to Samaria left the prisoners and the booty before the princes and the whole assembly.
Verse 15
2Ch 28:15 “And the men which were specified by name stood up.” בשׁמות נקּבוּ אשׁר does not signify those before mentioned (2Ch 28:12), but the men specified by name, distinguished or famous men (see on 1Ch 12:31), among whom, without doubt, those mentioned in 2Ch 28:12 are included, but not these alone; other prominent men are also meant. These received the prisoners and the booty, clothed all the naked, providing them with clothes and shoes (sandals) from the booty, gave them to eat and to drink, anointed them, and set all the feeble upon asses, and brought them to Jericho to their brethren (countrymen). The description is picturesque, portraying with satisfaction the loving pity for the miserable. מערמּים, nakedness, abstr. pro concr., the naked. לכל־כּושׁל is accus., and a nearer definition of the suffix in y|nahaluwm: they brought them, (not all, but only) all the stumbling, who could not, owing to their fatigue, make the journey on foot. Jericho, the city of palm trees, as in Jdg 3:13, in the tribe of Benjamin, belonged to the kingdom of Judah; see Jos 18:21. Arrived there, the prisoners were with their brethren.
The speech of the prophet Oded is reckoned by Gesenius, on Isaiah, S. 269, among the speeches invented by the chronicler; but very erroneously so: cf. against him, Caspari, loc cit. i. S. 49ff. The speech cannot be separated from the fact of the liberation of the prisoners carried away from Judah, which it brought about; and that is shown to be a historical fact by the names of the tribal princes of Ephraim, who, in consequence of the warning of the prophet, took his part and accomplished the sending of them back; they being names which are not elsewhere met with (2Ch 28:12). The spontaneous interference of these tribal chiefs would not be in itself impossible, but yet it is very improbable, and becomes perfectly comprehensible only by the statement that these men were roused and encouraged thereto by the word of a prophet. We must consequently regard the speech of the prophet as a fact which is as well established as that narrated in 2Ch 28:12-15. “If that which is narrated in 2Ch 28:12. be not invented, it would betray the greatest levity to hold that which is recorded in 2Ch 28:9-11 to be incredible” (Casp.). And, moreover, the speech of the prophet does not contain the thoughts and phrases current with the author of the Chronicle, but is quite suitable to the circumstances, and so fully corresponds
