5 He went to war with the king of the children of Ammon and overcame them. That year, the children of Ammon gave him a hundred talents of silver, and ten thousand measures of grain and ten thousand measures of barley. And the children of Ammon gave him the same amount the second year and the third.
Now after a time the children of Ammon made war against Israel. And when the children of Ammon made war against Israel, the responsible men of Gilead went to get Jephthah back from the land of Tob; And they said to Jephthah, Come and be our chief so that we may make war against the children of Ammon. But Jephthah said to the responsible men of Gilead, Did you not, in your hate for me, send me away from my father's house? Why do you come to me now when you are in trouble? And the responsible men of Gilead said to Jephthah, That is the reason we have come back to you; so go with us and make war against the children of Ammon, and we will make you our head over all the people of Gilead. Then Jephthah said to the responsible men of Gilead, If you take me back to make war against the children of Ammon, and if with the help of the Lord I overcome them, will you make me your head? And the responsible men of Gilead said to Jephthah, May the Lord be our witness: we will certainly do as you say. So Jephthah went with the responsible men of Gilead, and the people made him head and chief over them; and Jephthah said all these things before the Lord in Mizpah. Then Jephthah sent men to the king of the children of Ammon, saying, What have you against me that you have come to make war against my land? And the king of the children of Ammon said to the men sent by Jephthah, Because Israel, when he came up out of Egypt, took away my land, from the Arnon as far as the Jabbok and as far as Jordan: so now, give me back those lands quietly. And Jephthah sent again to the king of the children of Ammon, And said to him, This is the word of Jephthah: Israel did not take away the land of Moab or the land of the children of Ammon; But when they came up from Egypt, Israel went through the waste land to the Red Sea and came to Kadesh; Then Israel sent men to the king of Edom saying, Let me now go through your land; but the king of Edom did not give ear to them. And in the same way he sent to the king of Moab, but he would not; so Israel went on living in Kadesh. Then he went on through the waste land and round the land of Edom and the land of Moab, and came by the east side of the land of Moab, and put up their tents on the other side of the Arnon; they did not come inside the limit of Moab, for the Arnon was the limit of Moab. And Israel sent men to Sihon, king of the Amorites, the king of Heshbon; and Israel said to him, Let me now go through your land to my place. But Sihon would not give way and let Israel go through his land; and Sihon got together all his people, and put his army in position in Jahaz, and made war on Israel. And the Lord, the God of Israel, gave Sihon and all his people into the hands of Israel, and they overcame them; so all the land of the Amorites, the people of that land, became Israel's. All the limit of the Amorites was theirs, from the Arnon as far as the Jabbok and from the waste land even to Jordan. So now the Lord, the God of Israel, has taken away their land from the Amorites and given it to his people Israel; are you then to have it? Do you not keep the lands of those whom Chemosh your god sends out from before you? So we will keep all the lands of those whom the Lord our God sends out from before us. What! are you any better than Balak, the son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he ever take up a cause against Israel or make war against them? While Israel was living in Heshbon and its daughter-towns and in Aroer and its daughter-towns and in all the towns which are by the side of the Arnon, for three hundred years, why did you not get them back at that time? So I have done no wrong against you, but you are doing wrong to me in fighting against me: may the Lord, who is Judge this day, be judge between the children of Israel and the children of Ammon. The king of the children of Ammon, however, did not give ear to the words which Jephthah sent to him. Then the spirit of the Lord came on Jephthah, and he went through Gilead and Manasseh, and came to Mizpeh of Gilead; and from Mizpeh of Gilead he went over to the children of Ammon. And Jephthah took an oath to the Lord, and said, If you will give the children of Ammon into my hands, Then whoever comes out from the door of my house, meeting me when I come back in peace from the children of Ammon, will be the Lord's and I will give him as a burned offering. So Jephthah went over to the children of Ammon to make war on them; and the Lord gave them into his hands. And he made an attack on them from Aroer all the way to Minnith, overrunning twenty towns, as far as Abel-cheramim, and put great numbers to the sword. So the children of Ammon were crushed before the children of Israel.
Now after this, death came to the king of the children of Ammon, and Hanun, his son, became king in his place. And David said, I will be a friend to Hanun, the son of Nahash, as his father was a friend to me. So David sent his servants, to give him words of comfort on account of his father. And David's servants came into the land of the children of Ammon. But the chiefs of the children of Ammon said to Hanun their lord, Does it seem to you that David is honouring your father by sending comforters to you? has he not sent his servants to go through the town and make secret observation of it, and overcome it? So Hanun took David's servants, and after cutting off half the hair on their chins, and cutting off the skirts of their robes up to the middle, he sent them away. When David had news of it, he sent men out with the purpose of meeting them on their way, for the men were greatly shamed: and the king said, Go to Jericho till your hair is long again, and then come back. And when the children of Ammon saw that they had made themselves hated by David, they sent to the Aramaeans of Beth-rehob and Zobah, and got for payment twenty thousand footmen, and they got from the king of Maacah a thousand men, and from Tob twelve thousand. And hearing of this, David sent Joab and all the army and the best fighting-men. And the children of Ammon came out and put their forces in position at the way into the town: and the Aramaeans of Zobah and of Rehob, with the men of Tob and Maacah, were by themselves in the field. Now when Joab saw that their forces were in position against him in front and at his back, he took the best of the men of Israel and put them in line against the Aramaeans; And the rest of the people he put in position against the children of Ammon, with Abishai, his brother, at their head. And he said, If the Aramaeans are stronger and get the better of me, then you are to come to my help; but if the children of Ammon get the better of you, I will come to your help. Take heart, and let us be strong for our people and for the towns of our God, and may the Lord do what seems good to him. Then Joab and the people with him went forward to the fight against the Aramaeans, and they went in flight before him. And when the children of Ammon saw the flight of the Aramaeans, they themselves went in flight from Abishai, and came into the town. So Joab went back from fighting the children of Ammon and came to Jerusalem.
About the children of Ammon. These are the words of the Lord: Has Israel no sons? has he no one to take the heritage? why then has Milcom taken Gad for himself, putting his people in its towns? Because of this, see, the days are coming when I will have a cry of war sounded against Rabbah, the town of the children of Ammon; it will become a waste of broken walls, and her daughter-towns will be burned with fire: then Israel will take the heritage of those who took his heritage, says the Lord. Make sounds of grief, O Heshbon, for Ai is wasted; give loud cries, O daughters of Rabbah, and put haircloth round you: give yourselves to weeping, running here and there and wounding yourselves; for Milcom will be taken prisoner together with his rulers and his priests. Why are you lifted up in pride on account of your valleys, your flowing valley, O daughter ever turning away? who puts her faith in her wealth, saying, Who will come against me? See, I will send fear on you, says the Lord, the Lord of armies, from those who are round you on every side; you will be forced out, every man straight before him, and there will be no one to get together the wanderers. But after these things, I will let the fate of the children of Ammon be changed, says the Lord.
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Commentary on 2 Chronicles 27 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
Jotham having ascended the throne at the age of twenty-five, reigned altogether in the spirit and power of his father, with the single limitation that he did not go into the sanctuary of Jahve (cf. 2 Chronicles 26:16.). This remark is not found in 2 Kings 15, because there Uzziah's intrusion into the temple is also omitted. The people still did corruptly (cf. 2 Chronicles 26:16). This refers, indeed, to the continuation of the worship in the high places, but hints also at the deep moral corruption which the prophets of that time censure (cf. especially Isaiah 2:5., 2 Chronicles 5:7.; Micah 1:5; Micah 2:1.).
He built the upper gate of the house of Jahve, i.e., the northern gate of the inner or upper court (see on 2 Kings 15:35); the only work of his reign which is mentioned in the book of Kings. But besides this, he continued the fortifying of Jerusalem, which his father had commenced; building much at the wall of the Ophel. העפל was the name of the southern slope of the temple mountain (see on 2 Chronicles 33:14); the wall of Ophel is consequently the wall connecting Zion with the temple mountain, at which Uzziah had already built (see on 2 Chronicles 26:9). He likewise carried on his father's buildings for the protection of the herds (2 Chronicles 26:10), building the cities in the mountains of Judah, and castles ( בּירניּות , 2 Chronicles 17:12) and towers in the forests of the mountains of Judah ( חרשׁים from חרשׁ , a thicket).
He made war upon the king of the Ammonites, and overcame them. The Ammonites had before paid tribute to Uzziah. After his death they would seem to have refused to pay this tribute; and Jotham made them again tributary by force of arms. They were compelled to pay him after their defeat, in that same year, 100 talents of silver, 10,000 cor of wheat, and a similar quantity of barley, as tribute. לו השׁיבוּ זאת : this they brought to him again, i.e., they paid him the same amount as tribute in the second and third years of their subjection also. After three years, consequently, they would seem to have again become independent, or refused the tribute, probably in the last years of Jotham, in which, according to 2 Kings 15:37, the Syrian king Rezin and Pekah of Israel began to make attacks upon Judah.
2 Chronicles 27:6-7
By all these undertakings Jotham strengthened himself, sc. in the kingdom, i.e., he attained to greater power, because he made his ways firm before Jahve, i.e., walked stedfastly before Jahve; did not incur guilt by falling away into idolatry, or by faithless infringement of the rights of the Lord (as Uzziah did by his interference with the rights of the priesthood). From the כּל־מלחמתיו in the concluding remark (2 Chronicles 27:7) we learn that he had waged still other successful wars. The older commentators reckon among these wars, the war against Rezin and Pekah, which kings the Lord began in his days to send against Judah (see 2 Kings 15:37), but hardly with justice. The position of this note, which is altogether omitted in the Chronicle, at the end of the account of Jotham in 2 Kings 15:37, appears to hint that this war broke out only towards the end of Jotham's reign, so that he could not undertake anything important against this foe.
2 Chronicles 27:8-9
The repetition of the chronological statement already given in 2 Chronicles 27:1 is probably to be explained by supposing that two authorities, each of which contained this remark, were used.