2 Kings 15:25

Reign of Pekahiah king of Israel. He is slain by Pekah, the son of Remaliah, who succeeds him (Not in Chronicles)

25. Pekah … a captain of his R.V. his captain. The word is the same which in 2 Kings 7:2 is used for the captain (A.V. lord) on whose hand the king of Israel leaned. Probably Pekah occupied some such position about the king, which gave him the opportunity of attacking his master, for the murder was perpetrated -in the castle of the king's house". From the mention of the fifty men of the Gileadites who took part with him in the conspiracy, it has been conjectured that Pekah was himself a native of that wild land, the home in former days of Jephthah and of Elijah. His conduct is of the kind to be expected from one nursed in such wild localities.

in the palace[R.V. castle] of the king's house The word is rendered -palace" everywhere in A.V. except Proverbs 18:19 -like the bars of a castle". But here and in 1 Kings 16:18 (see note there) the sense requires some word expressive of security and protection from a foe. Hence the change in R.V. We know so little of the construction of the royal houses of Israel that it is difficult to be precise about what is meant. But it seems most likely that the king when he knew that Pekah and his fifty comrades were bent on his murder would take refuge in the most fortified place he could reach.

with Argob and Arieh Doubtless two friends who had remained with Pekahiah to the last.

of the Gileadites The LXX. has in some MSS. the words ἀπὸ τῶν τετρακοσίων =of the four hundred. I have found no means of explaining the reading. Before -fifty" in this clause R.V. inserts were.

and he killed[R.V. slew] him and reigned in his room R.V. stead. The words are exactly the same in the original as the closing words of verse 10 above. Both should be alike in the English.