Charles Ellicott Commentary 2 Chronicles 28:15

"And the men that have been mentioned by name rose up, and took the captives, and with the spoil clothed all that were naked among them, and arrayed them, and shod them, and gave them to eat and to drink, and anointed them, and carried all the feeble of them upon asses, and brought them to Jericho, the city of palm-trees, unto their brethren: then they returned to Samaria." — 2 Chronicles 28:15 (ASV)

And arrayed ... shod them. — And they clad them, and sandalled them. (For the miserable destitution of captives, see Isaiah 3:24; Isaiah 20:2; Isaiah 20:4, naked and barefoot.)

Anointed them (sûk, usually intransitive, for example, 2 Samuel 14:2). (Compare to Luke 7:38.) A different word (mashah) was used to express the ceremonial anointing of kings and priests.

Carried all the feeble of them upon asses. —Literally, led them on he-asses, namely, every stumbling one. There would be many such, as the captives were mostly women and children.

To. — Beside.

The writer dwells with manifest pleasure upon the kindness shown by their repentant foes of the northern kingdom to these Jewish captives. He may have intended to suggest a lesson to the Samaritans of his own age, whose bitter hostility had proved so damaging to the cause of the restored exiles (Nehemiah 4:2; Nehemiah 4:7–8; Nehemiah 6:1–2 and following), and who, according to Rabbinical tradition, endeavored to prejudice Alexander the Great against the commonwealth of Jerusalem (Talmud, Yoma, 69, A).

Some have supposed that our Lord had this passage in His mind when He uttered the parable of the Good Samaritan. The coincidences between the two stories are at any rate curious (Luke 10:33–34).

The interposition of the Ephraite prophet Oded between the Ephraites and their Judean captives is precisely parallel to that of the Judean prophet Shemaiah between his people and the Ten Tribes, as related in 1 Kings 12:22–24; and granting the truth of the one account, there can be no ground for suspecting the other.