Ishodad of Merv

In his own words on 2 Kings

• 2 Kings 11:1

  Athaliah exterminated all the royal children. In fact, after her son had been killed by Jehu, she had conceived an extremely perfidious and vicious scheme, saying to herself with anger, "I will reign just the same against the will of God by fighting God's promises, and I will make the posterity of David's house perish, as the descendants of my father's house have perished and have been exterminated." That scheme resembled the treachery that Satan plotted at the beginning against the chief of our race. However, her scheme was not accomplished, but after seven years the kingdom returned to the family of David, thanks to a righteous man, Jehoiada, the husband of Jehosheba, Joram's daughter, who had brought up Joash, son of Ahaziah.

  BOOKS OF SESSIONS 2 KINGS 11:1

• 2 Kings 12:4

  "The money for the assessment." [The Scripture] uses [this term] for the money which is voluntarily given by the people for the "assessment" of their own person and whose payment has survived from the time of Moses who, after the [Israelites] were counted in the census, prescribed that four zouzē should be deducted from each of them. This form of contribution was perpetuated up to the days of our Lord as a memory of the kindness of God toward them. But at the time of our Lord they only gave two zouzē, because they had become poor.

  BOOKS OF SESSIONS 2 KINGS 12:4

• 2 Kings 14:8-9

  The thorn bush [mentioned here] is a tiny plant and herb and is not the blackberry bush, [whose fruits] we eat. "Since, if ever," he says, "the thorn bush were sent to a cedar, saying, 'Give your daughter to my son for a wife,' it would be an insult and an act of derision, since the thorn bush is much smaller than the cedar, so you, Amaziah, do not differ at all from the thorn bush, if compared with my power." By the cedar and the wild beast Jehoash signifies himself.

  BOOKS OF SESSIONS 2 KINGS 12:4

• 2 Kings 15:1-7

  In the book of Chronicles [it is written]: Uzziah "did what was right in the sight of the Lord, just as his father David, and God made him prosper." "He built" fortresses "and palaces and high towers which were reinforced with iron bolts." "But when he had become strong, he grew proud; he became an infidel to the Lord his God and entered the temple of the Lord to make the censer-bearers of perfumes smoke. But the priest Azariah went in after him and said to him, 'It is not for you, king, [to make offerings].' And the king was angered with the priests and ordered them to be driven out of the sanctuary. But at the same time a leprous disease broke out of the holy place on his forehead." And when he died, "they did not bury him in the burial field that belonged to the kings, for they said, 'He is leprous.' "He was struck with leprosy because, besides kingship, he dared arrogate priesthood, without remembering what had happened to the people of Dathan and Korah and what had happened to Jeroboam. That is why he received a punishment on a part of his body that was conspicuous. And since no prophet had reproached him, except for the priest Azariah, the gift of prophecy was withheld from [all prophets] until the death of Uzziah. And the bronze bull which they worshiped bellowed and produced a tremendous noise, while blood, ravaging and plagues reigned among the people. And the prophet Zechariah referred to these events when he said, "And you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of King Uzziah of Judah."

  BOOKS OF SESSIONS 2 KINGS 15:3

• 2 Kings 16:15-16

  The words "the bronze altar shall be for me to inquire by," that is, in order to consult [God]: [the king] says these words in a purely formal manner, and not seriously.

  BOOKS OF SESSIONS 2 KINGS 16:15

• 2 Kings 17:9

  With the words "from watchtower to fortified city" [the Scripture] denounces the large number of their idols, that is, [there were] idols from border to border. The text refers to the "fortified city" as Jerusalem, but other [interpreters] say Antioch.

  BOOKS OF SESSIONS 2 KINGS 16:15

• 2 Kings 22:8

  The book that was discovered was the Deuteronomy that Moses had placed in the ark as a precaution. It was brought out through a divine action, in order to show the people that it cried and argued against them because of their great iniquity and therefore did not want to stay in its place. Hilkiah, who found the book, was the father of the prophet Jeremiah. It is not without a reason that the book was discovered at the time of Josiah because he, more than all the other kings, showed a real fervor against the priests of Baal, especially against those of the ten tribes, that is, those that had survived among them. Indeed, if [the book] had been found at the time of the other kings, they would not have accepted it. They might have even torn it up, as Zedekiah tore the prophecy of Jeremiah and threw it into the fire. [Another reason] is that the time of their captivity had come. For the seventy years of the Babylonian captivity are usually counted from the eighteenth year of Josiah, the year in which the book was discovered: as if the captivity was about to come in those days but was hindered because of Josiah's virtue.

  BOOKS OF SESSIONS 2 KINGS 22:8

• 2 Kings 22:14

  "They went to the prophet Huldah," and not to Jeremiah, even though he was already well known as a prophet, probably because Jeremiah was not there at the moment, or maybe because this woman surpassed him with the power of her gift of prophecy.

  BOOKS OF SESSIONS 2 KINGS 22:14

• 2 Kings 23:10

  "No one would make a son or a daughter pass through fire." The passage through fire is the symbol of combustion. In fact, the demons demanded that [their worshipers] burn their own children, and sometimes they were immolated, sometimes they only underwent the symbolic rite mentioned above, as if they had been actually placed into the fire and consumed, and so the expectations of the demons were satisfied. Sometimes fire was also passed above somebody to signify that he was by now enveloped in fire. Then salt was thrown, too, according to the customs of those who worship the devil.

  BOOKS OF SESSIONS 2 KINGS 23:10

• 2 Kings 23:31-34

  Jehoahaz, also called Shalom, reigned three months until the Egyptians came back from Mabboug. At that stage [Pharaoh] enchained him and brought him to Egypt. So [Jehoahaz] left his country and never came back, according to the prophecy that Jeremiah had spoken against him. Pharaoh appointed his brother Heliakim as the new king and gave him the name of Jehoiakim.

  BOOKS OF SESSIONS 2 KINGS 23:31

• 2 Kings 25:27-30

  Evil-merodach was the son of Nebuchadnezzar. Since he had ruled the kingdom badly and had, in addition, troubled the land with a severe conflict, when his father came back [from his military campaign], his father imprisoned him, fearing that he might rebel against him. Now he was imprisoned in the same place where also Jehoaichin was imprisoned. There they kept each other company for a long time and became friends. Therefore, after Nebuchadnezzar was dead and Evil-merodach was appointed as the new king, he granted [Jehoiachin] favors and gifts. And this was a reward given to Jehoiachin, because he had obeyed the prophecy and had surrendered, so that God did not refuse him the wage that he had earned.

  BOOKS OF SESSIONS 2 KINGS 25:27