2 Kings 15:30

And Hoshea the son of Elah made a conspiracy against Pekah the son of Remaliah, and smote him, and slew him, and reigned in his stead, in the twentieth year of Jotham the son of Uzziah.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Benson Commentary

2 Kings 15:30. Hosea made a conspiracy against Pekah, and smote him — It is probable that the people were provoked at him for leaving them exposed to a foreign enemy, while he invaded Judah; and that Hosea took advantage of their discontent and disgust to seize and slay him. Thus Pekah’s treason and violence returned upon himself at last. And reigned in his stead in the twentieth year of Jotham — The meaning is, that he began his reign in the twentieth year after the beginning of Jotham’s reign; or, which is the same thing, in the fourth year of Ahaz, son of Jotham.

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

Hoshea, the son of Elah - One of Pekah's friends, according to Josephus.

The twentieth year of Jotham - According to 2 Kings 15:33 and 2 Chronicles 27:1, Jotham reigned only 16 years. See also the suggestion in the margin. Strangely enough, this first year of Hoshea is also called, not the fourth, but the twelfth of Ahaz 2 Kings 17:1. The chronological confusion of the history, as it stands, is striking.

Uzziah - i. e. Azariah. See 2 Kings 15:1-4.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

30. Hoshea the son of Elah made a conspiracy … and slew him—He did not, however, obtain possession of the kingdom till about nine or ten years after the perpetration of this crime [Hales].

in the twentieth year of Jotham—Jotham's reign lasted only sixteen years, but the meaning is that the reign of Hoshea began in the twentieth after the beginning of Jotham's reign. The sacred historian, having not yet introduced the name of Ahaz, reckoned the date by Jotham, whom he had already mentioned (see 2Ch 27:8).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Smote him, and slew him; which he did more easily effect, because the people were enraged against Pekah, as the man who by his murder of king Pekahiah the son of Menahem, whom the Assyrian monarch set up and favoured, and by his unnecessary war with Ahaz, had brought the Assyrian upon them, and caused the loss of one half of that kingdom.

In the twentieth year of Jotham the son of Uzziah.

Quest. How could this be, when Jotham reigned only sixteen years, below, 2 Kings 15:33?

Answ. The meaning is, that he began his reign in the twentieth year after the beginning of Jotham’s reign; or, which is the same thing, in the fourth year of Ahaz, son of Jotham, as appears from 2 Kings 16:2. But the sacred writer, having not yet made mention of Ahaz, thought it more proper to number Hoshea’s years by Jotham, of whom he had spoken, than by Ahaz. Besides, as Jotham did reign divers years in his father’s life, so might Ahaz in Jotham’s life, and Jotham might for divers reasons (which it is needless here to inquire) resign up the administration of the kingdom wholly into Ahaz’s hands some years before his death, and therefore might be said to reign but sixteen years, though he lived longer.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And Hoshea the son or Elab made a conspiracy against Pekah the son of Remaliah, and smote him, and slew him, and reigned in his stead,.... Did by him as he had done by Pekahiah, 2 Kings 15:28, this was measure for measure, as the Jews say: and this he did

in the twentieth year of Jotham the son of Uzziah; and yet Jotham is said to reign but sixteen years, 2 Kings 15:33, this must be reckoned therefore either from the time of his being viceroy, and judging Israel in his father's lifetime, 2 Kings 15:5 or this was the fourth year of Ahaz, and the twentieth year, reckoning from the time Jotham began to reign, who is the rather mentioned, because as yet the historian had taken no notice of Ahaz.

Geneva Study Bible

And Hoshea the son of Elah made a conspiracy against Pekah the son of Remaliah, and smote him, and slew him, and reigned in his stead, in the twentieth year of Jotham the son of Uzziah.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

30. Hoshea the son of Elah] Josephus (Ant. IX. 13. 1) says Hoshea was a friend of Pekah. He is mentioned in the Assyrian inscriptions (Smith, Assyrian Discoveries, p. 285), and it appears from that record as if he had been set up by the Assyrian king. Perhaps Hoshea, having conspired and slain Pekah, put himself as a vassal under the protection of Assyria. The inscription speaks of the tribute which he was to pay to the Assyrians. Though the death of Pekah is here mentioned we have a further account of his attempts against Judah in the next chapter.

in the twentieth year of Jotham] As Jotham is said below in verse 33 to have reigned only sixteen years, there must be some mistake in the numbers either here or there. The occurrence of such variations makes the task of fixing the chronology very difficult, and probably no satisfactory solution will be discovered, to the several questions which arise on this subject, until more is known of the contemporary history. If ever the annals of Assyria and Egypt be brought into trustworthy order, the points of contact with Jewish affairs will help to settle some dates and to clear up what seems now irremediably obscure

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 30. - And Hoshea the son of Elah made a conspiracy against Pekah the son of Remaliah, and smote him, and slew him, and reigned in his stead. By a mutilated notice in the records of Tiglath-pileser, it appears that the revolution here related was the result of another invasion of the Israelite territory by that monarch. "The land of Beth-Croft," he says, "... the tribe... the goods of its people and their furniture I sent to Assyria. Pekah their king [I caused to be put to death?] and Hoshea I appointed to the kingdom ever them; their tribute I received, and [their treasures?] to Assyria I sent" ('Eponym Canon,' pp. 123, 124, lines 15-19). It is probably this invasion of which the writer of Chronicles speaks (1 Chronicles 5:26) as resulting in the deportation of the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh. In the twentieth year of Jotham the son of Uzziah. This date stands in contradiction with ver. 33, where Jotham's entire reign is reckoned at sixteen years, and apparently must be a corrupt reading. 2 Kings 15:30

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Pekah met with his death in a conspiracy organized by Hosea the son of Elah, who made himself king "in the twentieth year of Jotham." There is something very strange in this chronological datum, as Jotham only reigned sixteen years (2 Kings 15:33), and Ahaz began to reign in the seventeenth year of Pekah (2 Kings 16:1); so that Pekah's death would fall in the fourth year of Ahaz. The reason for this striking statement can only be found, as Usher has shown (Chronol. sacr. p. 80), in the fact that nothing has yet been said about Jotham's successor Ahaz, because the reign of Jotham himself is not mentioned till 2 Kings 15:32.

(Note: Other attempts to solve this difficulty are either arbitrary and precarious, e.g., the conjectures of the earlier chronologists quoted by Winer (R. W. s. v. Jotham), or forced, like the notion of Vaihinger in Herzog's Cycl. (art. Jotham), that the words בן־עזיה ליותם are to be eliminated as an interpolation, in which case the datum "in the twentieth year" becomes perfectly enigmatical; and again the assertion of Hitzig (Comm. z. Jesaj. pp. 72, 73), that instead of in the twentieth year of Jotham, we should read "in the twentieth year of Ahaz the son of Jotham," which could only be consistently carried out by altering the text of not less than seven passages (viz., 2 Kings 15:33; 2 Kings 16:1, and 2 Kings 16:2, 2 Kings 16:17; 2 Chronicles 27:1 and 2 Chronicles 27:8, and 2 Chronicles 28:1); and lastly, the assumption of Thenius, that the words from בשׁנת to עזיה have crept into the text through a double mistake of the copyist and an arbitrary alteration of what had been thus falsely written, which is much too complicated to appear at all credible, even if the reasons which are supposed to render it probable had been more forcible and correct than they really are. For the first reason, viz., that the statement in what year of the contemporaneous ruler a king came to the throne is always first given when the history of this king commences, is disproved by 2 Kings 1:17; the second, that the name of the king by the year of whose reign the accession of another is defined is invariably introduced with the epithet king of Judah or king of Israel, is shown by 2 Kings 12:2 and 2 Kings 16:1 to be not in accordance with fact; and the third, that this very king is never described by the introduction of his father's name, as he is here, except where the intention is to prevent misunderstanding, as in 2 Kings 14:1, 2 Kings 14:23, or in the case of usurpers without ancestors (2 Kings 15:32, 2 Kings 16:1 and 2 Kings 16:15), is also incorrect in its first portion, for in the case of Amaziah in 2 Kings 14:23 there was no misunderstanding to prevent, and even in the case of Joash in 2 Kings 14:1 the epithet king of Israel would have been quite sufficient to guard against any misunderstanding.)