II Chronicles 28:9

The liberation of the prisoners. - In Samaria there was a prophet of the Lord (i.e., not of the Jahve there worshipped in the calf images, but of the true God, like Hosea, who also at that time laboured in the kingdom of the ten tribes), Oded by name. He went forth to meet the army returning with the prisoners and the booty, as Azariha-ben-Oded (Ch2 15:2) once went to meet Asa; pointed out to the warriors the cruelty of their treatment of their brethren, and the guilt, calling to Heaven for vengeance, which they thereby incurred; and exhorted them to turn away the anger of God which was upon them, by sending back the prisoners. To soften the hearts of the rude warriors, and to gain them for his purpose, he tells them (Ch2 28:9), "Because the Lord God of your fathers was wroth, He gave them (the men of Judah) into your hand:" your victory over them is consequently not the fruit of your power and valour, but the work of the God of your fathers, whose wrath Judah has drawn upon itself by its defection from Him. This you should have considered, and so have had pity upon those smitten by the wrath of God; "but he have slaughtered among them with a rage which reacheth up to heaven," i.e., not merely with a rage beyond all measure, but a rage which calls to God for vengeance; cf. Ezr 9:6. Ch2 28:10 "And now the sons of Judah and Jerusalem ye purpose to subject to yourselves for bondmen and bondwomen!" יהוּדה בּני is accus., and precedes as being emphatic; i.e., your brethren, whom the wrath of God has smitten, you purpose to keep in subjection. אתּם also is emphatically placed, and then is again emphasized at the end of the sentence by the suffix in לכם: "Are there not, only concerning you, with you, sins with Jahve your God?" i.e., Have you, to regard only you, not also burde…

This chapter is the history of the reign of Ahaz the son of Jotham; a bad reign it was, and which helped to augment the fierce anger of the Lord. We have here, I. His great wickedness (Ch2 28:1-4). II. The trouble he brought himself into by it (Ch2 28:5-8). III. The reproof which God sent by a prophet to the army of Israel for trampling upon their brethren of Judah, and the obedient ear they gave to that reproof (Ch2 28:9-15). IV. The many calamities that followed to Ahaz and his people (Ch2 28:16-21). V. The continuance of his idolatry notwithstanding (Ch2 28:22-25), and so his story ends (Ch2 28:26, Ch2 28:27).

28:9-10 you have gone too far: Although the Lord was using Israel as a means of punishment toward Judah, the covenant prohibited the enslavement and murder of fellow Israelites (28:10; Lev 25:39-55).