In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem,
&c.] Great numbers being awakened, convinced, and converted, and brought to true repentance: as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon.
Lightfoot F9 thinks the prophet alludes to the two great and general lamentations of Israel; the one about the rock Rimmon, where a whole tribe was come to four hundred (it should be six hundred) men, ( Judges 20:47 ) and may be rendered, "the sad shout of Rimmon"; and the other in the valley of Megiddo, for the death of Josiah. Some take Hadadrimmon to be the name of a man, as Aben Ezra; and the Targum and Jarchi say who he was, and also make two mournings to be alluded to F11; paraphrasing the words thus,
``at that time mourning shall be multiplied in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Ahab the son of Omri, whom Hadadrimmon the son of Tabrimmon slew in Ramothgilead; and as the mourning of Josiah, the son of Amon, whom Pharaohnecho, or the lame, slew in the valley of Megiddo:''and so the Syriac version renders it,
``as the mourning of the son of Amon in the valley of Megiddo.''Of the first of these, see ( 1 Kings 22:31-37 ) and of the latter, ( 2 Kings 23:29 ) according to Jerom, it was the name of a place in the valley of Megiddo, near to Jezreel; and which, in his time, went by the name of Maximianopolis, called so in honour of the Emperor Maximian; it was seventeen miles from Caesarea in Palestine, and ten miles from Jezreel {l}; and mention is made by Jewish F13 writers of the valley of Rimmon, in which place the elders intercalated the year; though Jerom elsewhere