2 Kings 15:10

Son of Jabesh. — Not man of Jabesh Gilead, as Hitzig explains. The father’s name is always given in the case of usurpers.

Before the people. — Rather, before people — i.e., in public. So all the versions except the LXX. The open assassination of the king is noted, in contrast with the secrecy with which former conspiracies had been concerted. It is a symptom of the rapidly-increasing corruption of morals, which allowed people to look on with indifference while the king was being murdered. (The LXX. puts the Hebrew words into Greek letters thus: κεβλααμ. The word qobol — “before” — is Aramaic rather than Hebrew, and only occurs here. Ewald acutely conjectured that Qobol’âm — “before people” — was really the proper name of another usurper, comparing Zechariah 11:8, “the third king during that month;” but in that case the narrative is hardly coherent of complete. Grätz suggests the correction “in Ibleam.”