2 Chronicles 28:20

2Ch 28:20 And Tilgathpilneser king of Assyria came unto him, and distressed him, but strengthened him not.

Ver. 20. And Tilgathpilneser.] See 2Ki 16:10.

And distressed him, but strengthened him not.] This beast observing the hedge to be low, went over it, making Ahaz his tributary: how else is it said, that Hezekiah rebelled against him? {2Ki 18:7} Many princes have lost what they had, by calling in foreigners to their help. The Romans and Turks got much by this means.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Ch 28:20-21. Tilgath-pilneser came and distressed him — By quartering the Assyrian soldiers upon his country, by growing insolent and imperious, and creating him a great deal of vexation, and by proving as a broken reed, which not only fails him that leans upon it, but pierces his hand. Or, straitened him, (as יצר, jatsar, rather signifies,) namely, by robbing him of his treasures. For Ahaz took away a portion, &c. — He pillaged the house of God, and the king’s house, and pressed the princes for money to hire these foreign forces into his service. For though he had conformed to the idolatry of these his heathen neighbours, they did not value or love him the more for that; nor did his compliance, by which he lost God, gain them; nor could he make any interest with them but by his money. Thus it is generally found that wicked men have no real affection for those that revolt to them, nor care to do them a kindness. But he strengthened him not — A most emphatical expression: for though he weakened his present enemy, the Syrian, as is related 2Ki 16:9, taking Damascus, and carrying the people away captive; yet really, all things considered, he did not strengthen Ahaz and his kingdom. He did not help him to recover the cities which the Philistines had taken from him; nor did he lend him any forces, or enable him to recruit his own. On the contrary, he weakened him; for by removing the Syrian, who, though a troublesome neighbour, was a kind of bulwark to him, and by destroying Samaria, he opened a way for the invasion of his country with more facility, as happened in the very next reign.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Tilgath-pilneser . . . distressed him, but strengthened him not--that is, notwithstanding the temporary relief which Tilgath-pilneser afforded him by the conquest of Damascus and the slaughter of Rezin (Kg2 16:9), little advantage resulted from it, for Tilgath-pilneser spent the winter in voluptuous revelry at Damascus; and the connection formed with the Assyrian king was eventually a source of new and greater calamities and humiliation to the kingdom of Judah (Ch2 28:2-3).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

(20) Tilgath-pilneser (Heb., Pilne’èser). In 2 Kings more correctly called Tiglath-pileser (Pil’èser). (See Note on 1Ch_5:26.) According to the As syrian Eponym Canon, Tiglath-pileser II. came to the throne B.C. 745, and marched westward against Damascus and Israel, B.C. 734. The importance of these dates for the chronology of the period is obvious.

Came unto him.—Comp. the more detailed narrative in 2Ki_16:7-10; and see Note on 2Ch_28:16. Tiglath was induced by the message and present of Ahaz to undertake a campaign in the west; he captured Damascus, slew Rezin, and transported the population of the city to Kir (Kings, l.c.). After this, “king Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria” (2Ki_16:10). The chronicler in the words before us, is estimating the results of this expedition as they affected the interests of Judah. At the prayer of Ahaz the Assyrian had indeed “come to him”; but not with any purpose of strengthening the southern kingdom. Glad of a pretext for interference in the affairs of the west, the ambitious usurper was simply bent on the extension of his own empire; and when the more powerful states of Syria and Israel lay at his feet, he naturally proceeded to require a most unequivocal acknowledgment of vassalage from Ahaz. He thus “distressed” or oppressed him by reducing his kingdom to a mere dependency of Assyria, besides impoverishing him of all his treasure, which Ahaz had sent as the price of this ruinous help.

Distressed him, but strengthened him not.—This is correct. A possible rendering is: “and besieged him, and conquered him not”; but the context is against it. (The word chazaq, “strengthened,” everywhere else means to be strong, or, to prevail. LXX. omits the last words, rendering the whole καὶ ἐπάταξεν αὐτόν. Syriac and Arabic, “besieged him.” The Vulg. has: “et afflixit eum, et nullo resistente vastavit.” That Judah now became tributary to Assyria is evident from 2Ki_18:7; 2Ki_18:14; 2Ki_18:20.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

20. Tilgath-pilneser] i.e. Tiglath-pileser III. Cp. 1Ch_5:6 (note).

came … him not] Some error in the text is probable here. The Hebrew cannot be rendered as in the A.V., but no satisfactory emendation has been proposed.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And in the time of his distress did he trespass yet more against the Lord,.... By increasing his idolatries, as appears by what he did, in imitation of what he saw at Damascus, where he had an interview with the king of Assyria, Kg2 16:10

this is that King Ahaz; that monster of iniquity, than whom there was none worse, nor any so bad, of all the kings of Judah.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Tilgath-pilneser - This form of the name is doubly corrupt. See the properly Hebraized form in 2Ki 15:29.

Distressed him, but strengthened him not - This statement, and that at the end of 2Ch 28:21, is supplemental to, and not contradictory of, 2Ki 16:9. Here it is the writer’s object to note that the material assistance rendered by Tiglath-pileser to Ahab, was no real “help” or “strength,” but rather a cause of “distress.”

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

And. Heb. and Sept. "And....the king....came against him, and smote him." Hebrew continues, "but strengthened him not" in the end; though he had been invited, (v. 16.; H.) and had actually made a diversion in favour of Achaz. But not being satisfied, he afterwards returned, and made cruel havoc in the country, imposing tribute upon the king, v. 21., 4 K. xvi. 7., and xviii. 7. It is therefore unnecessary to correct the Hebrew, with Grotius, to make it agree with 4 K. xvi. 7. Thus---he "came to his aid, and relieved him from his distress, (v. 21,) and granted him assistance."

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Tilgath-Pilneser see 1Ch_5:6, 1Ch_5:26; 2Ki_15:29 2Ki_16:10, our parallel. See our notes in full on. 1Ch_5:6, 26 Gesenius dates his reign as King of Assyria as B.C. 753-734; others as about B.C. 747-728. Distressed him, but strengthened him not. This is in our writer"s usual deeper moral and religious vein, and was no doubt most true. For all Ahaz paid and bribed out of the sacrilegiously employed treasure of the temple, out of the depreciating and partial dismantling of "the house of the king," and out of the begged contributions or taxes extortionately wrung "of the princes" (see the succinct account of next verse, and compare the parallel in its vers. 8, 18), he bought a master for himself, servitude, tributariness, and the humiliation of disgrace itself. The temporary relief he obtained (and which the writer of Chronicles in no way means to deny) from one enemy rivetted round his neck the yoke of another and greater. And worse than this, he secured in his own heart the greatest adversary of all a restless, implacable foe, which ever goaded him on to worse folly and deeper sin.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Distressed - Or, straitened him, by robbing him of his treasures. Strengthened not - A most emphatical expression: for tho' he weakened his present enemy the Syrian, yet all things considered, he did not strengthen Ahaz and his kingdom, but weaken them; for by removing the Syrian, who, tho' a troublesome neighbour, was a kind of bulwark to him, he smoothed the way for himself, a far more dangerous enemy, as appears in the very next king's reign.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

came upon him for he had sent after him to aid him, as is written in II Kings (16:7): “And Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-Pilneser.”

and oppressed him from that which he shared with him [from] the House of the Lord and the palace of the king, etc.”

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.