2 Chronicles 20:1 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

Bible Comments

It came to pass after this also. — Rather, And it came to pass afterwards, i.e., after the battle of Ramoth-Gilead, and Jehoshaphat’s reformation of law and religion.

And the children of Ammon, and with them other beside the Ammonites. — This is an attempt to get a reasonable sense out of a corrupted text. What the Heb. says is: And the sons of Ammon, and with them some of the Ammonites. So the Vulg., “et filii Ammon et cum eis de Ammonitis.” Transpose a single Hebrew letter, and there results the intelligible reading: And the sons of Ammon, and with them the Maonites (Heb., Me’ûnîm. See on 1 Chronicles 4:41-42.) The Maonites are mentioned again (2 Chronicles 26:7) in company with Arabs. They appear to have been a tribe, whose chief seat was Maon, on the eastern slopes of the chain of Mount Seir, after which they are called “sons,” or “inhabitants of Mount Seir” in 2 Chronicles 20:10; 2 Chronicles 20:22-23. Accordingly Josephus (Ant. ix. 1, § 2) calls them a multitude of Arabs. [The LXX. reads: “And with them some of the Minaioi,” a name which possibly represents the me’înîm of the Heb. text of 1 Chronicles 4:41. Syriac, “and with them men of war;” Arabic, “brave men.” Perhaps the expression rendered and with themwe’immahèm — is a relic of an original reading, and the Maonites; and the some of the Ammonites (mçhâ’ammônîm) which follows, is merely a gloss on an obscure name by some transcriber].

2 Chronicles 20:1

1 It came to pass after this also, that the children of Moab, and the children of Ammon, and with them other beside the Ammonites, came against Jehoshaphat to battle.