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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 2 King 11:19 - 11:19
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And he took the captains, and they brought the king down out of the house of Jehovah, etc. The word יִקַּח is not to be pressed, but simply affirms that Jehoiada entrusted the persons named with the duty of conducting the king into his palace. Beside the captains over a hundred (see at 2Ki 11:4) there are mentioned וְהָרָצִים הַכָּרִי, i.e., the royal halberdiers (the body-guard), who had passed over to the new king immediately after the fall of Athaliah and now followed their captains, and הָאָרֶץ כָּל־עַם, all the rest of the people assembled. Instead of the halberdiers there are mentioned in the Chronicles בָּעָם הַמֹּושְׁלִים הָאַדִּירִים, the nobles and lords in the nation-a completion implied in the facts themselves, since Jehoiada had drawn the heads of the nation into his plan, and on the other hand the express allusion to the body-guard might be omitted as of inferior importance. We cannot infer from יֹרִידוּ that the bridge between Moriah and Zion was not yet in existence, as Thenius supposes, but simply that the bridge was lower than the temple-courts. Instead of הָרָצִים שַׁעַר, the gate of the runners (i.e., of the halberdiers), we find in the Chronicles הָעֶלְיֹון שַׁעַר, the upper gate, which appears to have been a gate of the temple, according to 2Ki 15:35 and 2Ch 27:3. The statement that they came by the way of the runners' gate into the house of the king is not at variance with this, for it may be understood as meaning that it was by the halberdiers' gate of the temple that the entry into the palace was carried out. - In 2Ki 11:20 this account is concluded with the general remark that all the people rejoiced, sc. at the coronation of Joash, and the city was quiet, when they slew Athaliah with the sword. This is the way, so far as the sense is concerned, in which the last two clauses are to be connected.