Chapter Fourteen

1–22. 9th king of Judah Amaziah. 23–29. 13th king of Israel Jeroboam II.

2 Kings 14:1. In the second year of Joash son of Jehoahaz king of Israel, Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah became king: 2 Kings 14:2. He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jehoaddin of Jerusalem. 2 Kings 14:3. And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, yet not like his ancestor David; in all things he did as his father Joash had done. 2 Kings 14:4. But the high places were not removed; the people still offered sacrifice and burned incense on the high places. 2 Kings 14:5. And as soon as the royal power was firmly in his hand, he killed his servants who had killed his father the king. 2 Kings 14:6. But he did not put to death the children of the murderers; according to what is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, where the Lord commanded, “The parents shall not be put to death for the children, nor the children be put to death for the parents; but every one shall be put to death for his own sin. The accession of the ninth Judean king Amaziah falls on the 2nd year of the Israelite Joash, that is, approximately on 837 BC, and lasted until 808 BC. In the general character of his reign, Amaziah was similar—in respect to the duality and instability of religion toward God—to the reign of his father Joash; like the latter, he served God “not with a whole heart” (2 Chr 25:2), and just as with Joash, the first half of Amaziah’s reign was marked by faithfulness to God and his law, but then his reign was darkened by idolatrous (Edomite) worship (2 Chr 25:14-16). To the first half of Amaziah’s reign belongs his act of humanity toward the children of the murderers of Joash, his father (see John 12:21-22); in this case Amaziah was perhaps one of the first (cf. 2 Kgs 9:26) to deviate from the demands of the law of universal blood vengeance and followed the humane law (Deut 24:16; Ezek 18:20).

2 Kings 14:7. He defeated ten thousand Edomites in the Valley of Salt and took Sela by war, and gave it the name Joktheel, which it bears to this day. About the war of Amaziah with Edom, (2 Chr 25:5-13) speaks in detail, telling mainly about Amaziah’s hiring of 100,000 Israelites to help him in the war against Edom and their dismissal by the word of a prophet, after which the enraged Israelites on the return journey committed a series of robberies and murders within the borders of Judah. The purpose of Amaziah’s campaign into Edom was the new subjugation of this region, which had revolted from Judah under Jehoram (2 Kgs 8:20). With 300,000 troops (2 Chr 25:5) Amaziah fought the Edomites in the so-called Valley of Salt (Heb. gay-hammelah, LXX: Γεμελέδ, Vulg.: in valle Salinarum, Slavonic: in gemele), to the southwest of the Dead Sea, in the western part of el-Gor, between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Eilat on the Red Sea (cf. Onomast. 666; Robinson. Palast. III, 22–24). Here once Joab defeated the Edomites (2 Sam 8:13; 1 Chr 18:12; Isa 59:2): here too Amaziah won a complete victory over the Edomites: 10,000 of them were slain in battle, and 10,000 were taken prisoner and barbarously executed by being cast from a cliff (2 Chr 25:11-12). Moreover, the Judeans took the Edomite city of Sela (Heb. sela, LXX: ή πετρα, Vulg.: petra, Slavonic: “stone”), later known by the Greek name Petra (both Hebrew and Greek names mean “rock”), according to Eusebius, lying 10 miles from Elath (Onomast. 763, 474). The victor gave the city a new name in the theocratic spirit: Joktheel (Heb. yokthel, LXX: Ιεκθοὴλ, Vulg.: Iectehel, Slavonic: Joktheel). From the remark (verse 7) that this new name persists “to this day,” we can conclude that the source from which the sacred writer of 2 Kings took this account was produced around the time of Amaziah or shortly after him, since already under Ahaz Edom fell away from Judah (2 Kgs 16:6), and with it, of course, the new name did not persist, which expressed the idea of subjugation (according to Gesenius, Joktheel—from God subdued, brought into servitude). Upon his return with victory, Amaziah, however, did not give thanks to God, but instead began to perform the worship of the gods of the conquered Seir or Edom, and a prophet vainly tried to turn him from this (2 Chr 25:14-16).

2 Kings 14:8. Then Amaziah sent messengers to Joash son of Jehoahaz king of Israel, saying: Come, let us look one another in the face. 2 Kings 14:9. And Joash king of Israel sent word to Amaziah king of Judah, saying: A thistle in Lebanon sent word to a cedar in Lebanon, saying, “Give your daughter to my son for a wife.” A wild animal that was in Lebanon passed by and trampled down the thistle. 2 Kings 14:10. You have indeed defeated Edom, and your heart has lifted you up. Be content with the glory of that; stay at home; for why should you provoke trouble so that you fall, you and Judah with you? 2 Kings 14:11. But Amaziah would not listen. So Joash king of Israel went up; and he and Amaziah king of Judah faced one another in battle at Beth-shemesh, which belongs to Judah. 2 Kings 14:12. And Judah was defeated by Israel, and every man fled to his home. 2 Kings 14:13. And Joash king of Israel captured Amaziah king of Judah, son of Joash son of Ahaziah, at Beth-shemesh, and came to Jerusalem, and broke down the wall of Jerusalem for four hundred cubits, from the Gate of Ephraim to the Corner Gate. 2 Kings 14:14. And he took all the gold and silver, and all the vessels that were found in the house of the Lord and in the treasures of the king’s house, and hostages also, and returned to Samaria. Elated by the success of his war with the Edomites, Amaziah, apparently without any cause, sends a military challenge to Joash of Israel. (According to Josephus, Iud.Antiq. 9:9, 2, Amaziah demanded that Joash and all the people submit to Amaziah as the ten tribes had submitted to his ancestors David and Solomon; according to the rabbis, Amaziah through wars wanted to take revenge on the Israelites for the outrages committed by the hired Israelites in Judah, 2 Chr 25:13). He attempted to warn the proud Amaziah with a parable about the thistle and cedar on Lebanon (v. 9; cf. blessed Theodoret, question 43), showing him the superiority of the forces of the Kingdom of Israel over Judah (in the history of the relations of the Judean Jehoshaphat with the Israelite Ahab and Jehoram (1 Kgs 22:1), and (2 Kgs 3:1), we already noted that the Kingdom of Judah appears to have been dependent on the Kingdom of Israel, and in general, in the quantity of population and extent and abundance of territory, the latter significantly surpassed the former), and advising him to abandon the ruinous scheme (v. 10). Amaziah, nevertheless, went to war, and already within the borders of Judah, in the city of Beth-shemesh, Heb. Beth-Shemesh, on the border with the tribe of Dan (Josh 15:10; 1 Sam 6:19; 1 Kgs 4:9), near the Philistine lands, now Ain-Shemesh in the Sorek valley on the road from Ashkelon to Jerusalem, see Onomast. 366), Joash met him, completely routing his army and capturing Amaziah himself, and, according to Josephus (Iud.Antiq. 9:9, 3), Joash, under threat of death, forced Amaziah to demand from the inhabitants of Jerusalem to allow Joash with his army into the city, which was done. Upon entering Jerusalem, Joash broke down part of the Jerusalem wall from the Gate of Ephraim (see (Zech 14), on the north, near the present Damascus Gate) to the Corner Gate (on the northwest for 400 cubits), this was a factual testimony to the dependence of Judah on the Kingdom of Israel. Then, having seized much treasure from the temple and palace, as well as hostages (in place of the released Amaziah), the victorious Joash returned to Samaria.

2 Kings 14:15. Now the rest of the acts of Joash which he did, and his might, and how he fought against Amaziah king of Judah, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel? 2 Kings 14:16. And Joash slept with his fathers, and was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel. And Jeroboam his son became king in his place. The concluding remarks about the Israelite Joash, already made in (2 Kgs 13:12-13), are repeated here, especially appropriate in connection with (v. 17), from which it is clear that after the death of the Israelite Joash, the Judean king Amaziah reigned for another 15 years (cf. 2 Kgs 14:1-2).

2 Kings 14:18. Now the other acts of Amaziah, are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? 2 Kings 14:19. And they made a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem, and he fled to Lachish. And they sent after him to Lachish and killed him there. 2 Kings 14:20. And they brought him on horses; and he was buried at Jerusalem with his fathers in the City of David. The end of Amaziah was as inglorious as that of his father: he too fell victim to a conspiracy made in Jerusalem, from which he fled to Lachish (once a Canaanite city (Josh 10:31), later in the tribe of Judah: (Josh 15:39); fortified by Rehoboam (2 Chr 11:9), now Umm-Lahis to the southwest of Begeubira—Eleutheropolis, Onomast. 647), where he was killed. Amaziah was granted royal burial.

2 Kings 14:21. And all the people of Judah took Azariah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king instead of his father Amaziah. 2 Kings 14:22. He rebuilt Elath and restored it to Judah, after the king slept with his fathers. Instead of the killed Amaziah, all the people appointed as king one of the sons of Amaziah (from this it is evident how great was the devotion in the Kingdom of Judah to the dynasty of David) Azariah (v. 21; cf. 2 Kgs 15:1), otherwise Uzziah (Heb. Uzziah, (2 Kgs 15:13); cf. Hos 1:1; Amos 1:1; Isa 1:1): both names express almost the same idea: “help of God” and “son of God.” In the first half of his reign, Uzziah completed the work of conquest of Edom begun by his father and rebuilt the port city of Elath on the Red Sea (cf. note to 1 Kgs 9:26). This was probably the most distinguished deed of this king, which is why it is related here; about the other deeds of this king it is related in (2 Kgs 15:1-7); cf. (2 Chr 26:1).

2 Kings 14:23. In the fifteenth year of Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah, Jeroboam son of Joash king of Israel became king in Samaria and reigned forty-one years, 2 Kings 14:24. And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord; he did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin. 2 Kings 14:25. He restored the border of Israel from the entrance of Hamath to the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet, who was from Gath-hepher, 2 Kings 14:26. For the Lord saw that the distress of Israel was very bitter; for there was no one left, bond or free, and no helper for Israel. 2 Kings 14:27. And the Lord did not will to blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, but he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam son of Joash. 2 Kings 14:28. Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, and all that he did, and his might, how he fought and how he recovered for Israel Damascus and Hamath, which had belonged to Judah, are written in the book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. 2 Kings 14:29. And Jeroboam slept with his fathers, with the kings of Israel. And Zechariah his son became king in his place. The date of the accession of the Israelite Jeroboam II is consistent with (2 Kgs 14:1-2), according to which the Judean Amaziah reigned 29 years, of which 14 years were contemporaneous with the Israelite Joash, and 15 years with his son Jeroboam II. But the duration of the reign of Jeroboam II indicated in (2 Kgs 14:21), 41 years, does not accord with the testimony (2 Kgs 15:8), that the son and successor of Jeroboam II, Zechariah, became king only in the 38th year of the Judean Azariah-Uzziah: if Jeroboam reigned 15 years simultaneously with the latter and another 38 years with Uzziah, then the total number of years of Jeroboam II’s reign would be 53 years or, accepting that 15 and 38 were incomplete years, 51 years, not 41 years; therefore one can suppose an error from confusion of numerals (the letter nun with mem: 50 and 40). The duration of Jeroboam II’s reign is also supported by the chronological date of the prophetic ministry of Hosea in the inscription to his prophetic book (Hos 1:1; cf. verses 4–5; cf., however, in Prof. I. A. Brodovich. Book of the prophet Hosea, Kyiv. 1901, p. XI-XVI.) About such a long and undoubtedly glorious reign of the Israelite Jeroboam II, the sacred writer reports, however, only the most general information (perhaps on account of the iniquity of this king from the theocratic point of view, 4, cf. verse 24 and (2 Kgs 13:2), or rather, due to lack of a detailed biography of this king); he mentions the significant and, for the first time after Solomon (1 Kgs 8:65), realized restoration of the ancient promised boundaries of the land of Israel from the Syrian Hamath (2 Sam 8:9; Onomast. 52) to the Sea of the Arabah (Heb. yam haarava, Vulg.: mare solitudinis, v. 25), that is, the Dead Sea (Deut 3:17; Josh 3:16): θάλασσα τῆς Ἀραβα, Slavonic: “to the sea of Arabia”, Onomast. 495). Jeroboam, who completed the work of his father Joash in this regard (2 Kgs 13:25), was able to take advantage of the weakness of Damascus after the victories over it by the Assyrian kings Shalmaneser III and Ashur-dan III (Meyer, Geschichte des Alterth. I, s. 146). The well-known prophet Jonah foretold this feat of Jeroboam II, he whose name is known from the prophetic book (Jonah 1:1), of course, not containing this specific prediction, only containing the prophecy of Jonah about Nineveh (cf. blessed Theodoret, question 45). The prophet Jonah came from the city of Gath-hepher (Heb. Gat-Haheper, LXX: Γεθχοφέρ, Gath quae est in Opher), a city in the tribe of Zebulun (Josh 19:13); according to Jerome, the village of Geth, 2 miles from Sepphoris—Diocaesarea on the way to Tiberias, now el-Meshhed (Onomast. 335). The reason for such a fortunate turn of events for the Kingdom of Israel lies in the long-suffering and mercy of God, who because of his faithfulness to the covenant with Israel still did not decide to put an end to the existence of the Kingdom of Israel and even allowed the restoration of the ancient territory of Israel (verses 26–28) (v. 29, cf. 2 Kgs 15:8). * * * According to Josephus, Iud.Antiq. 9:10, 1, Jeroboam II “was a man of extreme lawlessness, worshipped idols and indulged in various completely inappropriate habits”