Matthew Henry on 2 Kings 13:1-9
This general account of the reign of Jehoahaz, and of the state of Israel during his seventeen years, though short, is long enough to let us see two things which are very affecting and instructive: -
I. The glory of Israel raked up in the ashes, buried and lost, and turned into shame. How unlike does Israel appear here to what it had been and might have been! How is its crown profaned and its honour laid in the dust! 1. It was the honour of Israel that they worshipped the only living and true God, who is a Spirit, an eternal mind, and had rules by which to worship him of his own appointment; but by changing the glory of their incorruptible God into the similitude of an ox, the truth of God…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on 2 Kings 13:6
there remained the grove--Asherah--the idol set up by Ahab (Kg1 16:33), which ought to have been demolished (Deu 7:5).
Adam Clarke on 2 Kings 13:6
The grove also in Samaria - Asherah, or Astarte, remained in Samaria, and there was she worshipped, with all her abominable rites.
John Gill on 2 Kings 13:6
Nevertheless, they departed not from the sins of the house of Jeroboam, who made Israel to sin, but walked therein,.... Continued to worship the calves still, which was an instance of great ingratitude; the Syriac and Arabic versions read, "he departed not"; Jehoahaz the king:
and there remained the grove in Samaria; which Ahab made there, 1 Kings 16:33, neither Jehu nor his son had it cut down, though Baal was destroyed.
Keil & Delitzsch on 2 Kings 13:1-9
Reign of Jehoahaz. - Jehu was followed by Jehoahaz his son, "in the twenty-third year of Joash of Judah." This synchronistic statement is not only at variance with Kg2 13:10, but cannot be very well reconciled with Kg2 12:1. If Jehoahaz began to reign in the twenty-third year of Joash king of Judah, and reigned seventeen years, his son cannot have followed him after his death in the thirty-seventh year of Joash of Judah, as is stated in Kg2 13:10, for there are only fourteen years and possibly a few months between the twenty-third and thirty-seventh years of Joash; and even if he ascended the throne at the commencement of the twenty-third year of the reign of Joash and died at the end of the…
