- 163-
(^261) Only a hypercriticism can see any real difference between this statement and that in 2 Kings 8:24.
(^262) Jeho-achaz, "Jehovah seizes" or "holds," Achaz-jah, "seizes" or "holds Jehovah." We are unwilling to hazard any
speculation why the name should have been thus transposed at the accession of the young king.
(^263) The number "forty and two" in 2 Chronicles 22:2 is evidently the mistake of a copyist ( m 40 for k 20). It must be
remembered that Jehoram, his father, died at the age of forty (2 Chronicles 21:5). This implies that he was a father at
the age of eighteen. Even so, we know that Jehoram had sons older than Ahaziah (2 Chronicles 22:1), although, no
doubt, from different wives. But we know that marriages of princes in the East were very early - probably at the age of
thirteen.
(^264) In 2 Kings 8:26 she is called "the daughter of Omri," either granddaughter, or perhaps with intentional reference to
Omri as the wicked founder of the wicked dynasty of Ahab.
(^265) There is at least no express reference to a Judaean army, and the circumstances of Jehu's advance and of Ahaziah's
attempted flight seem most consistent with the idea that there was no Judaean contingent.
(^266) For the sake of any who may have wondered at the large numbers recorded in the Bible as slain in battle, it may be
stated that they are quit as large on the Assyrian monuments.
(^267) Comp. Schrader, d. Keilinschr. u. d. A. Test. pp. 206-210.
(^268) It may possibly be with reference to this, that the young "son of the prophets" was really a messenger of near
judgment upon Israel, together with the dim outlook on possible repentance, that some of the Rabbis have regarded the
messenger of Elisha as the prophet Jonah.
(^269) The peculiar expression here, and the similar allusion in ver. 7, seems to me designedly chosen to bring out the work
of Jehu as the sentence of the higher Master.
(^270) Mark the omission of the words, " over the people of Jehovah," in ver. 6.
(^271) But the expression is difficult, and is generally translated, " the very stairs," or "the stairs themselves."
(^272) Canon Tristram remarks that "not a vestige of it remains," although he found sarcophagi "with the figure of the
crescent moon, the symbol of Ashtaroth" (Land of Israel, pp. 131; comp. Conder, Tent-Work in Palestine, 1. p. 125).
(^273) Here probably equivalent to, What news? or rather, What good news?
(^274) As to this comp. Exodus 22:18; Deuteronomy 18:10.
(^275) It need scarcely be said that the whole passage is very difficult as compared with the account in 2 Chronicles 22:9.
Although we are nowise concerned to conciliate trifling differences of detail which may depend on different records of
the same event, or perhaps only seem such from our ignorance of some of the circumstances, we have endeavored to
give in the text an account of the event which will harmonize the narrative in 2 Kings with the notice in 2 Chronicles.
(^276) The punctuation is of course ours: but intended to indicate the meaning which we attach to the words.
(^277) Conder u.s. pp. 128-130.
(^278) He might deem himself the more safe that Jehu – and presumably those who might follow him from Ramoth-Gilead
- had taken the road on the other (the eastern) side of Gilboa.
(^279) A mixture of antimony and zinc, prepared with oil, with which the eyebrows and lashes were painted black, and
which, according to Pliny, had the effect of making the eyes appear larger (comp. also Jeremiah 4:30; Ezekiel 23:40,
besides references to the custom in profane writers).
(^)