Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on 2 Kings 17:6
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
The ninth year of Hoshea corresponds to the sixth year of Hezekiah and the year 722 or 721 b.c., in which the kingdom of the ten tribes was destroyed. 6b. The Israelites carried into exile. - After the taking of Samaria, Salmanasar led Israel into captivity to Assyria, and assigned to those who were led away dwelling-places in Chalach and on the Chabor, or the river Gozan, and in cities of Media. According to these clear words of the text, the places to which the ten tribes were banished are not to be sought for in Mesopotamia, but in provinces of Assyria and Media. חלח is neither the city of כּלח built by Nimrod ( Gen 10:11), nor the Cholwan of Abulfeda and the Syriac writers, a city five days' journey to the north of Bagdad, from which the district bordering on the Zagrus probably received the name of Χαλωνῖτις or Καλωνῖτις, but the province Καλαχεηνή of Strabo (xi. 8, 4; 14, 12, and xvi. 1, 1), called Καλακινή by Ptolemaeus (vi. 1), on the eastern side of the Tigris near Adiabene, to the north of Nineveh on the border of Armenia. חבור is not the כּבר in Upper Mesopotamia ( Eze 1:3; Eze 3:15, etc.), which flows into the Euphrates near Kirkesion (Carchemish), and is called Chebar (kbr) or Chabur (kbwr) by the Syriac writers, Chabr (xbr) by Abulfeda and Edrisi, Χαβώρας by Ptolemaeus, Ἀβόῤῥας (Aboras) by Strabo and others, as Michaelis, Gesenius, Winer, and even Ritter assume; for the epithet "river of Gozan" is not decisive in favour of this, since Gozan is not necessarily to be identified with the district of Gauzanitis, now Kaushan, situated between the rivers of Chaboras and Saokoras, and mentioned in Ptol. v. 18, 4, inasmuch as Strabo (xvi. 1, 1, p. 736) also mentions a province called Χαζηνή above Nineveh towards Armenia, between Calachene and Adiabene. Here in northern Assyria we also find both a mountain called Χαβώρας, according to Ptol. vi. 1, on the boundary of Assyria and Media, and the river Chabor, called by Yakut in the Moshtarik l-hsnh (Khabur Chasaniae), to distinguish it from the Mesopotamian Chaboras or Chebar. According to Marasz. i. pp. 333f., and Yakut, Mosht. p. 150, this Khabur springs from the mountains of the land of Zauzan, zawzan, i.e., of the land between the mountains of Armenia, Adserbeidjan, Diarbekr, and Mosul (Marasz. i. p. 522), and is frequently mentioned in Assemani as a tributary of the Tigris. It still bears the ancient name Khabr, taking its rise in the neighbourhood of the upper Zab near Amadjeh, and emptying itself into the Tigris a few hours below Jezirah (cf. Wichelhaus, pp. 471, 472; Asah. Grant, Die Nestorianer, v. Preiswerk, pp. 110ff.; and Ritter, Erdk. ix. pp. 716 and 1030). This is the river that we are to understand by חבור. It is a question in dispute, whether the following words גּוזן נהר are in apposition to בּחבור: "by the Chabor the river of Gozan," or are to be taken by themselves as indicating a peculiar district "by the river Gozan." Now, however the absence of the prep. ב, and even of the copula ,ו on the one hand, and the words of Yakut, "Khabur, a river of Chasania," on the other, may seem to favour the former view, we must decide in favour of the latter, for the simple reason that in Ch1 5:26 גּוזן נהר is separated from חבור morf d by והרא. The absence of the preposition בּ or of the copula ו before נהר ג in the passage before us may be accounted for from the assumption that the first two names, in Chalah and on the Khabur, are more closely connected, and also t…
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