Kings II 15:1

1 And it came to pass after this that Abessalom prepared for himself chariots and horses, and fifty men to run before him.

Kings II 15:1 Meaning and Commentary

2 Kings 15:1

In the twenty amd seventh year of Jeroboam king of Israel began
Azariah the son on Amaziah king of Judah to reign.
] Now Amaziah lived only to the fifteenth year of Jeroboam, ( 2 Kings 14:2 2 Kings 14:17 2 Kings 14:23 ) in which year, and not in his twenty seventh, it might be thought Azariah his son began to reign. There are various ways taken to remove this difficulty, not to take notice of a corruption of numbers, "twenty seven for seventeen", which some insist on. Ben Gersom and Abarbinel are of opinion, that those twenty seven years of Jeroboam's reign are not to be understood of what were past, but of what were to come before the family of Jehu was extinct; and that he reigned twenty six years, and his son six months, which made twenty seven imperfect years. Others suppose that Jeroboam reigned with his father eleven or twelve years before his death; and, reckoning from the different periods of his reign, this was either the twenty seventh year, or the fifteenth or sixteenth: and others, that the reign of Azariah may be differently reckoned, either from the time his father fled to Lachish, where he might remain eleven or twelve years, or from his death, and so may be said to begin to reign either in the fifteenth or twenty seventh of Jeroboam; or there was an interregnum of eleven or twelve years after the death of his father, he being a minor of about four years of age, which was the fifteenth of Jeroboam, during which time the government was in the hands of the princes and great men of the nation; and it was not till Azariah was sixteen years of age, and when it was the twenty seventh of Jeroboam's reign, that the people agreed to make him king, see ( 2 Kings 14:21 ) and which seems to be the best way of accounting for it.

Kings II 15:1 In-Context

1 And it came to pass after this that Abessalom prepared for himself chariots and horses, and fifty men to run before him.
2 And Abessalom rose early, and stood by the side of the way of the gate: and it came to pass that every man who had a cause, came to the king for judgment, and Abessalom cried to him, and said to him, Of what city art thou? And he said, Thy servant of one of the tribes of Israel.
3 And Abessalom said to him, See, thy affairs right and clear, yet thou hast no one of the king to hear thee.
4 And Abessalom said, O that one would make me a judge in the land; then every man who had a dispute or a cause would come to me, and I would judge him!
5 And it came to pass when a man came near to do him obeisance, that he stretched out his hand, and took hold of him, and kissed him.

Footnotes 1

The Brenton translation of the Septuagint is in the public domain.