2 Kings 14:9 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Jehoash sent to Amaziah, saying, The thistle, &c. By the thistle, a mean, despicable, and yet troublesome weed, he understands Amaziah, and by the cedar, himself, whom he intimates to be far stronger than he, and out of his reach. Considering the circumstances of the person addressed, who was a petty prince, flushed with a little good success, and thereupon impatient to enlarge his kingdom, no similitude could be better adapted than that of a thistle, a low, contemptible shrub, but, upon its having drawn blood of some traveller, grown proud and affecting an equality with the cedar, a tall stately tree, the pride and ornament of the wood, till, in the midst of all its arrogance and presumption, it is unhappily trodden down by the beasts of the forest, which Jehoash intimates would be Amaziah's fate, if he continued to provoke a prince of his superior power and strength. See Calmet and Scheuchzer. Saying, Give me thy daughter to wife Let us make a match, that is, let us fight; only he expresses his bloody and destructive work in a civil manner, as Amaziah had done, (2 Kings 14:8,) and as Abner did, 2 Samuel 2:14: or, Let thy kingdom and mine be united under one king, as formerly they were; and let us decide, by a pitched battle, whether thou or I shall be that king. A wild beast trode down the thistle And so put an end to his treaty with the cedar: and with no less ease shall my soldiers tread down thee and thy forces.