The men which... by name. — 1 Chronicles 12:31; 1 Chronicles 16:41. Certain chiefs formally designated for the office, perhaps including those of 2 Chronicles 28:12.
All that were naked. — Literally, and all their nakednesses they clad out of the spoil (ma’arummîm, “nakednesses,” here only).
(15) And arrayed ... shod them. — And they clad them, and sandalled them. (For the miserable destitution of captives, see Isaiah 3:24; Isaiah 20:2; Isaiah 20:4, “naked and barefoot.”)
Anointed them (sûk, usually intransitive, e.g., 2 Samuel 14:2). (Comp. Luke 7:38.) A different word (mashah) was used to express the ceremonial anointing of kings and priests.
Carried all the feeble of them upon asses. — Literally, led them on he-asses, to wit, every stumbling one. There would be many such, as the captives were mostly women and children.
To. — Beside.
The writer dwells with manifest pleasure upon the kindness shown by their repentant foes of the northern kingdom to these Jewish captives. He may have intended to suggest a lesson to the Samaritans of his own age, whose bitter hostility had proved so damaging to the cause of the restored exiles (Nehemiah 4:2; Nehemiah 4:7-8; Nehemiah 6:1-2 sqq.), and who, according to Rabbinical tradition, endeavoured to prejudice Alexander the Great against the commonwealth of Jerusalem (Talmud, Yoma, 69, A).
Some have supposed that our Lord had this passage in His mind when He uttered the parable of the Good Samaritan. The coincidences between the two stories are at any rate curious. (See Luke 10:30; Luke 10:33-34.)
The interposition of the Ephraite prophet Oded between the Ephraites and their Judæan captives is precisely parallel to that of the Judæan prophet Shemaiah between his people and the Ten Tribes, as related in 1 Kings 12:22-24; and granting the truth of the one account, there can be no ground for suspecting the other.