2 Kings 8:16 - Exposition

And in the fifth year of Joram the son of Ahab King of Israel, Jehoshaphat being then King of Judah ; literally, and of Jehoshaphat King of Judah . The words are wanting in three Hebrew manuscripts, in some editions of the Septuagint, in the Peshito Syriac, in the Parisian Heptaplar Syriac, in the Arabic Version, and in many copies of the Vulgate. They cannot possibly have the sense assigned to them in our version, and are most probably a gloss which has crept into the text from the margin. Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat King of Judah began to reign. Jehoram's reign was sometimes counted from the seventeenth year of his father, when he was given the royal title, sometimes from his father's twenty-third year, when he was associated, and sometimes from his father's death in his twenty-fifth year, when he became sole king (see the comment on 2 Kings 1:17 and 2 Kings 3:1 ).