2 Kingschapter 15
38 verses · Jeremiah, by tradition · 6th century BC · History
In the days of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria came and captured Ijon, Abel-beth-maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee, including all the land of Naphtali, and he took the people as captives to Assyria.
Introduction
Jeremiah, by tradition, History, 2 Kings Overview.
This chapter was written for exiles tracing how the northern kingdom came apart, and it moves faster than any other in the book. Jewish tradition gives Kings to Jeremiah, and the text names no writer. It sets one long reign in Judah beside a quick run of reigns in Israel, most of them ended by a sword. Listen for the regnal formula, which repeats so often that its breaks stand out. Watch for the first time an Assyrian king is named in the book, and ask what the north's kings paid to stay on their thrones.
Context
- Who
- Israelites watching their kingdom come apart inside a single generation
- What
- A regnal account of Azariah and Jotham of Judah and of five kings of Israel, four of whom were murdered.
- Where
- Jerusalem, where a king with a skin disease lived in a separate house, and Samaria, with Galilee and Gilead lost to Assyria.
- When
- About 792 to 732 BC, the long reign of Azariah in Judah and five reigns in Israel between 753 and 732 BC on the reckoning this site follows.
- Why
- To show the word to Jehu kept to the fourth generation, and the northern kingdom coming apart from within as Assyria arrived.
Historical context
This is the hardest chapter in Kings to follow, because it covers six reigns with overlapping totals. Thiele's reconciliation is that Judah and Israel began their regnal years in different months and counted a king's partial first year by different conventions. Fathers also ruled jointly with sons. Azariah's long reign overlaps his father's and his son's, and Pekah's counted years appear to include a rival reign east of the Jordan while Menahem held Samaria.
Show the rest of the historical context, 4 more paragraphs
Azariah, called Uzziah elsewhere, is struck with a skin disease and lives in a separate house to the end of his life while his son runs the palace and judges the people. That is the concrete meaning of a coregency. Two kings reign, one of them excluded from worship and from public life, with the years counted for both.
In the north, four of five kings are assassinated, two of them within months. Shallum kills Zechariah in public and lasts one month. Menahem kills Shallum and holds the throne by atrocity. He ripped open the pregnant women of a town that shut its gates to him, a horror the Assyrians also boasted of and the prophets condemned in Israel.
Then Assyria arrives and the record can be checked against the monuments. Pul is Tiglath-Pileser III under his throne name, and his own annals name Menahem of Samaria among tribute payers. The thousand talents Menahem paid were raised by a levy of fifty shekels of silver on sixty thousand wealthy men, a tax falling on the class that had profited from Jeroboam's boom.
Under Pekah the Assyrians take Galilee and Gilead and carry the people away, the first Israelite deportation. Moving a defeated population out and settling foreigners in was standard Assyrian policy, designed to break a nation's ability to revolt again.
Significance
The first hearers heard a kingdom die of its own hand before Assyria ever arrived. Five kings in about twenty years, four of them murdered, and every one graded by the same phrase about the sins of Jeroboam.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
They also heard the deportations begin. What had stood in the covenant curses for centuries became an itinerary of named towns and a note that the people were carried to Assyria.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
This is the chapter the classical commentators work hardest on, because its regnal numbers will not lie flat, and both Rashi and Metzudat David treat that as the question the chapter asks. Rashi opens by refusing the plain reading of the first verse. Uzziah and Jeroboam had already been reigning together, so the twenty-seventh year cannot be the start of the reign. He takes it instead as the year the reign changed character, "that he was stricken with tzora'as in the twenty-seventh year of his reign" (Rashi on II Kings 15:1:1, the Metsudah Tanach series of Lakewood, N.J, CC-BY). Metzudat David reaches the same place by the same road and names his authority for it, "It is taught in Seder Olam that in the 27th year of Jeraboam, Azariah was afflicted with Leprosy and he reigned an afflicted kingdom" (Metzudat David on II Kings 15:1:1, Sefaria Community Translation, CC0). He splits the fifty-two years of the second verse into "15 in the life of his father and 37 after the death of his father" (Metzudat David on II Kings 15:2:1). He works the arithmetic out again at the eighth, thirteenth and seventeenth verses. Jeroboam's forty-one years are counted three in his father's lifetime and thirty-eight after, Zechariah's six months are set against Uzziah's thirty-eighth year, and Shallum's one month is set at the turn of the thirty-ninth into the fortieth.
Rashi's own version of that argument, at the eighth verse, is the place where the corpus shows a commentator disagreeing with a source rather than harmonising it. He reasons from the thirty-eighth year back to a co-regency and concludes that Uzziah and Jeroboam must have reigned at the same time. Then he says of the standard chronological midrash, "I saw in Seder Olam that Yorovom reigned one year during his father's lifetime, and I do not know whether it is the writers' error", because he cannot reconcile the verse any other way (Rashi on II Kings 15:8:1). Metzudat David, reading the same verses, keeps Seder Olam and adjusts elsewhere. A reader who wants one Jewish chronology of this chapter will not find it here; he will find two, and the corpus carries both.
On the leprosy of the king Rashi gives cause and consequence from outside this book. The cause is that the king entered the Temple to burn incense, which he takes from the parallel account (Rashi on II Kings 15:5:1). The consequence is read into the odd phrase for the house the king then lived in: "He made himself a house in the cemetery". The Talmud at Horiyos 10a stands behind the word for freedom, since the king was freed of the duties of the throne, and the teaching at Nedarim 12b behind the cemetery, since a leper is accounted as dead. The Targum places him outside the walls of Jerusalem (Rashi on II Kings 15:5:2). This is the chapter where the word tsara'ath governs a reign, and the site's guide already records that the word is a broad skin-disease category and not the modern disease.
Two further readings turn on a promise made five chapters earlier. The twelfth verse is where the fourth generation of the house of Jehu sits on the throne of Israel and is cut down. Rashi will not let the length of the dynasty be read as its merit: it lasted so long "Not that his kingdom deserved to last that long, but to fulfill the word of the King" (Rashi on II Kings 15:12:1). Metzudat David names the four kings that word covered, Jehoahaz, Joash, Jeroboam and Zechariah, and says that with them the royal bloodline ceased (Metzudat David on II Kings 15:12:1). The killing of Zechariah is read with the Targum, that he was struck down in front of the people's own eyes (Rashi on II Kings 15:10:1). The sack of Tiphsah at the sixteenth verse is explained by the plain refusal of a city to admit a claimant, "The governor of the city did not open the city for him, to accept him as king over them" (Rashi on II Kings 15:16:1). On Menahem's tribute to Pul, Radak reads the Assyrian's withdrawal as a bargain and nothing more: he took the money and went home, and gave no protection against any other enemy afterwards (Radak on II Kings 15:20:1, Sefaria Community Translation, CC0).
The corpus also preserves the alternatives the classical commentators put against each other, and they are written here because the commentator recorded the difference himself. At the twenty-fifth verse Rashi reads Argob and Arieh as words for the important chambers of a palace, and the Metsudah edition's note carries Metzudas Tzion reading them instead as the names of two of Pekah's own warriors (Rashi on II Kings 15:25:1). At the thirtieth verse Rashi asks why Hoshea's conspiracy is dated to the twentieth year of Jotham when Jotham reigned sixteen years. He answers that Scripture would rather count by a dead righteous king than by a living wicked one, citing Seder Olam. The same note carries Radak's different answer, that the decree had been passed in Jotham's reign so its fulfilment is reckoned in his terms (Rashi on II Kings 15:30:1). At the thirty-seventh Rashi reads "In those days" as the end of Jotham's life and the note carries Radak reading it as after his death (Rashi on II Kings 15:37:1).
Radak and Metzudat David comment across this chapter at other verses too, and the corpus carries those refs with the reason that Sefaria holds no English version of them, so they stand here cited and unquoted: Radak on II Kings 15:10:1, 15:32:1 and 15:35:1, and Metzudat David on II Kings 15:19:1, 15:23:1, 15:27:1 and 15:33:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries twenty-six rabbinic locators for this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. Eight of the twenty-six stand on the fifth verse, the leprosy of the king: Bamidbar Rabbah 23:13, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Horayot 3:1, the Babylonian Talmud at Horayot 10a:18, Midrash Tanchuma, Masei 12:1, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Masei 9:1, Vayikra Rabbah 16:1, and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah at 469:24 and 556:3. Two more stand on the seventh, where the king is buried with his fathers, Bereshit Rabbah 56:9 and Pesikta Rabbati 40:1.
Four stand on the nineteenth verse, where Pul king of Assyria comes against the land and Menahem pays him a thousand talents of silver: Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 11:25, Ein Yaakov, Sanhedrin 11:24, the Babylonian Talmud at Sanhedrin 94a:12, and Tractate Avadim 1:1. Three stand on the twelfth, on the word to Jehu about the fourth generation: Jerusalem Talmud Horayot 3:2:21, Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 20:5, and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 743:26.
Three stand on the twenty-ninth verse, where Tiglath-pileser carries the north away captive to Assyria. All three are collections that gather what was said about the tribes taken: Otzar Midrashim, Baraita of Rabbi Pinchas Ben Yair 1:33, Otzar Midrashim, Eldad HaDani, The Book of Eldad HaDani, Story 2 14, and Otzar Midrashim, Midrashim on the Ten Lost Tribes, Introduction 1.
The rest are single. On the first verse, Seder Olam Rabbah 19:2, the same chronological midrash the commentators argue over above. On the thirteenth, Jerusalem Talmud Rosh Hashanah 1:1:5. On the fourteenth, Seder Olam Rabbah 22:2. On the seventeenth, Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 101:7. On the twenty-fourth, Midrash Tanchuma, Ki Tisa 12:2. On the thirtieth, Esther Rabbah, Petichta 6. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on II Kings 15:1:1, 15:5:1, 15:5:2, 15:8:1, 15:10:1, 15:12:1, 15:16:1, 15:25:1, 15:30:1 and 15:37:1, The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J, CC-BY; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on II Kings 15:1:1, 15:2:1, 15:8:1, 15:12:1, 15:13:1 and 15:17:1, Sefaria Community Translation, CC0; and on 15:19:1, 15:23:1, 15:27:1 and 15:33:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Radak, Radak on II Kings 15:20:1, Sefaria Community Translation, CC0; and on 15:10:1, 15:32:1 and 15:35:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/2-kings/15.json, the 26 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Azariah struck with leprosy, dwelling in a separate house
2 Kings 15:1-2
Azariah son of Amaziah became king of Judah: The king is Azariah through most of this chapter, and Uzziah in Chronicles and at verses 13, 30, 32 and 34. He reigned in Jerusalem fifty-two years, alongside Jeroboam the second's reign in the north, and both kingdoms held their widest borders in that one generation.
2 Kings 15:1
“In the twenty amd seventh year of Jeroboam king of Israel began Azariah the son on Amaziah king of Judah to reign. Now Amaziah lived only to the fifteenth year of Jeroboam, 2Ki 14:2 in which year, and not in his twenty seventh, it might be thought Azariah his son began to reign. There are various ways taken to remove this difficulty, not to take notice of a corruption of numbers, "twenty seven for seventeen", which some insist on.”
2 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
2 Kings 15:1
“In the twenty and seventh year of Jeroboam - Dr. Kennicott complains loudly here, because of “the corruption in the name of this king of Judah, who is expressed by four different names in this chapter: Ozriah, Oziah, Ozrihu, and Ozihu. Our oldest Hebrew MS. relieves us here by reading truly, in 2Ki 15:1, 2Ki 15:6, 2Ki 15:7, עזיהו Uzziah, where the printed text is differently corrupted. This reading is called true, 1. Because it is supported by the Syriac and Arabic versions in these three verses.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Kings 15:1
“Being a child only four years old when his father was murdered, a regency was appointed during Azariah's minority. began Azariah . . . to reign--The character of his reign is described by the brief formula employed by the inspired historian, in recording the religious policy of the later kings.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
reigned in Jerusalem fifty-two years: Amaziah died in the fifteenth year of Jeroboam, by 14:17 and 14:23, and Azariah became king in the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam at 15:1. Gill and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown filled the years between with a regency during his youth. Kings is silent on those years.
2 Kings 15:2
“Sixteen years old was he when he began to reign,.... By the consent of the people and princes of Judah, 2Ki 14:21. and he reigned fifty and two years in Jerusalem: exclusive of the eleven or twelve years of his minority, from his father's death: and his mother's name was Jecholiah of Jerusalem; of whom there is no further account any where.”
2 Kings 15:3-7
did what was right in the eyes of the LORD: Azariah did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, just as his father Amaziah had done. The LORD afflicted the king with leprosy. Where Kings gives no reason, 2 Chronicles 26:16 to 21 gives one: pride carried him past the priests into the sanctuary to burn incense.
2 Kings 15:3
“And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord,.... At the beginning of his reign, and in an external way: according to all that his father Amaziah had done; who did not do what he did as David, sincerely and cordially, 2Ki 14:3.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 15:3
“He did that which was right - It is said, 2Ch 26:5, that he sought the Lord in the days of Zechariah the prophet, and God made him to prosper; that he fought against the Philistines; broke down the walls of Gath, Jabneh, and Ashdod; prevailed over the Arabians and Mehunims; and that the Ammonites paid him tribute; and his dominion extended abroad, even to the entering in of Egypt; that he built towers in Jerusalem, at the corner gate, valley gate, and turning of the wall; and built towers also in the desert, and digged many wells; that he…”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
the high places: Gill noted the high places stood under Azariah as under his father and grandfather, and stayed until Hezekiah, the first king to remove them. He did so at 18:4.
2 Kings 15:4
“Save that the high places were not removed,.... That is, he did right, excepting in that instance, and which was the case of his father and other kings before him, and others afterwards, till Hezekiah came: the people sacrificed and burnt incense still on the high places; see 2Ki 12:3.”
lived in a separate house: Albert Barnes gave the Hebrew for the separate house, beit hahofshit, as a house of freedom, meaning release from public duty. Leviticus 13:46 required a leper to live alone. Matthew Henry counted it a mercy to the kingdom that Jotham could govern in his father's place.
2 Kings 15:5
“The Lord smote the king, so that he was a leper - The circumstances under which this terrible affliction befel one of the greatest of the Jewish kings, are given at some length by the author of Chronicles (marginal reference), who supplies us with a tolerably full account of this important reign, which the writer of Kings dismisses in half-a-dozen verses. A several house - “A house of liberation,” or, freedom.”
the rest of the acts of Azariah: 2 Chronicles 26:22 says the prophet Isaiah wrote the rest of the acts of Uzziah, as John Gill noted. That chapter records his towers in Jerusalem, his wars with the Philistines and his large army. Kings gives the long reign seven verses.
2 Kings 15:6
“And the rest of the acts of Azariah, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? In the history of the reigns of those kings; some of them are recorded in the canonical book of the Chronicles, 2Ch 26:1 and some were written by the prophet Isaiah, 2Ch 26:22.”
buried near them: The Berean wording, buried near them, matches 2 Chronicles 26:23, where he lies in a field belonging to the kings because he was a leper. Gill read it the same way. Isaiah dates his vision of the Lord on the throne to the year of this death, at Isaiah 6:1.
Zechariah and Shallum: a month, then a month
2 Kings 15:8-9
Zechariah son of Jeroboam became king of Israel: Zechariah was the last king of Jehu's line, and his six months show how fast the north's order failed after its strongest king died. The formula that has measured every northern king since the first Jeroboam returns. The chapter repeats it at verses 9, 18, 24 and 28.
2 Kings 15:8
“In the thirty and eighth year - Rather, according to the previous numbers 2Ki 14:23; 2Ki 15:2, the 27th year of Azariah. Some suppose an interregnum between Jeroboam and Zachariah, which, however, is very improbable.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 15:8
“In his fate was fulfilled the prophecy addressed to Jehu (2Ki 10:30; also Ho 1:4), that his family would possess the throne of Israel for four generations; and accordingly Jehoahaz, Joash, Jehoram, and Zechariah were his successors--but there his dynasty terminated; and perhaps it was the public knowledge of this prediction that prompted the murderous design of Shallum.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
as his fathers had done: His fathers are the kings of Jehu's house before him. Jehu himself had kept the golden calves at Bethel and Dan, at 10:29, and each son after him kept them too. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown suggested that the known limit of four generations at 10:30 prompted Shallum's plot.
2 Kings 15:9
“Even all his predecessors, from the time of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, from whose sin, in worshipping the calves, they departed not.”
2 Kings 15:10-12
conspired against Zechariah, struck him down: The house of Jehu ended where the LORD had said: “Four generations of your sons will sit on the throne of Israel.” The LORD spoke it at 2 Kings 10:30, after Jehu destroyed Ahab's house, and Jehoahaz, Jehoash, Jeroboam the second and Zechariah are the four generations.
2 Kings 15:10
“And Shallum the son of Jabesh conspired against him,.... A friend of his, as Josephus (q) calls him, encouraged by the dissatisfaction of the people to him: and smote him before the people, and slew him; in a public manner, the people consenting to it, and approving of it, not liking Zachariah to be their king: and reigned in his stead; though but a very short time. (q) Antiqu. l. 9. c. 11. sect. 1.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 15:10
“Before the people - i. e. openly and publicly. The Septuagint turns the original of the above words into a proper name, Keblaam, and makes him the actual assassin, but without much ground.”
the rest of the acts of Zechariah: Here the closing formula changes from the usual question to a statement, and the Hebrew word for behold stands behind the Berean word indeed. The same form closes Shallum, Pekahiah and Pekah, the murdered kings, at 15:15, 26 and 31. Gill held that it covered his years before the throne.
2 Kings 15:11
“And the rest of the acts of Zachariah,.... During his six months' reign, and what he might do before in the interregnum: behold, they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel: for be they more or fewer, good or bad, they were all recorded there which were of any moment.”
Hosea 1:4 names the other side of the word spoken to Jehu: the LORD would punish his house for the blood shed at Jezreel. Henry and Clarke read the end of Jehu's sons on the throne of Israel as that punishment. Both words of the LORD came true.
2 Kings 15:12
“This was the word of the Lord which he spake unto Jehu,.... Which was now fulfilled in the short reign of Zachariah: saying, thy sons shall sit on the throne of Israel unto the fourth generation; see 2Ki 10:30, and so it came to pass; as every word of the Lord does, not one fails; for after Jehu reigned Jehoahaz, Jehoash, Jeroboam the second, and Zachariah, all descendants of Jehu.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 15:12
“This was the word of the Lord - unto Jehu - God had promised to Jehu that his sons should sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation; and so it came to pass, for Jehoahaz, Joash, Jeroboam, and Zachariah, succeeded Jehu, to whom this promise was made. But because he executed the Divine purpose with an uncommanded cruelty, therefore God cut his family short, according to his word by Hosea, I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu; and I will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel, Hos 1:4.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Kings 15:13-14
he reigned in Samaria one full month: Shallum reigned in Samaria one full month, against Zechariah's six, and Menahem ended his reign by force, as it had begun. Menahem came from Tirzah, the old northern capital before Omri built Samaria, so the newer capital fell to a man out of the older one.
went up from Tirzah: Josephus made Menahem the commander of the army, as Jamieson, Fausset and Brown report. Matthew Henry compared him with Omri, the general who marched on Zimri after a reign of seven days at 1 Kings 16:15 to 18. Shallum's month ended as Zimri's week had.
2 Kings 15:14
“Tirzah, the old capital, once more appears as a place of importance, giving birth to the pretender, who alone of all these later kings died a natural death, and left the crown to his son 2Ki 15:22. It would seem from the present passage to have been on lower ground than Samaria.”
2 Kings 15:15-16
along with the conspiracy he led: Menahem attacked Tiphsah and ripped open all the pregnant women, the atrocity Amos lists among the sins for which the LORD judged Ammon. Here a king of Israel does the same deed, and the text records it in plain words and moves on.
2 Kings 15:15
“And the rest of the acts of Shallum, and his conspiracy which he made, behold, they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel. In which, no doubt, an account of the cause of the conspiracy, and of the persons assisting to him in it, was given, with other things done in his short reign.”
attacked Tiphsah: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown and Albert Barnes identified Tiphsah with Thapsacus on the Euphrates, the border of Solomon's kingdom at 1 Kings 4:24. Barnes held the march possible because Jeroboam had already taken Hamath, at 14:28. Assyria was weak at the time.
2 Kings 15:16
“With respect to the supposed inability of Menahem to lead an expedition to Tiphsah (Thapsacus, see the marginal reference) on the Euphrates, we may note in the first place that such an expedition was a natural sequel to Jeroboam’s occupation of Hamath 2Ki 14:28; and further, that it would have been greatly facilitated by the weakness of Assyria at this time, that empire having fallen into a state of depression about 780 B.C.”
Menahem buys off Pul with a thousand talents
2 Kings 15:17-18
Menahem son of Gadi became king of Israel: , and he reigned in Samaria ten years. The formula returns for the second time in nine verses. A usurper who murdered his way to the throne inherits the same sin as every king before him.
2 Kings 15:17
“In the nine and thirtieth year of Azariah king of Judah began Menahem the son of Gadi to reign over Israel,.... Shallum reigning but one month, both their reigns began the same year.”
throughout his reign: Menahem's verdict adds throughout his reign, the Hebrew all his days, which the other three verdicts in this chapter omit. Hosea, who prophesied in these years, speaks against the calf of Samaria at Hosea 8:5 to 6. The phrase covers all ten years.
2 Kings 15:18
“And he did that which was evil,.... The same character is given of him as of those before him, 2Ki 15:9.”
2 Kings 15:19-22
Pul king of Assyria invaded the land: Pul is the first Assyrian king this book names coming against Israel's own soil. The empire that ends the north at 17:6 enters here as a threat bought off. The Babylonian king lists identify Pul with Tiglath-pileser the third, who returns at verse 29 and takes the land of Naphtali.
2 Kings 15:19
“Pul the king of Assyria--This is the first Assyrian king after Nimrod who is mentioned in biblical history. His name has been recently identified with that of Phalluka on the monuments of Nineveh, and that of Menahem discovered also. came against the land--Elsewhere it is said "Ephraim [Israel] went to the Assyrian" [Ho 5:13].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 15:19
“This is the first distinct mention which we find in Scripture of Assyria as an aggressive power. From the native monuments we learn that she had been for above a century pushing her conquests beyond the Euphrates, and seeking to reduce under her dominion the entire tract between that river and Egypt. Jehu had paid tribute. Some - arguing from the use of the phrase “confirmed the kingdom” (here, and in 2Ki 14:5) - think that Jehoahaz had acknowledged Assyrian suzerainty, and consented that her monarchs should receive their investiture from the hands of the Ninevite king.”
A talent held three thousand shekels, as Albert Barnes reckoned, so a thousand talents at fifty shekels a head required about sixty thousand wealthy men. Barnes noted that Judah's kings drew on the temple treasury in such crises, at 12:18 and 16:8, while Israel's kings taxed their people.
2 Kings 15:20
“Menahem exacted the money - The kings of Israel had no such ready resource in difficulties as that possessed by the kings of Judah in the temple treasury 2Ki 12:18; 2Ki 16:8. Hence, the forced contribution from the people, the odium of which was diminished by confining the levy to the comparatively rich. Each man fifty shekels - As the silver talent contained 3,000 shekels, the levy of fifty shekels a head must have extended to 60,000 persons.”
the rest of the acts of Menahem: Menahem's name survives outside Scripture in the annals of Tiglath-pileser the third, which list Menahem of Samaria among the kings who paid him tribute. Albert Barnes cited those inscriptions. Adam Clarke observed that the chronicle this verse names has perished.
2 Kings 15:21
“And the rest of the acts of Menahem,.... We are referred to the same book of chronicles for them as for those of the rest of the kings, which seems to be a form the historian uses of them all.”
2 more voices on this verse
2 Kings 15:21
“Are they not written in - the chronicles - There are no chronicles extant, in which there is any thing farther relative to this king.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Kings 15:21
“Assyrian inscriptions show that Menahem was subsequently redfaced to subjection by Tiglath-Pileser 2Ki 15:29.”
Menahem rested with his fathers: Menahem is the only one of the last six kings of Israel to pass the throne to a son, as Barnes and John Gill observed. His son Pekahiah held it two years. His own officer then killed him at verse 25.
2 Kings 15:22
“And Menahem slept with his fathers,.... Died a natural death, and in peace, though an usurper and a tyrant: and Pekahiah his son reigned in his stead; the kingdom he had usurped continued in his family.”
Pekah's reign, and Tiglath-pileser carries Galilee away
2 Kings 15:23-24
Pekahiah son of Menahem became king of Israel: and reigned in Samaria two years. His reign brings the formula a third time, unchanged from father to son. Each new house repeats the founding sin, and the kingdom is still measured against the calves Jeroboam set up at Bethel and Dan.
2 Kings 15:23
“In the fiftieth year of Azariah king of Judah, Pekahiah the son of Menahem began to reign over Israel in Samaria,.... As it was in the thirty ninth of Azariah that his father began his reign, and he reigned ten years, they must end in the forty ninth of Azariah, and therefore there must be an interregnum of a year; perhaps the title of Pekahiah might be disputed, and it was a year before he could get settled on the throne: and reigned two years; being slain by one of his captains, as after related.”
the sins that Jeroboam son of Nebat: John Gill called the calf worship a piece of state policy that every king of Israel kept. The reason stands at 1 Kings 12:26 to 28: Jeroboam feared that pilgrims to Jerusalem would turn back to the house of David. Pekahiah kept the same policy.
2 Kings 15:24
“And he did that which was evil,.... Besides other sins, he cleaved to that of worshipping the calves, a piece of state policy all the kings of Israel gave into.”
2 Kings 15:25-26
Pekah son of Remaliah, conspired against him: Pekah was his own king's officer, and he struck at the citadel of the king’s palace with fifty men of Gilead. Gilead lies east of the Jordan. Tiglath-pileser takes it in Pekah's own reign, so the men who put him on the throne came from land he later lost.
2 Kings 15:25
“A captain of his - A mere “captain,” a person, therefore, of very moderate rank. The low birth of Pekah is probably glanced at in Isaiah’s favorite designation of him as “Remaliah’s son” Isa 7:4-5, Isa 7:9; Isa 8:6. From the fact that Pekah employed Gileadites to carry out his designs, it has been conjectured that he himself belonged to the trans-Jordanic region. In the palace of the king’s house - Rather, “In the tower of the king’s palace;” or possibly “in the harem of the king’s palace” (1Ki 16:18 note).”
the rest of the acts of Pekahiah: Pekahiah's two years run from Azariah's fiftieth year at verse 23 to his fifty-second at verse 27, and the two dates agree. Menahem's house lasted about twelve years, ten for the father and two for the son. It ended in the palace citadel.
2 Kings 15:26
“And the rest of the acts of Pekahiah,.... The same form of expression is used as before, 2Ki 15:21, of all the kings.”
2 Kings 15:27-28
he reigned in Samaria twenty years: Pekah son of Remaliah became king of Israel and reigned in Samaria twenty years. The formula comes a fourth time, at verses 9, 18, 24 and 28. Four kings with four different fathers receive one verdict, and the chapter sets the change of rulers beside the sameness of their sin.
2 Kings 15:27
“In the fifty second year of Azariah king of Judah Pekah the son of Remaliah began to reign over Israel in Samaria,.... Which was the last year of the reign of Azariah: and reigned twenty years; which was a long reign for an usurper and murderer.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 15:27
“And his mother's name was Jecholiah of Jerusalem. 3 And he did that which was right in the sight of the L ORD , according to all that his father Amaziah had done; 4 Save that the high places were not removed: the people sacrificed and burnt incense still on the high places.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
did evil in the sight of the LORD: John Gill counted the murder of Pekahiah and the seizure of the throne among Pekah's evils, along with the calves. In Isaiah's oracle against him he is only the son of Remaliah, at Isaiah 7:4, 5 and 9. His war on Judah is the setting of that oracle.
2 Kings 15:28
“And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord,.... Not only in committing the above crimes of usurpation and murder, but idolatry, and particularly the worshipping of the calves, hinted at in the text.”
2 Kings 15:29-31
Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria came: and captured Ijon, Abel-beth-maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee, and he took the people as captives to Assyria. This is the empire's first captivity taken out of the land, whereas Pul's visit had cost tribute alone, and it reaches its end at 17:6.
2 Kings 15:29
“Tiglath-Pileser is the first among the Assyrian monarchs of Scripture whom we can certainly identify with a king mentioned in the monuments. According to the Assyrian Dr. he reigned from 745 B.C. to 727 B.C.; and the monuments show us this energetic and powerful prince (though, probably, an usurper), building and repairing palaces, levying armies, and carrying on successful wars against Merodach-Baladan in Babylonia, Rezin at Damascus, Hiram at; Tyre, the Medes, the Armenians, the natives of Northern Mesopotamia, and the Arabs who bordered upon Egypt.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 15:29
“Nothing does more towards the making of a nation an easy prey to a common enemy than intestine broils and contests for the sovereignty. Happy the land where that is settled. This was the condition of Israel just before they were quite ruined and carried away captive, for that was in the ninth year of Hoshea, the last of these usurpers.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
In the twentieth year of Jotham: Jotham reigned sixteen years by verse 33, so this twentieth year has puzzled the commentators. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown counted twenty years from the start of Jotham's reign, and Albert Barnes set it beside 17:1. Josephus made Hoshea a friend of Pekah.
2 Kings 15:30
“Hoshea the son of Elah made a conspiracy . . . and slew him--He did not, however, obtain possession of the kingdom till about nine or ten years after the perpetration of this crime [HALES]. in the twentieth year of Jotham--Jotham's reign lasted only sixteen years, but the meaning is that the reign of Hoshea began in the twentieth after the beginning of Jotham's reign.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
the rest of the acts of Pekah: 2 Chronicles 28:6 records one of those acts, a battle in which Pekah killed a hundred and twenty thousand men of Judah in a day. Albert Barnes pointed ahead to 16:5, where Pekah and Rezin besiege Jerusalem. Ahaz held the city.
2 Kings 15:31
“And the rest of the acts of Pekah,.... Not recorded here, were to be read in the book of chronicles of the kings so often referred to.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 15:31
“The rest of the acts of Pekah - On these, see 2Ki 16:5 note.”
Jotham builds the upper gate; Rezin and Pekah begin to come
2 Kings 15:32-33
Jotham son of Uzziah became king of Judah: Jotham had governed as regent since his father's leprosy at verse 5, and his accession here puts in writing what had been true for years. His mother’s name was Jerusha daughter of Zadok. She is the only queen mother in this chapter given a father's name.
Jerusha daughter of Zadok: Lightfoot, cited by John Gill, took this Zadok for a high priest. Twenty-five years at his accession and sixteen of reign make Jotham forty-one at his death, which Matthew Henry counted a loss to Judah. His son Ahaz was twenty at his own accession, at 16:2.
2 Kings 15:33
“Five and twenty years old was he when he began to reign,.... Alone, after the death of his father: and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem; and his reign, upon the whole, was a good reign: and his mother's name was Jerusha, the daughter of Zadok; a person well known in those times; Dr. Lightfoot (h) thinks he was high priest. (h) Works, vol. 1. p. 100.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Kings 15:33
“This Jotham died at forty-one. He was too great a blessing to be continued long to such an unworthy people. His death was a judgment, especially considering the character of his son and successor.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Kings 15:34-36
just as his father Uzziah had done: Jotham did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, yet the high places were not taken away. This is the chapter's second use of that formula, after verse 4. One work is named for him: Jotham rebuilt the Upper Gate of the house of the LORD.
2 Kings 15:34
“Jotham imitated his father in all respects, excepting in his impious usurpation of the priestly functions (2Ki 15:5 note; 2Ch 27:2).”
rebuilt the Upper Gate: Albert Barnes took the Upper Gate to be the temple's north gate, the side from which an attack would come. Ezekiel 9:2 places the upper gate on the north. The Chronicler adds at 2 Chronicles 27:3 that Jotham built much on the wall of Ophel.
2 Kings 15:35
“He built the higher gate - Jotham followed the example of his father in military, no less than in religious, matters (compare the marginal reference with 2Ch 26:9). The “higher” or “upper gate” of the temple is thought to have been that toward the north; and its fortification would seem to indicate fear of an attack from that quarter.”
the rest of the acts of Jotham: Adam Clarke drew those acts from 2 Chronicles 27. Jotham built towns in the hill country of Judah, and he made the Ammonites pay a hundred talents of silver a year for three years. The Chronicler credits his strength to his steady walk before the LORD, at 2 Chronicles 27:6.
2 Kings 15:36
“Now the rest of the acts of Jotham - These acts are distinctly stated in 2Ch 27:1-9. He built the high gate of the house of the Lord, and he built much on the wall of Ophel. He built cities in the mountains of Judah; and in the forests he built castles and towers. He overthrew the Ammonites; and obliged them to give him one hundred talents of silver, ten thousand measures of wheat, and ten thousand of barley, for three consecutive years. He was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Kings 15:37-38
the LORD began to send Rezin king of Aram: Rezin and Pekah appear together here for the first time. Isaiah 7:1 names the same two kings again, marching on Jerusalem in the reign of Ahaz. Kings says plainly that the LORD began to send Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah against Judah.
2 Kings 15:37
“The recent invasions of Pul and Tiglath-Pileser had effectually alarmed Pekah and Rezin, and had induced them to put aside the traditional jealousies which naturally kept them apart, and to make a league offensive and defensive. Into this league they were anxious that Judaea should enter; but they distrusted the house of David, which had been so long hostile both to Damascus and to Samaria.”
his son Ahaz reigned: Henry read Jotham's death at forty-one as a judgment on Judah. Jotham was buried with the kings in the City of David, and his father Azariah, a leper, lay near them in a field at 15:7.
2 Kings 15:38
“And Jotham slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David his father,.... Died, and was buried with the kings of Judah in their sepulchres: and Ahaz his son reigned in his stead; an account of whose reign we have in the next chapter.”
How this psalm is built
The form: Regnal narrative compressed to its formula, six reigns in thirty-eight verses, as Kings classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| He departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat | The verdict falls four times in this one chapter, on Zechariah, on Menahem, on Pekahiah and on Pekah. Four kings, four different fathers, and four violent changes of throne between them draw one unchanging sentence. The repetition is the chapter's own argument, that the rulers change while the sin holds steady. | 2 Kings 15:9, 2 Kings 15:18, 2 Kings 15:24, 2 Kings 15:28 |
| The high places were not removed | The qualification attaches to both of Judah's kings here, to Azariah at verse 4 and to Jotham at verse 35. Each is graded right and each carries the same reservation, so the formula marks the ceiling every reforming king of Judah meets before Hezekiah. | 2 Kings 15:4, 2 Kings 15:35 |
| The towns of Naphtali named one by one | The first deportation is recorded as a list of places rather than as a summary. Ijon, Abel-beth-maachah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead and Galilee are named, and the whole land of Naphtali with them. Naming the towns makes the loss specific, and the same method returns at 17:6 when the rest of the kingdom follows. | 2 Kings 15:29 |
| One throne held father to son against five thrones taken by murder | Judah's crown passes from Azariah to Jotham inside the same span in which Israel's crown changes hands five times. Zechariah, Shallum, Menahem, Pekahiah and Pekah hold Samaria in turn, and four of the five are assassinated. The chapter sets the two records side by side without commenting on the contrast.the compiler of Kings, the interleaved regnal notices of 2 Kings 15. | 2 Kings 15:1, 2 Kings 15:10, 2 Kings 15:14, 2 Kings 15:25, 2 Kings 15:30, 2 Kings 15:32 |
The historical value
10 more paragraphs on the patterns
This chapter is where Assyria enters the story of Israel's own soil. Albert Barnes calls verse 19 the first distinct mention in Scripture of Assyria as an aggressive power. He notes from the native monuments that she had been pushing conquests beyond the Euphrates for above a century. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown add that Pul is the first Assyrian king after Nimrod named in biblical history, and that the name of Menahem has been discovered on the monuments of Nineveh.
The two Assyrian kings of this chapter are one man under two names. The Babylonian king lists identify Pul with Tiglath-pileser the third under his throne name, and he returns at verse 29 under the better known name to carry Naphtali away. Albert Barnes states that Tiglath-pileser is the first Assyrian monarch of Scripture who can certainly be identified with a king named in the monuments, and gives his reign as 745 to 727 BC.
Verse 29 is a deportation with a date and a list of towns, and it is the opening move of the exile that reaches its full stop at 17:6 thirteen years later. The tribute at verse 20 is a land tax with a rate attached, fifty shekels from every wealthy man, which is the kind of detail a chronicle keeps and a summary loses.
The debated concept
The cause of Azariah's leprosy is the chapter's open question. Kings states the affliction and gives no reason for it. 2 Chronicles 26:16 to 21 gives the reason, and the two accounts are held apart here rather than merged. The honest statement is that this chapter reports the fact and another book reports the cause.
The regnal numbers of this stretch are the harder question, since Pekah's twenty years have to be fitted against the Assyrian dates for Tiglath-pileser. Albert Barnes brings the monuments to bear on the synchronisms. The book's manuscript entry notes that the Greek chronological figures differ from the Hebrew because of the kaige recension, which is where the estate sends a reader who wants the textual history.
The prophecy fulfilled inside the book
Verse 12 is the clearest case in these two books of a promise given a term and watched keep it. At 2 Kings 10:30 the Lord told Jehu that his sons would sit on Israel's throne to the fourth generation. Jehoahaz, Jehoash, Jeroboam the second and Zechariah are those four. The narrator closes the account with the plain note that so it came to pass, and Shallum's assassination of Zechariah lands the promise on its stated limit.
The New Testament's use
The chapter carries no direct New Testament citation. Its bearing runs forward through verses 37 and 38, where Rezin and Pekah move against Judah for the first time. Isaiah 7:1 names the same two kings at the opening of Isaiah's ministry to Ahaz, and the sign of Immanuel at Isaiah 7:14 is given against that campaign. Matthew 1:23 takes that sign up, so the war this chapter opens stands underneath the New Testament's first quotation of Isaiah.
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832 to 1869, on 2 Kings 15:19; the compiler of Kings, the accession and closing formulae at 2 Kings 15:1 to 7, 15:8 to 12, 15:13 to 16, 15:17 to 22, 15:23 to 26, 15:27 to 31 and 15:32 to 38 and the site's own guide to this book, the book's own guide module, src/components/book/guides/2-kings/Book2KingsGuide.tsx.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; F. W. Farrar, The Second Book of Kings (Expositor's Bible); Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil, The Books of the Kings and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.