(23-26) THE REIGN OF PEKAHIAH
(Heb., Pĕkahyâh).
(23) In the fiftieth year. — The forty-ninth, if verse seventeen were exact.
(25) But ... a captain of his. — And... his adjutant (or knight, 2 Kings 7:2).
The palace of the king’s house. — The same expression occurred in 1 Kings 16:18. The word armôn, rendered “palace,” is usually explained as meaning citadel or keep, from a root meaning to be high. (Comp. ἡ ἄκρα in Greek.) Ewald makes it the harem, which, as the innermost and most strongly-guarded part of an Oriental palace, is probably meant here. Thither Pekahiah had fled for refuge before the conspirators.
With Argob and Arieh. — Pekah slew these two persons, probably officers of the royal guard, who stood by their master, as well as the king himself.
The peculiar names are an indication of the historical character of the account. Argob suggests that the person who bore this name was a native of the district of Bashan so designated (1 Kings 4:13); Arieh (“lion”), like our own Cceur-de-Lion, betokens strength and bravery. (Comp. 1 Chronicles 12:8, “The Gadites, whose faces were as the faces of lions.”)
And with him fifty men of the Gileadites. — Or, and with him were fifty, &c. Pekah was supported by fifty soldiers, probably of the royal guard. Menahem himself was of Gadite origin (2 Kings 15:17), and so belonged to Gilead. He would therefore be likely to recruit his body-guard from among the Gileadites, who were always famous for their prowess. (Comp. Joshua 17:1; Judges 11:12; 1 Chronicles 26:31.) The two names Argob and Arieh agree with this supposition. The LXX. reads, in place of “the Gileadites,” ἀπὸ τῶν τετρακοσίων, “of the four hundred,” which reminds us of David’s six hundred Gibbôrîm (2 Samuel 15:18).
Josephus accounts for the short reign of Pekahiah by the statement that he imitated the cruelty of his father.