2 Kings 14:28 - Exposition

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. It has been suggested that these words mean no more than that Jeroboam took territory from Damascus and Hamath—from Damascus the trans-Jordanic territory which Hazael had conquered from Jehu ( 2 Kings 10:33 ); from Hamath some small portion of the Coele-Syrian valley, about the head-streams of the Orontes and Litany (so Keil and Bahr). But there does not seem to be any sufficient reason for giving the words used this narrow signification. Damascus was conquered and annexed by David ( 2 Samuel 8:6 ), and held for a time even by Solomon ( 1 Kings 11:24 ), of whose kingdom Hamath also seems to have formed part ( 1 Kings 4:21-24 ; 2 Chronicles 8:4 ; 2 Chronicles 9:26 ). The word "recovered" is, therefore, a suitable one. The prophecy of Amos, no doubt, represents Damascus as independent ( Amos 1:3 , Amos 1:4 ); but this may have been written before Jeroboam conquered it. Hamath's subjection seems to be implied in Amos 6:2 , Amos 6:14 . We may, therefore, well understand, with Ewald and Dr. Pusey, that Jeroboam ' subdued Damascus and even Hamath ," and added them to his kingdom. How long the subjection continued is a different question. Probably, in the troubles that followed the death of Zachariah ( 2 Kings 15:10-14 ), the yoke was thrown off. In the Assyrian Inscriptions, Damascus appears under its own king about B.C. 786, and it was certainly independent in B.C. 743. At the latter date Hamath also appears as the capital of an independent kingdom under its own monarch. Which belonged to Judah. Keil and Bahr render,"Hamath of Judah," regarding לִיהוּדָה as a genitive. Ewald proposes to read צֲמָת לְצוֹבָה , "Hamath of Zobah", or else to cut out ליצודה altogether. The passage is one of great difficulty. For Israel . It is questionable whether this meaning can be obtained from the present text, which is בְיִשׂרָאֵל . Bahr thinks that it can; but Ewald regards the change into לְיִשׂרָאֵל as one "of necessity." Might we not avoid all these alterations by translating simply—" how he recovered Damascus and Hamath to Judah through Israel "? Attaching them to Israel was a sort of recovering of them to Judah, to which ( i.e. the Judah of David and Solomon) they had once belonged. Are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?