C. F. Keil and Franz Delitzsch on 2 Kings 16:1-2

2Ki 16:1-2

On the time mentioned, “in the seventeenth year of Pekah Ahaz became king” see at 2Ki 15:32. The datum “twenty years old” is a striking one, even if we compare with it 2Ki 18:2. As Ahaz reigned only sixteen years, and at his death his son Hezekiah became king at the age of twenty-five years (2Ki 18:2), Ahaz must have begotten him in the eleventh year of his age. It is true that in southern lands this is neither impossible nor unknown,In the East they marry girls of nine or ten years of age to boys of twelve or thirteen (Volney, Reise, ii. p. 360). Among the Indians husbands of ten years of age and wives of eight are mentioned (Thevenot, Reisen, iii. pp. 100 and 165). In Abyssinia boys of twelve and even ten years old marry (Rüppell, Abessynien, ii. p. 59). Among the Jews in Tiberias, mothers of eleven years of age and fathers of thirteen are not uncommon (Burckh. Syrien, p. 570); and Lynch saw a wife there, who to all appearance was a mere child about ten years of age, who had been married two years already. In the epist. ad N. Carbonelli, from Hieronymi epist. ad Vitalem, 132, and in an ancient glossa, Bochart has also cited examples of one boy of ten years and another of nine, qui nutricem suam gravidavit, together with several other cases of a similar kind from later writers. Cf. Bocharti Opp. i. (Geogr. sacr.) p. 920, ed. Lugd. 1692. but in the case of the kings of Judah it would be without analogy. The reading found in the lxx, Syr., and Arab. at 2Ch 28:1, and also in certain codd., viz., five and twenty instead of twenty, may therefore be a preferable one. According to this, Hezekiah, like Ahaz, was born in his father’s sixteenth year.