The Chronicler’s account of the war conveys a very different impression from the corresponding narrative in 2 Kings. In Kings an invasion by the united forces of Israel and Syria is related. Chronicles records two separate invasions, each resulting in disaster for Ahaz. In Kings the failure of the allies to take Jerusalem is the chief feature in the account, while in Chronicles the damage and loss inflicted on Judah takes the first place, and the magnitude of the disaster is heightened in characteristically midrashic fashion: see the notes below on verses 5, 6.
⁵Wherefore the Lord his God delivered him into the hand of the king of Syria; and they smote him, and carried away of his a great multitude of captives, and brought them to Damascus. And he was also delivered into the hand of the king of Israel, who smote him with a great slaughter.
5. the king of Syria] i.e. Rezin.
smote him] From 2 Kings it appears that the Syrian king, (1) helped to shut up Ahaz in Jerusalem, (2) seized the port of Elath (Eloth) on the Red Sea which had belonged to Judah. Some of the “captives” taken to Damascus were presumably brought from Elath.
carried away of his a great multitude of captives] No doubt captives were taken, some probably from Elath; but the “great multitude” is midrashic exaggeration: compare the number of slain stated in verse 6.
And he was also delivered into the hand of the king of Israel] 2 Kings records but a single invasion, the forces of Syria and Israel being confederate. The Chronicler’s phrase implies that two separate invasions and disasters befell Ahaz—“he was also delivered.”
⁶For Pekah the son of Remaliah slew in Judah an hundred and twenty thousand in one day, all of them valiant men; because they had forsaken the Lord, the God of their fathers.
6. an hundred and twenty thousand in one day] i.e. more than a third of the host as reckoned in xxvi. 13.
⁷And Zichri, a mighty man of Ephraim, slew Maaseiah the king’s son, and Azrikam the ruler of the house, and Elkanah that was next[¹] to the king.
[¹] Hebrew second.