2 Kings 15:15

And the rest of the acts of Shallum, and his conspiracy which he made, behold, they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

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.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Tirzah, the old capital, once more appears as a place of importance, giving birth to the pretender, who alone of all these later kings died a natural death, and left the crown to his son 2 Kings 15:22. It would seem from the present passage to have been on lower ground than Samaria.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

13-17. Shallum … reigned a full month—He was opposed and slain by Menahem, who, according to Josephus, was commander of the forces, which, on the report of the king's murder, were besieging Tirzah, a town twelve miles east of Samaria, and formerly a seat of the kings of Israel. Raising the siege, he marched directly against the usurper, slew him, and reigned in his stead.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And the rest of the acts of Shallum, and his conspiracy which he made, behold, they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel. In which, no doubt, an account of the cause of the conspiracy, and of the persons assisting to him in it, was given, with other things done in his short reign.

Geneva Study Bible

And the rest of the acts of Shallum, and his conspiracy which he made, behold, they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

15. And [R.V. Now] the rest &c.] As above in verse 11. It may be noticed that Menahem’s conduct in slaying Shallum is not called ‘a conspiracy’. Menahem seems to have been a man of much ferocity, and probably carried out his plans without helpers.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 15. - And the rest of the acts of Shallum, and his conspiracy which he made (see ver. 10), behold, they are written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel. 2 Kings 15:15

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Reign of Shallum. - Shallum reigned only a full month (ירח־ימים, as in Deuteronomy 21:13; see at Genesis 29:14). Menahem the son of Gadi then made war upon him from Tirzah; and by him he was smitten and slain. Menahem must have been a general or the commander-in-chief, as Josephus affirms. As soon as he became king he smote Tiphsach, - i.e., Thapsacus on the Euphrates, which has long since entirely disappeared, probably to be sought for in the neighbourhood of the present Rakka, by the ford of el Hamman, the north-eastern border city of the Israelitish kingdom in the time of Solomon (1 Kings 5:4), which came into the possession of the kingdom of Israel again when the ancient boundaries were restored by Jeroboam II((2 Kings 14:25 and 2 Kings 14:28), but which had probably revolted again during the anarchy which arose after the death of Jeroboam, - "and all that were therein, and the territory thereof, from Tirzah; because they opened not (to him), therefore he smote it, and had them that were with child ripped up." מתּרצה does not mean that Menahem laid the land or district waste from Tirzah to Tiphsach, but is to be taken in connection with יכּה in this sense: he smote Tiphsach proceeding from Tirzah, etc. The position of this notice, namely, immediately after the account of the usurpation of the throne by Menahem and before the history of his reign, is analogous to that concerning Elath in the case of Uzziah (2 Kings 14:22), and, like the latter, is to be accounted for from the fact that the expedition of Menahem against Tiphsach formed the commencement of his reign, and, as we may infer from 2 Kings 15:19, became very eventful not only for his own reign, but also for the kingdom of Israel generally. The reason why he proceeded from Tirzah against Tiphsach, was no doubt that it was in Tirzah, the present Tallusa, which was only three hours to the east of Samaria (see at 1 Kings 14:17), that the army of which Menahem was commander was posted, so that he had probably gone to Samaria with only a small body of men to overthrow Shallum, the murderer of Zachariah and usurper of the throne, and to make himself king. It is possible that the army commanded by Menahem had already been collected in Tirzah to march against the city of Tiphsach, which had revolted from Israel when Shallum seized upon the throne by the murder of Zachariah; so that after Menahem had removed the usurper, he carried out at once the campaign already resolved upon, and having taken Tiphsach, punished it most cruelly for its revolt. On the cruel custom of ripping up the women with child, i.e., of cutting open their wombs, see 2 Kings 8:12; Amos 1:13, and Hosea 14:1. Tiphsach, Thapsacus, appears to have been a strong fortress; and from its situation on the western bank of the Euphrates, at the termination of the great trade-road from Egypt, Phoenicia, and Syria to Mesopotamia and the kingdoms of Inner Asia (Movers, Phniz. ii. 2, pp. 164,165; and Ritter, Erdkunde, x. pp. 1114-15), the possession of it was of great importance to the kingdom of Israel.

(Note: There is no foundation for the view propounded by Ewald (Gesch. iii. p. 599), Simson (Hosea, pp. 20, 21), Thenius, and many others, that Tiphsach was a city between Tirzah and Samaria, which Menahem laid waste on his march from Tirzah to Samaria to dethrone Shallum; for it rests upon nothing more than the perfectly unwarrantable and ungrammatical combination of מתרצה with את־גבוליה, "its boundaries towards Tirzah" (Sims.), and upon the two worthless objections: (1) that the great distance of מתרצה from יכה precludes the rendering "going out from Tirzah;" and (2) that Menahem was not the man to be able to conquer Thapsacus on the Euphrates. But there is no foundation for the latter assertion, as we have no standard by which to estimate the strength and bravery of the Israelitish army commanded by Menahem. And the first objection falls to the ground with the correct rendering of מתרצה, viz., "proceeding from Tirzah," which is preferred even by Ewald and Thenius. With this rendering, the words by no means affirm that Menahem smote Tiphsach from Tirzah on the way to Samaria. This is merely an inference drawn from v. 13, according to which Menahem went from Tirzah to Samaria to overthrow Shallum. But this inference is open to the following objections: (1) that it is very improbable that there was a strong fortress between Tirzah and Samaria, which Menahem was obliged to take on his march before he could overthrow the usurper in the capital of the kingdom; and (2) that the name Tiphsach, trajectus, ford, is by no means a suitable one for a city situated on the mountains between Tirzah and Samaria, and therefore, in order to carry out the hypothesis in question, Thenius proposes to alter Tiphsach into Tappuach, without any critical warrant for so doing.)