2Ch 28:10-18 | KD | STEP | “And now the sons of Judah and Jerusalem ye purpose to subject to yourselves for bondmen and bondwomen!” יהוּדה בּני is accus ., and precedes as being emphatic; i.e., your brethren, whom the wrath of God has smitten, you purpose to keep in subjection. אתּם also is emphatically placed, and then is again emphasized at the end of the sentence by the suffix in לכם: “Are there not, only concerning you, with you, sins with Jahve your God?” i.e., Have you, to regard only you, not also burdened yourselves with many sins against the Lord? The question הלא, is a lively way of expressing assurance as to a matter which is not at all doubtful.

‏ 2 Chronicles 28:10-18

2Ch 28:10 “And now the sons of Judah and Jerusalem ye purpose to subject to yourselves for bondmen and bondwomen!” יהוּדה בּני is accus., and precedes as being emphatic; i.e., your brethren, whom the wrath of God has smitten, you purpose to keep in subjection. אתּם also is emphatically placed, and then is again emphasized at the end of the sentence by the suffix in לכם: “Are there not, only concerning you, with you, sins with Jahve your God?” i.e., Have you, to regard only you, not also burdened yourselves with many sins against the Lord? The question הלא, is a lively way of expressing assurance as to a matter which is not at all doubtful. 2Ch 28:11

After thus quickening the conscience, he calls upon them to send back the prisoners which they had carried away from among their brethren, because the anger of Jahve was upon them. Already in their pitiless butchery of their brethren they had committed a sin which cried to heaven, which challenged God’s anger and His punishments; but by the carrying away of the women and children from their brethren they had filled up the measure of their sin, so that God’s anger and rage must fall upon them. 2Ch 28:12-13

This speech made a deep impression. Four of the heads of the Ephraimites, here mentioned by name, - according to 2Ch 28:12, four princes at the head of the assembled people, - came before those coming from the army (על קוּם, to come forward before one, to meet one), and said, 2Ch 28:13, “Bring not the captives hither; for in order that a sin of Jahve come upon us, do you purpose (do you intend) to add to our sins and to our guilt?” i.e., to increase our sins and our guilt by making these prisoners slaves; “for great is our guilt, and fierce wrath upon Israel.” 2Ch 28:14

Then the armed men (החלוּץ, cf. 1Ch 12:23) who had escorted the prisoners to Samaria left the prisoners and the booty before the princes and the whole assembly. 2Ch 28:15 “And the men which were specified by name stood up.” בשׁמות נקּבוּ אשׁר does not signify those before mentioned (2Ch 28:12), but the men specified by name, distinguished or famous men (see on 1Ch 12:31), among whom, without doubt, those mentioned in 2Ch 28:12 are included, but not these alone; other prominent men are also meant. These received the prisoners and the booty, clothed all the naked, providing them with clothes and shoes (sandals) from the booty, gave them to eat and to drink, anointed them, and set all the feeble upon asses, and brought them to Jericho to their brethren (countrymen). The description is picturesque, portraying with satisfaction the loving pity for the miserable. מערמּים, nakedness, abstr. pro concr., the naked. לכל־כּושׁל is accus., and a nearer definition of the suffix in y|nahaluwm: they brought them, (not all, but only) all the stumbling, who could not, owing to their fatigue, make the journey on foot. Jericho, the city of palm trees, as in Jdg 3:13, in the tribe of Benjamin, belonged to the kingdom of Judah; see Jos 18:21. Arrived there, the prisoners were with their brethren.

The speech of the prophet Oded is reckoned by Gesenius, on Isaiah, S. 269, among the speeches invented by the chronicler; but very erroneously so: cf. against him, Caspari, loc cit. i. S. 49ff. The speech cannot be separated from the fact of the liberation of the prisoners carried away from Judah, which it brought about; and that is shown to be a historical fact by the names of the tribal princes of Ephraim, who, in consequence of the warning of the prophet, took his part and accomplished the sending of them back; they being names which are not elsewhere met with (2Ch 28:12). The spontaneous interference of these tribal chiefs would not be in itself impossible, but yet it is very improbable, and becomes perfectly comprehensible only by the statement that these men were roused and encouraged thereto by the word of a prophet. We must consequently regard the speech of the prophet as a fact which is as well established as that narrated in 2Ch 28:12-15. “If that which is narrated in 2Ch 28:12. be not invented, it would betray the greatest levity to hold that which is recorded in 2Ch 28:9-11 to be incredible” (Casp.). And, moreover, the speech of the prophet does not contain the thoughts and phrases current with the author of the Chronicle, but is quite suitable to the circumstances, and so fully corresponds to what we should expect to hear from a prophet on such an occasion, that there is not the slightest reason to doubt the authenticity of its contents. Finally, the whole transaction is exactly parallel to the interference of the prophet Shemaiah in 1Ki 12:22-24 (2Ch 11:1-4), who exhorted the army of Judah, fully determined upon war with the ten tribes which had just revolted from the house of David, not to make war upon their brethren the Israelites, as the revolt had been brought about by God. “That fact at the beginning of the history of the two separated kingdoms, and this at the end of it, finely correspond to each other. In the one place it is a Judaean prophet who exhorts the men of Judah, in the other an Ephraimite prophet who exhorts the Ephraimites, to show a conciliatory spirit to the related people; and in both cases they are successful. If we do not doubt the truth of the even narrated in 1Ki 12:22-24, why should that recorded in 2Ch 28:9-11 be invented?” (Casp. S. 50.) 2Ch 28:16 The further chastisements inflicted upon King Ahaz and the kingdom of Judah. - 2Ch 28:16. At this time, when the kings Rezin and Pekah had so smitten Ahaz, the latter sent to the king of Assyria praying him for help. The time when Ahaz sought the help of the king of Assyria is neither exactly stated in 2Ki 16:7-9, nor can we conclude, as Bertheau thinks we can, from Isa. 7. that it happened soon after the invasion of Judah by the allied kings. The plural אשּׁוּר מלכי is rhetorical, like the plur. בּנין, 2Ch 28:3. For, that Ahaz applied only to one king, in the opinion of the chronicler also, we learn from 2Ch 28:20, 2Ch 28:21. By the plural the thought is expressed that Ahaz, instead of seeking the help of Jahve his God, which the prophet had promised him (Isa 7:4.), turned to the kings of the world-power, so hostile to the kingdom of God, from whom he naturally could obtain no real help. Even here the thought which is expressed only in 2Ch 28:20, 2Ch 28:21, is present to the mind of the author of the Chronicle. For before he narrates the issue of the help thus sought from the Assyrian world-power in 2Ch 28:17-19, he ranges all the other afflictions which Judah suffered by its enemies, viz., the devastating inroads of the Edomites and Philistines, in a series of circumstantial clauses, as they preceded in time the oppression of Tiglath-pileser. 2Ch 28:17 2Ch 28:17 is to be translated, “And besides, the Edomites had come, and had inflicted a defeat upon Judah, and carried away captives.” עוד, yet besides, praeterea, as in Gen 43:6; Isa 1:5. The Edomites had been made subject to the kingdom of Judah only by Amaziah and Uzziah (2Ch 25:11., 2Ch 26:2); but freed by Rezin from this (cf. 2Ki 16:6), they immediately seized the opportunity to make an inroad upon Judah, and take vengeance on the inhabitants. 2Ch 28:18

And the Philistines whom Uzziah had subdued (2Ch 26:6) made use of the pressure of the Syrians and Ephraimites upon Judah, not only to shake off the yoke imposed upon them, but also to fall plundering upon the cities of the lowland and the south of Judah, and to extend their territory by the capture of several cities of Judah. They took Beth-shemesh, the present Ain Shems; and Ajalon, the present village Jâlo (see on 1Ch 6:44 and 1Ch 6:54); Gederoth in the lowland (Jos 15:41), not yet discovered, for there are not sufficient grounds for identifying it with Gedera (Jos 15:36), which v. de Velde has pointed out south-eastward from Jabneh (see on 1Ch 12:4); Shocho, the present Shuweike, which Rehoboam had fortified (2Ch 11:7); Timnah, on the frontier of the tribal domain of Judah, the present Tibneh, three-quarters of an hour to the west of Ain Shems (see on Jos 15:10); and Gimzo, now Jimsû, a large village about two miles south-east of Lydda (Lud) on the way to Jerusalem (Rob. sub voce). The three last-named cities, with their daughters, i.e., the small villages dependent upon them.