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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 2 King 14:1 - 14:1
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Reign of Amaziah of Judah (cf. 2 Chron 25). - 2Ki 14:1-7. Length and spirit of his reign, and his victory over the Edomites. - 2Ki 14:1. Amaziah began to reign in the second year of Joash of Israel. Now as Joash of Israel ascended the throne, according to 2Ki 13:10, in the thirty-seventh year of Joash of Judah, the latter cannot have reigned thirty-nine full years, which might be reckoned as forty (2Ki 12:1), according to the principle of reckoning the current years as complete years, if the commencement of his reign took place a month or two before Nisan, and his death occurred a month or two after, without its being necessary to assume a regency.
2Ki 14:2-4
Amaziah reigned twenty-nine years in the same theocratical spirit as his father Joash, only not like his ancestor David, i.e., according to the correct explanation in 2Ch 25:2, not with שָׁלֵם לֵבָב (see at 1Ki 11:4), since Amaziah, like his father Joash (see at 2Ki 12:3), fell into idolatry in the closing years of his reign (cf. 2Ch 25:14.). - Only the high places were not taken away, etc.
2Ki 14:5-6
After establishing his own government, he punished the murderers of his father with death; but, according to the law in Deu 24:16, he did not slay their children also, as was commonly the custom in the East in ancient times, and may very frequently have been done in Israel as well. The Chethîb יָמוּת is correct, and the Keri יֻמָת is an unnecessary alteration made after Deuteronomy.
2Ki 14:7
The brief account of the defeat of the Edomites in the Salt Valley and of the taking of the city of Sela is completed by 2Ch 25:6-16. According to the latter, Amaziah sought to strengthen his own considerable army by the addition of 100,000 Israelitish mercenaries; but at the exhortation of a prophet he sent the hired Israelites away again, at which they were so enraged, that on their way home they plundered several of the cities of Judah and put many men to death. The Edomites had revolted from Judah in the reign of Joram (2Ki 8:20.); Amaziah now sought to re-establish his rule over them, in which he was so far successful, that he completely defeated them, slaying 10,000 in the battle and then taking their capital, so that his successor Uzziah was also able to incorporate the Edomitish port of Elath in his own kingdom once more (2Ki 14:22). On the Salt Valley (גֵּי־הַמֶּלַח for גֵּיא־הַמֶּלַח in the Chronicles), a marshy salt plain in the south of the Dead Sea, see at 2Sa 8:13. According to 2Ch 25:12 of the Chronicles, in addition to the 10,000 who were slain in battle, 10,000 Edomites were taken prisoners and cast headlong alive from the top of a rock. הַסֶּלַע (the rock) with the article, because the epithet is founded upon the peculiar nature of the city, was probably the capital of the Edomites, called by the Greeks ἡ Πέτρα, and bore this name from its situation and the mode in which it was built, since it was erected in a valley surrounded by rocks, and that in such a manner that the houses were partly hewn in the natural rock. Of this commercial city, which was still flourishing in the first centuries of the Christian era, splendid ruins have been preserved in a valley on the eastern side of the ghor which runs down to the Elanitic Gulf, about two days' journey from the southern extremity of the Dead Sea, on the east of Mount Hor, to which the Crusaders gave the name of vallis Moysi, and which the Arabs still call Wady Musa (see Robinson, Pal. ii. pp. 512ff., and for the history of this city, pp. 574ff., and Ritter's Erdkunde, xiv. pp. 1103ff.).
2Ki 14:8-14
War with Joash of Israel. - 2Ki 14:8. Amaziah then sent a challenge to the Israelitish king Joash to go to war with him. The outward reason for this was no doubt the hostile acts that had been performed by the Israelitish troops, which had been hired for the war with Edom and then sent back again (2Ch 25:13). But the inward ground was the pride which had crept upon Amaziah in consequence of his victory over the Edomites, and had so far carried him away, that he not only forgot the Lord his God, to whom he was indebted for this victory, and brought to Jerusalem the gods of the Edomites which he had taken in the war and worshipped them, and silenced with threats the prophet who condemned this idolatry (2Ch 25:14.), but in his proud reliance upon his own power challenged the Israelitish king to war.
2Ki 14:9-10
Jehoash (Joash) answered his insolent challenge, “Come, we will see one another face to face,” i.e., measure swords with one another in war, with a similar fable to that with which Jotham had once instructed his fellow-citizens (Jdg 9:8.). “The thorn-bush on Lebanon asked the cedar on Lebanon for its daughter as a wife for his son, and beasts of the field went by and trampled down the thorn-bush.” This fable is, of course, not to be interpreted literally, as though Amaziah were the thorn-bush, and Jehoash the cedar, and the wild beasts the warriors; but the thorn-bush putting itself upon an equality with the cedar is a figurative representation of a proud man overrating his strength, and the desire expressed to the cedar of a wish surpassing the bounds of one's condition; so that Thenius is not warranted in inferring from this that Amaziah had in his mind the subjugation of Israel to Judah again. The trampling down of the thorn-bush by a wild beast is only meant to set forth the sudden overthrow and destruction which may come unexpectedly upon the proud man in the midst of his daring plans. 2Ki 14:10 contains the application of the parable. The victory over Edom has made thee high-minded. לִבֶּךָ נְשָׂאֲךְ: thy heart has lifted thee up, equivalent to, thou hast become high-minded. הִכָּבֵד, “be honoured,” i.e., be content with the fame thou hast acquired at Edom, “and stay at home.” Wherefore shouldst thou meddle with misfortune? הִתְגָּרֶה, to engage in conflict or war. Misfortune is thought of as an enemy, with whom he wanted to fight.
2Ki 14:11-12
But Amaziah paid not attention to this warning. A battle was fought at Beth-shemesh (Ain-Shems, on the border of Judah and Dan, see at Jos 15:10); Judah was smitten by Israel, so that every one fled to his home.
2Ki 14:13-14
Jehoash took king Amaziah prisoner, and then came to Jerusalem, and had four hundred cubits of the wall broken down at the gate of Ephraim to the corner gate, and then returned to Samaria with the treasures of the palace and temple, and with hostages. the Chethîb ויבאו is to be pointed וַיָּאֹו, the vowel וֹ being placed after א, as in several other cases (see Ewald, §18, b.). There is no ground for altering יְבִיאֵהוּ after the Chronicles (Thenius), although the reading in the Chronicles elucidates the thought. For if Jehoash took Amaziah prisoner at Beth-shemesh and then came to Jerusalem, he no doubt brought his prisoner with him, for Amaziah remained king and reigned for fifteen years after the death of Jehoash (2Ki 14:17). The Ephraim gate, which is generally supposed to be the same as the gate of Benjamin (Jer 37:13; Jer 38:7; Zec 14:10; compare Neh 8:16; Neh 12:39), stood in the middle of the north wall of Jerusalem, through which the road to Benjamin and Ephraim ran; and the corner gate was at the north-western corner of the same wall, as we may see from Jer 31:38 and Zec 14:10. If, then, Jehoash had four hundred cubits of the wall thrown down at the gate Ephraim to the corner gate, the distance between the two gates was not more than four hundred cubits, which applies to the northern wall of Zion, but not to the second wall, which defended the lower city towards the north, and must have been longer, and which, according to 2Ch 32:5, was probably built for the first time by Hezekiah (vid., Krafft, Topographie v. Jerus. pp. 117ff.). Jehoash destroyed this portion of the Zion wall, that the city might be left defenceless, as Jerusalem could be most easily taken on the level northern side.
(Note: Thenius takes a different view. According to the description which Josephus gives of this event (Ant. ix. 9, 3), he assumes that Jehoash had the four hundred cubits of the city wall thrown down, that he might get a magnificent gate (?) for himself and the invading army; and he endeavours to support this assumption by stating that the space between the Ephraim gate and the corner gate was much more than four hundred cubits. But this assertion is based upon an assumption which cannot be sustained, namely, that the second wall built by Hezekiah (2Ch 32:5) was already in existence in the time of Amaziah, and that the gates mentioned were in this wall. The subjective view of the matter in Josephus has no more worth than that of a simple conjecture.)
- The treasures of the temple and palace, which Jehoash took away, cannot, according to 2Ki 12:19, have been very considerable. הַתַּעֲרֻבֹות בְּנֵי, sons of the citizenships, i.e., hostages (obsides, Vulg.). He took hostages in return for the release of Amaziah, as pledges that he would keep the peace.
2Ki 14:15-17
The repetition of the notice concerning the end of the reign of Joash, together with the formula from 2Ki 13:12 and 2Ki 13:13, may probably be explained from the fact, that in the annals of the kings of Israel it stood after the account of the war between Jehoash and Amaziah. This may be inferred from the circumstance that the name of Joash is spelt invariably יְהֹואָשׁ here, whereas in the closing notices in 2Ki 13:12 and 2Ki 13:13 we have the later form יֹואָשׁ, the one which was no doubt adopted by the author of our books. But he might be induced to give these notices once more as he found them in his original sources, from the statement in 2Ki 14:17, that Amaziah outlived Jehoash fifteen years, seeing therein a manifestation of the grace of God, who would not destroy Amaziah notwithstanding his pride, but delivered him, through the death of his victor, from further injuries at his hands. As Amaziah ascended the throne in the second year of the sixteen years' reign of Jehoash, and before his war with Israel made war upon the Edomites and overcame them, the war with Israel can only fall in the closing years of Jehoash, and this king cannot very long have survived his triumph over the king of Judah.
2Ki 14:18-19
Conspiracy against Amaziah. - 2Ki 14:19. Amaziah, like his father Joash, did not die a natural death. They made a conspiracy against him at Jerusalem, and he fled to Lachish, whither murderers were sent after him, who slew him there. The earlier commentators sought for the cause of this conspiracy in the unfortunate result of the war with Jehoash; but this conjecture is at variance with the circumstance that the conspiracy did not break out till fifteen years or more after that event. It is true that in 2Ch 25:27 we read “from the time that Amaziah departed from the Lord, they formed a conspiracy against him;” but even this statement cannot be understood in any other way than that Amaziah's apostasy gave occasion for discontent, which eventually led to a conspiracy. For his apostasy began with the introduction of Edomitish deities into Jerusalem after the defeat of the Edomites, and therefore before the war with Jehoash, in the first part of his reign, whereas the conspiracy cannot possibly have lasted fifteen years or more before it came to a head. Lachish, in the lowlands of Judah, has probably been preserved in the ruins of Um Lakis (see at Jos 10:3).
2Ki 14:20
“They lifted him upon the horses,” i.e., upon the hearse to which the king's horses had been harnessed, and brought him to Jerusalem, where he was buried with his fathers, i.e., in the royal tomb.
2Ki 14:21
All the people of Judah, i.e., the whole nation, not the whole of the men of war (Thenius), thereupon made his son Azariah (Uzziah) king, who was only sixteen years old. עֲזַרְיָה or עֲזַרְיָהוּ is the name given to this king here and 2Ki 15:1, 2Ki 15:6,2Ki 15:8, 2Ki 15:17, 2Ki 15:23, and 2Ki 15:27, and 1Ch 3:12; whereas in 2Ki 15:13, 2Ki 15:30, 2Ki 15:32, 2Ki 15:34; 2Ch 26:1, 2Ch 26:3,2Ch 26:11, etc., and also Isa 1:1; Isa 6:1; Hos 1:1; Amo 1:1, and Zec 14:5, he is called עֻזִּיָה or עֻזִּיָּהוּ (Uzziah). This variation in the name is too constant to be attributable to a copyist's error. Even the conjecture that Azariah adopted the name Uzziah as king, or that it was given to him by the soldiers after a successful campaign (Thenius), does not explain the use of the two names in our historical books. We must rather assume that the two names, which are related in meaning, were used promiscuously. עֲזַרְיָה signifies “in Jehovah is help;” עֻזִּיָה, “whose strength is Jehovah.” This is favoured by the circumstance adduced by Bertheau, that among the descendants of Kohath we also find an Uzziah who bears the name Azariah (1Ch 6:9 and 1Ch 6:21), and similarly among the descendants of Heman an Uzziel with the name Azarel (1Ch 25:4 and 1Ch 25:18).
2Ki 14:22
Immediately after his ascent of the throne, Uzziah built, i.e., fortified, Elath, the Idumaean port (see at 1Ki 9:26), and restored it to Judah again. It is evident from this that Uzziah completed the renewed subjugation of Edom which his father had begun. The position in which this notice stands, immediately after his ascent of the throne and before the account of the duration and character of his reign, may be explained in all probability from the importance of the work itself, which not only distinguished the commencement of his reign, but also gave evident of its power.