2 Chronicles 26:10

In the desert. — Or, grazing country, i.e., the “wilderness of Judah,” on the west of the Dead Sea. The towers were for the protection of the royal herds against the predatory Bedawin. (Comp. Micah 4:8 : “And thou, O tower of the flock.”)

Digged many wells. — Hewed out many cisterns; to supply his herds with water.

For he had much cattle. — Scil, there, in the wilderness of Judah. But perhaps we should render thus: “For he had much cattle; and in the lowland and in the plain he had husbandmen; and vinedressers in the mountains and in the glebe land.” So Syriac.

Both in the low country. — And in the lowland of Judah; the Shephçlah, between the hills and the Mediterranean.

And in the plains. — Plain (mîshôr). “The Plain,” par excellence, appears to mean the high level east of the Dead Sea and Jordan (Deuteronomy 4:43; Joshua 20:8). This was the territory of Reuben, which Uzziah probably recovered from Moab and Ammon (2 Chronicles 26:8). (Comp. Isaiah 16:1, from which it appears that the kings of Judah at this epoch claimed sovereignty over the country on the eastern side of the Jordan.)

And in Carmel. — Or, the fruitful field, the glebe land (Isaiah 29:17; Isaiah 32:15).

With the whole verse Comp. the account of David’s agricultural and pastoral wealth (1 Chronicles 27:25).

He loved husbandry. — A lover of land was he, i.e., of the soil. (Comp. the expression, “man of the land,” i.e., husbandman, Genesis 9:20.)