2 Kings 14:7

_HE SLEW OF EDOM IN THE VALLEY OF SALT TEN THOUSAND, AND TOOK SELAH BY WAR, AND CALLED THE NAME OF IT JOKTHEEL UNTO THIS DAY._ He slew of Edom in the valley of Salt ten thousand. In the reign of Joram the Edomites had revolted (see the notes at 2 Kings 8:20). But Amasiah, determined to reduce them to their former subjection, formed a hostile expedition against them,, in which he routed their army, and made himself master of their capital. "The valley of Salt" is that part of the Ghor which composes the salt and sandy plain to the south of the Dead Sea. SELAH, х_ HA-CELA`_ (H5554), the rock] - generally thought to be Petra. JOKTHEEL - i:e., given or conquered by God. (See the history of this conquest more fully detailed,...

1-7 Amaziah began well, but did not go on so. It is not enough to do that which our pious predecessors did, merely to keep up the common usage, but we must do it as they did, from the same principle of faith and devotion, and with the same sincerity and resolution....

Verse 2 Kings 14:7. _HE SLEW OF EDOM TO THE VALLEY OF SALT_] This war is more circumstantially related in 2 Chronicles 25:5, c. The Idumeans had arisen in the reign of Joram king of Judah, and shaken off the yoke of the house of David. Amaziah determined to reduce them to obedience he therefore levied an army of _three hundred thousand_ men in his own kingdom, and hired _a hundred thousand_ Israelites, at the price of _one hundred_ talents. When he was about to depart at the head of this numerous army, a prophet came to him and ordered him to dismiss the Israelitish army, for God was not with _them_: and on the king of Judah expressing regret for the loss of his _hundred talents_, he was answered, that _the Lord could give him_ _much more than that_. He obeye...

Amaziah’s Idumaean war is treated at length by the writer of Chronicles (marginal reference). The “Valley of Salt” is usually identified with the broad open plain called the Sabkah, at the southern end of the Dead Sea - the continuation of the Ghor or Jordan gorge. At the north-western corner of this plain stands a mountain of rock-salt, and the tract between this mountain and the sea is a salt-marsh. Salt springs also abound in the plain itself, so that the name would be fully accounted for. It is doubted, however, whether the original of the word “valley,” commonly used of clefts and ravines, can be applied to such a sunk plain as the Sabkah; and it is certainly most unlikely that 10,000 prisoners would have been conveyed upward of eighty miles (the distance of the Sabkah from Petra), through a rough and difficult country, only in order to be massacred. On the whole, it is perhaps most...

EXPOSITION 2 KINGS 14:1 REIGNS OF AMAZIAH, SON OF JOASH KING OF JUDAH, OVER JUDAH, AND OF JEROBOAM, SON OF JOASH KING OF ISRAEL, OVER ISRAEL. 2 KINGS 14:1 THE REIGN OF AMAZIAH OVER JUDAH. This chapter takes up the history of the kingdom of Judah from the each of...

HE SLEW OF EDOM IN THE VALLEY OF SALT TEN THOUSAND,.... Of which valley, 2 Samuel 8:13, the Edomites having revolted from Judah in the days of Joram, 2 Kings 8:20. Amaziah undertook to reduce them with an army of 300,000 choice men; and, besides these, hired also of Israel 100,000 valiant men, for one hundred talents of silver; but at the instance of a prophet of the Lord he dismissed the latter, and went against Edom only with his men, and slew of the Edomites 10,000, besides other 10,000 he took alive, and cast headlong from a rock, which came into his hands, see 2 Chronicles 25:5, AND TOOK SELAH BY WAR; which signifies a rock, the same with Petra, the metropolis of Arabia Petraea, the countr

EDOM See (2 Chronicles 25:5)....

6. KINGS OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH CHAPTER 14 _ 1. Amaziah's reign over Judah (2 Kings 14:1; 2 Chronicles 25)_ 2. The conflict between Israel and Judah (2 Kings 14:8; 2 Chronicles 25:17) 3. Judah's defeat and Jerusalem taken (2 Kings 14:12) 4. Jehoash and his successor (2 Kings 14:15) 5. Death of Amaziah (2 Kings 14

THE REIGN OF AMAZIAH, SON OF JOASH, KING OF JUDAH. Amaziah was a virtuous king like his father Joash, but not according to the standard of David. This is the judgment of the Deuteronomist, who refers to the law-book of his age, approving the king's forbearance in not punishing the sons of his father's murderers (Deuteronomy 21:1 *, Deuteronomy 24:16). Amaziah was successful in his wars with Edom, whose territory was peculiarly important to Judah as giving access to the Red Sea. The Edomites were defeated in the Valley of Salt as in David's time (2 Samuel 8:13, LXX). There is a place of the same name near Beersheba, but the topography here seems to require it to be in the southern Arabah, S. of the Dead Se

HE SLEW. The account in Chronicles supplies additional particulars. See 2 Chronicles 25:5....