Bible Commentaries

To worship his Baalim, or false gods, in and by them.

The Lord his God: God was his God, though not by covenant and grace, and special relation, which Ahaz had renounced, yet by his sovereign dominion over him; for God did not forfeit his right by Ahaz’s denying it.

i.e. In a most high and fierce manner. A usual hyperbole, withal signifying that their rage did cry aloud, and was heard to heaven, from whence it would pull down vengeance upon them.

Which, if not repented of, may bring down the like vengeance upon your own heads.

Which were expressed by name; which were appointed to take care about the management of this business.

The kings of Assyria, i.e. the king; the plural number for the singular; either,

1. Because he was a great king and a king of kings; as the elephant, or, as others think, the crocodile, is called behemoth, which signifies beasts, Job 40, because of his vast bulk and eminency above other beasts. Or,

2. Because he wrote to divers of the kings or great princes, who may be called kings in a more general signification of the word, and indeed are so called, Isaiah 10:8, Are not my princes altogether kings?

The low country; that part of Judah which was towards the sea, and towards the Philistines’ land.

The south of Judah; of which see Joshua 15:21.

He made Judah naked; taking away their ornament and their defence and strength, to wit, their treasures, which he sent to the Assyrian to no purpose; their frontier towns, and other strong holds, which by his folly and wickedness were lost; their religion, and the Divine protection, which was their great and only firm security, which by his sins he forfeited. See Poole "Exodus 32:25".

Distressed him, or, straitened him, by robbing him of his treasures. But he helped him not, but strengthened him not; a most emphatical expression: for though he weakened his present enemy the Syrian, as is related, 2 Kings 16:9, yet really, and all things considered, he did not strengthen Ahaz and his kingdom, but rather weaken them; for by the removing the Syrian, who, though a troublesome neighbour, was a kind of bulwark to him, as to many other enemies, he smoothed the way for himself, a far more dangerous and mischievous enemy, as appears by his invasion of Judah in the very next king’s reign.

That monster and reproach of mankind, that unteachable and incorrigible prince, whom even grievous afflictions made worse, which commonly make men better. This is he whose name deserves to be remembered and detested for ever. Or, king Ahaz was the same, no changeling, not a whit better by all the methods which God used with him.

Which smote him; or, which had smitten him formerly, i.e. had enabled their worshippers, the Syrians, to smite him, as he fondly imagined; which yet he saw confuted, having now found by experience that they could not save them from the Assyrian power.