The Fallible Study Bible

The Fallible · Synthetic · Study Bible

2 Kings14:21–22

Azariah Succeeds Amaziah in Judah

✦ Public-domain source — quoted & attributed⚙ AI synthesis — generated, verify

2 Kings 14:21–22 — Azariah Succeeds Amaziah in Judah. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.

21

Then all the people of Judah took Azariah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king in place of his father Amaziah.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

kāl- ‘am yə·hū·ḏāh ’eṯ- way·yiq·ḥū ‘ă·zar·yāh wə·hū šêš ‘eś·rêh ben- šā·nāh way·yam·li·ḵū ’ō·ṯōw ta·ḥaṯ ’ā·ḇîw ’ă·maṣ·yā·hū

Word by word16 · parsed
כָּל־kāl-Then allH3605
√ kôl — properly, the wholeNounmasculine singular construct
kôl: the whole Construct with ʻam: not a faction but the whole body.
עַ֤ם‘amthe peopleH5971
√ ʻam — a people (as a congregated unit)Nounmasculine singular construct
ʻam: a people, as a congregated unit Not ʼanshê milchamah (men of war). Ellicott reports that Thenius restricted the phrase to the army; Keil & Delitzsch answer flatly that it means "the whole nation, not the whole of the men of war (Thenius)." The choice matters: read as soldiery, this is a military accession; read as the nation, it is a people acting as one to keep David's house on the throne after regicide.
יְהוּדָה֙yə·hū·ḏāhof JudahH3063
√ Yᵉhûwdâh — Jehudah (or Judah), the name of five IsraelitesNounpropermasculine singular
אֶת־’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Direct object marker
וַיִּקְח֞וּway·yiq·ḥūtookH3947
√ lâqach — to take (in the widest variety of applications)Conjunctive wawVerbQalConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine plural
lâqach: to take, in the widest variety of applications A common verb doing uncommon work. Judah's men have just conspired against Amaziah and killed him at Lachish; the same nation now takes his son. Barnes reads the sentence as a deliberate distinction: "The words imply that the conspiracy was one in which the general mass of the people did not participate." The Pulpit Commentary goes further and calls it "a new expression," implying "a new, perhaps a tumultuary, proceeding."
עֲזַרְיָ֔ה‘ă·zar·yāhAzariahH5838
√ ʻĂzaryâh — Azarjah, the name of nineteen IsraelitesNounpropermasculine singular
ʻĂzaryâh: Azarjah, the name of nineteen Israelites The same king is Uzziah in Chronicles, Isaiah, Hosea, Amos and Zechariah. Barnes calls the two "mere variants of one name"; Gill glosses them "the help of the Lord" and "the strength of the Lord"; Keil & Delitzsch refuse the tidy solutions (accession name, soldiers' nickname) because "This variation in the name is too constant to be attributable to a copyist's error," and conclude the two were simply used promiscuously. The Fallible Machine notes only that Scripture itself never harmonizes them for us.
וְה֕וּאwə·hūwhoH1931
√ hûwʼ — he (she or it)Conjunctive wawPronounthird person masculine singular
שֵׁ֥שׁšêš[was] sixteenH8337
√ shêsh — six (as an overplus beyond five or the fingers of the hand)Numberfeminine singular
עֶשְׂרֵ֖ה‘eś·rêh. . .H6240
√ ʻâsâr — ten (only in combination), iNumberfeminine singular
בֶּן־ben-years oldH1121
√ bên — a son (as a builder of the family name), in the widest sense (of literal and figurative relationship, including grandson, subject, nation, quality or condition, etcNounmasculine singular construct
bên: a son, as a builder of the family name The idiom "son of sixteen year" is ordinary Hebrew for age, yet it lands in a verse about dynastic sonship, and the next verse will use the cognate verb bânâh, to build. A son who builds the family name is exactly what v. 22 shows him doing.
שָׁנָ֑הšā·nāh. . .H8141
√ shâneh — a year (as a revolution of time)Nounfeminine singular
וַיַּמְלִ֣כוּway·yam·li·ḵūand made him kingH4427
√ mâlak — to reignConjunctive wawVerbHifilConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine plural
mâlak: to reign (Hifil, causative) "They caused him to reign." In Judah the Hifil of mâlak with a human plural subject is the narrator's standing way of recording an accession pushed from below (compare the enthronements that follow in 2 Kings 15). Here it carries the weight of the whole unit: the Davidic promise is not visibly upheld by an oracle in this verse, only by a crowd doing the ordinary thing at the right moment.
אֹת֔וֹ’ō·ṯōwH853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Direct object markerthird person masculine singular
תַּ֖חַתta·ḥaṯin place ofH8478
√ tachath — the bottom (as depressed)Preposition
tachath: the bottom, as depressed The formula of royal substitution. Coming immediately after a king assassinated by his own people, "underneath his father Amaziah" is both continuity and warning: the same place, and the same exposure.
אָבִ֥יו’ā·ḇîwhis fatherH1
√ ʼâb — father, in a literal and immediate, or figurative and remote applicationNounmasculine singular constructthird person masculine singular
ʼâb: father Singular here, plural in v. 22 ("his fathers"): the one father who was killed, then the fathers he is nonetheless gathered to.
אֲמַצְיָֽהוּ׃’ă·maṣ·yā·hūAmaziahH558
√ ʼĂmatsyâh — Amatsjah, the name of four IsraelitesNounpropermasculine singular
22

Azariah was the one who rebuilt Elath and restored it to Judah after King Amaziah rested with his fathers.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Hebrew — tap a word ↓

hū bā·nāh ’eṯ- ’ê·laṯ way·ši·ḇe·hā lî·hū·ḏāh ’a·ḥă·rê ham·me·leḵ šə·ḵaḇ- ‘im- ’ă·ḇō·ṯāw

Word by word11 · parsed
ה֚וּאhū[Azariah was the one]H1931
√ hûwʼ — he (she or it)Pronounthird person masculine singular
hûwʼ: he The emphatic fronted pronoun. It is the hinge of the whole notice: not Amaziah, who died with Edom half subdued, but this son. Benson draws the same line from the last clause: Amaziah "did not perfect his conquest of Edom, but left some work there for his son to do."
בָּנָ֣הbā·nāhwho rebuiltH1129
√ bânâh — to build (literally and figuratively)VerbQalPerfectthird person masculine singular
bânâh: to build, literally and figuratively The verb that builds houses, cities and dynasties (and the root behind bên, son, in v. 21). Judah's new king begins where Solomon's fleet began. Barnes reads the act as commercial ambition, "a desire to renew the commercial projects which Solomon had successfully carried out, and which Jehoshaphat had vainly attempted." Keil & Delitzsch read it as proof of power at the outset of a reign.
אֶת־’eṯ-H853
√ ʼêth — properly, self (but generally used to point out more definitely the object of a verb or preposition, even or namely)Direct object marker
אֵילַ֔ת’ê·laṯElathH359
√ ʼÊylôwth — Eloth or Elath, a place on the Red SeaNounproperfeminine singular
ʼÊylôwth: Eloth or Elath, a place on the Red Sea A rare name, standing in only six verses of the Hebrew Bible, and every one of them is about who controls the sea road: Israel passing by it out of the wilderness (Deuteronomy 2:8), Solomon's fleet (1 Kings 9:26; 2 Chronicles 8:17), this recovery, and its final loss under Ahaz (2 Kings 16:6). The Verifier confirms the shared lexeme across all six.
וַיְשִׁבֶ֖הָway·ši·ḇe·hāand restored itH7725
√ shûwb — to turn back (hence, away) transitively or intransitively, literally or figuratively (not necessarily with the idea of return to the starting point)Conjunctive wawVerbHifilConsecutive imperfectthird person masculine singularthird person feminine singular
shûwb: to turn back, not necessarily with the idea of return to the starting point In the Hifil with a direct object, to bring back or restore. Strong's own caution is worth keeping: the root does not guarantee arrival at the original condition. Cambridge is honest about the limit here, "We need not suppose that more was done than to secure a passage through Edom between Elath and Jerusalem." The word can carry a great restoration; the history under it may be a road and a garrison.
לִֽיהוּדָ֑הlî·hū·ḏāhto JudahH3063
√ Yᵉhûwdâh — Jehudah (or Judah), the name of five IsraelitesPreposition-lNounpropermasculine singular
Yᵉhûwdâh: Judah Not to the king personally but to the kingdom: the gain is national, and it is undone in 2 Kings 16:6.
אַחֲרֵ֥י’a·ḥă·rêafterH310
√ ʼachar — properly, the hind partPreposition
ʼachar: properly, the hind part The preposition that makes this a temporal clause, and the crux of the verse: how soon after? Keil & Delitzsch and the Pulpit read it as immediate, "as soon as ever his father was dead." Cambridge reads the same vagueness as evidence of "an unusual state of things in Judah at this period," with Azariah in authority beforehand and waiting.
הַמֶּ֖לֶךְham·me·leḵKing [Amaziah]H4428
√ melek — a kingArticleNounmasculine singular
שְׁכַֽב־šə·ḵaḇ-restedH7901
√ shâkab — to lie down (for rest, sexual connection, decease or any other purpose)VerbQalInfinitive construct
shâkab: to lie down, for rest, decease or any other purpose The formula shâkab ʻim ʼâbôt is the Kings narrator's standing verdict on a reign's end, and it is used of Amaziah even though he died by assassination at Lachish, not in his bed. The idiom buries the manner of death under the dynastic fact: he lay down with his fathers, and his son stands in his place.
עִם־‘im-withH5973
√ ʻim — adverb or preposition, with (iPreposition
אֲבֹתָֽיו׃פ’ă·ḇō·ṯāwhis fathersH1
√ ʼâb — father, in a literal and immediate, or figurative and remote applicationNounmasculine plural constructthird person masculine singular
ʼâb: fathers (plural construct) The plural of the Davidic dead. The verse thus ends where the unit's hope rests: not on Amaziah, but on the fathers whose line continues.

The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.

⚙

Grand Commentary — the unit, read whole

synthesis · verify

AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.

i. A people take a boy — 14:21

The verse is built of two plural verbs with one subject: וַיִּקְח֞וּ, they took, and וַיַּמְלִ֣כוּ, the Hifil, they caused him to reign. Between them stands a sixteen year old. ✦ Barnes insists on the seam between this crowd and the last one: "The words imply that the conspiracy was one in which the general mass of the people did not participate." ✦ JFB says the same from the other side, that the opposition "had been personally directed against Amaziah as the author of their calamities, but it was not extended to his family or heir," and ✦ Poole and ✦ Benson both read the enthronement as a demonstration "to show their affection to the house of David." ✦ Cambridge hears unanimity and relief: "The people were all of one mind." ✦ The Pulpit Commentary hears something rougher, a "new, perhaps a tumultuary, proceeding" by people "fearful that they might set up a king not of the house of David." ⚙ The Hebrew will not settle between them, and that is the point worth holding: the narrator records a nation acting, and declines to say whether it acted in faith, in fear, or in both.

ii. Two names for one king — 14:21

He is Azariah here and through 2 Kings 15, and Uzziah in Chronicles, Isaiah, Hosea, Amos and Zechariah. ✦ Gill glosses them "the help of the Lord" and "the strength of the Lord"; ✦ Barnes calls them "mere variants of one name"; ✦ Poole says "both names signifying the same thing for substance." ✦ Ellicott passes on Thenius's guess that the soldiery gave him the throne name, and adds the Assyrian parallel of Sennacherib renaming Esarhaddon. ✦ Keil & Delitzsch reject every tidy explanation, since "This variation in the name is too constant to be attributable to a copyist's error," and point to Kohathites and sons of Heman who likewise carry both forms. ⚙ The Fallible Machine adds nothing to the data: the canon simply carries a king under two names that mean help and strength, and never explains itself.

iii. The son finishes his father's work at the sea — 14:22

The second verse opens with the bare emphatic ה֚וּא. ✦ Ellicott: "The pronoun is emphatic; he, in contrast with his father." ✦ Benson states the contrast plainly, that Amaziah "did not perfect his conquest of Edom, but left some work there for his son to do," and ✦ JFB and ✦ Poole say it in almost the same words. The work is אֵילַ֔ת, Elath, a rare name (six verses in all) that always marks the Red Sea road. ✦ Barnes ties the act to Solomon and to Jehoshaphat's failed fleet; ✦ the Pulpit Commentary reads "an intention on his part of, renewing the old Red Sea trade"; ✦ Cambridge is more restrained, "We need not suppose that more was done than to secure a passage through Edom." ⚙ Note the verb: וַיְשִׁבֶ֖הָ, the Hifil of shûwb, he caused her to return. Judah's gain is told in the vocabulary of bringing home.

iv. The clause that will not sit still — 14:22

"After the king's lying down with his fathers" is an odd tail on a building notice. ✦ Keil & Delitzsch and ✦ the Pulpit Commentary read it as speed: "immediately after he had ascended the throne," or "as soon as ever his father was dead." ✦ Ellicott, even while endorsing Thenius, admits "this clause is still somewhat surprising." ✦ Cambridge draws the opposite conclusion, that it is "another of those vague notices which indicate an unusual state of things in Judah at this period," with the son already in authority and "only waiting for his father's death to carry them out." ⚙ Behind all of this sits an unresolved chronology that the commentators themselves dispute: ✦ Benson computes that Azariah "was but four years old at the death of his father," so that protectors governed for twelve years, and ✦ Gill reaches the same age of four; ✦ Matthew Henry makes the gap eleven years. The unit does not solve it, and neither does this machine.

Read under Sola Scriptura — this tool’s own fallible reading (⚙)

⚙ Fallible reading, offered to be tested by Scripture. Two verses, and God is not named in either. No prophet anoints, no oracle speaks, no priest brings out the crown as at Joash's accession. There is only a nation that has just killed its king, a boy of sixteen, and a port on the Red Sea. Yet the promise of 2 Samuel 7 is exactly what is happening: the people take a son and set him תַּ֖חַת, underneath, in the very place where his murdered father stood, and the line does not break. Scripture here shows providence at its least decorated, working through crowd instinct and dynastic loyalty rather than through visible miracle, and the narrator refuses to flatter the crowd or to explain it. The second verse then answers the first: the son does what the father left undone, and the verb chosen for it is shûwb, to bring back. ⚙ The Fallible Machine will not press that verb into a doctrine (Strong's itself warns the root does not guarantee return to the starting point, and Cambridge warns the history may amount to a trade road), but it will note the shape: a boy is raised in the place of a dead king, and the first act recorded of him is bringing back what was lost. The same book that records this also records, in 2 Kings 16:6, that Elath is lost again. Human restoration is real, and it is temporary.

The crowd thought it was choosing a king; it was keeping a promise it had not made. (An interpretive line, not a verse of Scripture.)

⚙

Canonical Threads — out to the whole of Scripture

cross-refs · verify

AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.

Elath: the six verses of a single port verbal / quotation: confirmed

אֵילַ֔ת (ʼÊylôwth, H359) occurs in only six verses of the Hebrew Bible, and the Verifier finds it shared between this verse and Deuteronomy 2:8 (Israel passing the Arabah road out of the wilderness), 1 Kings 9:26 (Solomon's fleet at Ezion-geber "beside Eloth") and 2 Chronicles 8:17. ✦ Barnes, ✦ Poole and ✦ Gill all reach for Deuteronomy 2:8 and 1 Kings 9:26 to explain what "built" means here, and ✦ Cambridge draws the conclusion that Judah now reached "the same point southward which they had occupied in the days of Solomon." The link is lexical and real; it is also a proper noun, so it establishes a shared subject, not a shared theology.

Deuteronomy 2:8 · 1 Kings 9:26 · 2 Chronicles 8:17

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H359 ʼÊylôwth, a rare toponym occurring in only 6 verses of the canon. Rare enough to justify a verbal tier, but it is a place name: the shared word proves the same site, not a quotation of one text by another.

Won back, and lost again: Elath under Ahaz structural / thematic: confirmed

The same rare lexeme H359 joins this verse to 2 Kings 16:6, where Elath is stripped from Judah again in the days of Ahaz and the Judeans are driven out. ⚙ Read together, the two notices frame the reign of Azariah/Uzziah: the book opens his story with a port brought back and closes the topic with the same port taken away. ✦ The Pulpit Commentary supplies the earlier loss that made this recovery necessary, that Elath "had been, of course, recovered by the Edomites when they revolted (2 Kings 8:22)," and ✦ Barnes says the same. The Verifier confirms the shared lexeme; the reversal is the editor's arrangement, which the machine reads but does not claim the narrator states.

2 Kings 16:6 · 2 Kings 8:22

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H359 ʼÊylôwth (in 6 vv), rare, so a verbal tier could be claimed for that one word. Deliberately downgraded: the claim this thread actually makes is the won-and-lost framing across a reign, which is thematic, and the second ref (2 Kings 8:22) rests on the commentators (Barnes, Pulpit), not on any Verifier-computed lexeme.

The synoptic notice in Chronicles verbal / quotation: confirmed

2 Chronicles 26:1-2 records the same two events in the same order, and the Verifier finds three lexemes held in common with 2 Chronicles 26:2 alone: H359 ʼÊylôwth (rare, 6 vv), H1129 bânâh (344 vv) and H7901 shâkab (190 vv), that is, the port, the building and the lying down with the fathers. ✦ Ellicott, ✦ Benson, ✦ Poole, ✦ Gill, ✦ Geneva, ✦ Cambridge and ✦ Keil & Delitzsch all cross-refer the two accounts, chiefly over the name (Azariah here, Uzziah there). ⚙ The verbal overlap is dense enough to indicate shared source material rather than coincidence, which is what the machine claims and no more; which text depends on which is not decided here.

2 Chronicles 26:1 · 2 Chronicles 26:2

basis: Verifier on 2 Chronicles 26:2: H359 ʼÊylôwth (in 6 vv, rare) plus H1129 bânâh (344 vv) and H7901 shâkab (190 vv); 2 Chronicles 26:1 shares H558 ʼĂmatsyâh (39 vv), H4427 mâlak (284 vv), H6240 ʻâsâr (291 vv). The rare toponym plus the common verbs in the same clause order is a genuine verbal parallel, not a quotation formula.

"He slept with his fathers": the formula that outlives the manner of death structural / thematic: confirmed

shâkab (H7901) with עִם־אֲבֹתָיו is the Kings narrator's standing close for a reign, and the Verifier finds it shared with 2 Kings 15:7, where Azariah himself is laid with his fathers at the end of the reign that begins here (that verse also shares H5838 ʻĂzaryâh and H4427 mâlak). ⚙ What makes the formula worth marking is that Amaziah did not die in his bed: he was pursued to Lachish and killed there. The idiom overrides the violence and records only the dynastic fact. ✦ Cambridge treats this very clause as a clue to "an unusual state of things in Judah at this period," so the formula is not merely decorative here; it is the hinge the chronology hangs on.

2 Kings 15:7 · 2 Kings 14:20

basis: Verifier on 2 Kings 15:7: shared H7901 shâkab (in 190 vv), H5838 ʻĂzaryâh (44 vv), H4427 mâlak (284 vv). All three are common, so the link is the shared closing formula and motif, not a quotation. 2 Kings 14:20 is cited as the immediate narrative context, not as a Verifier-computed lexeme match.

Ozias in the genealogy of the Christ structural / thematic: confirmed

The boy crowned in v. 21 reappears in Matthew's list of David's heirs, where the Greek text names him Ozias. ✦ The Pulpit Commentary records the identification as a matter of fact: "Josephus uses the form 'Ozias' (equivalent to, Uzziah), and so does St. Matthew (Matthew 1:8, 9)." ⚙ No shared Strong's number can be computed here, since the link runs from Hebrew to Greek, and a name transmitted through the Septuagint is not a verbal citation of this verse. What the pairing establishes is structural: the succession recorded in this unit is one link in the chain Matthew traces to Jesus.

Matthew 1:8 · Matthew 1:9

basis: Cross-Testament (Greek to Hebrew), so shared Strong's numbers are impossible by definition and no verbal tier is available. Basis is the named person in a shared genealogical structure, with the identification of Ozias with Uzziah recorded verbatim by the Pulpit Commentary.

"In the year that King Uzziah died" flagged: verify source

✦ Keil & Delitzsch list Isaiah 6:1 among the places where this king appears under the name Uzziah. ⚙ That prophetic date line frames the vision of the LORD enthroned, high and lifted up, by the death of the earthly king whose reign begins in these two verses. The machine claims no lexical link (the Verifier offers none, and the two texts share no computed lexeme in this candidate set); the connection is the person and the throne motif, and it is offered as a reading, not as a demonstration.

Isaiah 6:1

basis: No Verifier-computed shared lexeme between 2 Kings 14:21-22 and Isaiah 6:1. The only documented link is the identity of Azariah with Uzziah (Keil & Delitzsch cite Isaiah 6:1 for the name) plus a thematic contrast of thrones supplied by this machine. Flagged so the reader checks it rather than trusting it.

⚙Christ in the Unittypology · verify

AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.

The throne kept when no one was guarding it ancient/widely-held

⚙ A king of David's line has just been murdered by his own people, and the promise of an enduring house (2 Samuel 7:12-16) hangs on a sixteen year old whom the crowd goes and takes. ✦ Poole and ✦ Benson both read the act as the nation's deliberate loyalty "to the house of David," and ✦ the Pulpit Commentary reads it as fear that someone "not of the house of David" might seize the throne. Either way the line holds, and Matthew will later count this very king, as Ozias, among the fathers of Jesus (Matthew 1:8-9), an identification the Pulpit Commentary states outright. That the Davidic succession runs unbroken through regicide, a disputed regency and a boy king is the ordinary apostolic reading of Israel's history, gathered up in Peter's claim that God had sworn to set one of David's descendants on his throne (Acts 2:30).

2 Samuel 7:12-16 · Matthew 1:8-9 · Acts 2:30

The year a king died and the King was seen ancient/widely-held

⚙ The reign that opens here closes in Isaiah 6:1, "In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted." ✦ Keil & Delitzsch confirm that the Uzziah of Isaiah 6:1 is the Azariah of this verse. John states that Isaiah "saw Jesus' glory and spoke about Him" (John 12:41), which is the apostolic identification of the One on that throne, not a construction of this machine. ⚙ The reading the Fallible Machine offers is the juxtaposition: a throne filled by a crowd's decision in 2 Kings 14:21, and a throne no crowd fills, seen in the year the first throne emptied.

Isaiah 6:1 · John 12:41

The son who finishes the father's unfinished work novel

⚙ ✦ Benson, ✦ JFB and ✦ Poole all read v. 22 the same way: Amaziah "did not perfect his conquest of Edom, but left some work there for his son to do," and ✦ Ellicott hears the emphatic pronoun as the contrast, "he, in contrast with his father." The Fallible Machine offers, as its own fallible reading and not as the commentators' claim, that the pattern is inverted in the Gospel: the Son says the opposite of every Davidic heir, "I have brought You glory on earth by finishing the work You gave Me to do" (John 17:4), and cries tetelestai, It is finished (John 19:30). Uzziah finished what his father left; Christ finishes what His Father gave, and leaves nothing for a successor. ⚙ Marked novel: this is a figural contrast drawn by this machine, and no commentator in this unit draws it.

John 17:4 · John 19:30

Apparatus & Provenance

The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.

Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:

  • Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible (1834)
  • Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, — (1880s)
  • Charles Ellicott, Commentary for English Readers (1878)
  • John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible (1746–63)
  • Joseph Benson, Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1810s)
  • Keil & Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1860s)
  • The Pulpit Commentary, Spence & Exell, eds. (1880s)

⚙ Honesty notes for this unit. (1) The chronology is genuinely unresolved, and the sources disagree with each other. ✦ Benson computes from 2 Kings 14:23 and 15:1 that Azariah "was but four years old at the death of his father," so that "for twelve years, till he came to be sixteen, the government was in the hands of protectors"; ✦ Gill reaches the same age of four and refers the solution forward to his note on 2 Kings 15:1; ✦ Matthew Henry makes the interval eleven years, not twelve; ✦ Cambridge instead suspects Azariah held authority before his father's death. The brief supplies no resolution, and none is invented here.

(2) Amaziah's age at death is reported differently by two commentators in this same unit. ✦ Ellicott argues from "fifty-nine years old at his death"; ✦ the Pulpit Commentary twice says fifty-four. Both use the figure to argue that Azariah may not have been the eldest son. The argument is not affected, but the reader should know the number is not agreed.

(3) Two cross-references in the sourced text look like misprints and are reproduced, not corrected. The Pulpit Commentary's "The author of Chronicles (2 Chronicles 16:1) agrees" almost certainly means 2 Chronicles 26:1; Ellicott's "the port of Elath (2Kings 9:26)" almost certainly means 1 Kings 9:26, which is where Barnes, Cambridge, the Pulpit and Keil & Delitzsch all point. This machine does not silently amend public-domain text.

(4) Both names are original. Azariah (H5838) here, Uzziah elsewhere. ✦ Keil & Delitzsch expressly rule out a copyist's error; ✦ Ellicott and ✦ Cambridge leave the question open. No harmonization is asserted.

(5) "Rebuilt" in the BSB of v. 22 is interpretation, not morphology. The Hebrew is the plain Qal perfect bânâh; the sense "restore, fortify" comes from history (Deuteronomy 2:8 shows Elath already existing) and is supplied by Poole, Benson, Cambridge, Gill and the Pulpit Commentary alike. It is very probably right, and it is still supplied.

(6) Elath's location. Barnes puts it "near Ezion-Geber, in the Gulf of Akabah"; Cambridge, "at the northern extremity of the Gulf of Akabah." These agree. Geneva's alternate spelling "Elanon or Eloth" is reproduced as printed.

(7) Tier discipline. The Elath threads carry a verbal tier because H359 is rare (6 verses), but the shared word is a proper noun: it proves the same place, not literary dependence. The Isaiah 6:1 thread has no computed lexical basis at all and is flagged accordingly. The Matthew thread cannot be verbal, since the link crosses from Hebrew to Greek.

✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)