For. — Now: introducing a new paragraph.
Even the noise. — Rather, a noise. The Syriac and the Arabic, as well as some Hebrew MSS., read “and a noise.” This is preferable. (Comp. 2 Kings 6:14, where chariots and horses and a host [of infantry] are distinguished from each other.) The word qôl (literally, “voice”) is commonly used of thunder. (Comp. Psalms 29, passim.) The noise the Syrians heard was doubtless a sound in the air among the neighbouring hills.
The kings of the Hittites. — Comp. 1 Kings 9:20; 1 Kings 10:29. The tract of north Syria between the Euphrates and the Orontes was the cradle of the Hittite race, and it was over this that these kings of the several tribes bore sway. In the thirteenth century (B.C.) their power extended over great part of Asia Minor, as rock inscriptions prove. Carchemish, Kadesh, Hamath, and Helbon (Aleppo) were their capitals. Rameses II. made a treaty of peace with Heta-sira, the prince of the Hittites. In the time of Tiglath Pileser I. (B.C. 1120), the Hittites were still paramount from the Euphrates to the Lebanon. Shalmaneser II. mentions a Hittite prince, Sapalulme, king of the Patinâa, a tribe on the Orontes. The Hittites from whom Solomon exacted forced labour were those who were left in the land of Israel (comp. Genesis 23; Genesis 26:34; 1 Samuel 31:6), not the people of the great cities mentioned above, which remained independent, as we know from the Assyrian inscriptions. (Comp. Amos 6:2; 2 Chronicles 8:4 for Hamath.) Tiglath Pileser II. conquered Hamath (B.C. 740). Twenty years later it revolted under Yahubihdi (“Jah is around me;” comp. Psalms 3:3), but was again reduced, and made an Assyrian prefecture by Sargon, who afterwards stormed Carchemish (B.C. 717). (Comp. 2 Kings 17:24; 2 Kings 17:30.)
The kings of the Egyptians. — The plural may be rhetorical. (Comp. 2 Chronicles 28:16 : “The kings of Assyria,” and Note.) Little is known of the state of Egypt at this time (towards the close of the twenty-second dynasty). The Syrians were seized with panic, under the idea that they were about to be attacked on all sides at once. Some such wild rumour as that expressed by the words of the text must have been spread through the camp; but we need not press the literal accuracy of the statement, for who was there to report the exact nature of the alarm to the historians of Israel? Moreover, it is evident from the style of the narrative in Chapter s 6 and 7 that it rests upon oral tradition, so that it would be a mistake to press subordinate details. Prof. Robertson Smith considers that the sudden retreat of the Syrians is explained by the fact that the Assyrians were already pressing upon them.