2 Kingschapter 15
38 verses · Jeremiah, by tradition · 6th century BC · History
Key verse
In the days of Pekah king of Israel came Tiglath–pileser king of Assyria, and took Ijon, and Abel–beth–maachah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and carried them captive to Assyria.
It stands in Pekah's reign, and Tiglath-pileser carries Galilee away, verses 23 to 31.
The chapter
Chapter summary
Judah has one long steady reign. Azariah, fifty-two years, doing right except for the high places, struck with leprosy so that he dwells in a separate house while Jotham judges the people. Israel has six kings and almost none dies in bed. Zechariah is struck down in public after six months, ending Jehu's four generations exactly as promised. Shallum lasts a month. Menahem buys off Pul king of Assyria with a thousand talents of silver exacted from every mighty man of wealth. The empire's first named entrance into the story. Pekahiah is assassinated by his captain Pekah, in whose days Tiglath-pileser carries away Gilead and Galilee and all Naphtali. Hoshea inherits a country running out of time.
Context
History · Jeremiah · 2 Kings overview
The world behind this chapter
2 Kings 15The history
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.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
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.
What it meant to them
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.
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.
Sources cited
- Edwin R. Thiele, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings
- The Annals of Tiglath-Pileser III (Assyrian inscriptions, Calah)
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
Where the chapter sits
2 Kings 15 falls in Northern kingdom's fall (chapters 14–17). Jeroboam II's reign (Jonah contemporary); long catalogue of northern kings; Hoshea; Samaria besieged three years; the 722 BC Assyrian exile.
Before it: Elijah's ascension; Elisha's ministry, chapters 1–13. After it: Hezekiah and the Assyrian crisis, chapters 18–20.
The whole shape of 2 Kings→The structure of this chapter
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. Azariah struck with leprosy, dwelling in a separate house
1. (vv. 1-2)
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
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.”
began Azariah son of Amaziah king of Judah to reign: This king carries two names through the historical books, Azariah through most of this chapter and Uzziah in Chronicles and again here at verses 13, 30, 32 and 34; the double name is not a contradiction to resolve, only an example of how freely Hebrew narrative gave one man a second name. His fifty-two years in Jerusalem are the longest reign any king of Judah held, running alongside Jeroboam the second's long reign in the north, the two kingdoms' widest borders falling in one generation. He is sixteen at his accession, an age the text states without narrating the regency it implies.
2. (vv. 3-7)
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 had a very strong and well-regulated military force, which he provided with a well-stocked arsenal; and constructed many military engines to shoot arrows and project great stones; and that his fame was universally spread abroad.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
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.”
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.”
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.”
right in the sight of the Lord: Azariah's reign is graded right, matched to his father Amaziah's, but the high places survive every reforming king before Hezekiah, and the people go on sacrificing where they are used to sacrificing. The Lord smites the king with leprosy; this chapter gives no reason, and 2 Chronicles 26:16-21 supplies one, that pride carried him past the priests into the sanctuary to burn incense, but Kings does not repeat that story here and the two books' separate telling is kept honest. He dwells in a several house, set apart as a leper, while Jotham his son governs from the house, and the closing formula and burial in the city of David end a reign longer than any other king of Judah's.
B. Zechariah and Shallum: a month, then a month
1. (vv. 8-9)
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
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.”
Zachariah the son of Jeroboam reign over Israel: Zachariah is Jeroboam the second's son and the last of Jehu's line, and his six months on the throne show how fast the north's stability collapses once its strongest king dies. The formula that has measured every northern king since the first Jeroboam returns here: he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, a sentence this chapter repeats four times over four different kings, at verses 9, 18, 24 and 28. One dynasty's whole record is compressed into a single inherited sin.
2. (vv. 10-12)
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.”
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.”
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
conspired against him, and smote him: Shallum's public assassination of Zachariah ends the house of Jehu at the exact point the Lord had named: thy sons shall sit on the throne of Israel unto the fourth generation, the word given at 2 Kings 10:30 after Jehu's slaughter of Ahab's house. Jehoahaz, Jehoash, Jeroboam the second and Zachariah are the four generations, and the closing note here, and so it came to pass, states the fulfillment as plainly as the promise was once stated. No other northern dynasty in these two books is given a set term and watched keep it to the letter.
3. (vv. 13-14)
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.”
a full month in Samaria: Shallum's reign is the shortest any king of either kingdom holds in these two books, one month against Zachariah's six, and Menahem ends it the same way it began, by force from outside Samaria. Menahem comes up from Tirzah, the old northern capital before Omri bought and built Samaria, so the coup crosses the kingdom's own history in reverse, the newer capital falling to a man out of the older one. The north has now had three kings inside a single year.
4. (vv. 15-16)
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.”
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.”
his conspiracy which he made: The closing formula for Shallum gives way at once to Menahem's own record, and that record opens with the massacre at Tiphsah, a town that would not open its gates, its pregnant women ripped up along with the rest. Amos had already listed this same atrocity, ripping up the women with child of Gilead, among the sins for which the Lord would not turn away Ammon's judgment; Menahem inflicts it on people who share his own throne. The word Kings uses to record it is as plain as the deed, and the text passes no comment beyond recording it.
C. Menahem buys off Pul with a thousand talents
1. (vv. 17-18)
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.”
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.”
began Menahem the son of Gadi to reign: Menahem's ten years are the north's longest stretch of stability in this chapter, bought by the very violence that opened his reign, and the formula returns for a second time in nine verses, he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin. A usurper who murders his way to the throne still inherits the same one sin every king before him inherited. The text measures kings by covenant loyalty, not by how they came to power or how long they kept it.
2. (vv. 19-22)
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
Pul the king of Assyria came against the land: Pul is the first Assyrian king this scroll names coming against Israel's own soil, the empire that will finish the north at 17:6 entering the story here as a threat bought off rather than fought. The Babylonian king lists identify Pul with Tiglath-pileser the third under his throne name, the same king who returns at verse 29 under his better known name to take Naphtali captive; Menahem's thousand talents only postpones what his successors cannot buy off twice. The tribute falls on every wealthy man at fifty shekels apiece, a land tax raised to pay a foreign king to leave, and the closing formula and Pekahiah's succession follow at once.
D. Pekah's reign, and Tiglath-pileser carries Galilee away
1. (vv. 23-24)
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.”
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.”
Pekahiah the son of Menahem began to reign: Pekahiah's two years keep Menahem's line on the throne only long enough for a third recitation of the same formula, he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, unchanged from father to son. No northern dynasty in this chapter reforms; each new house simply repeats the founding sin under a new name. The kingdom Jeroboam divided from Judah generations earlier is still measured against the golden calves he set up at Bethel and Dan.
2. (vv. 25-26)
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).”
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.”
a captain of his, conspired against him: Pekah is his own king's officer, and he strikes inside the palace itself with fifty Gileadite men and two named accomplices, Argob and Arieh, the kind of detail Kings usually omits from these short obituaries. The Gileadite backing points east of Jordan, toward the territory Tiglath-pileser will strip away first in Pekah's own reign at verse 29, so the men who put him on the throne are the men whose land he later loses. The closing formula ends Pekahiah in one line, after giving his murder more words than his whole two-year reign otherwise earns.
3. (vv. 27-28)
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
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.”
began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and reigned twenty years: Pekah's twenty years are the longest reign in this chapter besides Menahem's ten, and the formula appears a fourth time in this one chapter, he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, at verses 9, 18, 24 and now 28. Four kings, four different fathers, four assassinations or usurpations between them, and one unchanging verdict. The repetition is the chapter's own argument: instability of rulers and constancy of sin run side by side.
4. (vv. 29-31)
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
1 more voice on this verse
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.”
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
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.”
came Tiglath–pileser king of Assyria: This is the empire's first captivity taken bodily out of the land, Naphtali's territory named town by town, Ijon, Abel-beth-maachah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead and Galilee, and the people carried to Assyria rather than merely taxed as Pul's earlier visit had been. The deportation begun here reaches its full stop thirteen years later at 17:6, when the whole northern kingdom follows Naphtali into exile; this verse is that ending's opening move. Hoshea's conspiracy against Pekah closes out the chapter's fifth and last northern king, and the closing formula follows as it has for every king before him.
E. Jotham builds the upper gate; Rezin and Pekah begin to come
1. (vv. 32-33)
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
began Jotham the son of Uzziah king of Judah to reign: Jotham has already governed as regent since his father's leprosy at verse 5, so his formal accession here only records in writing what has been true for years. He is twenty-five at his accession, and his mother is named, Jerusha the daughter of Zadok, the only queen mother in this chapter's run of kings given a father's name rather than only a city. Judah's throne passes father to son across five verses of this chapter while Israel's throne changes hands five times by murder in the same thirty-eight.
2. (vv. 34-36)
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).”
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.”
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
according to all that his father Uzziah had done: Jotham earns the same right verdict his father did, and the same qualification follows him, the high places were not removed, this chapter's second use of that formula after verse 4. He is credited with one specific work, the higher gate of the house of the Lord, a rare case in these short notices where a king's own building is named rather than only summarized. The closing formula points to a fuller record in the chronicles of the kings of Judah, the same source cited for every king in this chapter.
3. (vv. 37-38)
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.”
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.”
the Lord began to send against Judah: Rezin and Pekah appear together here for the first time, and Isaiah 7:1 names them together again at the opening of Isaiah's own ministry, the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, when these same two kings marched on Jerusalem. Kings states plainly that the Lord himself begins to send them, the same hand that gave Judah her long stability now raising up her first real threat in a generation. Jotham dies before the crisis breaks in full; Ahaz his son inherits the war this verse opens and the next chapter narrates.
This page carries no textual note on 2 Kings 15. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
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 exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; F. W. Farrar, The Second Book of Kings (Expositor's Bible); Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil, The Books of the Kings and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.