23 In the fifteenth year of Amaziah the son of Joash king of Judah Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel began to reign in Samaria, (and reigned) forty-one years.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Jeroboam - This is the only instance, in the history of either kingdom, of a recurrent royal appellation. We can scarcely doubt that Jeroboam II was named after the great founder of the Israelite kingdom by a father who trusted that he might prove a sort of second founder. Perhaps the prophecy of Jonah (see 2-Kings 14:25) had been already given, and it was known that a great deliverance was approaching.
In the fifteenth year of Amaziah, the son of Joash king of Judah, Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel began to reign in Samaria,.... So that he reigned fourteen or fifteen years contemporary with him; for Amaziah reigned twenty nine years:
and reigned forty and one years; Josephus says (i) forty, giving only the round number.
(i) Ut supra, (Antiqu. l. 9.) c. 10. sect. 1.
God raised up the prophet Jonah, and by him declared the purposes of his favour to Israel. It is a sign that God has not cast off his people, if he continues faithful ministers among them. Two reasons are given why God blessed them with those victories: 1. Because the distress was very great, which made them objects of his compassion. 2. Because the decree was not yet gone forth for their destruction. Many prophets there had been in Israel, but none left prophecies in writing till this age, and their prophecies are part of the Bible. Hosea began to prophesy in the reign of this Jeroboam. At the same time Amos prophesied; soon after Micah, then Isaiah, in the days of Ahaz and Hezekiah. Thus God, in the darkest and most degenerate ages of the church, raised up some to be burning and shining lights in it; to their own age, by their preaching and living, and a few by their writings, to reflect light upon us in the last times.
JEROBOAM'S WICKED REIGN OVER ISRAEL. (2-Kings 14:23-29)
Jeroboam, the son of Joash king of Israel--This was Jeroboam II who, on regaining the lost territory, raised the kingdom to great political power (2-Kings 14:25), but adhered to the favorite religious policy of the Israelitish sovereigns (2-Kings 14:24). While God granted him so great a measure of national prosperity and eminence, the reason is expressly stated (2-Kings 14:26-27) to be that the purposes of the divine covenant forbade as yet the overthrow of the kingdom of the ten tribes (see 2-Kings 13:23).
Reign of Jeroboam II of Israel. - 2-Kings 14:23. The statement that Jeroboam the son of Joash (Jehoash) ascended the throne in the fifteenth year of Amaziah, agrees with 2-Kings 14:17, according to which Amaziah outlived Jehoash fifteen years, since Amaziah reigned twenty-nine years. On the other hand, the forty-one years' duration of his reign does not agree with the statement in 2-Kings 15:8, that his son Zachariah did not become king till the thirty-eighth year of Azariah (Uzziah); and therefore Thenius proposes to alter the number 41 into 51, Ewald into 53. For further remarks, see 2-Kings 15:8. Jeroboam also adhered firmly to the image-worship of his ancestors, but he raised his kingdom again to great power.
*More commentary available at chapter level.