5 Therefore Yahweh his God delivered him into the hand of the king of Syria; and they struck him, and carried away of his a great multitude of captives, and brought them to Damascus. He was also delivered into the hand of the king of Israel, who struck him with a great slaughter.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
The two battles here mentioned, one with Rezin (king of Syria), and the other with Pekah (king of Israel) are additions to the narrative of the writer of Kings (marginal reference "g"). The events of the Syro-Israelite war were probably spread over several years.
Delivered him into the hand of the king of Syria - For the better understanding of these passages, the reader is requested to refer to what has been advanced in the notes on the sixteenth chapter of 2-Kings 16:5, etc.
Wherefore the Lord his God delivered him into the hand of the king of Syria,.... Whose name was Rezin, 2-Kings 16:5, though that is an after expedition to this, which is there related. The Lord is called the God of Ahaz, because he was so of right; he had dominion over him, and ought to have been worshipped by him; and, besides, he was so by virtue of the national covenant between God and the people Ahaz was king of; and moreover, Ahaz professed he was his God, though in an hypocritical manner, and he forsook the true worship of him:
and they smote him, and carried away a great multitude of them captives, and brought them to Damascus; whereas in a later expedition, related in 2-Kings 16:5, they did not succeed:
and he was also delivered into the hand of the king of Israel; whose name was Pekah:
who smote him with a great slaughter; as is next related.
the Lord . . . delivered him into the hand of the king of Syria . . . he was also delivered into the hand of the King of Israel--These verses, without alluding to the formation of a confederacy between the Syrian and Israelitish kings to invade the kingdom of Judah, or relating the commencement of the war in the close of Jotham's reign (2-Kings 15:37), give the issue only of some battles that were fought in the early part of the campaign.
delivered him . . . smote him . . . he was also delivered--that is, his army, for Ahaz was not personally included in the number either of the slain or the captives. The slaughter of one hundred twenty thousand in one day was a terrible calamity, which, it is (2-Chronicles 28:6) expressly said, was inflicted as a judgment on Judah, "because they had forsaken the Lord God of their fathers." Among the slain were some persons of distinction:
The war with the Kings Rezin of Syria and Pekah of Israel. - On the events of this war, so far as they can be ascertained by uniting the statements of our chapter with the summary account in 2 Kings 16, see the commentary on 2-Kings 16:5. The author of the Chronicle brings the two main battles prominently forward as illustrations of the way in which Jahve gave Ahaz into the power of his enemies because of his defection from Him. Into the power of the king of Aram. They (ויּכּוּ, and they, the Arameans) smote בו, in him, i.e., they inflicted on his army a great defeat. Just so also ממּנוּ signifies of his army. גּדולה שׁביה, a great imprisonment, i.e., a great number of prisoners. And into the power of the king of Israel, Pekah, who inflicted on him a still greater defeat. He slew in (among) Judah 120,000 men "in one day," i.e., in a great decisive battle. Judah suffered these defeats because they (the men of Judah) had forsaken Jahve the God of their fathers. Judah's defection from the Lord is not, indeed, expressly mentioned in the first verses of the chapter, but may be inferred as a matter of course from the remark as to the people under Jotham, 2-Chronicles 27:2. If under that king, who did that which was right in the eyes of Jahve, and stedfastly walked before the Lord (2-Chronicles 27:6), they did corruptly, they must naturally have departed much further from the God of the fathers, and been sunk much deeper in the worship of idols, and the worship on high places, under Ahaz, who served the Baals and other idols.
His God - God was his God, tho' not by special relation, (which Ahaz had renounced) yet by his sovereign dominion over him: for God did not forfeit his right by Ahaz's denying it.
*More commentary available at chapter level.