2 Chronicles 16:4 - Exposition

Benhadad was apparently not very long in making up either his mind or his method. The bribe that tempted him, drawn from "the treasures" described, well replenished ( 2 Chronicles 15:18 ; and parallel, 1 Kings 15:15 ), was probably large. His method was to create a diversion in favour of his new ally, by "smiting" certain picked and highly important cities of Israel, mostly in northern Galilee, by name "Ijon, Dan, Abel-maim, and all the store-cities of Naphtalli." Ijon . In Naphtali, mentioned only now, in the parallel, and when a second time taken ( 2 Kings 15:29 ) by Tiglath-Pileser. Dan . The colonizing of this city is given in 18:1 , 18:2 , 18:29-31 ; it was originally called Laish, and became the northern landmark of the whole country, as in the expression, "from Dan even to Beersheba" ( 17:1-13 :29; 20:1 ). Abel-maim . This place was situate at the foot of the Lebanon; in the parallel ( 1 Kings 15:20 ) it is called Abel-beth-maachah. It is again mentioned as attacked by Tiglath-Pileser, who wrested it from Pekah ( 2 Kings 15:29 ). In 2 Samuel 20:18 , 2 Samuel 20:14 , 2 Samuel 20:15 it is called Abel by itself, but in the last two of these verses Beth-maachah is mentioned in close connection with it. After this name the parallel gives also "all Cinneroth". The name is the original of the New Testament Gennesaret . It was a city ( Joshua 19:35 ) that gave its name to the sea and western region of the lake, sometimes called so ( Numbers 34:11 ; Joshua 11:2 ; Joshua 12:3 ). If there were a little more external evidence of it, we should incline to the opinion of Movers, that the "all Cinneroth" of the parallel is the כָּל־מִּסְכְּנוֹת ( '' all the store-cities") of our present verse. But at present we may take it that the two records supplement one another. All the store-cities of Naphtali (see 2 Chronicles 32:28 ; 2 Chronicles 8:6 and its parallel, 1 Kings 9:19 ).