Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - 2 Chronicles 21:19 - 21:19

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - 2 Chronicles 21:19 - 21:19


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And it came to pass in days after days (i.e., when a number of days had passed), and that at the time (וּכְעֵת( emit eh) of the expiration of the end in two days, then his bowels went out during his sickness, and he died in sore pains (תַּחֲלֻאִים, phenomena of disease, i.e., pains). The words שְׁנַיִם לְיָמִים הַקֵּץ צֵאת וּכְעֵת are generally translated as if שְׁנַיִם לְיָמִים were a mere periphrasis of the stat. constr. Vatabl. and Cler., for example, translate: et secundum tempus egrediendi finis annorum duorum, i.e., postquam advenit finis a. d., or cum exacti essent duo anni; similarly Berth.: “at the time of the approach of the end of two times.” But against this we have not only the circumstance that no satisfactory reason for the use of this periphrasis for the genitive can be perceived, and that no analogies can be found for the expression שְׁנַיִם לְיָמִים הַקֵּץ, the end of two years, instead of שְׁנַיִם הַיָּמִים קֵץ; but also the more decisive linguistic reason that הַקֵּץ צֵאת cannot denote the approach of the end, but only the expiry, the running out of the end; and finally, that the supposition that יָמִים here and in 2Ch 21:15 denotes a year is without foundation. Schmidt and Rabm. have already given a better explanation: quumque esset tempus, quo exiit finis s. quum exiret ac compleretur terminus ille, in epistola Eliae 2Ch 21:15 praefixus; but in this case also we should expect הַיָּמִים קֵץ, since שְׁנַיִם לְיָמִים should point back to יָמִים עַל יָמִים, and contain a more exact definition of the terms employed in 2Ch 21:15, which are not definite enough. We therefore take הַקֵּץ צֵאת 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. חָלְיוֹ עִם, in, during the sickness, consequently before the decease (cf. for עִם in this signification, Psa 72:5, Dan. 3:33). Trusen (Sitten, Gebr. und Krankh. der alten Hebräer, S. 212f.) holds this disease to have been a violent dysentery (diarrhoea), “being an inflammation of the nervous tissue (Nervenhaut) 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. 2Ch 16:14; that is, denied him the honours usual at burial, because of their discontent with his evil reign.