- 150-
(^246) If Rehoboam was twenty-one years old at his accession, and reigned eighteen years,
and then after two or three years was followed by his grandson, the latter could
scarcely have been more than ten or eleven years old.
(^247) At his accession Jeroboam reigned in Israel. The other seven were: Nadab, Baasha,
Elah, Zimri, Tibni, Omri, and Ahab. These seven kings represented four rival
dynasties.
(^248) Evidently all the males capable of bearing weapons were trained to arms. The
proportion of Benjamin relatively to Judah, though great, is not excessive (comp.
Genesis 49:27).
(^249) We regard these numerals also as round numbers.
(^250) Brugsch regards Zerah not as Osorkon, but as an independent Ethiopian monarch.
But there is no evidence in support of this hypothesis.
(^251) The Marissa of Josephus, the modern Marash. Comp. Robinson's Bibl. Researches,
vol. 2. pp. 67, 68. Its importance as a fortress is shewn by the part it sustained in later
Jewish history, having been taken and retaken several times at different periods.
(^252) Not where Robinson finds it (u.s. p. 31).
(^253) Professor Rawlinson in the Speaker's Commentary.
(^254) The words are not easy of exact rendering, though their meaning is plain. Different
translations have been proposed. We have ventured to put it interrogatively. If this
view be not adopted, that which would most commend itself to us would be: "It is
nothing with Thee, Jehovah, to help between the mighty in regard to the weak."
(^255) In 2 Chronicles 14:13 the Hebrew expression is: "they were broken before Jehovah"
- as it were by the weight of His Hand.
(^256) In the reign of Josiah (2 Chronicles 35:20-24).
(^257) There is no reason for supposing that Oded was Iddo the prophet. In 2 Chronicles
15:8 the words: "Of Oded the prophet," are either defective, or more probably a gloss.
This is evident, not only from the ascription of the prophecy to Oded, but from the fact
that the grammatical structure requires either the omission of these words or the
addition to them of others.
(^)