accustomed to defer the punishment of the elders in the greatness of His long-suffering, to see whether their descendants will come to repentance; but if this be not the case, although they may not be so bad, the anger of God proceeds at length to visit iniquity (cf. Exo 20:5).” Seb. Schmidt.
Verse 3
2Ki 17:3 “Against him came up Salmanasar king of Assyria, and Hoshea became subject to him and rendered him tribute” (מנחה, as in 1Ki 5:1). שׁלמנאסר, Δαλαμανασσάρ (lxx), Salmanasar, according to the more recent researches respecting Assyria, is not only the same person as the Shalman mentioned in Hos 10:14, but the same as the Sargon of Isa 20:1, whose name is spelt Sargina upon the monuments, and who is described in the inscriptions on his palace at Khorsabad as ruler over many subjugated lands, among which Samirina (Samaria?) also occurs (vid., Brandis üb. d. Gewinn, pp. 48ff. and 53; M. v. Niebuhr, Gesch. Ass. pp. 129, 130; and M. Duncker, Gesch. des Alterth. i. pp. 687ff.). The occasion of this expedition of Salmanasar appears to have been simply the endeavour to continue the conquests of his predecessor Tiglath-pileser. There is no ground whatever for Maurer’s assumption, that he had been asked to come to the help of a rival of Hoshea; and the opinion that he came because Hoshea had refused the tribute which had been paid to Assyria from the time of Menahem downwards, is at variance with the fact that in 2Ki 15:29 Tiglath-pileser is simply said to have taken a portion of the territory of Israel; but there is no allusion to any payment of tribute or feudal obligation on the part of Pekah. Salmanasar was the first to make king Hoshea subject and tributary. This took place at the commencement of Hoshea’s reign, as is evident from the fact that Hoshea paid the tribute for several years, and in the sixth year of his reign refused any further payment.
Verses 4-5
The king of Assyria found a conspiracy in Hoshea; for he had sent messengers to So the king of Egypt, and did not pay the tribute to the king of Assyria, as year by year. The Egyptian king סוא, So, possibly to be pronounced סוה, Seveh, is no doubt one of the two Shebeks of the twenty-fifth dynasty, belonging to the Ethiopian tribe; but whether he was the second king of this dynasty, Såbåtåkå (Brugsch, hist. d'Egypte, i. p. 244), the Sevechus of Manetho, who is said to have ascended the throne, according to Wilkinson, in the year 728, as Vitringa (Isa. ii. p. 318), Gesenius, Ewald, and others suppose, or the first king
