Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary

"And one people is dashed in pieces by the other, and one city by the other; for God confounds them by all manner of adversity." המם denotes confusion, which God brings about in order to destroy His enemies (Exo 14:24; Jos 10:10; Jdg 4:15). Days when they were without the true God, without teaching prophets, and without law, Israel had already experienced in the times of defection after Joshua (cf. Jdg 2:11.), but will experience them in the future still oftener and more enduringly under the idolatrous kings in the Assyrian and Babylonian exile, and still even now in its dispersion among all nations. That this saying refers to the future is also suggested by the fact that Hosea (Hos 3:4) utters, with a manifest reference to Ch2 15:3 of our speech, a threat that the ten tribes will be brought into a similar condition (cf. Hos 9:3-4); and even Moses proclaimed to the people that the punishment of defection from the Lord would be dispersion among the heathen, where Israel would be compelled to serve idols of wood and stone (Deu 4:27., Deu 28:36, Deu 28:64), i.e., would be without the true God. That Israel would, in such oppression, turn to its God, would seek Him, and that the Lord would be found of them, is a thought also expressed by Moses, the truth of which Israel had not only had repeated experience of during the time of the judges, but also would again often experience in the future (cf. Hos 3:5; Jer 31:1; Eze 36:24.; Rom 11:25.). בּצּר־לו refers back to Deu 4:30; the expression in Ch2 15:4 is founded upon Deu 4:29 (cf. Isa 55:6). - Of the oppression in the times of defection portrayed in Ch2 15:5., Israel had also had in the time of the judges repeated experience (cf. Jdg 5:6), most of all under the Midianite yoke (Jdg 6:2); but such times often returned, as the employment of the very words of the first hemistich of Ch2 15:5 in Zac 8:10, in reference to the events of the post-exilic time, shows; and not only the prophet Amos (Amo 3:9) sees רבּות מהוּמות, great confusions, where all is in an indistinguishable whirl in the Samaria of his time, but they repeated themselves at all times when the defection prevailed, and godlessness degenerated into revolution and civil war. Azariah portrays the terrors of such times in strong colours (Ch2 15:6): "Dashed to pieces is people by people, and city by city." The war of the tribes of Israel against Benjamin (Judg 20:f.), and the struggle of the Gileadites under Jephthah with Ephraim (Jdg 12:4.), were civil wars; but they were only mild preludes of the bellum omnium contra omnes depicted by Azariah, which only commenced with the dissolution of both kingdoms, and was announced by the later prophets as the beginning of the judgment upon rebellious Israel (e.g., Isa 9:17-20), and upon all peoples and kingdoms hostile to God (Zac 14:13; Mat 24:7). With הממם אלהים כּי cf. רבּה יי מהוּמת, Zac 14:13. To this portrayal of the dread results of defection from the Lord, Azariah adds (Ch2 15:7) the exhortation, "Be ye strong (vigorous), and show yourselves not slack, languid" (cf. Zep 3:16; Neh 6:9); i.e., in this connection, proceed courageously and vigorously to keep yourselves true to the Lord, to exterminate all idolatry; then you shall obtain a great reward: cf. on these words, Jer 31:16.