2 Kings13:1–9

"He saw the oppression": the vocabulary of the bush verbal / quotation: confirmed

The rare pairing that carries v. 4 is לַחַץ (lachats, H3906) with its cognate verb לָחַץ (lâchats, H3905). The Verifier returns Exodus 3:9 on exactly these two lexemes, and both are scarce: the noun stands in ten verses in the whole Hebrew Bible, the verb in eighteen. At the bush God says he has seen the lachats with which Egypt oppresses Israel; here he sees the lachats with which Aram oppresses Israel, and the seeing verb רָאָה is the same in both scenes. Ellicott, independently of the Verifier, sends the reader to Exodus 3:7 and Deuteronomy 26:7 on this very clause. ⚙ The force of the link is that the deliverance formula of the Exodus is being applied to a people whose sin, not Pharaoh's, put them under the hand. God rescues them with the vocabulary of the first rescue, and (v. 6) they do not turn.

Exodus 3:9

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H3905 lâchats (in 18 vv) and H3906 lachats (in 10 vv), both rare; a verbal echo of the Exodus oppression formula, not a quotation, and the tier records the rarity of the shared roots, not a citation claim. Ellicott independently cites Exodus 3:7 and Deuteronomy 26:7 on this clause.

The oppression this unit does not lift: 13:22 and 13:25 structural / thematic: confirmed

Almost every disputed phrase in vv. 3 to 5 is settled, by these commentators, out of the end of the same chapter. Cambridge on "all their days": the sense "must mean the days of Jehoahaz, which accords with the statement of verse 22 below." Gill, Geneva, Barnes and Poole reason identically. K&D argues from vv. 24 and 25 that the Ben-hadad of v. 3 oppressed Israel as his father's commander rather than as king, which is why the text withholds the title from him here. And the unnamed saviour of v. 5 is identified by Gill from v. 25, where Joash recovers the lost cities. ⚙ The thread is structural: this unit is a summary whose terms are defined later in its own chapter, and reading it alone produces exactly the disagreements the brief preserves.

2 Kings 13:22 · 2 Kings 13:25

basis: Verifier: 2 Kings 13:22 shares H3059 Yᵉhôwʼâchâz (in 19 vv), H2371 Chăzâʼêl (in 21 vv), H758 ʼĂrâm (in 128 vv); 2 Kings 13:25 shares H3101 Yôwʼâsh (in 41 vv), H3059 Yᵉhôwʼâchâz (in 19 vv), H7969 shâlôwsh (in 381 vv). Same chapter, same actors; the link is compositional, not a quotation.

The four generations: Jehu's burial and Jehoahaz's throne structural / thematic: confirmed

The Verifier pairs this unit with 2 Kings 10:35, the notice of Jehu's death and burial in Samaria, on three shared names. The two notices are mirror images: Jehu sleeps with his fathers, is buried in Samaria, and Jehoahaz reigns in his place (10:35); Jehoahaz sleeps with his fathers, is buried in Samaria, and Joash reigns in his place (13:9). Cambridge supplies the reason the repetition matters, reading Jehoahaz as "the first of the four generations for which God promised that the line of Jehu should continue." ⚙ The dynasty runs on a promise while the reigns run on judgment, and the book reports both without harmonizing them.

2 Kings 10:35

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H8111 Shômᵉrôwn (in 101 vv), H3058 Yêhûwʼ (in 54 vv), H3059 Yᵉhôwʼâchâz (in 19 vv). A repeated regnal formula with shared proper names, which is a pattern link and not a quotation. Cambridge's four-generations reading rests on the promise at 2 Kings 10:30, which the Verifier did not return as a candidate here.

The judges pattern: a cry, and a nameless deliverer given structural / thematic: confirmed

Pulpit, commenting on מוֹשִׁיעַ in v. 5, records that the same Hebrew word stands at Judges 3:9, Judges 3:15 and Nehemiah 9:27. The sequence there is the sequence here: the people are given into an oppressor's hand, they cry, and the LORD gives a saviour. ⚙ What is striking in 2 Kings 13 is that the Judges cycle has been cut in half. In Judges the cry follows or accompanies a turning; here the cry comes from a king who, Pulpit says, "did not turn from his sin of idolatry", and v. 6 confirms that the rescue produced no turning afterwards either. The pattern is invoked and its moral engine is missing, which is why the chapter has to reach back past Israel's behaviour to the patriarchal covenant (v. 23) for its explanation.

Judges 3:9 · Nehemiah 9:27

basis: Basis is Pulpit's own lexical statement in this brief, that at Judges 3:9, 15 and Nehemiah 9:27 "in the Hebrew the word used is the same" as the môšîaʻ of v. 5 (H3467 yâshaʻ). The Verifier did not return these verses as candidates for this unit, so the shared-lexeme frequency is not independently computed here; the tier is kept structural for that reason.

The other Jehoahaz: a name-link, and only a name-link flagged: verify source

The Verifier returns a cluster of Judahite passages (2 Kings 23:30, 23:31, 23:34; 2 Chronicles 36:1) on the strength of the name יְהוֹאָחָז (Yᵉhôwʼâchâz, H3059), a relatively scarce name standing in nineteen verses. Those verses concern a different man, Josiah's son, deposed by Pharaoh Neco. ⚙ The honest report is that the computed basis here is onomastic and nothing more: a shared personal name, plus the common verb mâlak. There is a real observation to be made, that both Israel and Judah end with a Jehoahaz reigning under a foreign power's hand, but that is a reader's pattern, not a verbal link, and this synthesis claims no more for it than that.

2 Kings 23:30 · 2 Chronicles 36:1

basis: Verifier: shared H3059 Yᵉhôwʼâchâz (in 19 vv) and H4427 mâlak (in 284 vv) only. The shared lexeme is a personal name borne by different men, so the computed basis does not support any interpretive link; flagged so that a reader checks it rather than trusts it.

The saviour God gives to a people who have not repented ancient/widely-held

The unit's central act is God giving: וַיִּתֵּן in v. 3 gives Israel into Hazael's hand, and the identical verb in v. 5 gives Israel a מוֹשִׁיעַ, a Hifil participle from yâshaʻ (H3467), "to be open, wide or free". The commentators cannot agree who he is. Gill: "not an angel ... nor the prophet Elisha ... but his son Joash." K&D and JFB: the two successors together. Ellicott and Cambridge: Jeroboam II, on the strength of 2 Kings 14:27, where the LORD saved Israel by his hand. Every one of them is naming a man who saves the nation's borders and leaves its calves alone. ⚙ The redemptive-historical shape is the one the book of Judges made familiar and this passage strips down to its bones: God repeatedly gives saviours from the same root, and none of them reaches the thing that made the saving necessary. Matthew 1:21 answers that history at the level of the root itself, naming a child from yâshaʻ and attaching to the name the one object these deliverers never touched: he will save his people from their sins. Acts 13:23 makes the succession explicit, setting the promised Saviour at the end of the line of Israel's God-given deliverers. The pattern reading is ancient and widely held; the specific observation about v. 6, that the Asherah still standing after the rescue is the measure of what these saviours could not do, is this tool's own and is offered to be tested.

Matthew 1:21 · Acts 13:23 · 2 Kings 14:27

Heard, but not for his own sake novel

Three independent voices in this brief say the same thing in almost the same words, and none of them is drawing on the others' phrasing lightly. Poole: the LORD hearkened "not for his sake, for God regards not the prayers of the wicked and impenitent", citing Psalm 66:18, Proverbs 1:28 and Proverbs 15:8. JFB: Jehoahaz "was heard, not on his own account ... but that of the ancient covenant with the patriarchs (2Ki 13:23)." Benson: "He now helps them because of his former and ancient kindness to them." Gill adds that his repentance and humiliation "were only external". ⚙ This is a prayer accepted on a ground outside the one praying, and the Old Testament's ground is a covenant sworn to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The New Testament does not abolish that structure; it names the person in whom the covenant stands, so that access is "through him" (Ephesians 2:18) and the intercession that secures it is not the petitioner's own (Hebrews 7:25). ⚙ The extension is this tool's: the commentators here stop at the patriarchal covenant and do not make the Christological step, and a reader is entitled to stop where they stop. What the passage does establish, on their own reading, is that a prayer can be answered entirely on account of someone else, which is the only structure in which Jehoahaz's rescue, or ours, is intelligible.

Hebrews 7:25 · Ephesians 2:18 · 2 Kings 13:23