In the fifty second year of Azariah king of Judah Pekah the son of Remaliah began to reign over Israel in Samaria ,.... Which was the last year of the reign of Azariah: and reigned twenty years ; which was a long reign for an usurper and murderer. read more
REIGNS OF AZARIAH AND JOTHAM OVER JUDAH ; AND OF ZACHARIAH , SHALLUM , MENAHEM , PEKAHIAH , AND PEKAH OVER ISRAEL . read more
Some lessons from the history of kings. "In the twenty and seventh year of Jeroboam," etc. The mighty Governor of the universe is represented as saying to the Jewish nation, "I gave thee a king in mine anger" ( Hosea 13:2 ). And truly, with a certain number of exceptions here and there through the ages, kings have proved malific scourges of the race. In this chapter there are mentioned no less than seven of those men who are called kings, but who, instead of having one grain of moral... read more
Worldly prosperity not infrequently the ruin of kingdoms. I. EXAMPLE OF SAMARIA . Scarcely ever was there a more prosperous reign than that of Jeroboam II .—a reign of forty-one years of continual success, uncheckered by a misfortune-Syria defeated, the old border everywhere recovered, Hamath occupied, Damascus brought into a subject condition. As usual, where there is military success, wealth flowed in, and with wealth, luxury. "Great houses" were built ( Amos 3:15 ), "ivory... read more
In the two and fiftieth year of Azariah King of Judah ; rather, in the thirty-ninth or thirty-eighth year (see the comment on verse 23). Pekahiah's "two years" may not have been complete. Pekah the son of Remaliah began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and reigned twenty years. The Assyrian records make this number impossible. Tiglath-pileser's entire reign lasted only eighteen years, yet it more than covered the entire reign of Pekah. When he first invaded the kingdom of Samaria,... read more
REIGN OF PEKAH . The writer is again exceedingly brief. Pekah's reign was a remarkable one, and might have furnished much material to the historian. In conjunction with Rezin of Damascus, he made war upon Judaea, defeated Ahaz with great loss ( 2 Chronicles 28:6 ), and laid siege to Jerusalem ( Isaiah 7:1 ). Ahaz called in the aid or' Assyria, and Tiglath-pileser made two expeditions into Palestine—the one mentioned in 2 Kings 15:29 , and another some years afterwards. In the... read more
2 Kings 15:27. In the two and fiftieth year of Azariah Pekah began to reign This is the fifth king that reigned over Israel during the reign of Azariah king of Judah. Pekah, however, reigned much longer than any of the preceding four. For though he also, like Shallum and Menahem, got the kingdom by treason and blood, he kept possession of it twenty years. So long it was before his violent dealing returned upon his own head. And he made himself more noted abroad than any of these usurpers;... read more
Judah’s decline under Ahaz (15:27-16:20)The writer of Kings records the Assyrian attack mentioned above. Pekah’s policy had proved fatal and he was assassinated by Hoshea, a sympathizer with Assyria. Hoshea then became king and won temporary relief for Israel by submitting to Assyria’s control (27-31).Before speaking further of Hoshea, the writer returns to the time before Pekah was assassinated. Pekah’s program for the conquest of Judah had begun during the reign of Jotham, but reached its... read more
twenty years. See App-50 . The Assyrian inscription shows only four years. But why is writing on stone always assumed to be correct, and on parchment, always wrong? There were two chronological mistakes on the Duke of Cambridge's monument erected in Whitehall, London, which were the subject of a correspondence in the London newspapers of that date. (The Duke died in March, 1904.) On the coffinplate of King Edward VII, his death is put as occurring in the "ninth" instead of in the "tenth" year... read more
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Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary - 2 Kings 15:8-31
The best days of the kingdom of Israel were while the government was in Jehu's family. In his reign, and the next three reigns, though there were many abominable corruptions and miserable grievances in Israel, yet the crown went in succession, the kings died in their beds, and some care was taken of public affairs; but, now that those days are at an end, the history which we have in these verses of about thirty-three years represents the affairs of that kingdom in the utmost confusion... read more