13–15. Shallum king of Israel. He is slain, after a month, by Menahem (Not in Chronicles)

13. a full month] R.V. the space of a month. The margin of A.V. gives, ‘Heb. a month of days’. The rendering of R.V. corresponds with that of A.V. in Genesis 29:7 for the same words. The Hebrew for ‘of days’ is added adverbially, as we use ‘time’ in such phrases as ‘in a month’s time’ = ‘in a month’ ‘in a year’s time’ &c.

Verses 13-15. - SHORT AND UNIMPORTANT REIGN OF SHALLUM. Three verses suffice for the reign of Shallum, the son of Jabesh, who held the throne for only thirty days. Hearing of his conspiracy, Menahem, the son of Gadi - "the general," as Josephus calls him ('Ant. Jud.,' 10:11. § 1) - marched from Tirzah to Samaria, got Shallum into his power, and put him to death (ver. 14). The writer concludes with the usual formula (ver. 15). Verse 13. - Shallum the son of Jabesh began to reign in the nine and thirtieth year of Uzziah King of Judah. This date follows from that of ver. 8, and must stand or fall with it. The true accession-year of Shallum was probably the twenty-seventh of Uzziah. And he reigned a fall month in Samaria; literally, a month of days - "thirty days" according to Josephus. 2 Kings 15:13Reign of Shallum. - Shallum reigned only a full month (ירח־ימים, as in Deuteronomy 21:13; see at Genesis 29:14). Menahem the son of Gadi then made war upon him from Tirzah; and by him he was smitten and slain. Menahem must have been a general or the commander-in-chief, as Josephus affirms. As soon as he became king he smote Tiphsach, - i.e., Thapsacus on the Euphrates, which has long since entirely disappeared, probably to be sought for in the neighbourhood of the present Rakka, by the ford of el Hamman, the north-eastern border city of the Israelitish kingdom in the time of Solomon (1 Kings 5:4), which came into the possession of the kingdom of Israel again when the ancient boundaries were restored by Jeroboam II((2 Kings 14:25 and 2 Kings 14:28), but which had probably revolted again during the anarchy which arose after the death of Jeroboam, - "and all that were therein, and the territory thereof, from Tirzah; because they opened not (to him), therefore he smote it, and had them that were with child ripped up." מתּרצה does not mean that Menahem laid the land or district waste from Tirzah to Tiphsach, but is to be taken in connection with יכּה in this sense: he smote Tiphsach proceeding from Tirzah, etc. The position of this notice, namely, immediately after the account of the usurpation of the throne by Menahem and before the history of his reign, is analogous to that concerning Elath in the case of Uzziah (2 Kings 14:22), and, like the latter, is to be accounted for from the fact that the expedition of Menahem against Tiphsach formed the commencement of his reign, and, as we may infer from 2 Kings 15:19, became very eventful not only for his own reign, but also for the kingdom of Israel generally. The reason why he proceeded from Tirzah against Tiphsach, was no doubt that it was in Tirzah, the present Tallusa, which was only three hours to the east of Samaria (see at 1 Kings 14:17), that the army of which Menahem was commander was posted, so that he had probably gone to Samaria with only a small body of men to overthrow Shallum, the murderer of Zachariah and usurper of the throne, and to make himself king. It is possible that the army commanded by Menahem had already been collected in Tirzah to march against the city of Tiphsach, which had revolted from Israel when Shallum seized upon the throne by the murder of Zachariah; so that after Menahem had removed the usurper, he carried out at once the campaign already resolved upon, and having taken Tiphsach, punished it most cruelly for its revolt. On the cruel custom of ripping up the women with child, i.e., of cutting open their wombs, see 2 Kings 8:12; Amos 1:13, and Hosea 14:1. Tiphsach, Thapsacus, appears to have been a strong fortress; and from its situation on the western bank of the Euphrates, at the termination of the great trade-road from Egypt, Phoenicia, and Syria to Mesopotamia and the kingdoms of Inner Asia (Movers, Phniz. ii. 2, pp. 164,165; and Ritter, Erdkunde, x. pp. 1114-15), the possession of it was of great importance to the kingdom of Israel.

(Note: There is no foundation for the view propounded by Ewald (Gesch. iii. p. 599), Simson (Hosea, pp. 20, 21), Thenius, and many others, that Tiphsach was a city between Tirzah and Samaria, which Menahem laid waste on his march from Tirzah to Samaria to dethrone Shallum; for it rests upon nothing more than the perfectly unwarrantable and ungrammatical combination of מתרצה with את־גבוליה, "its boundaries towards Tirzah" (Sims.), and upon the two worthless objections: (1) that the great distance of מתרצה from יכה precludes the rendering "going out from Tirzah;" and (2) that Menahem was not the man to be able to conquer Thapsacus on the Euphrates. But there is no foundation for the latter assertion, as we have no standard by which to estimate the strength and bravery of the Israelitish army commanded by Menahem. And the first objection falls to the ground with the correct rendering of מתרצה, viz., "proceeding from Tirzah," which is preferred even by Ewald and Thenius. With this rendering, the words by no means affirm that Menahem smote Tiphsach from Tirzah on the way to Samaria. This is merely an inference drawn from v. 13, according to which Menahem went from Tirzah to Samaria to overthrow Shallum. But this inference is open to the following objections: (1) that it is very improbable that there was a strong fortress between Tirzah and Samaria, which Menahem was obliged to take on his march before he could overthrow the usurper in the capital of the kingdom; and (2) that the name Tiphsach, trajectus, ford, is by no means a suitable one for a city situated on the mountains between Tirzah and Samaria, and therefore, in order to carry out the hypothesis in question, Thenius proposes to alter Tiphsach into Tappuach, without any critical warrant for so doing.)

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