Chapter XXV.
1–4 (= 2 Kings xiv. 1–6).
Amaziah Succeeds.
¹Amaziah was twenty and five years old when he began to reign; and he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem: and his mother’s name was Jehoaddan of Jerusalem. ²And he did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, but not with a perfect heart.
2. not with a perfect heart] In Kings, “yet not like David his father” (because “the high places were not taken away”). The Chronicler has something more serious in his mind; compare verses 14–16.
³Now it came to pass, when the kingdom was established unto him, that he slew his servants which had killed the king his father.
3. unto him] LXX., ἐν χειρὶ αὐτοῦ “in his hand,” as in Kings.
⁴But he put not their children to death, but did according to that which is written in the law in the book of Moses, as the Lord commanded, saying, The fathers shall not die for the children, neither shall the children die for the fathers: but every man shall die for his own sin.
4. he put not their children to death] Contrast Joshua vii. 24 ff.; 2 Kings ix. 26. Clearly the sparing of the children is here mentioned as being a practice unknown or still very unusual at the time.
according to that which is written] i.e. in Deuteronomy xxiv. 16 (compare Ezekiel xviii. 20).