2 Kings 8:15 - Exposition

And it came to pass on the morrow, that he took a thick cloth. Macber is a cloth of a coarse texture—a mat, or piece of carpeting. It has here the article prefixed to it ( ham-macber ), which implies that there was but one in the sick-room. We may conjecture that it was a mat used as a sort of pillow, and interposed between the head-rest (so common in Egypt and Assyria) and the head (compare the c'bir of 1 Samuel 19:13 ). And dipped it in water. The water would fill up the interstices through which air might otherwise have been drawn, and hasten the suffocation. A death of the same kind is recorded in the Persian history entitled 'Kholasat el Akhbar,' which contains the following passage: "The malik ordered that they should place a carpet on Abdallah's mouth, so that his life was cut off." And spread it on his face, so that he died. It has been supposed by some commentators, as Luther, Schultz, Geddes, Boothroyd, that Benhadad put the wet macber on his own face for refreshment, and accidentally suffocated himself; but this is very unlikely, and it is certainly not the natural sense of the words. As "Hazael" is the subject of "departed" and "came" and "answered" in 2 Kings 8:14 , so it is the natural subject of "took" and "dipped" and "spread" in 2 Kings 8:15 . 2 Kings 8:11 also would be unintelligible if Hazael entertained no murderous intentions. Why Ewald introduces a "bath-servant," unmentioned in the text, to murder Benhadad for no assignable reason, it is difficult to conjecture. And Hazael reigned in his stead. The direct succession of Hazael to Benhadad is confirmed by the inscription on the Black Obelisk, where he appears as King of Damascus (line 97) a few years only after Benhadad ( Bin-idri ) had been mentioned as king.