Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 2 Kings 15:10

And Shallum the son of Jabesh conspired against him, and smote him before the people, and slew him, and reigned in his stead.

10. Shallum the son of Jabesh ] Nothing more is known of him than is given in this verse. The death of the last scion of the house of Jehu by the sword appears to be foretold in Amo 7:9, ‘I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword’.

before the people ] i.e. Publicly. Hence it would seem that the conspiracy of Shallum had large popular support. But the LXX. here has plural verbs ‘ they conspired’, ‘ they smote’ and ‘ they slew’ and writes the two words translated ‘before the people’ as though they were one proper name . Hence some have thought that Shallum had a fellow-conspirator of whom this was the name. The words occur in such a combination and sense nowhere else, and the preposition, rendered ‘before’, is not found except in the Chaldee portions of the Old Testament. But there is nothing in the Hebrew to warrant the changes of the LXX., though Ewald, and after him the late Dean Stanley, adopted them as representing a more correct text. Stanley says ( Jewish Church 2:308) ‘Zechariah was, it would seem, succeeded by a king, whose very name is almost lost to us, Kobolam, and Kobolam was succeeded by Shallum’. There needs a great deal of manipulation of even the text of the LXX. to extract any such statement from it. A much more reasonable conjecture is to make (though found nowhere else) the name of the place where Zachariah was murdered.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Before the people – i. e. openly and publicly. The Septuagint turns the original of the above words into a proper name, Keblaam, and makes him the actual assassin, but without much ground.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 10. Smote him before the people] In some public assembly: he probably became very unpopular.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Shallum the son of Jabesh; one of his chief captains.

Before the people openly and impudently; which he presumed to do, either because he remembered that the promise of the kingdom made to Jehu was confined to the fourth generation, 2Ki 10:30, which he observed to be now expired; or because he perceived that the people were generally disaffected to their king, and favourable to his attempt.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

And Shallum the son of Jabesh conspired against him,…. A friend of his, as Josephus q calls him, encouraged by the dissatisfaction of the people to him:

and smote him before the people, and slew him; in a public manner, the people consenting to it, and approving of it, not liking Zachariah to be their king;

and reigned in his stead; though but a very short time.

q Antiqu. l. 9. c. 11. sect. 1.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

(10) Son of Jabesh.Not man of Jabesh Gilead, as Hitzig explains. The fathers name is always given in the case of usurpers.

Before the people.Rather, before peoplei.e., in public. So all the versions except the LXX. The open assassination of the king is noted, in contrast with the secrecy with which former conspiracies had been concerted. It is a symptom of the rapidly-increasing corruption of morals, which allowed people to look on with indifference while the king was being murdered. (The LXX. puts the Hebrew words into Greek letters thus: . The word qobolbeforeis Aramaic rather than Hebrew, and only occurs here. Ewald acutely conjectured that Qobolmbefore peoplewas really the proper name of another usurper, comparing Zec. 11:8, the third king during that month; but in that case the narrative is hardly coherent of complete. Grtz suggests the correction in Ibleam.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

10. Smote him before the people That is, openly; before the eyes of all. It would seem that Zachariah’s administration was so unpopular as to invite or occasion conspiracy. The Septuagint takes the words rendered before the people as a proper name in Keblaam and Ewald thinks we should disregard the in, and understand Keblaam as the name of another conspirator, who sought, like Shallum, to usurp the throne.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

2Ki 15:10 And Shallum the son of Jabesh conspired against him, and smote him before the people, and slew him, and reigned in his stead.

Ver. 10. And slew him, and reigned in his stead. ] After whose death followed these direful calamities foretold by the prophet Amos. 2Ki 7:9 Never did the kingdom of Israel so flourish as under this king’s father – viz., Jeroboam II. The greatest prosperity is oft followed by the greatest misery. Periculosa est, secundum Hippocratem, summe bona corporis valetudo.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)