CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES.—
2 Kings 15:10. Assassination of Zachariah by the conspirator Shallum—The compound word rendered “before the people,” would seem to record a public act of regicide to which the populace offered no resistance. But Dr. H. Gratz reals it as “in Ibleam” (i.e., a town in the plains of Jezreel). Yet קָבָל עַם naturally mean what the text records, although Gratz notes that the A. V. is ungrammatical. The Sept. translate thus:—καὶ έπάταξεν αύτὸν εν Κεβλαἂμ.
2 Kings 15:12. This was the word of the Lord unto Jehu; so it came to pass—See chap. 2 Kings 10:30. Thus Jehu’s dynasty perished ignominiously, and the verity of God’s pledge was vindicated equally with the severity of God’s judgments.
2 Kings 15:19. King of Assyria came against the land; and Menahem gave talents … that he might confirm the kingdom in his hand—This was the first effort by a king of Israel to ensure his own throne by purchase of protection from a foreign power. Hosea denounced it (Hosea 5:13; Hosea 7:11; Hosea 10:6). It opened the pathway which led onwards to Israel’s doom. Protection from a mighty nation issues in oppression by them. And 2 Kings 15:19 leads forward inevitably to 2 Kings 15:29. “the king of Assyria carried them captive to Assyria.”
2 Kings 15:29. Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria—He was the successor of Pul (2 Kings 15:19). Smith’s translation of the cuneiform inscriptions gives the name as Taklat-pel-ashir, which may mean “Lord of the Tigris;” but this is uncertain. His annals and the records of his expedition into Syria have been found at Nimroud, but his genealogy is not given; and as this is the only instance of silence concerning a king’s pedigree it is supposed he was a usurper.
HOMILETICS OF 2 Kings 15:8-31
THE UNMISTAKABLE SIGNS OF NATIONAL DECAY AND RUIN
I. Seen in rapid and violent dynastic changes.—During the tranquil and prosperous reigns of Uzziah and Jotham in Judah, the kingdom of Israel was plunged into anarchy and civil war, as in the days of Omri; and no less than six different monarchs occupied the throne, one of them retaining the throne only for a single month. Of the five kings after Jeroboam, only one died upon his bed. As Kitto puts it, the history sounds much like this—B murdered A and reigned in his stead; C murdered B and reigned in his stead; D murdered C and reigned in his stead; E murdered D and reigned in his stead.
Ay, sir, our ancient crown, in these wild times
Oft stood upon a cast—the gamester’s ducat,
So often staked and lost, and then regained,
Scarce knew so many hazards.
The Spanish Father.
No nation can be permanent where the governing power is unstable, commerce is paralysed, life imperilled, and the national spirit broken.
II. Seen in the prevalence of tyranny and bloodshed (2 Kings 15:16-20).—Menahem waded to the throne through a stream of blood. One district refusing to recognize him, he compelled submission by the perpetration of the most horrible cruelties. To buy off an attack from the Assyrians, he exacted heavy sums of money from his people. When a nation is drained of its life-blood by civil discord, and of its wealth by a foreign power, its final doom is not very distant.
III. Seen in the powerlessness of the nation to repel invasion (2 Kings 15:19; 2 Kings 15:29). It is at this point of the history we first come in sight of the great Assyrian power that is to play so important a part in the future destiny of the Jewish nation—a presage of the catastrophe which was finished fifty yearn later. Menahem, though a bold warrior, knew it was madness to cope with a power so formidable, and bribed the Assyrian to withdraw by offering tribute. But in the days of Pekah the Assyrian was not so easily pacified. He ravaged the kingdom east of the Jordan, and swept away the tribes of that region into captivity; and, such was the enfeebled condition of the nation, it does not appear that Pekah made the least resistance. The steps of the process now going on with Israel have often been repeated in history. The first danger is averted by a bribe, which only serves as a temptation to new aggression. Each new attack leaves the doomed state weaker and weaker, till it is reduced to tribute; and at last a despairing effort to shake off the yoke brings down destruction. It is a noble sight to see a brave nation struggling for life and independence against a superior force; but Israel had become so demoralised that the spirit of resistance was crushed, and, for the most part, they submitted to their fate with supine indifference.
LESSONS:—
1. The nations that abandon God will be abandoned by Him.
2. The ruler who uses his power for his own aggrandisement and pleasure lives in constant peril, and perishes without any to mourn his loss.
3. The sins and follies of one nation are punished by another.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
2 Kings 15:8-31. The five kings who followed Zechariah persevered in the sins of Jeroboam, which was, from the very commencement of the kingdom, the germ of its ruin. It is to them that the prophet’s words apply—“They have set up kings, but not by me; they have made princes, and I knew it not” (Hosea 8:4). Only one of them died a natural death and left the succession to his son, who, in his turn, could only retain the sceptre for a short time. Of the others, each one killed his predecessor in order to gain the throne, the authority of which was, in the meantime, shattered by these commotions. One of the most important factors in the history of this period is the conflict with the rising Assyrian monarchy, which came to assist the internal dissension in hurrying the nation to its downfall. Assyria was destined, in the purpose of God, to be the instrument for inflicting the long-threatened judgment.—Witsius.
—Rulers who seized power by force and violence have never been the deliverers and protectors of their people, but rather tyrants who led it to its ruin. “In one demagogue,” says Luther, “there are hidden ten tyrants.” As is the master, so is the servant; as is the head, so are the members. A succession of rulers, who attained the throne by conspiracy, revolt, perjury, and murder, is the surest sign, not only that there is something rotten in the state, but also that there is nothing sound in the nation. The corruption in Israel extended, in the first place, from the head downwards. Jeroboam made Israel to sin. Then it came from below upwards. The rebels and murderers who came to the throne, came from the people. These kings were so hostile that the one killed the other; but they were of one accord in abandoning Jehovah and persevering in the sin of Jeroboam. This was the cause of their ruin. When there is no fear of God in the heart, then the door is open to every sin and vice.
2 Kings 15:10. The public assassination of a monarch—I. Readily accomplished if he is. unpopular. II. Reveals the demoralization of the times. III. Increases rather than diminishes the public calamities. IV. Exposes the assassin to a similar fate (2 Kings 15:14).
—“Smote him before the people” openly and impudently—which he presumed to do, either because he remembered that the prophecy of the kingdom made to Jehu was confined to the fourth generation (chap. 2 Kings 10:30), which he observed to be now expired, or because he perceived that the people were generally disaffected to their king and favourable to his attempt.—Pool.
2 Kings 15:12. The inflexible fidelity of the Divine Word—I. Is based on the unchangeableness of the Divine nature. II. Is frequently illustrated by facts of history. III. Is a source of strength to the obedient, and of wholesome fear to the wicked.
—God keepeth promise with His foes: shall He fail with His friends?—Trapp.
This was an actual confirmation of the declaration in the fundamental law of Israel, that God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generations (Exodus 20:5; Exodus 24:7; Deuteronomy 5:9)—that is, the sin against the first and chief commandment: “Thou shalt have none other gods before me.” This commandment was the foundation of the covenant with Israel, and the centre of the Israelitish nationality. The meaning is, that the sin of Jeroboam will not be permitted by God to run on beyond the third or fourth generation. No dynasty in Israel which followed the sin of Jeroboam lasted for more than three or four generations. The house of Jeroboam, like that of Baasha and Menahem, perished with its first members; the house of Omri with its third; and the house of Jehu with its fourth. Zimri, Shallum, Pehah, and Hosea died without successors; while the house of David remained without long interruption upon the throne. Although single kings in the line were guilty of apostacy, yet the sin was never continued until the second generation.—Lange.
2 Kings 15:16. The barbarities of revenge. I. Indicate a debased and brutal nature. II. May terrify into submission, but cannot command genuine obedience. III. An unstable foundation on which to build a throne (2 Kings 15:17). IV. Reveal the coward when confronted with a superior power (2 Kings 15:19).
2 Kings 15:19. The instrument of Divine retribution. I. A time for solemn reflection when its shadow first crosses our path. II. It is vain to think it can be bribed with money. III. Soon demonstrates the pitilessness of its power (2 Kings 15:29).
—The tie that had bound Samaria to Assyria from the reign of Jehu to that of Jeroboam II. had ceased to exist during a period of Assyrian depression. Menahem now renewed it, undertaking the duties of a tributory, and expecting the support and assistance which the great paramount state of Asia was accustomed to lend to her dependencies in their struggles with their neighbours. Hence the reproaches of Hosea, who sees in the submission of Ephraim an unfaithful reliance on an arm of flesh, which was at once foolish and wicked (Hosea 5:13; Hosea 7:11; Hosea 8:9).—Speaker’s Comm.
—Now for the first time appeared on the Eastern horizon that great power which for a hundred years was the scourge of Asia. The ancient empire of Assyria, possibly repressed for the time by the dominion of Solomon, rose on its fall, and was henceforth intermingled with all the good and evil fortunes of the kingdom of Israel. Already in the reign of Jehu her influence began to be felt. His name is to be read on the black obelisk which records the tributes offered to Shalmaneser I. in the form of gold and silver and articles manufactured in gold. The destruction of Damascus by Jeroboam II. brought the two powers of Israel and Assyria into close contact; there was now no intervening kingdom to act as a breakwater. Long before its actual irruption the rise of the new power is noted by the prophets. Jonah had already traversed the desert and seen that great Nineveh. Amos had already, though without naming it, foretold that a people should arise which should crush the powerful empire of Jeroboam from end to end, and sees the nations one by one swept into captivity. Hosea brings out the danger more definitely, sometimes naming it, sometimes speaking of it only under the form of the contentions king. The wakeful ear of Isaiah catches the sound of the irresistible advance of the Assyrian armies; their savage warfare, their strange language, the speed of their march, their indefatigable energy, their arrows sharp, their bows bent, their horses’ hoofs like flint, and their chariots like a whirlwind.—Stanley.