- 28-
- Indeed, many interpreters understand the words "all the days" (A.V. "all their days "),
as meaning "all the days of Jehoahaz." But this seems to me not a natural Hebrew
construction.
In any case the continuous historical notices, or extracts, recommence with ver. 7, which
describes the depressed condition of the kingdom under Jehoahaz, while vets. 8 and 9
record, in the usual form, the death of Jehoahaz and the accession of his son, Jehoash (or
Joash). Thus, as already stated, vets. 5 and 6, if not also yet. 4, form an intercalated
notice, telling on the one hand how God had heard the prayer of Jehoahaz by raising up
"a savior" to Israel (ver. 5), and, on the other hand, how this gracious interposition did not
really affect the spiritual state of Israel (ver. 6). They not only continued in the sins of
Jeroboam, but "there stood the Asherah also in Samaria." This parenthetic notice must
be considered as of a general character: "the savior" raised up being in the first place
Jehoash (ver. 25), and finally and fully Jeroboam II. (2 Kings 14:25-27). Similarly the
account of Israel's degenerate religious condition in 2 Kings 13:6 must be regarded as a
general description, and not confined to either the reign of Jehoahaz, that of Jehoash, or
that of Jeroboam II.
- On the lascivious worship and rites of Asherah, or Astarte, see Vol. V. of this History,
p. 158, and also chapter 14.; and for a full account of it, Riehm's Hand-Worterb. d. Bibl.
Alt. I. pp. 111-115.
** Mark especially the expression, "he saved them," in ver. 27.
*** This disposes of the controversy whether the Asherah stood in the time of Jehoahaz,
or was only set up in that of Jeroboam II.
Lastly, the graphic expression, "the children of Israel dwelt in tents as beforetimes" (lit.
"as yesterday and the third day ") (the day before), is intended to recall the primitive
happy days, the idea being that so thorough was the deliverance from the Syrians that
Israel once more dwelt in perfect security as in olden times.
But the parenthesis in verses 5 and 6 is not the only one in this chapter. The brief notice
in vers. 10-13 of the accession of Jehoash, the character of his reign, his death, and his
succession by Jeroboam II., seems derived from the same historical record from which
the equally brief previous account of Jehoahaz had been taken. It is followed in vers. 14-
21 by a parenthetic account of what occurred in connection with the death of Elisha the
prophet, derived, we would venture to suggest, from another source; perhaps a narrative
of the lives and activity of Elijah and Elisha.*
- The existence of such a biographical work was suggested in Vol. 6.
(^)