Commentaria in IV Regum
9. TAKING WITH HIM PRESENTS, AND ALL THE GOOD THINGS OF DAMASCUS, THE BURDENS OF FORTY CAMELS.—Hazael offered so many and so great gifts to Eliseus for the health of Benadad his king; but it is certain that Eliseus did not accept them; both because he did not heal Benadad himself but foretold his death; and because he constantly refused, chapter v, the gifts of Naaman whom he had cured of leprosy, and punished Giezi accepting them with leprosy. So Abulensis and others.
10. GO, TELL HIM: THOU SHALT RECOVER. BUT THE LORD HATH SHOWN ME THAT HE SHALL SURELY DIE.—This place is difficult; for Eliseus seems to bid Hazael tell a lie, namely that he should tell King Benadad that he will be healed, when he was soon to die. First, the Rabbis, and from them Abulensis, read the contrary, namely, thou shalt not recover; for instead of lo with vau, that is, “to him,” they read lo with aleph, that is, “not.” But the Chaldee, the Septuagint and all the Latin codices read it affirmatively, thou shalt recover. Second, others answer that Eliseus spoke ironically, as if he said: Thou shalt recover, thou hopest to be healed; but thou art mistaken: for thou shalt not recover, but shalt die.
Third, and genuinely, “thou shalt recover” is meant as far as the disease is concerned, as if to say: thy disease is not mortal, thou shalt not die of this disease, which was true; for it was not the disease, but the violence of Hazael that killed and suffocated Benadad. So Cajetan, Serarius, Salianus and others.
13. BUT WHAT AM I, THY SERVANT, A DOG, THAT I SHOULD DO THIS GREAT THING?—Hazael denies that he is a dog, not only as to vileness, but also and rather as to the shamelessness and canine ferocity, as if he said: I am not so shameless, barbarous and fierce as to rage like a dog against human bowels and devour them. Why then dost thou, O Eliseus, assert to me: “Thou wilt dash their children, and rip up their pregnant women?” So Hazael then indeed thought; but made king of Syria he changed his mind, and did what Eliseus here predicts, and what he here abominates. For honours change morals, but rarely for the better. He adds the cause:
THE LORD HATH SHOWN ME THAT THOU SHALT BE KING OF SYRIA,—as if to say: Thou shalt be king of Syria, and therefore, made king, thou wilt put on the innate hatred of the Syrians against the Israelites so as to “dash their children and rip up their pregnant women,” as I have foretold. This hatred began from Adad, when he rebelled against Solomon and made himself king of Syria, and the son Benadad drank it in from him as from a father, and from him the other kings of Syria. See what was said on 3 Kings xi, 14. Emboldened by this prediction of the kingdom, Hazael suffocated King Benadad and seized his kingdom, as follows: and, forgetful and ungrateful to Eliseus, made himself an enemy to Israel, and raged against it, and fulfilled the barbarity predicted to him by Eliseus.
15. HE TOOK A BLANKET, AND POURED WATER ON IT, AND SPREAD IT UPON HIS FACE.—The Hebrew, Chaldee and Septuagint add, and he died, which our version has expressed, adding: And he died, and Hazael reigned in his stead. Benadad, burning with febrile heat, seems to have asked of Hazael a blanket moistened with water, and so Hazael, either through imprudence, or rather by guile, the water dripping continually from the blanket into the mouth and throat of Benadad, suffocated him, that he might succeed him in the kingdom. Serarius adds that this water and blanket were perhaps infected with some poisonous moisture: as the ancients relate of the garment of Hercules sent by Deianira, and of the Emperor Otho III, of Ladislaus king of the Hungarians, and the tunic of Soliman. Josephus says simply that he was strangled: so evidently God punished Benadad for the cruelty he had exercised on the Israelites. Moreover Benadad seems to have reigned 56 years; for so many intervene from the 17th year of Asa king of Juda, in which Benadad began to reign, as is plain from 3 Kings xv, verse 18, to the first year of the reign of Hazael. So Salianus. Some, however, think that several kings intervened in Syria, and that all were called “Benadad,” that is, sons and successors of Adad, the first king of Syria. Whence the Hebrews relate that Benadad was a common name of the kings of Syria. Finally Josephus, Antiquities book XI, chapter iii, asserts that both Benadad and Hazael were in the highest veneration among the Syrians, nay “both were worshipped with divine honours,” and the effigy of each was honoured in daily processions, both for other beneficence, and because by building temples magnificently they had made Damascus more ornate.
16. IN THE FIFTH YEAR OF JORAM THE SON OF ACHAB KING OF ISRAEL, REIGNED JORAM THE SON OF JOSAPHAT KING OF JUDA,—namely alone after the death of his father Josaphat. Thou wilt object: this seems to have been done in the seventh year of Joram, not the fifth; for in chapter iii, 1, it was said that Joram king of Israel began to reign in the 18th year of Josaphat king of Juda: now Josaphat reigned 23 years [sic: 25]: but from the 18th year to the 25th there are seven years, after which, Josaphat dying, his son Joram succeeded him. Lyra and Cajetan answer that Joram the son of Achab reigned after the death of Achab with his elder brother Ochozias for two years: namely from the 18th year of Josaphat to his twentieth year, in which Ochozias died; and then his younger brother Joram began to reign alone. Therefore what is said here: “in the fifth year of Joram,” understand from the time when Joram began to reign alone after his brother’s death, which was in the twentieth year of Josaphat. But an objection is what is said in 3 Kings, last chapter, verse 52, namely that Ochozias began to reign in Israel in the 17th year of Josaphat, and died in the 18th of the same, for he reigned two years only: wherefore since Ochozias died in the 18th year of Josaphat, and his brother Joram immediately succeeded him, it follows that Joram began to reign in the 18th year of Josaphat, not the twentieth. Better Abulensis answers that the 18th year of Josaphat is not to be counted, since Joram began to reign when it was completed, nor the 19th, since he began to reign near its end, nor the 22nd, since it was incomplete: but, these three years being removed, there remain from the 18th year of Josaphat to his 25th only five whole years, of which it is said here: “In the fifth year of Joram the son of Achab, etc., reigned Joram the son of Josaphat,” namely after the death of Josaphat, who died in the 25th year of his reign; for then his son Joram succeeded him.