The Expositor's Bible: The Book of the Twelve Prophets,...

[41] 2 Kings xxiii. 29. The history is here very obscure. Necho, met at Megiddo by Josiah, and having slain him, appears to have spent a year or two in subjugating, and arranging for the government of, Syria (ibid., verses 33–35), and only reached the Euphrates in 605, when Nebuchadrezzar defeated him.

[42] The reverse view is taken by Wellhausen, who says (Israel u. Jüd. Gesch., pp. 97 f.): “Der Pharaoh scheint ausgezogen zu sein um sich seinen Teil an der Erbschaft Ninives vorwegzunehmen, während die Meder und Chaldäer die Stadt belagerten.”

[45] A stele of Nabonidus discovered at Hilleh and now in the museum at Constantinople relates that in his third year, 553, the king restored at Harran the temple of Sin, the moon-god, which the Medes had destroyed fifty-four years before, i.e. 607. Whether the Medes did this before, during or after the siege of Niniveh is uncertain, but the approximate date of the siege, 608—606, is thus marvellously confirmed. The stele affirms that the Medes alone took Niniveh, but that they were called in by Marduk, the Babylonian god, to assist Nabopolassar and avenge the deportation of his image by Sennacherib to Niniveh. Messerschmidt (Mittheilungen der Vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft, I. 1896) argues that the Medes were summoned by the Babylonians while the latter were being sore pressed by the Assyrians. Winckler had already (Untersuch., pp. 124 ff., 1889) urged that the Babylonians would refrain from taking an active part in the overthrow of Niniveh, in fear of incurring the guilt of sacrilege. Neither Messerschmidt’s paper, nor Scheil’s (who describes the stele in the Recueil des Travaux, XVIII. 1896), being accessible to me, I have written this note on the information supplied by Rev. C. H. W. Johns, of Cambridge, in the Expository Times, 1896, and by Prof. A. B. Davidson in App. I. to Nah., Hab. and Zeph.

[47] This spelling (Jer. xlix. 28) is nearer the original than the alternative Hebrew Nebuchadnezzar. But the LXX. Ναβουχοδονόσορ, and the Ναβουκοδρόσορος of Abydenus and Megasthenes and Ναβοκοδρόσορος of Strabo, have preserved the more correct vocalisation; for the original is Nabu-kudurri-uṣur = Nebo, defend the crown!

[50] 2 Kings xxii. 11–20. The genuineness of this passage is proved (as against Stade, Gesch. des Volkes Israel, I.) by the promise which it gives to Josiah of a peaceful death. Had it been written after the battle of Megiddo, in which Josiah was slain, it could not have contained such a promise.

[57] 2 Kings xxiii. 24. The question whether Necho came by land from Egypt or brought his troops in his fleet to Acre is hardly answered by the fact that Josiah went to Megiddo to meet him. But Megiddo on the whole tells more for the land than the sea. It is not on the path from Acre to the Euphrates; it is the key of the land-road from Egypt to the Euphrates. Josiah could have no hope of stopping Pharaoh on the broad levels of Philistia; but at Megiddo there was a narrow pass, and the only chance of arresting so large an army as it moved in detachments. Josiah’s tactics were therefore analogous to those of Saul, who also left his own territory and marched north to Esdraelon, to meet his foe—and death.

[64] 2 Kings xxiv. 1. In the chronological table appended to Kautzsch’s Bibel this verse and Jehoiakim’s submission are assigned to 602. But this allows too little time for Nebuchadrezzar to confirm his throne in Babylon and march to Palestine, and it is not corroborated by the record in the Book of Jeremiah of events in Judah in 604—602.

[70] So Josephus puts it (X. Antiq., vii. 1). Jehoiachin was unusually bewailed (Lam. iv. 20; Ezek. xvii. 22 ff.). He survived in captivity till the death of Nebuchadrezzar, whose successor Evil-Merodach in 561 took him from prison and gave him a place in his palace (2 Kings xxv. 27 ff.).

[75] i. 3, מַכְשֵׁלוֹת, only in Isa. iii. 6; 15, משואה, only in Job xxx. 3, xxxviii. 27—cf. Psalms lxxiii. 18, lxxiv. 3; ii. 8, גדפים, Isa. xliii. 28—cf. li. 7; 9, חרול, Prov. xxiv. 31, Job xxx. 7; 15, עליזה, Isa. xxii. 2, xxiii. 7, xxxii. 13—cf. xiii. 3, xxiv. 8; iii. 1, נגאלה, see next note but one; 3, זאבי ערב, Hab. i. 8; 11, עליזי גאותך, Isa. xiii. 3; 18, נוגי, Lam. i. 4, נוגות.

[76] i. 11, המכתש as the name of a part of Jerusalem, otherwise only Jer. xv. 19; נטילי כסף; 12, קפא in pt. Qal, and otherwise only Exod. xv. 8, Zech. xiv. 6, Job x. 10; 14, מַהֵר (adj.), but the pointing may be wrong—cf. Maher-shalal-hash-baz, Isa. viii. 1, 3; צרח in Qal, elsewhere only once in Hi. Isa. xlii. 13; 17, לחום in sense of flesh, cf. Job xx. 23; 18, נבהלה if a noun (?); ii. 1, קשש in Qal and Hithpo, elsewhere only in Polel; 9, מכרה ,ממשק; 11, רזה, to make lean, otherwise only in Isa. xvii. 4, to be lean; 14, ארזה (?); iii. 1, מראה, pt. of יונה ;מרה, pt. Qal, in Jer. xlvi. 16, l. 16, it may be a noun; 4, אנשי בגדות; 6, נצדו; 9, שכם אחד; 10, עתרי בת־פוצי (?); 15, פנה in sense to turn away; 18, ממך היו (?).

[77] i. 8, etc., פקד על, followed by person, but not by thing—cf. Jer. ix. 24, xxiii. 34, etc., Job xxxvi. 23, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 23, Ezek. i. 2; 13, משׁסה, only in Hab. ii. 7, Isa. xlii., Jer. xxx. 16, 2 Kings xxi. 14; 17, הֵצֵר, Hi. of צרר, only in 1 Kings viii. 37, and Deut., 2 Chron., Jer., Neh.; ii. 3, ענוה; 8 גדופים, Isa. xliii. 28, li. 7 (fem. pl.); 9, חרול, Prov. xxiv. 31, Job xxx. 7; iii. 1, נגאלה, Ni, pt. = impure, Isa. lix. 3, Lam. iv. 14; יונה, a pt. in Jer. xlvi. 16, l. 16; 3, זאבי ערב, Hab. i. 8—cf. Jer. v. 6, זאב ערבות; 9, ברור, Isa. xlix. 2, ברר, Ezek. xx. 38, 1 Chron. vii. 40, ix. 22, xvi. 41, Neh. v. 18, Job xxxiii. 3, Eccles. iii. 18, ix. 1; 11, עליזי גאוה, Isa. xiii. 3; 18, נוּגֵי, Lam. i. 4 has נוּגות.