What Does 2 Kings 8:21 Mean?

(21) **So Joram went over to Zair.**—No town called Zair is otherwise known. Hitzig and Ewald would read Zoar, but Zoar lay in Moab, not in Edom. (Jeremiah 48:34; Isaiah 15:5; Genesis 19:30; Genesis 19:37.) The Vulg. has *Seira*, and the Arabic *Sâ‘îra,* which suggest an original reading, “to Seir,” the well-known mountain chain which was the headquarters of the Edomite people. Perhaps the reading of the text *Çā‘îrāh* represents a dialectic pronunciation. (Comp. the forms *Yishāq* and *Yiçhāq* for Isaac.) **And he rose by night.**—There may be a *lacuna* of a few lines in the text here, or the compiler, in his desire to be brief, may have become obscure. Jehoram appears to have been hemmed in by the Edomites in the mountains, and to have attempted escape under cover of night. **Smote the Edomites which compassed him about.**—Cut his way through their ranks. **And the captains of the chariots.**—Part of the object of the verb “smote.” Jehoram smote (cut his way through) the Edomites—that is to say, the captains of the Edomite war-chariots which hemmed him and his army in. **And the people fled into (*unto**) their tents.*—That is to say, the army of Jehoram was glad to escape from the scene of its ill success, and made its way homeward as best it could. (Comp. for the proverbial expression, “to their tents,” 1Samuel 20:1; 1Kings 8:66.) From Joel 3:19 (“Edom shall be a desolate wilderness for the violence against the children of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their land”) it has been conjectured that when the Edomites revolted they massacred the Jews who had settled in the country in the time of subjection. (Comp. Genesis 27:40.)