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He restored the coast of Israel - From the description that is here given, it appears that Jeroboam reconquered all the territory that had been taken from the kings of Israel; so that Jeroboam the second left the kingdom as ample as it was when the ten tribes separated under Jeroboam the first.

He restored the coast of Israel - Jeroboam, in the course of his long reign, recovered the old boundaries of the holy land to the north, the east, and the southeast. The “entering in of Hamath” is spoken of as the northern boundary; the “sea of the plain,” or the Dead Sea, is the southern boundary (see the marginal references): here Israel adjoined on Moab. The entire tract east of Jordan had been lost to Israel in the reign of Jehu and that of Jehoahaz 2 Kings 10:33; 2 Kings 13:3, 2 Kings 13:25. All this was now recovered: and not only so, but Moab was reduced Amos 6:14, and the Syrians were in their turn forced to submit to the Jews 2 Kings 14:28. The northern conquests were perhaps little less important than the eastern 2 Kings 14:28.

The word of the Lord … which he spake - Some have found the prophecy of Jonah here alluded to, or a portion of it, in Isaiah 15:1-9; Isaiah 16:1-14 (see 2 Kings 16:13); but without sufficient grounds.

This passage tends to fix Jonah‘s date to some period not very late in the reign of Jeroboam II, i. e. (according to the ordinary chronology) from 823 B.C. to 782 B.C. On Gath-hepher, see the marginal reference and note.

God raised up the prophet Jonah, and by him declared the purposes of his favour to Israel. It is a sign that God has not cast off his people, if he continues faithful ministers among them. Two reasons are given why God blessed them with those victories: 1. Because the distress was very great, which made them objects of his compassion. 2. Because the decree was not yet gone forth for their destruction. Many prophets there had been in Israel, but none left prophecies in writing till this age, and their prophecies are part of the Bible. Hosea began to prophesy in the reign of this Jeroboam. At the same time Amos prophesied; soon after Micah, then Isaiah, in the days of Ahaz and Hezekiah. Thus God, in the darkest and most degenerate ages of the church, raised up some to be burning and shining lights in it; to their own age, by their preaching and living, and a few by their writings, to reflect light upon us in the last times.