THE REIGN OF AMON (2Kings 21:19-26).

(19) Amon.--The Vatican LXX. reads ????, Amos (So Josephus ??????). The name is perhaps that of the Egyptian sun-god Amen (Greek ?????), as Anion's father was an idolater.

Meshullemeth.--Feminine form of Meshullam, "friend" i.e. of God; Isaiah 42:19. Ewald compares the Latin Pius, Pia, as a proper name.

Jotbah.--Thenius imitates the name with Gutstadi. St. Jerome says it was in Judah. A similar name occurs in Numbers 33:33; Deuteronomy 10:7

Verses 19-26. - REIGN OF AMON. The short reign of Amen, the son and successor of Manasseh, was distinguished by only two events:

(1) his restoration of all the idolatrous and wicked practices which his father had upheld during the earlier portion of his reign; and

(2) his untimely death, in consequence of a conspiracy which was formed against him among the officers of his court. The writer of Kings is therefore able to dispatch his history in eight verses. Verse 19. - Amon was twenty and two years old when he began to reign. So Josephus ('Ant. Jud.,' 10:4. § 1), and the author of Chronicles (2 Chronicles 33:21). He must have been born in B.C. 664, early in the reign of Asshur-bani-pal, probably in the year of that monarch's expedition against Tyro. And he reigned two years in Jerusalem. The "twelve years" assigned to Amen By the Duke of Manchester ('Times of Daniel') are wholly devoid of foundation, and would throw the entire chronology into confusion. As it is, there is a very exact accordance in this part of the history between the profane and the scriptural dates. And his mother's name was Meshullemeth, the daughter of Haruz of Jotbah. Jotbah is probably the same city as the "Jotbath" of Deuteronomy 10:7, and the "Jotbathah" of Numbers 33:33, which was in the neighborhood of Ezion-geber, and therefore probably in the Arabah. Josephus, however, says that Jot-bah was "a city of Judah."

21:19-26 Amon profaned God's house with his idols; and God suffered his house to be polluted with his blood. How unrighteous soever they were that did it, God was righteous who suffered it to be done. Now was a happy change from one of the worst, to one of the best of the kings of Judah. Once more Judah was tried with a reformation. Whether the Lord bears long with presumptuous offenders, or speedily cuts them off in their sins, all must perish who persist in refusing to walk in his ways.And Amon was twenty two years old when he began to reign,.... Being born in the forty fifth of his father's life, and in the thirty third of his reign:

and he reigned two years in Jerusalem; which, as Abarbinel observes, was the usual time the sons of wicked kings reigned, and instances in the son of Jeroboam, Baasha, and Ahab, 1 Kings 15:25. An Arabic writer (k) says, he reigned twelve years, but according to the Jews only two:

and his mother's name was Meshullemeth, the daughter of Haruz of Jotbah; there was a place called Jotbath, which was one of the stations of the children of Israel in the wilderness, Numbers 33:33 but it can scarcely be thought to be the same place.

(k) Abulpharag. Hist. Dynast. Dyn. 3. p. 67.