(23-26) THE REIGN OF PEKAHIAH

(Heb., P?kahy?h).

(23) In the fiftieth year.--The forty-ninth, if verse seventeen were exact.

(25) But . . . a captain of his.--And . . . his adjutant (or knight, 2Kings 7:2).

The palace of the king's house.--The same expression occurred in 1Kings 16:18. The word armon, rendered "palace," is usually explained as meaning citadel or keep, from a root meaning to be high. (Comp. ? ???? 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 (1Kings 4:13); Arieh ("lion"), like our own Cceur-de-Lion, betokens strength and bravery. (Comp. 1Chronicles 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 (2Kings 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; 1Chronicles 26:31.) The two names Argob and Arieh agree with this supposition. The LXX. reads, in place of "the Gileadites," ??? ??? ???????????, "of the four hundred," which reminds us of David's six hundred Gibborim (2Samuel 15:18).

Josephus accounts for the short reign of Pekahiah by the statement that he imitated the cruelty of his father.

Verses 23-26. - SHORT REIGN OF PEKA-HIAH. The short reign of Pekahiah was wholly undistinguished. He held the throne for two years only, or perhaps for parts of two years, and performed no action that any historian has thought worthy of record. Our author has nothing to relate of him but the circumstances of his death (ver. 25), wherewith he combines the usual formulae (vers. 23, 24, 26).

15:8-31 This history shows Israel in confusion. Though Judah was not without troubles, yet that kingdom was happy, compared with the state of Israel. The imperfections of true believers are very different from the allowed wickedness of ungodly men. Such is human nature, such are our hearts, if left to themselves, deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. We have reason to be thankful for restraints, for being kept out of temptation, and should beg of God to renew a right spirit within us.In the fiftieth year of Azariah king of Judah, Pekahiah the son of Menahem began to reign over Israel in Samaria,.... As it was in the thirty ninth of Azariah that his father began his reign, and he reigned ten years, they must end in the forty ninth of Azariah, and therefore there must be an interregnum of a year; perhaps the title of Pekahiah might be disputed, and it was a year before he could get settled on the throne:

and reigned two years; being slain by one of his captains, as after related.