Commentary for II Chronicles 4:17

in the thickness of the ground The Targum renders: clay, ardille in Old French.

between Succoth and Zeredathah In I Kings (7: 46) it says Zarethan. Zeredathah was the place of Jeroboam, (11: 26): “And Jeroboam the son of Nebat, an Ephraimite of Zeredah, whose mother’s name was Zeruah, a widow.” Since a corpse conveys ritual contamination in a tent, and a mezora likewise, and so it is with an idol, as we learned at the end of the third chapter of Abodah Zarah (Mishnah 8). “A widow” means that he widowed [isolated] Israel from its God. “From Zeredah” means that he narrowed the Torah and did not broaden it; i.e., מִן הַצְרֵדָתָה, means הֵצַר דַּת אֱלֹהֵינוּ he narrowed the law of our God. My uncle of blessed memory explained it to me in this manner.