After the end of two years, his bowels fell out - The Targum seems to intimate that he had a constipation and inflammation in his bowels; and that at last his bowels gushed out.

No burning - "His people made no burning of aromatic woods for him, as they had done for his forefathers." - Targum. See on 2 Chronicles 16:14 (note).

And it came to pass that in process of time, after the end of two years,.... So long he was afflicted and tortured with the above disease:

his bowels fell out by reason of his sickness; either in like manner as Judas's did, Acts 1:18 or as in the manner the bowels of Arius are said to do, while sitting on the seat of the vault (a); or perhaps only what was contained in the bowels is meant, if it was the colic:

so he died of sore diseases; he seems to have had a complication of them, and these very painful and distressing:

and the people made no burning for him, like the burnings of his fathers; as they did for his grandfather Asa, 2 Chronicles 16:14, they did not burn spices or odoriferous wood, as the Targum; though his body, because of the stench of it, needed it, as Jarchi observes.

(a) Sozomen. Eccl. Hist. l. 2. c. 29, 30.

And it came to pass in days after days (i.e., when a number of days had passed), and that at the time (וּכעת( emit eh) of the expiration of the end in two days, then his bowels went out during his sickness, and he died in sore pains (תּחלאים, phenomena of disease, i.e., pains). The words שׁנים לימים הקּץ צאת וּכעת are generally translated as if שׁנים לימים were a mere periphrasis of the stat. constr. Vatabl. and Cler., for example, translate: et secundum tempus egrediendi finis annorum duorum, i.e., postquam advenit finis a. d., or cum exacti essent duo anni; similarly Berth.: "at the time of the approach of the end of two times." But against this we have not only the circumstance that no satisfactory reason for the use of this periphrasis for the genitive can be perceived, and that no analogies can be found for the expression שׁנים לימים הקּץ, the end of two years, instead of שׁנים היּמים קץ; but also the more decisive linguistic reason that הקּץ צאת cannot denote the approach of the end, but only the expiry, the running out of the end; and finally, that the supposition that ימים here and in 2 Chronicles 21:15 denotes a year is without foundation. Schmidt and Rabm. have already given a better explanation: quumque esset tempus, quo exiit finis s. quum exiret ac compleretur terminus ille, in epistola Eliae 2 Chronicles 21:15 praefixus; but in this case also we should expect היּמים קץ, since שׁנים לימים should point back to ימים על ימים, and contain a more exact definition of the terms employed in 2 Chronicles 21:15, which are not definite enough. We therefore take הקּץ צאת by itself, and translate: At the time of the end, i.e., when the end, sc. of life or of the disease, had come about two days, i.e., about two days before the issue of the end of the disease, then the bowels went out of the body-they flowed out from the body as devoured by the disease. חליו עם, in, during the sickness, consequently before the decease (cf. for עם in this signification, Psalm 72:5, Daniel 3:33). Trusen (Sitten, Gebr. und Krankh. der alten Hebrer, S. 212f.) holds this disease to have been a violent dysentery (diarrhoea), "being an inflammation of the nervous tissue (Nervenhaut) of the whole great intestine, which causes the overlying mucous membrane to decay and peel off, which then falls out often in tube-shape, so that the intestines appear to fall from the body." His people did not make a burning for him like the burning of his fathers, cf. 2 Chronicles 16:14; that is, denied him the honours usual at burial, because of their discontent with his evil reign.

And it came to pass, that in process of time, after the end of two years, his bowels fell out by reason of his sickness: so he died of sore diseases. And his people made no burning for him, like the burning of his fathers.

21:12-20 A warning from God was sent to Jehoram. The Spirit of prophecy might direct Elijah to prepare this writing in the foresight of Jehoram's crimes. He is plainly told that his sin should certainly ruin him. But no marvel that sinners are not frightened from sin, and to repentance, by the threatenings of misery in another world, when the certainty of misery in this world, the sinking of their estates, and the ruin of their health, will not restrain them from vicious courses. See Jehoram here stripped of all his comforts. Thus God plainly showed that the controversy was with him, and his house. He had slain all his brethren to strengthen himself; now, all his sons are slain but one. David's house must not be wholly destroyed, like those of Israel's kings, because a blessing was in it; that of the Messiah. Good men may be afflicted with diseases; but to them they are fatherly chastisements, and by the support of Divine consolations the soul may dwell at ease, even when the body lies in pain. To be sick and poor, sick and solitary, but especially to be sick and in sin, sick and under the curse of God, sick and without grace to bear it, is a most deplorable case. Wickedness and profaneness make men despicable, even in the eyes of those who have but little religion.