7 He killed of Edom in the Valley of Salt ten thousand, and took Sela by war, and called its name Joktheel, to this day.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Amaziah's Idumaean war is treated at length by the writer of Chronicles (marginal reference).
The "Valley of Salt" is usually identified with the broad open plain called the Sabkah, at the southern end of the Dead Sea - the continuation of the Ghor or Jordan gorge. At the north-western corner of this plain stands a mountain of rock-salt, and the tract between this mountain and the sea is a salt-marsh. Salt springs also abound in the plain itself, so that the name would be fully accounted for. It is doubted, however, whether the original of the word "valley," commonly used of clefts and ravines, can be applied to such a sunk plain as the Sabkah; and it is certainly most unlikely that 10,000 prisoners would have been conveyed upward of eighty miles (the distance of the Sabkah from Petra), through a rough and difficult country, only in order to be massacred. On the whole, it is perhaps most probable that the "Valley of Salt" yet remains to be discovered, and that its true position was near Selah or Petra (see Judges 1:36 note). Amaziah gave to Petra the name Joktheel, "subdued by God," in a religious spirit as an acknowledgment of the divine aid by which his victory was gained. The name failed to take permanent hold on the place, because the Edomites, on not long afterward recovering their city, restored the old appellation (2-Chronicles 28:17; compare Isaiah 16:1, and Amos 1:11).
Unto this day - The writer of Kings evidently gives the exact words of his document, composed not later than the reign of Ahaz, before whose death the Edomites had recovered Petra.
He slew of Edom to the valley of salt - This war is more circumstantially related in 2-Chronicles 25:5, etc. The Idumeans had arisen in the reign of Joram king of Judah, and shaken off the yoke of the house of David. Amaziah determined to reduce them to obedience; he therefore levied an army of three hundred thousand men in his own kingdom, and hired a hundred thousand Israelites, at the price of one hundred talents. When he was about to depart at the head of this numerous army, a prophet came to him and ordered him to dismiss the Israelitish army, for God was not with them: and on the king of Judah expressing regret for the loss of his hundred talents, he was answered, that the Lord could give him much more than that. He obeyed, sent back the Israelites, and at the head of his own men attacked the Edomites in the valley of salt, slew ten thousand on the spot, and took ten thousand prisoners, all of whom he precipitated from the rock, or Selah, which was afterwards called Joktheel, a place or city supposed to be the same with Petra, which gave name to Arabia Petraea, where there must have been a great precipice, from which the place took its name of Selah or Petra.
He slew of (c) Edom in the valley of salt ten thousand, and took Selah by war, and called the name of it Joktheel unto this day.
(c) For the Idumeans, whom David had brought to subjection, rebelled in the time of Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat.
He slew of Edom in the valley of Salt ten thousand,.... Of which valley; see Gill on 2-Samuel 8:13, the Edomites having revolted from Judah in the days of Joram, 2-Kings 8:20. Amaziah undertook to reduce them with an army of 300,000 choice men; and, besides these, hired also of Israel 100,000 valiant men, for one hundred talents of silver; but at the instance of a prophet of the Lord he dismissed the latter, and went against Edom only with his men, and slew of the Edomites 10,000, besides other 10,000 he took alive, and cast headlong from a rock, which came into his hands, see 2-Chronicles 25:5,
and took Selah by war; which signifies a rock, the same with Petra, the metropolis of Arabia Petraea, the country of the Edomites. The city itself was not a rock, nor built on one, but was situated in a plain, surrounded with rocks and mountains, as Strabo (z) and Pliny (a) relate, from whence it seems to have its name; and by the Syrians called Recem, where Rocan a king of Midian reigned (b), called in the Greek version of Numbers 31:8, Recon; though Vitringa (c) is of opinion, that not Petra, the metropolis of Edom, is meant, but Maalehakrabbim, Joshua 15:3, which lay on the south border of Judea, near the salt sea:
and called the name of it Joktheel; which signifies "the obedience of God"; in memory of his obedience to the prophet of the Lord, in consequence of which he obtained this victory: and the name continued unto this day: the time of the writing this book.
(z) Geograph. l. 16. p. 536. (a) Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 28. (b) Hieron. de loc. Hebrews. fol. 93. M. & 94. A. Vid. Joseph. Antiqu. l. 4. c. 7. sect. 1. (c) Comment. in Jesaiam, c. 16. 1.
HE SMITES EDOM. (2-Kings 14:7)
He slew of Edom in the valley of salt ten thousand--In the reign of Joram the Edomites had revolted (see 2-Kings 8:20). But Amaziah, determined to reduce them to their former subjection, formed a hostile expedition against them, in which he routed their army and made himself master of their capital.
the valley of salt--that part of the Ghor which comprises the salt and sandy plain to the south of the Dead Sea.
Selah--literally, "the rock"; generally thought to be Petra.
Joktheel--that is, "given" or "conquered by God." See the history of this conquest more fully detailed (2-Chronicles 25:6-16).
The brief account of the defeat of the Edomites in the Salt Valley and of the taking of the city of Sela is completed by 2-Chronicles 25:6-16. According to the latter, Amaziah sought to strengthen his own considerable army by the addition of 100,000 Israelitish mercenaries; but at the exhortation of a prophet he sent the hired Israelites away again, at which they were so enraged, that on their way home they plundered several of the cities of Judah and put many men to death. The Edomites had revolted from Judah in the reign of Joram (2-Kings 8:20.); Amaziah now sought to re-establish his rule over them, in which he was so far successful, that he completely defeated them, slaying 10,000 in the battle and then taking their capital, so that his successor Uzziah was also able to incorporate the Edomitish port of Elath in his own kingdom once more (2-Kings 14:22). On the Salt Valley (גּי־המּלח for גּיא־המּלח in the Chronicles), a marshy salt plain in the south of the Dead Sea, see at 2-Samuel 8:13. According to 2-Chronicles 25:12 of the Chronicles, in addition to the 10,000 who were slain in battle, 10,000 Edomites were taken prisoners and cast headlong alive from the top of a rock. הסּלע (the rock) with the article, because the epithet is founded upon the peculiar nature of the city, was probably the capital of the Edomites, called by the Greeks ἡ Πέτρα, and bore this name from its situation and the mode in which it was built, since it was erected in a valley surrounded by rocks, and that in such a manner that the houses were partly hewn in the natural rock. Of this commercial city, which was still flourishing in the first centuries of the Christian era, splendid ruins have been preserved in a valley on the eastern side of the ghor which runs down to the Elanitic Gulf, about two days' journey from the southern extremity of the Dead Sea, on the east of Mount Hor, to which the Crusaders gave the name of vallis Moysi, and which the Arabs still call Wady Musa (see Robinson, Pal. ii. pp. 512ff., and for the history of this city, pp. 574ff., and Ritter's Erdkunde, xiv. pp. 1103ff.).
Joktheel - Which signifies, the obedience of God, that is, given him by God as a reward of his obedience to God's message by the prophet, 2-Chronicles 25:8-9.
*More commentary available at chapter level.