(26) First and last.--The former and the latter. The chronicler adds his usual formula.

Behold, are they not written.--The Hebrew is faulty here. "Behold, they are written" is the customary phrase in the Chronicles (2Chronicles 20:34; 2Chronicles 24:27); "are they not written" being that of Kings. In the Hebrew text here the two phrases are blended. Some- MSS., and the Syriac, Vulg., and Arabic read, "Behold, they are written." But it is possible that hinn?m ("behold they") is here a corruption of h?m ("they"); and that the reading of Kings should be followed, with other Hebrew MSS. and the Targum.

Verse 26. - The book of the kings of Judah and Israel. The parallel has "the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah." Considering the amount and the character of the resemblance that we have noticed between the narratives in Kings and in our own text, and assuming that the work to which each compiler calls attention for the fuller elucidation of his subject of biography is the work which he has himself most largely laid under 'contribution, then we should justly feel in this instance that we had no feeble argument for the identity of the two works, called by rather different titles - by the writer of the pre-Captivity, "the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah," and by him of the post-Captivity, "the book of the kings of Judah and Israel."

25:17-28 Never was a proud prince more thoroughly mortified than Amaziah by Joash king of Israel. A man's pride will bring him low, Pr 29:23; it goes before his destruction, and deservedly brings it on. He that exalteth himself shall be abased. He that goes forth hastily to strive, will not know what he shall do in the end thereof, when his neighbour has put him to shame, Pr 25:8. And what are we when we offer to establish our own righteousness, or presume to justify ourselves before the Most High God, but despicable thistles, that fancy themselves stately cedars? And are not various temptations, is not every corruption, a wild beast of the desert, which will trample on the wretched boaster, and tread his haughty pretensions to the dust? A man's pride shall bring him low; his ruin may be dated from his turning from the Lord.But Amaziah would not hear,.... What the king of Israel advised him to, not to meddle to his hurt:

for it came of God, that he might deliver them into the hand of their enemies; Amaziah and his army into the hands of Joash and his; this was the will of God, and was brought about by his providence; and that it might be, Amaziah was given up to blindness and hardness of heart, as a punishment of his idolatry:

because they sought after the gods of Edom; he and his nobles, and many of the people following his example; from hence to the end of the chapter the same things are recorded as in 2 Kings 14:11, see the notes there; see Gill on 2 Kings 14:11, 2 Kings 14:12, 2 Kings 14:13, 2 Kings 14:14, 2 Kings 14:15, 2 Kings 14:16, 2 Kings 14:17, 2 Kings 14:18, 2 Kings 14:19, 2 Kings 14:20