Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary

The Israelites, moreover, carried away 200,000 - women, sons, and daughters-from their brethren, and a great quantity of spoil, and brought the booty (prisoners and goods; cf. for שׁלל of men, Jdg 5:30) to Samaria. אחיהם, the brethren of the Israelites, is the name given, with emphasis, to the inhabitants of Judah, here and in Ch2 28:11, in order to point out the cruelty of the Israelites in not scrupling to carry away captive the defenceless women and children of their brethren. The modern critics have taken offence at the large numbers, 120,000 slain and 200,000 women and children taken prisoners, and have declared them to be exaggerations of the wonder-loving chronicler (Gesen. on Isa., De Wette, Winer, etc.). But in this they are mistaken; for if we consider the war more closely, we learn from Isa 7:6 that the allied kings purposed to annihilate the kingdom of Judah. And, moreover, the Ephraimites acted always with extreme cruelty in war (cf. Kg2 15:16); but more especially cherished the fiercest hatred against the men of Judah, because these regarded them as having fallen away from the service of the true God (Ch2 25:6-10; Ch2 13:4.). But in a war for the existence of the kingdom, Ahaz must certainly have called out the whole male population capable of bearing arms, which is estimated in the time of Amaziah at 300,000 men, and in that of Uzziah at 307,500 (Isa 25:5; Isa 26:13), - numbers which appear thoroughly credible, considering the size and populousness of Judah. If we suppose the army of Ahaz to have been as large, in a decisive battle fought with all possible energy nearly 120,000 men may have fallen, especially if the Ephraimites, in their exasperation, unsparingly butchered their enemies, as the narrative would seem to hint both by the word הרג in Ch2 28:6, which signifies to murder, massacre, butcher, and by the saying of the prophet, Ch2 28:9, "Ye massacred among them with a rage which reached to heaven." By the character of the war, which resembled a civil or even a religious war, and by the cruelty of the Israelites, the great number of those carried captive is accounted for; for after the great defeat of the men of Judah the whole land fell into the hands of the enemy, so that they could sate their hatred and anger to their heart's content by carrying off the defenceless women and children to make them slaves. And finally, we must also consider that the numbers of the slain and of the prisoners are not founded upon exact enumeration, but upon a mere general estimate. The immense loss which was sustained in the battle was estimated on the side of Judah at 120,000 men; and the number of captive women and children was so immense, that they were, or might be, estimated at 200,000 souls, it being impossible to give an exact statement of their number. These numbers were consequently recorded in the annals of the kingdom, whence the author of the Chronicle has taken them; cf. Caspari, S. 37ff.