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Selected Verse: 2 Kings 15:13 - King James
| Verse |
Translation |
Text |
| 2Ki 15:13 |
King James |
Shallum the son of Jabesh began to reign in the nine and thirtieth year of Uzziah king of Judah; and he reigned a full month in Samaria. |
Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse
| A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882] |
| Shallum . . . reigned a full month--He was opposed and slain by Menahem, who, according to JOSEPHUS, was commander of the forces, which, on the report of the king's murder, were besieging Tirzah, a town twelve miles east of Samaria, and formerly a seat of the kings of Israel. Raising the siege, he marched directly against the usurper, slew him, and reigned in his stead. |
| The Scofield Bible Commentary, by Cyrus Ingerson Scofield, [1917] |
Uzziah
(Mat 1:8); (Mat 1:9) called Ozias;
(Kg2 15:7) called Azariah. |
| Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78] |
Reign of Shallum. - Shallum reigned only a full month (ירח־ימים, as in Deu 21:13; see at Gen 29:14). Menahem the son of Gadi then made war upon him from Tirzah; and by him he was smitten and slain. Menahem must have been a general or the commander-in-chief, as Josephus affirms. As soon as he became king he smote Tiphsach, - i.e., Thapsacus on the Euphrates, which has long since entirely disappeared, probably to be sought for in the neighbourhood of the present Rakka, by the ford of el Hamman, the north-eastern border city of the Israelitish kingdom in the time of Solomon (Kg1 5:4), which came into the possession of the kingdom of Israel again when the ancient boundaries were restored by Jeroboam II (Kg2 14:25 and Kg2 14:28), but which had probably revolted again during the anarchy which arose after the death of Jeroboam, - "and all that were therein, and the territory thereof, from Tirzah; because they opened not (to him), therefore he smote it, and had them that were with child ripped up." מתּרצה does not mean that Menahem laid the land or district waste from Tirzah to Tiphsach, but is to be taken in connection with יכּה in this sense: he smote Tiphsach proceeding from Tirzah, etc. The position of this notice, namely, immediately after the account of the usurpation of the throne by Menahem and before the history of his reign, is analogous to that concerning Elath in the case of Uzziah (Kg2 14:22), and, like the latter, is to be accounted for from the fact that the expedition of Menahem against Tiphsach formed the commencement of his reign, and, as we may infer from Kg2 15:19, became very eventful not only for his own reign, but also for the kingdom of Israel generally. The reason why he proceeded from Tirzah against Tiphsach, was no doubt that it was in Tirzah, the present Tallusa, which was only three hours to the east of Samaria (see at Kg1 14:17), that the army of which Menahem was commander was posted, so that he had probably gone to Samaria with only a small body of men to overthrow Shallum, the murderer of Zachariah and usurper of the throne, and to make himself king. It is possible that the army commanded by Menahem had already been collected in Tirzah to march against the city of Tiphsach, which had revolted from Israel when Shallum seized upon the throne by the murder of Zachariah; so that after Menahem had removed the usurper, he carried out at once the campaign already resolved upon, and having taken Tiphsach, punished it most cruelly for its revolt. On the cruel custom of ripping up the women with child, i.e., of cutting open their wombs, see Kg2 8:12; Amo 1:13, and Hos 14:1. Tiphsach, Thapsacus, appears to have been a strong fortress; and from its situation on the western bank of the Euphrates, at the termination of the great trade-road from Egypt, Phoenicia, and Syria to Mesopotamia and the kingdoms of Inner Asia (Movers, Phniz. ii. 2, pp. 164,165; and Ritter, Erdkunde, x. pp. 1114-15), the possession of it was of great importance to the kingdom of Israel.
(Note: There is no foundation for the view propounded by Ewald (Gesch. iii. p. 599), Simson (Hosea, pp. 20, 21), Thenius, and many others, that Tiphsach was a city between Tirzah and Samaria, which Menahem laid waste on his march from Tirzah to Samaria to dethrone Shallum; for it rests upon nothing more than the perfectly unwarrantable and ungrammatical combination of מתרצה with את־גבוליה, "its boundaries towards Tirzah" (Sims.), and upon the two worthless objections: (1) that the great distance of מתרצה from יכה precludes the rendering "going out from Tirzah;" and (2) that Menahem was not the man to be able to conquer Thapsacus on the Euphrates. But there is no foundation for the latter assertion, as we have no standard by which to estimate the strength and bravery of the Israelitish army commanded by Menahem. And the first objection falls to the ground with the correct rendering of מתרצה, viz., "proceeding from Tirzah," which is preferred even by Ewald and Thenius. With this rendering, the words by no means affirm that Menahem smote Tiphsach from Tirzah on the way to Samaria. This is merely an inference drawn from v. 13, according to which Menahem went from Tirzah to Samaria to overthrow Shallum. But this inference is open to the following objections: (1) that it is very improbable that there was a strong fortress between Tirzah and Samaria, which Menahem was obliged to take on his march before he could overthrow the usurper in the capital of the kingdom; and (2) that the name Tiphsach, trajectus, ford, is by no means a suitable one for a city situated on the mountains between Tirzah and Samaria, and therefore, in order to carry out the hypothesis in question, Thenius proposes to alter Tiphsach into Tappuach, without any critical warrant for so doing.) |
| Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65] |
| Full moon - That dominion seldom lasts long, which is founded in blood and falsehood. |
| Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826 |
| He reigned a full month - Menahem is supposed to have been one of Zachariah's generals. Hearing of the death of his master, when he was with the troops at Tirzah, he hastened to Samaria, and slew the murderer, and had himself proclaimed in his stead. But, as the people of Tiphsah did not open their gates to him, he took the place by assault; and as the text tells us, practiced the most cruel barbarities, even ripping up the women that were with child! |
7 So Azariah slept with his fathers; and they buried him with his fathers in the city of David: and Jotham his son reigned in his stead.
9 And Ozias begat Joatham; and Joatham begat Achaz; and Achaz begat Ezekias;
8 And Asa begat Josaphat; and Josaphat begat Joram; and Joram begat Ozias;
1 O Israel, return unto the LORD thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity.
13 Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of the children of Ammon, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have ripped up the women with child of Gilead, that they might enlarge their border:
12 And Hazael said, Why weepeth my lord? And he answered, Because I know the evil that thou wilt do unto the children of Israel: their strong holds wilt thou set on fire, and their young men wilt thou slay with the sword, and wilt dash their children, and rip up their women with child.
17 And Jeroboam's wife arose, and departed, and came to Tirzah: and when she came to the threshold of the door, the child died;
19 And Pul the king of Assyria came against the land: and Menahem gave Pul a thousand talents of silver, that his hand might be with him to confirm the kingdom in his hand.
22 He built Elath, and restored it to Judah, after that the king slept with his fathers.
28 Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, and all that he did, and his might, how he warred, and how he recovered Damascus, and Hamath, which belonged to Judah, for Israel, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?
25 He restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain, according to the word of the LORD God of Israel, which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah, the son of Amittai, the prophet, which was of Gathhepher.
4 But now the LORD my God hath given me rest on every side, so that there is neither adversary nor evil occurrent.
14 And Laban said to him, Surely thou art my bone and my flesh. And he abode with him the space of a month.
13 And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife.