court. " Why transgress ye the commandments of the Lord, and (why) w7ill ye not prosper? " Fidelity to the Lord is the condition of prosperity. If Israel forsake the Lord, the Lord will also forsake it; cf. xii. 5, xv. 2. — Ver. 21. And they (the princes and the people) conspired against him, and stoned him, at the command of the king, in the court of the temple. This n^OT is the Za^aplm whose slaughter is mentioned by Christ in Matt, xxiii. 36 and Luke xi. 51 as the last prophet-murder narrated in the Old Testament, whose blood would come upon the people, although Matthew calls him vlbs Bapa%lov. According to these passages, he was slain between the temple and the altar of burnt-offering, consequently in the most sacred part of the court of the priests. That the king, Joash, could give the command for this murder, shows how his compliance with the princes' demands (ver. 17) had made him the slave of sin. Probably the idolatrous princes accused the witness for God of being a seditious person and a rebel against the majesty of the crown, and thereby extorted from the weak king the command for his death. For it is not said that Joash himself worshipped the idols; and even in ver. 22 it is only the base ingratitude of which Joash had been guilty, in the slaughter of the son of his benefactor, which is adduced against him. But Zechariah at his death said, " May the Lord look upon it, and take vengeance " (^TJ, to seek or require a crime, i.e. punish it). This word became a prophecy, which soon began to be fulfilled, ver. 23 ff.
Vers. 23-26. The punishment comes upon them. Joash afflicted by the invasion of Judali by Hazael the Sylvian; and his death in consequence of a conspiracy against him. — These two events are narrated in 2 Kings xii. 18-22 also, the progress of Hazael's invasion being more exactly traced; see the commentary on 2 Kings xii. 18 f. The author of the Chronicle brings forward only those parts of it which show how God punished Joash for his defection from Him. — Ver. 23. " At the revolution of a year," i.e. scarcely a year after the murder of the prophet Zechariah, a Syrian army invaded Judali and advanced upon Jerusalem; "and they destroyed all the princes of the people from among the people," i.e. they smote the army of Joash in a battle, in which the princes (the chief and leaders) were destroyed, i.e. partly slain, partly wounded. This punishment came upon the princes as the originators of the defection from the Lord, ver. 17. "And they sent all their booty to the king (Hazael) to Damascus." In this booty the treasures which Joash gave to the Syrians (2 Kings xii. 19) to buy their withdrawal are also included. In order to show that this invasion of the Syrians was a divine judgment, it is remarked in ver. 24 that the Syrians, with a small army, gained a victory over the very large army of Judah, and executed judgment upon Joash. DSDD^ nbjf, as in Ex. xii. 12, Num. xxxiii. 4, frequently in Ezekiel, usually construed with 3, here with HK, analogous to the DN 2)0 n^v, e.g. 1 Sam. xxiv. 19. These words refer to the wounding of Joash, and its results, ver. 25 f. In the war Joash was badly wounded; the Syrians on their withdrawal had left him behind in many wounds (Cvno only met with here, synonymous with D'WpnJn, xxi. 19). Then his own servants, the court officials named in ver. 26, conspired against him, and smote him upon his bed. In 2 Kings xii. 21, the place where the king, lying sick upon his bed, was slain is stated. He met with his end thus, " because of the blood of the sons of Jehoiada the priest " which had been shed. The plural *p3 is perhaps only an orthographical error for |3, occasioned by the preceding *OT (Berth.); but more probably it is, like V03, xxviii. 3 and xxxiii. 6, a rhetorical plural, which says nothing as to the number, but only brings out that Joash had brought blood-guiltiness upon himself in respect of the children of his benefactor Jehoiada; see on xxviii. 3. Upon the murdered king, moreover, the honour of being buried in the graves of the kings was not bestowed; cf. xxi. 20. On the names of the two conspirators, ver. 26, see on 2 Kings xii. 21. In ver. 27 it is doubtful how ail is to be read. The Keri demands 3"JI} which Berth, understands thus: And as regards his sons, may the utterance concerning him increase; which might signify, "May the wish of the dying Zechariah, ver. 22, be fulfilled on them in a still greater degree than on their father." But that is hardly the meaning of the Keri. The older theologians took IH* relatively: et guam creverit s. multiplicatum fuerit. Without doubt, the Keth. 2'"rt or 2"Vj is the correct reading. K*^?, too, is variously interpreted. Vulg., Luther, and others take it to be synonymous with flN^£, vers. 6, 9, and understand it of the money derived from Moses' tax; but to that IvV is by no means suitable. Others (as Then.) think of the tribute laid upon him, 2 Kings xii. 19, but very arbitrarily. On the other hand, Clericus and others rightly understand it of prophetic threatenings against him, corresponding to the statement in ver. 19, that God sent prophets against him. As to the Midrash of the book of Kings, see the Introduction, p. 31 f.
Vers. 1-4. The statement as to the duration and spirit of the reign agrees with 2 Kings xiv. 1-6, except that in ver. 2 the estimation of the spirit of the reign according to the standard of David, "only not as his ancestor David, but altogether as his father Joash did," which we find in the book of Kings, is replaced by a only not with a perfect heart; " and the standing formula, ct only the high places were not removed," etc., is omitted.
The succeeding section, vers. 5-16, enlarges upon Amaziah's preparations for war with Edom, which had revolted under Joram of Judah, 2 Kings viii. 22; upon the victory over the Edomites in the Valley of Salt, and on the results of this war; — on all which we have in 2 Kings xiv. 7 only this short note: " he smote Edom in the valley of Salt 10,000 men, and took Selah in war, and called its name Joktheel unto this day." But the more exact statements of the Chronicle as to the preparations and the results of this war and victory are important for Amaziah's later war with King Joash of Israel, which is narrated in vea. 17 ff. of our chapter, because in them lie the causes of that war, so fatal to Amaziah; so that the history of Amaziah is essentially supplemented by those statements of the Chronicle which are not found in 2 Kings.
Vers. 5-13. The 'preparations for the war against JEdomy and the victory over the Edomites in the Valley of Salt. — Ver. 5. Amaziah assembled Judah, i.e. the men in his kingdom capable of bearing arms, and set them up (ordered them) according to the princes of thousands and hundreds, of all Judah and Benjamin, and passed them in review, i.e. caused a census to be taken of the men liable to military service from twenty years old and upward. They found 300,000 warriors " bearing spear and target" (cf. xiv. 7); a relatively small number, not merely in comparison with the numbers under Jehoshaphat, chap. xvii. 14 ff., which are manifestly too large, but also with the numberings made by other kings, e.g. Asa, chap. xiv. 7. By Joram's unfortunate wars, chap. xxi. 17, those of Ahaziah, and especially by the defeat which Joash sustained from the Syrians, xxiv. 43, the number of men in Judah fit for war may have been very much reduced. Amaziah accordingly sought to strengthen his army against the Edomites, according to ver. 6, by having an auxiliary corps of 100,000 men from Israel (of the ten tribes) for 100 talents of silver, i.e. he took them into his pay. But a prophet advised him not to take the Israelitish host with him, because Jahve was not with Israel, viz. on account of their defection from Jahve by the introduction of the calf-worship. To Israel there is added, (with) all the sons of Ephraim, to guard against any misunderstanding. — Ver. 8. Amaziah is to go alone, and show himself valiant in war, and the Lord will help him to conquer. This is without doubt the thought in ver. 8, which, however, does not seem to be contained in the traditional Masoretic text. '?&"! 1/^Bbj can hardly, after the preceding imperatives — do, be strong for battle — be otherwise translated than by, u and God will cause thee to stumble before the enemy." But this is quite unsuitable. Clericus, therefore, would take the words ironically: sin minus, tu vadito, etc.; i.e. if thou dost not follow my advice, and takest the Israelites with thee to the war, go, show thyself strong for the war, God will soon cause thee to stumble. But 2N *3 can never signify sin minus. Others, as Schmidt and Ramb., translate: Rather do thou go alone (without the Israelitish auxiliaries), and be valiant, alioquin enim, si illos tecum duxeris, corruere te faciei Deus; or, May God make thee fall before the enemy (De Wette). But the supplying of alioquin, which is only hidden by De Wette's translation, cannot be grammatically justified. This interpretation of the vTP! would be possible only if the negation iO DS \3 stood in the preceding clause and 1???b* was joined to it by 1. The traditional text is clearly erroneous, and we must, with Ewald and Berth., supply a *6 or N7j before *lr®?l ' Go thou (alone), do, be valiant for battle, and God will not let thee come to ruin.1 After this we have very fittingly the reason assigned: a for with God there is power to help, and to cause to fall."-— Ver. 9. Amaziah had regard to this exhortation of the prophet, and asked him only what he should do for the 100 talents of silver which he had paid the Israelite auxiliary corps; to which the prophet answered that Jahve could give him more than that sum. Amaziah thereupon dismissed the hired Ephraimite mercenaries. &.r'!!?!j he separated them (sc. from his army prepared for battle), viz. the band, that they might go to their place, i.e. might return home. The? before *Wl|n is nota accus., and Wan? is in apposition to the suffix in E?^:r\ But the auxiliaries thus dismissed returned home full of wrath against Judah, and afterwards fell upon the border cities of Judah, wasting and plundering (ver. 13). Their anger probably arose from the fact that by their dismissal the opportunity of making a rich booty in war was taken away. — Ver. 11 f. But Amaziah courageously led his people into the Valley of Salt, and smote the Edomites. PffiWj as in xv. 8, refers back to Ptn, ver. 8: he showed himself strong, according to the word of the prophet. As to the Valley of Salt, see on 2 Sam.
1 Even the old translators could make nothing of the present text, and expressed the first clause of the verse as they thought best. LXX., on exu vTTo'hcifiy; xciToLcjyjJoui \v tovto<;; Vulg., quod si putes in roborc excrcilus bclla consisterc; after which Luth., " denn so du komest das du eine kiinheit beweisest im streit, wird Gott dich fallen lassen fur deiucn Feinden."
viii. 13 and 1 Chron. xviii. 12. Besides the 10,000 slain in the battle, the men of Judah took 10,000 other Edomites prisoners, whom they cast from the top of a rock. This statement is wanting in 2 Kings xiv. 7, where, instead of it, the capture of the city Sela (Petra) is mentioned. The conjecture of Thenius, that this last statement of the Chronicle has been derived from a text of the Kings which had become illegible at this place, has already been rejected as untenable by Bertheau. Except the word vb&, the two texts have nothing in common with each other; but it does suggest itself that y?BH B^fi, the top of the rock (which has become famous by this event), is to be looked for in the neighbourhood of the city Selah, as the war was ended only by the capture of Selah. Besides the battle in the Valley of Salt there were still further battles; and in the numbers 10,000, manifestly the whole of the prisoners taken in the war are comprehended, who, as irreconcilable enemies of Judah, were not made slaves, but were slain by being thrown down from a perpendicular rock. — Ver. 13. The Ephraimite host dismissed by Amaziah fell plundering upon the cities of Judah, and smote of them (the inhabitants of these cities) 3000, and carried away great booty. They would seem to have made this devastating attack on their way home; but to this idea, which at first suggests itself, the more definite designation of the plundered cities, " from Samaria to Bethhoron," does not correspond, for these words can scarcely be otherwise understood than as denoting that Samaria was the starting-point of the foray, and not the limit up to which the plundered cities reached. For this reason Berth, thinks that this attack upon the northern cities of Judah was probably carried out only at a later period, when Amaziah and his army were in Edom. The latter is certainly the more probable supposition; but the course of events can hardly have been, that the Ephraimite auxiliary corps, after Amaziah had dismissed it, returned home to Samaria, and then later, when Amaziah had marched into the Valley of Salt, made this attack upon the cities of Judah, starting from Samaria. It is more probable that the dismissal of this auxiliary corps, which Amaziah had certainly obtained on hire from King Joash, happened after they had been gathered together in Samaria, and had advanced to the frontier of Judah. Then, roused to anger by their dismissal, they did not at once separate and return home; but, Amaziah having meanwhile taken the field against the Edomites with his army, made an attack upon the northern frontier cities of Judah as far as Bethhoron, plundering as they went, and only after this plundering did they return home. As to Bethhoron, now Beit-Ur, see on 1 Chron. vii. 24.
Vers. 14-16. Amaziatis idolatry. — Ver. 14. On his return from smiting the Edomites, i.e. from the wTar in which he had smitten the Edomites, Amaziah brought the gods (images) of the sons of Seir (the inhabitants of Mount Seir) with him, and set them up as gods, giving them religious adoration.1 In order to turn him away from this sin, which would certainly kindle Jahve's wrath, a prophet said to Amaziah, " Why dost thou seek the gods of the people, who have not delivered their people out of your hand?" The prophet keeps in view the motive which had induced the king to set up and worship the Edomite idols, viz. the belief of all polytheists, that in order to make a people subject, one must seek to win over their gods (cf. on this belief the remarks on Num. xxii. 17), and exposes the folly of this belief by pointing out the impotence of the Edomite idols, which Amaziah himself had learnt to know. — Ver. 16. The king, however, in his blindness puts aside this earnest warning with proud words: " Have we made thee a counsellor of the king? Forbear, why should they smite thee? " ^rtt is spoken collectively: We, the king, and the members of the council. And the prophet ceased, only answering the king thus: " I know that God hath determined to de'stroy thee, because thou hast done this (introduced Edomite idols), and hast not hearkened unto my counsel." The prophet calls his warning " counsel," referring to the king's word, that he was not appointed a counsellor to the king.
1 This statement, which is not found in 2 Kings xiv., may, in the opinion of Berth., perhaps not rest upon a definite tradition, but be merely the application of a principle which generally was found to act in the history of Israel to a particular case; i.e., it may be a clothing in historical garments of the principle that divine punishment came upon the idolatrous king, because it does not agree with the statement of 2 Kings xiv. 3. In that passage it is said of Amaziah: He did what was right in the eyes of Jahve, only not as David; altogether as his father Joash had done, did he. But Joash allowed his princes, after Jehoiada's death, to worship idols and Asheras, and had caused the prophet Zechariah, who reproved this idolatry, to be stoned. These are facts which, it is true, are narrated only in the Chronicle, but which are admitted by Bertheau himself to be historical. Now if Amaziah did altogether the same as his father Joash, who allowed idolatry, etc., it is hard indeed to see wherein the inconsistency of our account of Amaziah's idolatry with the character assigned to this king in 2 Kings xiv. 3 consists. Bertheau has omitted to give us any more definite information on this point.
Vers. 17-24. The war with Joash, king of Israel. — Instead of following the counsel of the prophet, Amaziah consulted (sc. with his public officials or courtier*), and challenged King Joash of Israel to war. The challenge, and the war which followed, are also narrated in 2 Kings xiv. 8-14 in agreement with our account, and have been already commented upon at that place, where we have also considered the occasion of this war, so fatal to Amaziah and the kingdom of Judah, an account of which has been handed down to us only in the supplementary narrative of the Chronicle. i? in ver. 17 for i"D?? come, as in Num. xxiii. 13 and Judg. xix. 13. — In ver. 20 the chronicler explains Amaziah's refusal to hear the warning of Joash before the war with him, by a reference to the divine determination: " For it (came) of God (that Amaziah still went to war), that He might deliver them (the men of Judah) into the hand, because they had sought the gods of Edom." T3 tOJj to give into the- power of the enemy. — In ver. 23, njian "Wis a manifest error for Hjan (Kings, ver. 13). Were ntfsn? the gate that turns itself, faces (in some direction), correct, the direction would have to be given towards which it turned, e.g. Ezek. viii. 3. — VA angrtj}, ver. 24, still depends upon b>an, ver. 23: and (took away) all the gold, etc. In Kings, ver. 14, n£7i is supplied.
Vers. 25-28. The end of Amazialis reign; cf. 2 Kings xiv. 17-20. — Although conquered and taken prisoner by Joash, Amaziah did not lose the throne. For Joash, contented with the carrying away of the treasures of the temple and of the palace, and the taking of hostages, set him again at liberty, so that he continued to reign, and outlived Joash by about fifteen years. — Ver. 26. On the book of the kings of Judah and Israel, see the Introduction, p. 30 f. — Ver. 27. On the conspiracy against Amaziah, his death, etc., see the commentary on 2 Kings xiv. 17 f..TTiiT "i\|J3, in the city of Judah, is surprising, since everywhere else "the city of David" is mentioned as the burial-place, and even in our passage all the ancient versions have " in the city of David." rrjjn^ would therefore seem to be an orthographical error for TTJj occasioned by the immediately following ITTirP.
Vers. 1-5. The statements as to Uzziah's attainment of dominion, the building of the seaport town Elath on the Red
Sea, the length and character of his reign (vers. 1-4), agree entirely with 2 Kings xiv. 21, 227 and xv. 2, 3; see the commentary on these passages. Uzziah (^J$) is called in 1 Chron. iii. 12 and in 2 Kings (generally) Azariah (n^")W); cf., on the use of the two names, the commentary on 2 Kings xiv. 21. — In ver. 5, instead of the standing formula, "only the high places were not removed," etc. (Kings), Uzziah' s attitude towards the Lord is more exactly defined thus: " He was seeking God in the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God; and in the days when he sought Jahve, God gave him success." In W C"H? the infinitive with? is subordinated to HVi? to express the duration of his seeking, for which the participle is elsewhere used. Nothing further is known of the Zechariah here mentioned: the commentators hold him to have been an important prophet; for had he been a priest, or the high priest, probably fnbn would have been used. The reading E^?^ rriN"in (Keth.) is surprising. 'n 'n?2ftri can only denote, who had insight into (or understanding for the) seeing of God; cf. Dan. i. 17. But Kimchi's idea, which other old commentators share, that this is a periphrasis to denote the prophetic endowment or activity of the man, is opposed by this, that a the seeing of God " which was granted to the elders of Israel at the making of the covenant, Ex. xxiv. 10, cannot be regarded as a thing within the sphere of human action or practice, while the prophetic beholding in vision is essentially different from the seeing of God, and is, moreover, never so called. m&CQ would therefore seem to be an orthographical error for fl^T/?, some mss. having mKT:i or DKT3 (cf. de Eossi, varice lecit.); and the LXX., Syr., Targ., Arab., Kaschi, Kimchi, and others giving the reading 'fl riNVZi r^ttn, who was a teacher (instructor) in the fear of God, in favour of which also Vitringa, proll. in Jes. p. 4, has decided.
Vers. 6-13. Wars, buildings, and army of Uzziah. — Of the successful undertakings by which Uzziah raised the kingdom of Judah to greater worldly power and prosperity, nothing is said in the book of Kings; but the fact itself is placed beyond all doubt, for it is confirmed by the portrayal of the might and greatness of Judah in the prophecies of Isaiah (chap, ii.-iv.), which date from the times of Uzziah and Jotham. — Ver. 6. After Uzziah had, in the very beginning of his reign, completed the subjection of the Edomites commenced by his father by the capture and fortification of the seaport Elath (ver. 2), he took the field to chastise the
Philistines and Arabians, who had under Joram made an inroad upon Judah and plundered Jerusalem (xxi. 16 f.). In the war against the Philistines he broke down the walls of Gath, Jabneh, and Ashdod (i.e. after capturing these cities), and built cities in Ashdod, i.e. in the domain of Ashdod, and D^^psa, i.e. in other domains of the Philistines, whence we gather that he had wholly subdued Philistia. The city of Gath had been already taken from the Philistines by David; see 1 Chron. xviii. 1; and as to situation, see on xi. 8. Jabneh, here named for the first time, but probably occurring in Josh. xv. 11 under the name Jabneel, is often mentioned under the name Jamnia in the books of the Maccabees and in Josephus. It is now a considerable village, Jebnah, four hours south of Joppa, and one and a half hours from the sea; see on Josh. xv. 11. Ashdod is now a village called Esdud; see on Josh. xiii. 3. — Ver. 7. As against the Philistines, so also against the Arabians, who dwelt in Gur-Baal, God helped him, and against the Maanites, so that he overcame them and made them tributary. Gur-Baal occurs only here, and its position is unknown. According to the Targum, the city Gerar is supposed to be intended; LXX. translate eVl tt}? JJerpa^j having probably had the capital city of the Edomites, Petra, in their thoughts. The D"WE are the inhabitants of Maan; see on 1 Chron. iv. 41. — Ver. 8. And the Ammonites also paid him tribute (nrnro)^ and his name spread abroad even to the neighbourhood of Egypt; i.e., in this connection, not merely that his fame spread abroad to that distance, but that the report of his victorious power reached so far, he having extended his rule to near the frontiers of Egypt, for he was exceedingly powerful. P^tnn, to show power, as in Dan. xi. 7. — Ver. 9. In order enduringly to establish the power of his kingdom, he still more strongly fortified Jerusalem by building towers at the gates, and the wall of the citadel. At the corner gate, i.e. at the north-west corner of the city (see on xxv. 23 and 2 Kings xiv. 13), and at the valley gate, i.e. on the west side, where the Jaffa gate now is. From these sides Jerusalem was most open to attack. yte|?ft?, at the corner, i.e., according to Neh. iii. 19 f., 24 f., on the east side of Zion, at the place where the wall of Zion crossed over at an angle to the Ophel, and joined itself to the south wall of the temple hill, so that the tower at this corner defended both Zion and the temple hill against attacks from the valley to the south-east. ^?^\), he made them (thereby) strong or firm; not, he put them in a condition of defence (Berth.), although the making strong was for that end. — Ver. 10. Moreover, Uzziah took measures for the defence of his herds, which formed one main part of his revenues and wealth. He built towers in the wilderness, in the steppe-lands on the west side of the Dead Sea, so well fitted for cattle-breeding (i.e. in the wilderness of Judah), to protect the herds against the attacks of the robber peoples of Edom and Arabia. And he dug many wells to water the cattle; u for he had much cattle" in the wilderness just mentioned, and " in the lowland " (Shephelah) on the Mediterranean Sea (see 1 Chron. xxvii. 28), and "in the plain" pi^B), i.e. the flat land on the east side of the Dead Sea, extending from Anion to near Heshbon in the north, and to the northeast as far as Rabbath Ammon (see on Deut. iii. 10), i.e. the tribal land of Reuben, which accordingly at that time belonged to Judah. Probably it had been taken from the Israelites by the Moabites and Ammonites, and reconquered from them by Uzziah, and incorporated with his kingdom; for, according to ver. 8, he had made the Ammonites tributary; cf. on 1 Chron. v. 17. Husbandmen and vine-dressers had he in the mountains and upon Carmel, for he loved husbandry. After 'til O^SK, v vn is to be supplied. *^}% tne land> which is cultivated, stands here for agriculture. As to Carmel, see on Josh. xix. 26. — Vers. 11-14. His army. He had a host of fighting men that went out to war by bands p**ti?, in bands), a in the number of their muster by Jeiel the scribe, and Maaseiah the steward (~1^), under Hananiah, one of the king's captains." The meaning is: that the mustering by which the host was arranged in bands or detachments for war service, was undertaken by p!?) two officials practised in writing and the making up of lists, who were given as assistants to Hananiah, one of the princes of the kingdom p!?y), or placed at his disposal. — Ver. 12. The total number of the heads of the fathers'-houses in valiant heroes (^1)33? with? of subordination) was 2600, and under these (D^?y, to their hand, i.e. subordinate to them) an army of 307,500 warriors with mighty power, to help the king against the enemy. The army was consequently divided according to the fathers'-houses, so that probably each father's-house formed a detachment (TVE) led by the most valiant among them. — Ver. 14. Uzziah supplied this force with the necessary weapons, — shield, lance, helmet, and coat of mail, bows and sling-stones. D»T| is more closely defined by?yp. — Ver. 15. Besides this, he provided Jerusalem with machines for defence on the towers and battlements, fifahtfn from |ta#n, literally excogitata, i.e. machince, with the addition "invention of the artificers," are ingenious machines, and as we learn from the following 'tfl N^V, slinging machines, similar or corresponding to the catapidtce and hallistce of the Romans, by which arrows were shot and great stones propelled. Thus his name spread far abroad (cf. ver. 8), for he was marvellously helped till lie was strong.
Vers. 16-22. Uzzialis pride, and chastisement by leprosy. His death and burial. — The fact that the Lord smote Uzziah with leprosy, which continued until his death, so that he was compelled to dwell in a hospital, and to allow his son Jotham to conduct the government, is narrated also in 2 Kings xv. 5; but the cause of this punishment inflicted on him by God is stated only in our verses. — Ver. 16. " When Uzziah had become mighty (inpTns as in xii. 1), his heart was lifted up (in pride) unto destructive deeds." He transgressed against Jahve his God, and came into the sanctuary of Jahve to offer incense upon the altar of incense. With a lofty feeling of his power, Uzziah wished to make himself high priest of his kingdom, like the kings of Egypt and of other nations, whose kings were also summi pontifices, and to unite all power in his person, like Moses, who consecrated Aaron and his sons to be priests. Then, and Ewald, indeed, think that the powerful Uzziah wished merely to restore the high-priesthood exercised by David and Solomon; but though both these kings did indeed arrange and conduct religious festal solemnities, yet they never interfered in any way with the official duties reserved for the priests by the law. The arrangement of a religious solemnity, the dedicatory prayer at the dedication of the temple, and the offering of sacrifices, are not specifically priestly functions, as the service by the altars, and the entering into the holy place of the temple, and other sacrificial acts were. — Ver. 17 ff. The king's purpose was consequently opposed by the high priest Azariah and eighty priests, valiant men, who had the courage to represent to him that to burn incense to the Lord did not appertain to the king, but only to the sanctified Aaronite priests; but the king, with the censer in his hand, was angry, and the leprosy suddenly broke out upon his forehead. When the priests saw the leprosy, they removed the king immediately from the holy place; and Uzziah himself also hurried to go forth, because Jahve had smitten him; for he recognised in the sudden breaking out of the leprosy a punishment from God. Azariah is called ^N">n }r\by i.e. a high priest, and is in all probability the same person as the high priest mentioned in 1 Chron. v. 36 (see on the passage). 1)22? sjp N?? " It (the offering of incense) is not for thine honour before Jahve." ^J, to foam up in anger. iSJJD^ and while he foamed against the priests, i.e. was hot against them, the leprosy had broken out. n^fcb'byfy from by = near, the altar. Thus was Uzziah visited with the same punishment, for his haughty disregard of the divinely appointed privileges of the priesthood, as was once inflicted upon Miriam for her rebellion against the prerogatives assigned to Moses by God (Num. xii. 10). — Ver. 21. But Uzziah had to bear his punishment until his death, and dwelt the rest of his life in a separate house, while his son conducted the government for him. This is also recorded in 2 Kings xv. 5 (cf. for IWDnn 1V3 the commentary on that passage). The reason of the separation of the king from intercourse with others, by his dwelling in the hospital, is given in the Chronicle in the words: iC for he was cut off (shut out) from the house of Jahve." This reason can only mean, that because he, as a leper, was shut out from the house of the Lord, he could not live in fellowship with the people of God, but must dwell in a separate house. For the rest, we cannot exactly say how long Uzziah continued to live under the leprosy; but from the fact that his son Jotham, who at Uzziah's death was twenty-five years old, conducted the government for him, so much is clear, viz. that it can only have lasted a year or two. — Ver. 22. The history of his reign was written by the prophet Isaiah (see the Introduction, p. 34). — Ver. 23. At his death, Uzziah, having died in leprosy, was not buried in the graves of the kings, but only in the neighbourhood of them, in the burial-field which belonged to the kings, that his body might not defile the royal graves.
Vers. 1-4. Jotham having ascended the throne at the age of twenty-five, reigned altogether in the spirit and power of his father, with the single limitation that he did not go into the sanctuary of Jahve (cf. xxvi. 16 ff.). This remark is not found in 2 Kings xv., because there Uzziah's intrusion into the temple is also omitted. The people still did corruptly (cf. xxvi. 16). This refers, indeed, to the continuation of the worship in the high places, but hints also at the deep moral corruption which the prophets of that time censure (cf. especially Isa. ii. 5 f., v. 7 ff.; Mic. i. 5, ii. 1 ff.). — Ver. 3 f. He built the upper gate of the house of Jahve, i.e. the northern gate of the inner or upper court (see on 2 Kings xv. 35); the only work of his reign which is mentioned in the book of Kings. But besides this, he continued the fortifying of Jerusalem, which his father had commenced; building much at the wall of the Ophel. te'yn was the name of the southern slope of the temple mountain (see on xxxiii. 14); the wall of Ophel is consequently the wall connecting Zion with the temple mountain, at which Uzziah had already built (see on xxvi. 9). He likewise carried on his father's buildings for the protection of the herds (xxvi. 10), building cities in the mountains of Judah, and castles (rriW3, xvii. 12) and towers in the forests of the mountains of Judah (B^n from tihp, a thicket).
Vers. 5-9. He made war upon the king of the Ammonites, and overcame them. The Ammonites had before paid tribute to Uzziah. After his death they would seem to have refused to pay this tribute; and Jotham made them again tributary by force of arms. They were compelled to pay him after their defeat, in that same year, 100 talents of silver, 10,000 cor of wheat, and a similar quantity of barley, as tribute. S? ^$n tint: this they brought to him again, Le. they paid him the same amount as tribute in the second and third years of their subjection also. After three years, consequently, they would seem to have again become independent, or refused the tribute, probably in the last years of Jotham, in which, according to 2 Kings xv. 37, the Syrian king E-ezin and Pekah of Israel began to make attacks upon Judah. — Ver. 6. By all these undertakings Jotham strengthened himself, sc. in the kingdom, i.e. he attained to greater power, because he made his ways firm before Jahve, i.e. walked stedfastly before Jahve; did not incur guilt by falling away into idolatry, or by faithless infringement of the rights of the Lord (as Uzziah did by his interference with the rights of the priesthood). From the VTlbnpD"73 in the concluding remark (ver. 7) we learn that he had waged still other successful wars. The older commentators reckon among these wars, the war against Rezin and Pekah, which kings the Lord began in his days to send against Judah (see 2 Kings xv. 37), but hardly with justice. The position of this note, which is altogether omitted in the Chronicle, at the end of the account of Jotham in 2 Kings xv. 37, appears to hint that this war broke out only towards the end of Jotham's reign, so that he could not undertake anything important against this foe. — Ver. 8. The repetition of the chronological statement already given in ver. 1 is probably to be explained by supposing that two authorities, each of which contained this remark, were used.
In the general statements as to the kind's age, and the duration and the spirit of his reign, both accounts (Chron. vers. 1-4; Kings, vers. 1-4) agree entirely, with the exception of some unessential divergences; see the commentary on 2 Kings xvi. 1-4. From ver. 5 onwards both historians go their own ways, so that they coincide only in mentioning the most important events of the reign of this quite untheocratic king. The author of the book of Kings, in accordance with his plan, records only very briefly the advance of the allied kings Rezin and Pekah against Jerusalem, the capture of the seaport Elath by the Syrians, the recourse which the hard-pressed Ahaz had to the help of Tiglathpileser the king of Assyria, whom he induced, by sending him the temple and palace treasures of gold and silver, to advance upon Damascus, to capture that city, to destroy the Syrian kingdom, to lead the inhabitants away captive to Kir, and to slay King Rezin (vers. 5-9). Then he records how Ahaz, on a visit which he paid the Assyrian king in Damascus, saw an altar which so delighted him, that he sent a pattern of it to the priest Urijah, with the command to build a similar altar for the temple of the Lord, on which Ahaz on his return not only sacrificed himself, but also commanded that all the sacrifices of the congregation should be offered. And finally, he recounts how he laid violent hands on the brazen vessels of the court, and caused the outer covered sabbath way to be removed into the temple because of the king of Assyria (vers. 10-18); and then the history of Ahaz is concluded by the standing formulae (vers. 19, 20). The author of the Chronicle, on the contrary, depicts in holy indignation against the crimes of the godless Ahaz, how God punished him for his sins. 1. He tells us how God gave Ahaz into the hand of the king of Syria, who smote him and led away many prisoners to Damascus, and into the hand of King Pekah of Israel, who inflicted on him a dreadful defeat, slew 120,000 men, together with a royal prince and two of the highest officials of the court, and carried away 200,000 prisoners — women and children — with a great booty (vers. 5-8); and how the Israelites yet, at the exhortation of the prophet Oded, and of some of the heads of the people who supported the prophet, again freed the prisoners, provided them with food and clothing, and conducted them back to Jericho (vers. 9-15). 2. He records that Ahaz turned to the king of Assyria for help (ver. 16), but that God still further humbled Israel by an invasion of the land by the Edomites, who carried prisoners away (ver. 17); by an attack of the Philistines, who deprived Judah of a great number of cities (ver. 18); and finally also by the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser, who, although Ahaz had sent him the gold and silver of the temple and of the palaces of the kings and princes, yet did not help him, but rather oppressed him (ver. 20 f.). 3. Then he recounts how, notwithstanding all this, Ahaz sinned still more against Jahve by sacrificing to the idols of the Syrians, cutting up the vessels of the house of God, closing the doors of the temple, and erecting altars and high places in all corners of Jerusalem, and in all the cities of Judah, for the purpose of sacrificing to idols (vers. 22-25). This whole description is planned and wrought out rhetorically; cf. C. P. Caspari, der syrisch-ephraimitische Krieg, S. 42 ff. Out of the historical materials, those facts which show how Ahaz, notwithstanding the heavy blows which Jahve inflicted upon him, always sinned more deeply against the Lord his God, are chosen, and oratorically so presented as not only to bring before us the increasing obduracy of Ahaz, but also, by the representation of the conduct of the citizens and warriors of the kingdom of Israel towards the people of Judah who were prisoners, the deep fall of that kingdom.
Vers. 5-8. The war with the Kings Rezin of Syria and Pekah of Israel. — On the events of this war, so far as they can be ascertained by uniting the statements of our chapter with the summary account in 2 Kings xvi., see the commentary on 2 Kinrrs xvi. 5 ff. The author of the Chronicle brings the two main battles prominently forward as illustrations of the way in which Jahve gave Ahaz into the power of his enemies because of his defection from Him. Into the power of the king of Aram. They {p^ and they, the Arameans) smote U, in him, i.e. they inflicted on his army a great defeat. Just so also 8&D signifies of his army. iwU njl!?, a great imprisonment, i.e. a great number of prisoners. And into the power of the king of Israel, Pekah, who inflicted on him a still greater defeat. He slew in (among) Judali 120,000 men " in one day," i.e. in a great decisive battle. Judah suffered these defeats because they (the men of Judah) had forsaken Jahve the God of their fathers. Judah' s defection from the Lord is not, indeed, expressly mentioned in the first verses of the chapter, but may be inferred as a matter of course from the remark as to the people under Jotham, xxvii. 2. If under that king, who did that which was right in the eyes of Jahve, and stedfastly walked before the Lord (xxvii. 6), they did corruptly, they must naturally have departed much further from the God of the fathers, and been sunk much deeper in the worship of idols, and the worship on high places, under Ahaz, who served the Baals and other idols. — Ver. 7. In this battle, Zichri, an Ephraimite hero, slew three men who were closely connected with the king: Maaseiah, the king's son, i.e. not a son of Ahaz, for in the first years of his reign, in which this war arose, he cannot have had an adult son capable of bearing arms, but a royal prince, a cousin or uncle of Ahaz, as in xviii. 25, xxii. 11, etc. (cf. Caspari, loc. cit. S. 45 if.); Azrikam, a prince of the house, probably not of the house of God (xxxi. 13; 1 Chron. ix. 11), but a high official in the royal palace; and Elkanah, the second from the king, i.e. his first minister; cf. Esth. x. 3, 1 Sam. xxiii. 17. — Ver. 8. The Israelites, moreover, carried away 200,000 — women, sons, and daughters — from their brethren, and a great quantity of spoil, and brought the booty (prisoners and goods; cf. for 7?& of men, Judg. v. 30) to Samaria. B^nK, the brethren of the Israelites, is the name given, with emphasis, to the inhabitants of Judah, here and in ver. 11, in order to point out the cruelty of the Israelites in not scrupling to carry away captive the defenceless women and children of their brethren.
The modern critics have taken offence at the large numbers, 120,000 slain and 200,000 women and children taken prisoners, and have declared them to be exasperations of the wonder-loving chronicler (Gesen. on Isa., De Wette, Winer, etc.). But in this they are mistaken; for if we consider the war more closely, we learn from Isa. vii. 6 that the allied kings purposed to annihilate the kingdom of Judah. And, moreover, the Ephraimites acted always with extreme cruelty in war (cf. 2 Kings xv. 16);
but more especially cherished the fiercest hatred against the men of Judah, because these regarded them as having fallen away from the service of the true God (2 Chron. xxv. G-10, xiii. 4 ff.). But in a war for the existence of the kingdom, Ahaz must certainly have called out the whole male population capable of bearing arms, which is estimated in the time of Amaziah at 300,000 men, and in that of Uzziah at 307,500 (xxv. 5, xxvi. 13), — numbers which appear thoroughly credible, considering the size and populousness of Judah. If we suppose the army of Ahaz to have been as large, in a decisive battle fought with all possible energy nearly 120,000 men may have fallen, especially if the Ephraimites, in their exasperation, unsparingly butchered their enemies, as the narrative would seem to hint both by the word y^j in ver. 6, which signifies to murder, massacre, butcher, and by the saying of the prophet, ver. 9, " Ye massacred among them with a rage which reached to heaven." By the character of the war, which resembled a civil or even a religious war, and by the cruelty of the Israelites, the great number of those carried captive is accounted for; for after the great defeat of the men of Judah the whole land fell into the hands of the enemy, so that they could sate their hatred and anger to their heart's content by carrying off the defenceless women and children to make them slaves. And finally, we must also consider that the numbers of the slain and of the prisoners are not founded upon exact enumeration, but upon a mere general estimate. The immense loss which was sustained in the battle was estimated on the side of Judah at 120,000 men; and the number of captive women and children was so immense, that they were, or might be, estimated at 200,000 souls, it being impossible to give an exact statement of their number. These numbers were consequently recorded in the annals of the kingdom, whence the author of the Chronicle has taken them; cf. Caspari, S. 37 ff.
Vers. 9-15. Tlie liberation of the prisoners. — In Samaria there was a prophet of the Lord (i.e. not of the Jahve there worshipped in the calf images, but of the true God, like Hosea, who also at that time laboured in the kingdom of the ten tribes), Oded by name. He went forth to meet the army returning with the prisoners and the booty, as Azariah-ben-Oded (xv. 2) once went to meet Asa; pointed out to the warriors the cruelty of their treatment of their brethren, and the guilt, calling to Heaven for vengeance, which they thereby incurred; and exhorted them to turn away the anger of God which was upon them, by sending back the prisoners. To soften the hearts of the rude wTarriors, and to gain them for his purpose, he tells them (ver. 9), " Because the Lord God of your fathers was wroth, He gave them (the men of Judah) into your hand: " your victory over them is consequently not the fruit of your power and valour, but the work of the God of your fathers, wThose wrrath Judah has drawn upon itself by its defection from Him. This you should have considered, and so have had pity upon those smitten by the wrath of God; " but ye have slaughtered among them with a rage which reacheth up to heaven," i.e. not merely with a rage beyond all measure, but a rage which calls to God for vengeance; cf. Ezra ix. 6. — Ver. 10. a And now the sons of Judah and Jerusalem ye purpose to subject to yourselves for bondmen and bondwomen! " ITOT \:n is accus., and precedes as being emphatic; i.e., your brethren, whom the wrath of God has smitten, you purpose to keep in subjection. CriX also is emphatically placed, and then is again emphasized at the end of the sentence by the suffix in D3J: " Are there not, only concerning you, with you, sins with Jahve your God? " i.e., Have you, to regard only you, not also burdened yourselves with many sins against the Lord? The question *6n is a lively way of expressing assurance as to a matter which is not at all doubtful. — Ver. 11. After thus quickening the conscience, he calls upon them to send back the prisoners which they had carried away from among their brethren, because the anger of Jahve was upon them. Already in their pitiless butchery of their brethren they had committed a sin which cried to heaven, which challenged God's anger and His punishments; but by the carrying away of the women and children from their brethren they had filled up the measure of their sin, so that God's anger and rage must fall upon them. — Ver. 12. This speech made a deep impression. Four of the heads of the Ephrahmtes, here mentioned by name, — according to ver. 12, four princes at the head of the assembled people, — came before those coming from the army (by frip, to come forward before one, to meet one), and said, ver. 13, u Bring not the captives hither; for in order that a sin of Jahve come upon us, do you purpose (do you intend) to add to our sins and to our guilt? " i.e. to increase our sins and our guilt by making these prisoners slaves; " for great is our guilt, and fierce wrath upon Israel." — Ver. 14. Then the armed men (P'C1?, cf. 1 Chron. xii. 23) who had escorted the prisoners to Samaria left the prisoners and the booty before the princes and the whole assembly. — Ver. 15. "And the men which were specified by name stood up." T\bQ&2 top} 1KW does not signify those before mentioned (ver. 12), but the men specified by name, distinguished or famous men (see on 1 Chron. xii. 31), among whom, without doubt, those mentioned in ver. 12 are included, but not these alone; other prominent men are also meant. These received the prisoners and the booty, clothed all the naked, providing them with clothes and shoes (sandals) from the booty, gave them to eat and to drink, anointed them, and set all the feeble upon asses, and brought them to Jericho to their brethren (countrymen). The description is picturesque, portraying with satisfaction the loving pity for the miserable. DWJJft, nakedness, abstr. pro concr,9 the naked. bw\2r?y? is accus., and a nearer definition of the suffix in wW: they brought them, (not all, but only) all the stumbling, who could not, owing to their fatigue, make the journey on foot. Jericho, the city of palm trees, as in Judg. iii. 13, in the tribe of Benjamin, belonged to the kingdom of Judah; see Josh, xviii. 21. Arrived there, the prisoners were with their brethren.
The speech of the prophet Oded is reckoned by Gesenius, on Isaiah, S. 269, among the speeches invented by the chronicler; but very erroneously so: cf. against him, Caspari, loc cit. i. S. 49 ff. The speech cannot be separated from the fact of the liberation of the prisoners carried away from Judah, which it brought about; and that is shown to be a historical fact by the names of the tribal princes of Ephraim, who, in consequence of the warning of the prophet, took his part and accomplished the sending of them back; they being names which are not elsewhere met with (ver. 12). The spontaneous interference of these tribal chiefs would not be in itself impossible, but yet it is very improbable, and becomes perfectly comprehensible only by the statement that these men were roused and encouraged thereto by the word of a prophet. We must consequently regard the speech of the prophet as a fact which is as well established as that narrated in vers. 12-15. " If that which is narrated in ver. 12 ff. be not invented, it would betray the greatest levity to hold that which is recorded in vers. 9-11 to be incredible" (Casp.). And, moreover, the speech of the prophet does not contain the thoughts and phrases current with the author of the Chronicle, but is quite suitable to the circumstances, and so fully corresponds to what we should expect to hear from a prophet on such an occasion, that there is not the slightest reason to doubt the authenticity of its contents. Finally, the whole transaction is exactly parallel to the interference of the prophet Shemaiah in 1 Kings xii. 22-24 (2 Chron. xi. 1-4), who exhorted the army of Judah, fully determined upon war with the ten tribes which had just revolted from the house of David, not to make war upon their brethren the Israelites, as the revolt had been brought about by God. u That fact at the beginning of the history of the two separated kingdoms, and this at the end of it, finely correspond to each other. In the one place it is a Judsean prophet who exhorts the men of Judah, in the other an Ephraimite prophet who exhorts the Ephraimites, to show a conciliatory spirit to the related people; and in both cases they are successful. If we do not doubt the truth of the event narrated in 1 Kings xii. 22-24, why should that recorded in 2 Chron. xxviii. 9-11 be invented?" (Casp. S. 50.)
Vers. 16-21. The further chastisements inflicted upon King Ahaz and the kingdom of Judah. — Ver. 16. At this time, when the kings Rezin and Pekah had so smitten Ahaz, the latter sent to the king of Assyria praying him for help. The time when Ahaz sought the help of the king of Assyria is neither exactly stated in 2 Kings xvi. 7-9, nor can we conclude, as Bertheau thinks we can, from Isa. vii. f. that it happened soon after the invasion of Judah by the allied kings. The plural "Wfot sAo is rhetorical, like the plur. VJ3? ver. 3. For, that Ahaz applied only to one king, in the opinion of the chronicler also, we learn from vers. 20, 21. By the plural the thought is expressed that Ahaz, instead of seeking the help of Jahve his God, which the prophet had promised him (Isa. vii. 4 ff.), turned to the kings of the world-power, so hostile to the kingdom of God, from whom he naturally could obtain no real help. Even here the thought which is expressed only in vers. 20, 21, is present to the mind of the author of the Chronicle. For before he narrates the issue of the help thus sought from the Assyrian world-power in vers. 17-19, he ranges all the other afflictions which Judah suffered by its enemies, viz. the devastating inroads of the Edomites and Philistines, in a series of circumstantial clauses, as they preceded in time the oppression of Tiglath-pileser. — Ver. 17 is to be translated, " And besides, the Edomites had come, and had inflicted a defeat upon Judah, and carried away captives." "riy, yet besides, prceterea} as in Gen. xliii. 6, Isa. i. 5. The Edomites had been made subject to the kingdom of Judah only by Amaziah and Uzziah (xxv. 11 ff., xxvi. 2); but freed by Rezin from this (cf. 2 Kings xvi. 6), they immediately seized the opportunity to make an inroad upon Judah, and take vengeance on the inhabitants. — Ver. 18. And the Philistines whom Uzziah had subdued (xxvi. 6) made use of the pressure of the Syrians and Ephraimites upon Judah, not only to shake off the yoke imposed upon them, but also to fall plundering upon the cities of the lowland and the south of Judah, and to extend their territory by the capture of several cities of Judah. They took Beth-shemesh, the present Ain Shems; and Ajalon, the present village Jalo (see on 1 Chron. vi. 44 and 54); Gederoth in the lowland (Josh. xv. 41), not yet discovered, for there are not sufficient grounds for identifying it with Gedera (Josh. xv. 36), which v. de Velde has pointed out south-eastward from Jabneh (see on 1 Chron. xii. 4); Shocho, the present Shuweike, which Rehoboam had fortified (xi. 7); Timnah, on the frontier of the tribal domain of Judah, the present Tibneh, three-quarters of an hour to the west of Ain Shems (see on Josh, xv. 10); and Gimzo, now Jimsu, a large village about two miles south-east of Lydda (Lud) on the way to Jerusalem (Rob. sub voce). The three last-named cities, with their daughters, i.e. the small villages dependent upon them. — Ver. 19. Judah suffered this defeat, because God humbled them on account of Ahaz. Ahaz is called king of Israel, not because he walked in the ways of the kings of the kingdom of the ten tribes (ver. 2), but ironically, because his government was the bitterest satire upon the name of the king of Israel, i.e. of the people of God (Casp.); so that Israel here, and in ver. 27, as in xxi. 2, xii. 6, is used with reference to the pregnant signification of the word. JTisn *3? for (Ahaz) had acted wantonly in Judah; not: made Judah wanton, for SHr? is construed with 2, not with accus. obj., as in Ex. v. 4.
After this episode the narrator comes back upon the help which Ahaz sought of the Assyrians. The Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser (on the name, see on 1 Chron. v. 6) did indeed come, but Ivy, against him (Ahaz), and oppressed him, but strengthened him not. iptn xb) V W1 Thenius and Bertheau translate: he oppressed him, that is, besieged him, yet did not overcome him; adducing in support of this, that P]n c. accus. cannot be shown to occur in the signification to strengthen one, and according to Jer. xx. 7, 1 Kings xvi. 22, is to be translated, to overcome. But this translation does not at all suit the reason given in the following clause: "for Ahaz had plundered the house of Jahve,... and given it to the king of Asshur; but it did not result in help to him." The sending away of the temple and palace treasures to the Assyrian king, to obtain his help, cannot possibly be stated as the reason why Tiglath-pileser besieged Ahaz, but did not overcome him, but only as a reason why he did not give Ahaz the expected help, and so did not strengthen him. \ptT\ ti?) corresponds to the i? *^\W? *?[, ver. 21, and both clauses refer back to v ity?, ver. 16. That which Ahaz wished to buy from Tiglath-pileser, by sending him the treasures of the palace and the temple, — namely, help against his enemies, — he did not thereby obtain, but the opposite, viz. that Tiglath-pileser came against him and oppressed him. When, on the contrary, Thenius takes the matter thus, that the subjection of Ahaz under Tiglath-pileser was indeed prevented by the treasures given, but the support desired was not purchased by them, he has ungrammatically taken ptn as imperfect, and violently torn away the v snOw k?) from what precedes. If we connect these words, as the adversative tiv\ requires, with 'W frw, then the expression, " Ahaz gave the Assyrian king the treasures of the temple,... but it did not result in help to him,J, gives no support to the idea that Tiglath-pileser besieged Ahaz, but could not overcome him. The context therefore necessarily demands that p\n should have the active signification, to strengthen, notwithstanding that P]H in Kal is mainly used as intransitive. Moreover, w T5M also does not denote he besieged, as Y9K "l¥J1 or Ivy, 2 S.am. xx. 15, 1 Sam. xxiii. 8; but only, he oppressed him, and cannot here be translated otherwise than the i? Wl, ver. 22, which corresponds to it, where Bertheau also has decided in favour of the signification oppress. It is not stated wherein the oppression consisted; but without doubt it was that Tiglath-pileser, after he had both slain Kezin and conquered his kingdom, and also taken away many cities in Galilee and the land of Naphtali from Pekah, carrying away the inhabitants to Assyria (2 Kings xvi. 9 and xv. 29), advanced against Ahaz himself, to make him a tributary. The verbs P?n and (53 (ver. 21) are pluperfects: "for Ahaz had plundered," etc. Not when Tiglath-pileser oppressed him, but when he besought help of that king, Ahaz had sent him the treasures of the temple and the palace as "inb>, 2 Kings xvi. 7, 8. P?n denotes to plunder, like p?n, a share of booty, Num. xxxi. 36, and booty, Job xvii. 5. The selection of this word for the taking away of the treasures of silver and gold out of the temple and palace arises from the impassioned nature of the language. The taking away of these treasures was, in fact, a plundering of the temple and of the palace. Had Ahaz trusted in the Lord his God, he would not have required to lay violent hands on these treasures. B^&ffi is added to:fen JV3, to signify that Ahaz laid hands upon the precious things belonging to the high officials who dwelt in the palace, and delivered them over to the Assyrian king (Berth.).
Although the author of the Chronicle makes the further remark, that the giving of these treasures over did not result in help to Ahaz, yet it cannot be at all doubtful that he had the fact recorded in 2 Kings xvi. 7-9 before his eyes, and says nothing inconsistent with that account. According to 2 Kin^s xvi. 9, Tiglath-pileser, in consequence of the present sent him, took the field, conquered and destroyed the kingdom of Eezin, and also took possession of the northern part of the kingdom of Israel, as is narrated in 2 Kings xv. 29. The author of the Chronicle has not mentioned these events, because Ahaz was not thereby really helped. Although the kings Rezin and Pekah were compelled to abandon their plan of capturing Jerusalem and subduing the kingdom of Judah, by the inroad of the Assyrians into their land, yet this help was to be regarded as nothing, seeing that Tiglath-pileser not only retained the conquered territories and cities for himself, but also undertook the whole campaign, not to strengthen Ahaz, but for the extension of his own (the Assyrian) power, and so made use of it, and, as we are told in ver. 20 of the Chronicle, oppressed Ahaz. This oppression is, it is true, not expressly mentioned in 2 Kings xvi., but is hinted in 2 Kings xvi. 18, and placed beyond doubt by 2 Kings xviii. 7, 14, 20; cf. Isa. xxxvi. 5. In 2 Kings xvi. 18 it is recorded that Ahaz removed the covered sabbath portico which had been built to the house of God, and the external entrance of the king into the house of the Lord, because of (*JB?) the king of Assyria. Manifestly Ahaz feared, as J. D. Mich, has already rightly concluded from this, that the king of Assyria, whom he had summoned to his assistance, might at some time desire to take possession of the city, and that in such a case this covered sabbath porch and an external entrance into the temple might be of use to him in the siege. This note, therefore, notwithstanding its obscurity, yet gives sufficiently clear testimony in favour of the statement in the Chronicle, that the king of Assyria, who had been called upon by Ahaz for help, oppressed him, upon which doubt has been cast by Gesen. Isa. i. S. 269, etc. Tiglath-pileser must have in some way shown a desire to possess Jerusalem, and Ahaz have consequently feared that he might wish to take it by force. But from 2 Kings xviii. 7, 14, 20, cf. Isa. xxxvi. 5, it is quite certain Ahaz had become tributary to the Assyrian king, and the kingdom dependent upon the Assyrians. It is true, indeed, that in these passages, strictly interpreted, this subjection of Judah is only said to exist immediately before the invasion of Sennacherib; but since Assyria made no war upon Judah between the campaign of Tiglath-pileser against Damascus and Samaria and Sennacherib's attack, the subjection of Judah to Assyria, which Hezekiah brought to an end, can only have dated from the time of Ahaz, and can only have commenced when Ahaz had called in Tiglath-pileser to aid him against his enemies. Certainly the exact means by which Tiglath-pileser compelled Ahaz to submit and to pay tribute cannot be recognised under, and ascertained from, the rhetorical mode of expression: Tiglathpileser came against him, and oppressed him. Neither Ivy iO«l nor v W1 require us to suppose that Tiglath-pileser advanced against Jerusalem with an army, although it is not impossible that Tiglath-pileser, after having conquered the Israelite cities in Galilee and the land of Naphtali, and carried away their inhabitants to Assyria (2 Kings xv. 29), may have made a further advance, and demanded of Ahaz tribute and submission, ordering a detachment of his troops to march into Judah to enforce his demand. But the words quoted do not necessarily mean more than that Tiglath made the demand on Ahaz for tribute from Galilee, with the threat that, if he should refuse it, he would march into and conquer Judah; and that Ahaz, feeling himself unable to cope successfully with so powerful a king, promised to pay the tribute without going to war. Even in this last case the author of the Chronicle might say that the king who had been summoned by Ahaz to his assistance came against him and oppressed him, and helped him not. Cf. also the elaborate defence of the account in the Chronicle, in Caspari, S. 56 ff.