2 Kings 14:20

And they brought him on horses: and he was buried at Jerusalem with his fathers in the city of David.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(20) They brought him on horses.—Rather, they carried him upon the horses—i.e., perhaps in the royal chariot wherein he had fled from Jerusalem. Or, perhaps, the corpse was literally carried on horseback by the regicides.

The orderly method of proceeding, the burial of the king in the royal sepulchres, and the elevation of Azariah, seem to prove that the murder of Amaziah was not an act of private blood-revenge.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

14:15-22 Amaziah survived his conqueror fifteen years. He was slain by his own subjects. Azariah, or Uzziah, seems to have been very young when his father was slain. Though the years of his reign are reckoned from that event, he was not fully made king till eleven years afterwards.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

They brought him on horses - i. e. they conveyed his body back to Jerusalem in the royal chariot. The combination of relentless animosity against the living prince with the deepest respect for his dead remains is very characteristic of an Oriental people.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

19, 20. they made a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem—Amaziah's apostasy (2Ch 25:27) was followed by a general maladministration, especially the disastrous issue of the war with Israel. The ruinous condition of Jerusalem, the plunder of the temple, and the loss of their children who were taken as hostages [2Ki 14:13, 14], lost him the respect and attachment not of the grandees only, but of his subjects generally, who were in rebellion. The king fled in terror to Lachish, a frontier town of the Philistines, where, however, he was traced and murdered. His friends had his corpse brought without any pomp or ceremony, in a chariot to Jerusalem, where he was interred among his royal ancestors.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

On horses, or, with horses, to wit, in a chariot.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And they brought him on horses,.... That is, in a chariot or hearse drawn by horses; though the Jews (h) suppose he was carried on horses, and that because he worshipped the gods of the Edomites, who were themselves carried on horses; and he was not carried on the shoulders of men, because he neglected to serve the God of Israel, whose mysteries were carried on the shoulders of men:

and he was buried at Jerusalem with his fathers in the city of David; and very probably in the sepulchre of the kings, though his father was not.

(h) Hieron. Trad. Heb. in lib. paralip. fol. 85. L.

Geneva Study Bible

And they brought him on horses: and he was buried at Jerusalem with his fathers in the city of David.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

20. they brought him on horses] Perhaps this means that they used Amaziah’s own chariot to convey the dead body to the royal city. ‘Horses’ in the plural number usually implies a chariot. There was clearly no desire on the part of the conspirators to offer any indignity to the king’s dead body. ‘The city of David’ here spoken of is called strangely in 2 Chronicles 25:28 ‘the city of Judah’.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 20. - And they brought him on horses; literally, on the horses, which must mean "on his horses." Probably Amaziah had fled to Lachish in the royal chariot, and his body was now brought back in it to Jerusalem. The conspirators were evidently minded to treat the royal corpse with all respect. And he was buried at Jerusalem with his fathers in the city of David; i.e. the city on the eastern hill, which David took from the Jebusites (see the comment on 1 Kings 2:10). 2 Kings 14:20

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"They lifted him upon the horses," i.e., upon the hearse to which the king's horses had been harnessed, and brought him to Jerusalem, where he was buried with his fathers, i.e., in the royal tomb.