2 Kings 18:10

And at the end of three years they took it: even in the sixth year of Hezekiah, that is the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(10) They took it—i.e., the Assyrians took it. This reading is preferable to that of the LXX., Syriac, and Vulg. (“he took it”), as it was Sargon, not Shalman-eser, who took the city. Schrader is too positive in calling this “a certainly false pronunciation” of the Hebrew verb. (Comp. Note on 2Kings 17:5.) 2Kings 17:6, to which he refers as “decisive” for the singular here also, says that “the king of Assyria” (not Shalmaneser) took Samaria.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

18:9-16 The descent Sennacherib made upon Judah, was a great calamity to that kingdom, by which God would try the faith of Hezekiah, and chastise the people. The secret dislike, the hypocrisy, and lukewarmness of numbers, require correction; such trials purify the faith and hope of the upright, and bring them to simple dependence on God.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

These verses repeat the account given in the marginal reference. The extreme importance of the event may account for the double insertion.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

7, 8. he rebelled against the king of Assyria—that is, the yearly tribute his father had stipulated to pay, he, with imprudent haste, withdrew. Pursuing the policy of a truly theocratic sovereign, he was, through the divine blessing which rested on his government, raised to a position of great public and national strength. Shalmaneser had withdrawn from Palestine, being engaged perhaps in a war with Tyre, or probably he was dead. Assuming, consequently, that full independent sovereignty which God had settled on the house of David, he both shook off the Assyrian yoke, and, by an energetic movement against the Philistines, recovered from that people the territory which they had taken from his father Ahaz (2Ch 28:18).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

At the end of three years, to wit, of the siege, i.e. in the third year, as this phrase is used, Deu 14:28 Joshua 9:16,17 Jer 34:14, compared with Exodus 21:2.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And at the end of three years they took it,.... That is, at the first end of them, at the beginning, in which sense the phrase is taken in Deuteronomy 15:1, even in the sixth year of Hezekiah, that is, the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken: see 2 Kings 17:6.

Geneva Study Bible

And at the end of three years they took it: even in the sixth year of Hezekiah, that is in the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

10. at the end of three years they took it] The consonants of the word rendered ‘they took it’ might, if different vowel points were added to them, be translated ‘he took it’. That the vowels for the plural form have been written by the Massoretes can only be the result of a long retained tradition. The history must have died out of their knowledge entirely, but the word had been read as ‘they took it’ from the earliest times, and in that form they recorded it when they added the vowels to make their reading clear to the eye. Notice has already been taken of the remarkable way in which the Biblical record, though containing no record that the commencement of the siege and its close were in different reigns, yet avoids here any mistake in the history by the use of the pronoun ‘they’. See note on 2 Kings 17:6 above. The siege of Samaria lasted from b.c. 724 to b.c. 722 and the capture was among the earliest events of Sargon’s reign.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 10. - And at the end of three years they took it. The expression, "at the end of three years," does not show that the three years were complete. On the contrary, as the siege Began in Hezekiah's fourth year, probably in the spring, and was over in his sixth, say, by the autumn, the entire duration was not more than two years and a half. The plural verb, יִלְכְּדֻהָ, "they took it," is remarkable, since it would have seemed more natural to write יִלְכְּדָהּ, "he took it" - and so the LXX., the Vulgate, and the Syriac - but the writer seems to have known that Shalmaneser did not take it, but died during the siege, the capture falling into the first year of Sargon (see the 'Eponym Canon,' pp. 65, 66). Even in the sixth year of Hezekiah, that is the ninth year of Hoshea King of Israel (see the comment on ver. 9), Samaria was taken (comp. 2 Kings 17:6). 2 Kings 18:10

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

In 2 Kings 18:9-12 the destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes by Salmanasar, which has already been related according to the annals of the kingdom of Israel in 2 Kings 17:3-6, is related once more according to the annals of the kingdom of Judah, in which this catastrophe is also introduced as an event that was memorable in relation to all the covenant-nation.