Matthew Henry on 2 Kings 15:8-31
The best days of the kingdom of Israel were while the government was in Jehu's family. In his reign, and the next three reigns, though there were many abominable corruptions and miserable grievances in Israel, yet the crown went in succession, the kings died in their beds, and some care was taken of public affairs; but, now that those days are at an end, the history which we have in these verses of about thirty-three years represents the affairs of that kingdom in the utmost confusion imaginable. Woe to those that were with child (Kg2 15:16) and to those that gave suck in those days, for then must needs be great tribulations, when, for the transgression of the land, many were the princes the…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on 2 Kings 15:16
Menahem . . . smote Tiphsah--Thapsacus, on the Euphrates, the border city of Solomon's kingdom (Kg1 4:24). The inhabitants refusing to open their gates to him, Menahem took it by storm. Then having spoiled it, he committed the most barbarous excesses, without regard either to age or sex.
Adam Clarke on 2 Kings 15:13
He reigned a full month - Menahem is supposed to have been one of Zachariah's generals. Hearing of the death of his master, when he was with the troops at Tirzah, he hastened to Samaria, and slew the murderer, and had himself proclaimed in his stead. But, as the people of Tiphsah did not open their gates to him, he took the place by assault; and as the text tells us, practiced the most cruel barbarities, even ripping up the women that were with child!
John Gill on 2 Kings 15:16
Then Menahem smote Tiphsah, and all that were therein, and the coasts thereof from Tirzah,.... The Jewish writers commonly take this Tiphsah to be without the land of Israel, the same with that in 1 Kings 4:24 on the borders of Syria, and near the Euphrates; but it seems to be some place nearer Samaria, and Tirzah; according to Bunting (t), it was but six miles from Samaria:
because they opened not to him, therefore he smote it; they refused to open the gates of their city to him, and receive him, and acknowledge him as their king; therefore he exercised severity on the inhabitants of it, and the parts adjacent, as far as Tirzah, putting them to the sword:
and all the women therein that we…
