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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comAdam Clarke Commentary - 2 King 14:7 - 14:7
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He slew of Edom to the valley of salt - This war is more circumstantially related in 2Ch 25:5, etc. The Idumeans had arisen in the reign of Joram king of Judah, and shaken off the yoke of the house of David. Amaziah determined to reduce them to obedience; he therefore levied an army of three hundred thousand men in his own kingdom, and hired a hundred thousand Israelites, at the price of one hundred talents. When he was about to depart at the head of this numerous army, a prophet came to him and ordered him to dismiss the Israelitish army, for God was not with them: and on the king of Judah expressing regret for the loss of his hundred talents, he was answered, that the Lord could give him much more than that. He obeyed, sent back the Israelites, and at the head of his own men attacked the Edomites in the valley of salt, slew ten thousand on the spot, and took ten thousand prisoners, all of whom he precipitated from the rock, or Selah, which was afterwards called Joktheel, a place or city supposed to be the same with Petra, which gave name to Arabia Petraea, where there must have been a great precipice, from which the place took its name of Selah or Petra.