Charles Ellicott Commentary 2 Kings 15:10

"And Shallum the son of Jabesh conspired against him, and smote him before the people, and slew him, and reigned in his stead." — 2 Kings 15:10 (ASV)

Son of Jabesh. — Not a 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 — that is, in public. So it is in all the versions except the Septuagint.

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 Septuagint puts the Hebrew words into Greek letters as follows: 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 “the third king during that month;” (Zechariah 11:8); but in that case, the narrative is hardly coherent or complete. Grätz suggests the correction “in Ibleam.”