FOOTNOTES:

[2] For a decisive proof of these statements I refer to my Bampton Lectures on the History of Interpretation (Macmillan, 1890).

[3] Bacon.

[4] How closely these documents are transcribed is shown by the recurrence of "unto this day," though the phrase had long ceased to be true when the book appeared.

[5] It is inferred from 1 Kings viii. 12, 13, which have a poetic tinge, and to which the LXX. add "Behold they are written in the Book of the Song," that in this section the "Book of Jashar" has been utilised, and that the reading הישר has been confused with השיר (Driver, p. 182).

[6] 2 Chron. xx. 34, R.V., "The history of Jehu, the son of Hanani, which is inserted in the Book of the Kings of Israel" (not "who is mentioned," A.V., which, however, gives in the margin the literal meaning "was made to ascend").

[7] Movers, Krit. Untersuch., p. 185 (Bonn, 1836). The use of older documents explains the phrase "till this day," and the passages which speak of the Temple as still standing (1 Kings viii. 8, ix. 21, xii. 19; 2 Kings x. 27, xiii. 23). Sometimes the traces of earlier and later date are curiously juxtaposed, as in 2 Kings xvii. 18, 21 and 19, 20.

[8] Difference of sources is marked by the different designations of the months, which are called sometimes by their numbers, as in the Priestly Codex (1 Kings xii. 32, 33), sometimes by the old Hebrew names Zif ("blossom," April, May, 1 Kings vi. 1), Ethanim ("fruit," Sept., Oct., 1 Kings viii. 2), and Bul ("rain," 1 Kings vi. 38).

[9] מִז־הַנָּהָר (compare עֲבַר־נַהֲרָה). Lit., "Beyond the river," i.e., from the Persian standpoint. It becomes a fixed geographical phrase. Traces of the editor's hand occur in 1 Kings xiii. 32 ("the cities of Samaria"); 2 Kings xiii. 23 ("as yet").

[10] Comp. 2 Kings viii. 25 with ix. 29.

[11] See 2 Kings xv. 30 and 33, viii. 25 and ix. 29.

[12] As, perhaps, the clause "In the thirty and first year of Asa king of Judah" in 1 Kings xvi. 23; and the much more serious "in the 480th year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt," which are omitted by Origen (comm. in Johannem, ii. 20), and create many difficulties. The only narratives which critics have suggested as possible interpolations, from the occurrence of unusual grammatical forms, are 2 Kings viii. 1-6 and iv. 1-37 (in the story of Elisha); but these forms are perhaps northern provincialisms.

[13] Speaker's Commentary, ii. 475. Instances will be found in 1 Kings xiv. 21, xvi. 23, 29; 2 Kings iii. 1, xiii. 10, xv. 1, 30, 33, xiv. 23, xvi. 2, xvii. 1, xviii. 2.

[14] Stade, p. 79; Kalisch, Exodus, p. 495.

[15] See Keil, pp. 9, 10.

[16] R. F. Horton, Inspiration, p. 843.

[17] He was not the author of the Book of Samuel, for the standpoint and style are quite different. In the First and Second Books of Samuel the high places are never condemned, as they are incessantly in Kings (1 Kings iii. 2, xiii. 32, xiv. 23, xv. 14, xxii. 43, etc.).

[18] Baba Bathra, 15 a.

[19] Seder Olam Rabba, 20.

[20] Even then he would have been ninety years old.

[21] There are, however, some differences between 2 Kings xxv. and Jer. lii. (see Keil, p. 12), though the manner is the same, Carpzov, Introd., i. 262-64 (Hävernick, Einleit., ii. 171). Jer. li. (verse 64) ends with "Thus far are the words of Jeremiah," excluding him from the authorship of chap. lii. (Driver, Introd., p. 109). The last chapter of Jeremiah was perhaps added to his volume by a later editor.

[22] "The Old Testament does not furnish a history of Israel, though it supplies the materials from which such a history can be constructed. For example, the narrative of Kings gives but the merest outline of the events that preceded the fall of Samaria. To understand the inner history of the time we must fill up this outline with the aid of the prophets Amos and Hoshea."—Robertson Smith's Preface to translation of Wellhausen, p. vii.

[23] "In der Chronik," on the other hand, "ist es der Pentateuch, d.h. vor Allem der Priestercodex, nach dessen Muster die Geschichte des alten Israels dargestellt wird" (Wellhausen, Prolegom., p. 309). It has been said that the Book of Kings reflects the political and prophetic view, and the Book of Chronicles the priestly view of Jewish history. It is about the Pentateuch, its date and composition, that the battle of the Higher Criticism chiefly rages. With that we are but indirectly concerned in considering the Book of Kings; but it is noticeable that the ablest and most competent defender of the more conservative criticism, Professor James Robertson, D.D., both in his contribution to Book by Book and in his Early Religion of Israel, makes large concessions. Thus he says, "It is particularly to be noticed that in the Book of the Pentateuch itself the Mosaic origin is not claimed" (Book by Book, p. 5). "The anonymous character of all the historical writings of the Old Testament would lead us to conclude that the ancient Hebrews had not the idea of literary property which we attach to authorship" (p. 8). "It is long since the composite character of the Pentateuch was observed" (p. 9). "There may remain doubts as to when the various parts of the Pentateuch were actually written down; it may be admitted that the later writers wrote in the light of the events and circumstances of their own times" (p. 16).

[24] Driver, p. 189. Comp. Professor Robertson Smith: "The most notable feature in the extant redactions of the book is the strong interest shown in the Deuteronomic law of Moses, and especially in the centralisation of worship in the Temple on Zion, as pre-supposed in Deuteronomy and enforced by Josiah. This interest did not exist in ancient Israel, and is quite foreign to the older memories incorporated in the book."

[25] Driver, p. 192.

[26] Delitzsch, Genesis, 6th ed., p. 567.

[27] Geschichte des Volkes Israel, i. 73.

[28] Even the First Book of Maccabees begins with καὶ ἐγένετο.

[29] Stade thinks that this is confirmed by viii. 46-49.

[30] Stade, pp. 32 ff. Thus, in 1 Kings viii. 14-53, verses 12, 13 are in the Septuagint placed after verse 53, are incomplete in the Hebrew text, and have a remarkable reading in the Targum. Professor Robertson Smith infers that a Deuteronomic insertion has misplaced them in one text, and mutilated them in another. The order of the LXX. differs in 1 Kings iv. 19-27; and it omits 1 Kings vi. 11-14; ix. 15-26. It transposes the story of Naboth, and omits the story of Ahijah and Abijah, which is added from Aquila's version to the Alexandrian MS. See Wellhausen-Bleek, Einleitung, §§ 114, 134.

[31] See Appendix on the Chronology.

[32] See Wellhausen, Prolegomena, pp. 285-87; Robertson Smith, Journ. of Philology, x. 209-13.

[33] Encycl. Brit., s.v. Kings (W.R.S.).

[34] See Stade, i. 88-99; W. R. Smith, l. c.; Kreuz, Zeitschr. f. Wiss. Theol., 1877, p. 404. Some of the dates, as Dr. W. R. Smith shows, are "traditional," and are probably taken from Temple records (e.g., the invasion of Shishak, and the change of the revenue system in the twenty-third year of Joash). Taking these as data, we have (roughly) 160 years to the twenty-third year of Joash, + 160 to the death of Hezekiah, + 160 years to the return from the Exile = 480. He infers that "the existing scheme was obtained by setting down a few fixed dates, and filling up the intervals with figures in which 20 and 40 were the main units."

[35] Speaker's Commentary, ii. 477.

[36] 1 Kings xiii. 1-32, xx. 13-15, 28, 35, 42; 2 Kings xxi. 10-15.

[37] 2 Kings xvii. 7-23, 32, 41, xxiii. 26, 27.

[38] נְבִיאִים רֹאשׁוֹנִים. The three greater and twelve minor prophets are called prophetæ posteriores (אַחֲרוֹנִים). Daniel is classed among the Hagiographa (כְּתּוּבִים). This title of "former prophets" was, however, given by the Jews to the historic books from the mistaken fancy that they were all written by prophets.

[39] Martensen, Dogmatics, p. 363.

[40] 2 Sam. vii. 12-16; 1 Kings xi. 36, xv. 4; 2 Kings viii. 19, xxv. 27-30. "His object evidently was," says Professor Robertson, "to exhibit the bloom and decay of the Kingdom of Israel, and to trace the influences which marked its varying destiny. He proceeds on the fixed idea that the promise given to David of a sure house remained in force during all the vicissitudes of the divided kingdom, and was not even frustrated by the fall of the kingdom of Judah."

[41] 1 Kings xi. 9-13.

[42] Amos ix. 11, 12.

[43] Psalm lxxxix. 48-50.

[44] 2 Kings xx. 16-18, xxii. 16-20.

[45] Isa. xxx. 16.

[46] Queen of the Air, p. 87.

[47] Tac., Hist., 1, 2: "Opus aggredior opimum casibus, atrox prœliis, discors seditionibus, ipsa etiam pace sævum."

[48] Wellhausen, History of Israel, p. 432; Stade, Gesch. des Volkes Israel, i., p. 12; Robinson, Ancient History of Israel, p. 15.

[49] Od., ix. 51, 52.

[50] Acts iv. 27, 28.

[51] 1 Cor. i. 26-28.

[52] Id., v. 25.

[53] Deut. xxvi. 5.

[54] Isa. xxxviii. 17 (Heb.).

[55] See Stade, i. 1-8.

[56] 1 Chron. xxiii. 1.

[57] 2 Sam. v. 5.

[58] It is mentioned by Galen, vii.; Valesius, De Sacr. Philos., xxix., p. 187; Bacon, Hist. Vitæ et Mortis, ix. 25; Reinhard, Bibel-Krankheiten, p. 171. See Josephus, Antt., VII. xv. 3.

[59] Now Solam, near Zerin (Jezreel), five miles south of Tabor (Robinson, Researches, iii. 462), on the south-west of Jebel el-Duhy (Little Hermon), Josh. xix. 18; 1 Sam. xxviii. 4.

[60] Æsch., Sept. c. Theb., 690.

[61] See Psalm cxxii. 3-5.

[62] See Kittel, ii. 147.

[63] The same word is rendered "worship" in Psalm xlv. 11. Comp. 2 Sam. ix. 6; Esth. iii. 2-5. In 1 Chron. xxix. 20 we are told that the people "worshipped" the Lord and the king.

[64]

"Μηδὲ βαρβάρου φωτὸς δίκην
Χαμαιπετὲς βόαμα προσχανῇς ἐμοί."
Æsch., Agam., 887.

[65] Ecclus. xvi. 1-3. He must have had at least twenty sons, and at least one daughter (2 Sam. iii. 1-5, v. 14-16; 1 Chron. iii. 1-9, xiv. 3-7). Josephus again (Antt., VII. iii. 3) has a different list.

[66] Kohanim.

[67] From the fact that his son Eliada (2 Sam. v. 16) is called Beeliada (i.e., "Baal knows") in 1 Chron. xiv. 7, it is surely a precarious inference that "now and then he paid his homage to some Baal, perhaps to please one of his foreign wives" (Van Oort, Bible for Young People, iii. 84). The true explanation seems to be that at one time Baal, "Lord," was not regarded as an unauthorised title for Jehovah. The fact that David once had teraphim in his house (1 Sam. xix. 13, 16) shows that his advance in knowledge was gradual.

[68] Chileab was either dead, or was of no significance.

[69] 2 Sam. xiii. 39. "The soul of king David longed to go forth unto Absalom."

[70] Max. Tyr., Dissert., 9 (Keil, ad loc.).

[71] In 2 Sam. xv. 7 we should certainly alter "forty" into four.

[72] Rephaim seems a more probable reading than Ephraim in 2 Sam. xviii. 6; see Josh. xvii. 15, 18. Yet the name "Ephraim" may have been given to this transjordanic wood. The notion that he hung by his hair is only a conjecture, and not a probable one.

[73] His three sons had pre-deceased him; his beautiful daughter Tamar (2 Sam. xiv. 27) became the wife of Rehoboam. She is called Maachah in 1 Kings xv. 2, and the LXX. addition to 2 Sam. xiv. 27 says that she bore both names. The so-called tomb of Absalom in the Valley of Hebron is of Asmonæan and Herodian origin.

[74] Morier tells us that in Persia "runners" before the king's horses are an indispensable adjunct of his state.

[75] The Stone of Zoheleth, probably a sacred stone—one of the numerous isolated rocks of Palestine; is not mentioned elsewhere. The Fuller's Fountain is mentioned in Josh. xv. 7, xviii. 16; 2 Sam. xvii. 17. It was south-east of Jerusalem, and is perhaps identical with "Job's Fountain," where the wadies of Kedron and Hinnom meet (Palestine Exploration Fund, 1874, p. 80).

[76] Comp. 1 Kings i. 9-25.

[77] The same phrase is used of Rehoboam (2 Chron. xii. 13, xiii. 7) when he was twenty-one, reading כא for מא, forty-one.

[78] 2 Sam. xii. 25: "And he sent by the hand of Nathan, the prophet; he called his name Jedidiah, because of the Lord" (A.V.). The verse is somewhat obscure. It either means that David sent the child to Nathan to be brought up under his guardianship, or sent Nathan to ask of the oracle the favour of some well-omened name (Ewald, iii. 168). Nathan was perhaps akin to David. The Rabbis absurdly identify him with Jonathan (1 Chron. xxvii. 32; 2 Sam. xxi. 21), nephew of David, son of Shimmeah.

[79] 1 Chron. xxii. 6-9.

[80] LXX., Σαλωμών, and in Ecclus. xlvii. 13. Comp. Shelōmith (Lev. xxiv. 11), Shelōmi (Num. xxxiv. 27). But it became Σαλόμων in the New Testament, Josephus, the Sibylline verses, etc. The long vowel is retained in Salōme and in the Arabic Sūleyman, etc.

[81] Among Solomon's adherents are mentioned "Shimei and Rei" (1 Kings i. 8), whom Ewald supposes to stand for two of David's brothers, Shimma and Raddai, and Stade to be two officers of the Gibborim. Thenius adopts a reading partly suggested by Josephus, "Hushai, the friend of David." Others identify Rei with Ira; a Shimei, the son of Elah, is mentioned among Solomon's governors (Nitzabim, 1 Kings iv. 18); and there was a Shimei of Ramah over David's vineyards (1 Chron. xxvii. 27). The name was common, and meant "famous."

[82] Duncker, Meyer, Wellhausen, Stade, regard Solomon's accession as due to a mere palace intrigue of Nathan and Bathsheba, and David's dying injunctions as only intended to excuse Solomon. They treat 1 Kings ii. 1-12 as a Deuteronomic interpolation. Dillmann, Kittel, Kuenen, Budde, rightly reject this view. Stade says, "Nach menschlichen Gefühl, ein Unrecht war die Salbung Salomos." He thinks that "the aged David was over-influenced by the intrigues of the harem and the court" (i. 292).

[83] She said that they would be counted as "offenders" (chattaim) Comp. 1 Kings i. 12, where Nathan assumes that they will both be put to death. Thus Cassander put to death Roxana, the widow of Alexander the Great, and her son Alexander (Justin., xv. 2).

[84] Reuss, Hist. des Israelites, i. 409.

[85] Comp. 2 Sam. iv. 9; Psalm xix. 14.

[86] "The servants of your Lord." Comp. 2 Sam. xx. 6, 7.

[87] Comp. Gen. xli. 43; 1 Kings i. 33; Esth. vi. 8.

[88] 2 Chron. xxxii. 30, xxxiii. 14. It was apparently "the Virgin's Fountain," east of Jerusalem, in the Valley of Jehoshaphat.

[89] Comp. 2 Kings ix. 13.

[90] 1 Chron. xxvii. 5, where the true rendering is not "Benaiah the chief priest," as in A.V., nor "principal officer," as in the margin: but "Benaiah the priest, as chief."

[91] 1 Sam. xxx. 14; Josephus, σωματοφύλακες. The Targum calls them "archers and slingers" (which is unlikely), or "nobles and common soldiers." This body-guard is also said to be composed of Gittites (2 Sam. xv. 18, xviii. 2); but some suppose that they were so called not by nationality, but because they had served under David at Gath. The question is further complicated by the appearance of "Carians" (A.V., captains) in 2 Kings xi. 4, 15, and also in 2 Sam. xx. 23 (Heb.). The Carians were universal mercenaries (Herod., ii. 152; Liv., xxxvii. 40). That there was an early intercourse between Palestine and the West is shown by the fact that such words as peribolory, machaera, macaina, lesche, pellex, have found their way into Hebrew (see Renan, Hist. du Peuple Israel, ii. 33).

[92] 2 Sam. xxiii. 8-39; 1 Chron. xi. 10-47; 1 Kings i. 8. The Gibborim are by some supposed to be a different body from the Krêthi and Plêthi (2 Sam. xv. 18, xx. 7); but from 1 Kings i. 8, 10, 38 they seem to be the same (Stade, i. 275). The thirty heroes at their head furnish, as Renan says, the first germ of a sort of "Legion of Honour."

[93] Saul (1 Sam. x. 1), David (1 Sam. xvi. 13, and twice afterwards, 2 Sam. ii. 4, v. 3), Jehu (1 Kings xix. 16), Joash (2 Chron. xxiii. 11).

[94] 1 Kings i. 39. "Tent," not "tabernacle," as in A.V. It has generally been supposed that Zadok took it from the tabernacle at Gibeon (1 Chron. xvi. 39), but there would have been no time to send so far. Zadok is called a "Seer" in the A.V. (2 Sam. xv. 27); but the true version may be "Seeth thou?" The LXX. and Vulgate omit the words.

[95] Morier, quoted by Stanley, p. 172, says that the Mustched, or chief priest, and the Munajem, or prophet, are always present at a Persian coronation.

[96] LXX., ἐῤῥάγη, ἤχησεν; Vulg., insonuit. Comp. Josephus, Antt., VII. xiv. 3, 5.

[97] 2 Sam. xv. 27, xvii. 17.

[98] 2 Sam. xviii. 27. Heb., אִשׁחַי; LXX., ἀνὴρ δυνάμεως; Vulg., vir fortis. It is rather "virtuous," as in Prov. xii. 4.

[99] It is true that Solomon's adherents had wasted no time over a feast.

[100] 1 Kings i. 50.

[101] Psalm cxviii. 27, and Exod. xxvii. 2 ff., xxix. 12, xxx. 10. Comp. Exod. xxi. 14.

[102] Exod. xxi. 14. It protected the homicide, but not the wilful murderer.

[103] 1 Kings i. 51. The words "this day" should be "first of all," i.e., before I leave the sanctuary. Many must have been reminded of this scene when Eutropius, the eunuch-minister of Arcadius, under the protection of St. Chrysostom, cowered in front of the high altar at Constantinople.

[104] "There shall not a hair of him fall." Comp. 1 Sam. xiv. 45; 2 Sam. xiv. 11.

[105] "Bowed himself." Comp. 1 Kings i. 47.

[106] Grätz, i. 138 (E. T.).

[107] 2 Sam. xxiii. 1-7. It is no part of my duty here to enter into the extent of David's share in the Psalms; but I think that it is an exaggerated inference (of Wellhausen and others) from Amos vi. 5, 6 to suppose that he only wrote festal and warlike songs.

[108] Apparently an allusion to Deut. xvii. 18-20. We read of no such exhortation having been addressed to Saul, or to David.

[109] Chimham accompanied David to Jerusalem (2 Sam. xvii. 27, xix. 37-40), and perhaps inherited his property at Bethlehem, where he founded the Khan (Jer. xli. 17), in the cavern stable of which it may be that Christ was born.

[110] Wellhausen, Stade, and others venture on the conjecture that David never gave these injunctions at all, but that they were invented afterwards to excuse Solomon for his acts of severity towards Adonijah's conspirators. I cannot see any valid ground for such arbitrary re-writing of the history. Shimei had taken no part in Adonijah's rebellion.

[111] Zeruiah was "a sister of the sons of Jesse" (1 Chron. ii. 16), and was therefore a sister of Abigail, mother of Amasa; but she is called "the daughter of Nahash" (2 Sam. xvii. 25).

[112] 1 Chron. ii. 17. "Jether (i.e., Jethro, 'pre-eminence') the Ishmaelite" has been altered in 2 Sam. xvii. 25 into Ithra, an Israelite (see 2 Sam. xix. 13). The way in which names have been tampered with is an interesting study, and often conceals Masoretic secrets.

[113] David's enemies thought but little of the fact that David had spared Mephibosheth. They may have supposed that David spared him, not only because he was the son of the beloved Jonathan, but because being lame he could never become king. David's relations to him do not seem to have been very cordial.

[114] 2 Sam. xvi. 14 (Heb.). For Bahurim, see 2 Sam. xvi. 5, xvii. 18.

[115] Acts xvii. 30.

[116] Matt. v. 43, 44.

[117] There is something analogous to protection granted only for a lifetime in the fact that the homicide at a refuge city could not be slain there while the high priest lived. See Num. xxxv. 28.

[118] Comp. Josh. xxiii. 14; Keil, ad loc.

[119] Acts ii. 29. Josephus says that both Hyrcanus and Herod opened it to find the treasures which legend asserted to have been buried there (Antt., VII. xv. 3. Comp. XIII. viii. 4, XVI. vii.). The kings alone were buried in Jerusalem; but legend says that an exception was made in favour of Huldah the prophetess.

[120] These events—like almost everything derogatory to David and Solomon—are omitted by the chronicler.

[121] Luke iii. 31. Salathiel, son of Neri (Luke iii. 27), of Nathan's house, was probably adopted by Jeconiah, who was childless; or if he had a son Assir (captive), the son had died. 1 Chron. iii. 17; Isa. xxii. 3.

[122] 2 Sam. xii. 8. Comp. 1 Kings xx. 7; 2 Kings xxiv. 15. We only know, however, of one wife of Saul, and one concubine.

[123] Herod., iii. 68; Justin., x. 2.

[124] Comp. 1 Kings xv. 13; 2 Kings xi. 1. The queen-mother, like the Sultana Walidé, is always more powerful than even the favourite wife.

[125] Cant. iii. 11.

[126] Psalm xlv. 9. Some little mystery evidently hangs over the name of Bathsheba. In 2 Sam. xi. 3 she is called "Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite"; but in 1 Chron. iii. 5 she is called "Bathshua, the daughter of Ammiel." Now Shua was a Canaanite name (Gen. xxxviii. 12; 1 Chron. ii. 3), and it is at least remarkable that Bathsheba should be married to a Hittite. Further, the chronicler disguises "Ahithophel the Gilonite (the father of Eliam) into Ahijah the Pelonite," who is one of David's Gibborim in 1 Chron. xi. 36. Pelonite means nescio qius; in Spanish, Don Fulano,—Signor So-and-so. And how are we to account for the strange name Ahithophel ("brother of foolishness?")?

[127] Comp. Cant. vii. 1. It has been assumed that Solomon had already married Naamah the Ammonitess, and that Rehoboam was already born (see 1 Kings xiv. 21), but this is uncertain. Rehoboam, if he had reached the age of forty-one, could hardly have been called "young and tender-hearted" (2 Chron. xiii. 7).

[128] Shunem (Sulem, Euseb., Jer.) is now Solam (Robinson, Researches, iii. 402).

[129] 1 Sam. xxii. 23.

[130] 2 Sam. xv. 18 (LXX.).

[131] Anata, Robinson, Researches, ii, 319; Josh. xxi. 18; 1 Chron. vi. 60. It was the native town of Jeremiah (Jer. i. 1).

[132] It should be remembered that, as Ewald points out, imprisonment for life was a thing unknown.

[133] This interesting addition is found in the Septuagint version.

[134] 2 Sam. xxiii. 20. Ewald, Thenius, and most other critics, followed by the R.V., adopt the LXX. reading, "Slew the two sons of Ariel of Moab."

[135] Comp. 2 Kings xi. 15.

[136] See Deut. xix. 13.

[137] 2 Sam. iii. 28, 29.

[138] אָנֶה וָאָנָה (1 Kings ii. 36).

[139] It should be remembered that when Shimei came to meet David on his return, he managed to muster one thousand of his Benjamite kinsmen. Such local influence might prove troublesome.

[140] Achish seems to have been the dynastic name of the kings of Gath (1 Sam. xxi. 10, xxvii. 2). If this was the Achish, son of Maoch, with whom David had taken refuge fifty years before, he must now have been a very old man.

[141] Esth. ii. 5.

[142] Prov. xix. 11, xx. 2, 8, 26.

[143] 1 Kings ii. 7; Jer. xli. 17.

[144] Lev. x. 1-20; Num. iii. 4, xxvi. 61. This has been not unnaturally inferred from the prohibition to the priests to drink wine while serving the tabernacle lest they die, which occurs immediately after the catastrophe of the two priests (Lev. x. 9-11).

[145] 1 Chron. vii. 4-15. In David's time there were only eight descendants of Ithamar, but sixteen of Eleazar (1 Chron. xxiv. 4). For full discussion of these priestly genealogies, see Lord A. Hervey, On the Genealogies, pp. 277-306. It is true that they are not free from elements of difficulty, but I am unable to find any valid ground for the suspicion of some critics that Zadok was not even a priest, or of the priestly house at all. All the evidence we have points in the opposite direction.

[146] Num. xxv. 13.

[147] 2 Chron. xxxiii. 6; 2 Kings xxi. 6. "His children."

[148] 2 Chron. xxviii. 3; 2 Kings xvi. 3. "His son."

[149] 1 Sam. ii. 27-36. For eight centuries there was no other instance of a high priest's deposition.

[150] Isa. iii. 10.

[151] See 1 Sam. xxi. 6, compared with 1 Chron. xvi. 39, 40; 2 Chron. i. 3.

[152] An old Hivite capital (Josh. xviii. 21-25), now El Jib. Josephus alters it to "Hebron."

[153] See 1 Chron. xvi. 39, 40, xxi. 29; 2 Chron. i. 3. The annals of Solomon fall into three divisions: first, his secure establishment upon the throne (1 Kings i, ii.); next, his wisdom, wealth, glory, and great buildings, especially the building of the Temple (iii.-x.); lastly, his fall and death (xi.).

[154] It was sufficiently sanctioned by Exod. xx. 24, and Jerusalem was not yet chosen (Deut. xii. 13, 14). See Judg. vi. 24, xiii. 19; 1 Sam. ix. 12, etc. This seems to have been the last great sacrifice there. In 1 Kings iii. 5-15 the sacrifice is regarded with approval; in verses 2, 3 it is condemned, but excused by circumstances; in the verses inserted by the chronicler (2 Chron. i. 3-6) it is said that the Tabernacle was there.

[155] See 1 Sam. xxii. 17-19.

[156] Herod., vii. 43. Xerxes offered one thousand at Troy, and Crœsus three thousand at Delphi (Id., i. 50).

[157] Hence, perhaps, the LXX. rendering of Δήλωσις καὶ Ἀλήθεια. This view is accepted by Hengstenberg (Egypt and the Five Books of Moses, chap. vi.), and Kalisch (on Exod. xxviii. 31).

[158] Arist., Eth. Nic., i. 13: "βελτίω τὰ φαντάσματα τῶν ἐπιεικῶν ἢ τῶν τυχόντων."

[159] Bishop Hall.

[160] "Εὔδουσα γὰρ φρὴν ὄμμασιν λαμπρύνεται."—Æsch., Eum., 104.

[161] Ecclus. xv. 16, 17.

[162] Emerson.

[163] The phrase "a little child" (comp. Jer. i. 6) hardly bears on his actual age. See Gen. xliii. 8; Exod. xxxiii. 11. It is proverbial like the subsequent phrase, for which see Deut. xxviii. 6; Psalm cxxi. 8, etc.

[164] Heb., "A hearing heart." LXX., "A heart to hear and judge Thy people in righteousness." In 2 Chron. i. 10, "Wisdom and knowledge."

[165] Matt. vi. 33.

[166] Josephus (Antt., VIII. vii. 8) makes him die at ninety-four, and become king at fourteen. Perhaps he mistook μ' for π' in the LXX.

[167] Psalm cxxvii. 2 (uncertain).

[168] 1 Sam. viii. 6, 20; 2 Sam. xv. 4. "To rule was with the ancients the synonym of to judge." Artemidorus, Oneirocr., ii. 14. (Bähr, ad loc.).

[169] Compare the Phœnician's Suffetes (Liv.).

[170] As instances of the lower sense in which the term "wisdom" was applied, see 2 Sam. xiii. 3 (Jonadab); xiv. 2 (the woman of Tekoa); xx. 16 (the woman of Abel of Beth-maachah).

[171] The Rabbis call them "innkeepers," as they call Rahab.

[172] I follow the not improbable additional details given by Josephus from tradition.

[173] יֵלֶד. LXX., παιδίον.

[174] So the Greek version, which represents the clause rightly. Tradition narrates a yet earlier specimen of Solomon's wisdom. Some sheep had strayed into a pasture. The owner of the land demanded reparation. David said that to repay his loss he might keep the sheep. "No," said Solomon, who was but eleven years old, "let him keep them only till their wool, milk, and lambs have repaid the damage; then let him restore them to their owner." David admitted that this was the more equitable judgment, and he adopted it. See The Qur'an, Sura xxi. 79 (Palmer's Qur'an, ii. 52).

[175] The parallel is adduced by Grotius.

[176] Quoted by Bähr.

[177] Suet., Claud., 15.

[178] For references to animals, etc., see Prov. vi. 6, xxiv. 30-34, xxx. 15-19, 24-31; Josephus, Antt., VIII. ii. 5; Ecclus. xlvii. 17.

[179] See Isa. xix. 11, xxxi. 2; Acts vii. 22; Herod., ii. 160; Josephus, Antt., VIII. ii. 5 (Keil).

[180] See 1 Chron. ii. 6, vi. 44, xv. 17, 19, xxv. 5. Titles of Psalms xviii., lxxxviii., lxxxix. "Ezrahite," perhaps, is a transposition of Zerahite.

[181] 1 Chron. ii. 6. In Seder Olam they are called "prophets who prophesied in Egypt."

[182] "Sons of Mahol" (comp. Eccles. xii. 4).

[183] Psalms lxxii., cxxvii. The so-called "Psalms of Solomon," fifteen in number, are of the Maccabean age; Josephus calls his songs βίβλια περὶ ὠδῶν καὶ μελῶν, and his proverbs βίβλους παραβολῶν καὶ εἰκόνων.

[184] See Euseb., Præp. Evang., ix. 34, § 19.

[185] Prov. xi. 22, xxiv. 30-34, xxv. 25, xxvi. 8, xxx. 15.

[186] E.g., Prov. vi. 10.

[187] 1 Kings x. 1; LXX., ἐν αἰνίγμασι. See Wünsche, Die Räthselweisheit, 1883; Grätz, Hist. of the Jews, i. 162. For specimens of her traditional puzzles see the author's Solomon, p. 135 (Men of the Bible).

[188] "And Solomon was David's heir, and said, Ye folk! we have been taught the speech of birds, and we have been given everything: verily this is a Divine grace" (Qur'an, Sura xxvii. 15). For the legend of Solomon and the hoopoes, see Sura 27.

[189] According to Suidas (s.v., Ἐζεκίας) Hezekiah found his (magic?) formulæ for the cure of diseases engraved on the posts of the Temple. See Targum on Esth. i. 2; Eccles. ii. 8.

[190] Job xxviii. 23, 28.

[191] Prov. i. 7.

[192] Ecclus. xlvii. 13-18.

[193] Josephus, Antt., VIII. vii. 8. According to one tradition he lived to fifty-three (Ewald, iii. 208), and was only twelve when he succeeded David.

[194] 2 Chron. viii. 3. Ewald thinks it is confirmed by 2 Kings xiv. 28, where, however, the Hebrew is obscure.

[195] 1 Kings x. 26.

[196] 1 Kings ix. 18. Here the "Q'rî," the marginal, or "read" text, has Tadmor (i.e., Palmyra), as also in 2 Chron. viii. 4. But this Tamar (Ezek. xlvii. 19, xlviii. 28) is "in the land" on the south border. In the Chronicles Tadmor is the right reading, for the chronicler is speaking of Hamath-Zobah and the north. It is not at all unlikely that Solomon also built Tadmor (Josephus, Antt., VIII. vi. 1) to protect his commerce on the route to the Euphrates.

[197] The forty-fifth psalm is supposed by old interpreters to have been an epithalamium on this occasion, but was probably much later. Perhaps notices like 1 Kings iii. 1-3 (the Egyptian alliance), the admonition in 1 Kings ix. 1-9 and the luxury described in x. 14-29, are meant as warning notes of what follows in xi. 1-8 (the apostasy), 9-13 (the prophecy of disruption), and 14-43 (the concluding disaster).

[198] Gezer is Abu-Shusheh, or Tell-el-Gezer, between Ramleh and Jerusalem (Oliphant, Haifa, p. 253), on the lower border of Ephraim. Ewald identifies it with Geshur, the town of Talmai, Absalom's grandfather. See Lenormant, Hist. anc. de l'Orient., i. 337-43. The genealogy of this dynasty is thus given by Brugsch-Bey (Gen. Table iv.), Hist. of Egypt, vol. ii.:—

                           Hir-hor==Notem.
                                   |
                                Piankhi.
                                   |
                               Pinotem I.
                                   |
                          +--------+---------+
                          |                  |
                    Pisebkhan I.      Men-khepher-ra.
                                             |
                    +-------------+----------+-----+
                    |             |                |
              Pinotem II.   Pisebkhan II.     Ker'amat
                                            (a daughter).

[199] See Deut. xxiii. 7, 8.

[200] Schwab's Berakhoth, p. 252; Hershon, Treasures of the Talmud, p. 25. In Sanhedrin, ff. 21, 22, there is another trace of the dislike with which the marriage (though not forbidden, Deut. xxiii. 7, 8) was regarded: "When Solomon married the daughter of Pharaoh, Gabriel descended and fixed a reed in the sea. A sandbank formed around it on which Rome was subsequently built." In Shabbath, ff. 51, 52, we are told that "the princess brought with her one thousand different kinds of musical instruments, and taught Solomon the chants to his various idols."

[201] No trace of any such misgiving is found in the Book of Kings.

[202] "Seine Liebhaberei sind kostbare Bauten, fremde Weiber, reiche Prachtentfaltung" (Kittel, ii. 160).

[203] Perhaps rather "the grandson." He was the son of Ahimaaz (comp. Gen. xxix. 5; Ezra v. 1, where son = grandson).

[204] Shisha and Shavsha are perhaps corruptions of Seraiah (2 Sam. viii. 17).

[205] Comp. Esth. vi. 1. LXX., Isa. xxxvi. 3, ὁ ὑπομνηματογράφος 2 Sam. viii. 17, ὁ ἐπὶ τῶν ὑπομνημάτων. Jerome, "a commentariis." Comp. Suet., Aug. 79, "qui e memoria Augusti."

[206] It is a somewhat ominous fact that netsib means properly an ἐπιτειχισμός, a garrison in a hostile country.

[207] The king's friend (2 Sam. xv. 37) seems to have been a sort of confidential privy councillor (Prov. xxii. 11).

[208] Isa. xxii. 21.

[209] 2 Sam. xx. 24.

[210] Possibly this clause is an interpolation.

[211] 2 Sam. viii. 18. Even "Ira the Jairite" is called "a priest" (2 Sam. xx. 26). An attempt has been made to explain the word away because it obviously clashes with Levitic ordinances; but the word "priest" could not be used in two different senses in two consecutive lines. Dogmatic considerations have tampered with the obvious meaning of the word. The LXX. omits it, and in the case of David's sons calls them αὐλάρχαι. The A.V. renders it "chief officer." The Vulgate wrongly refers it to Zadok (filius Sadoc sacerdotis). Movers (Krit. Unters., 301 ff.) renders it "court chaplains." Already in 1 Chron. xviii. 17 we find that the title gave offence, and we read instead, "And the sons of David were at the hand of the king" (see Ewald, Alterthumsk, p. 276). Compare the title "Bishop of Osnaburg," borne by Frederick, Duke of York, son of George III.

[212] 2 Sam. v. 14; Zech. xii. 12; Luke iii. 31.

[213] The degraded and ominous apparitions of Sarisim (eunuchs) probably began at the court of Solomon on a large scale, though the name occurs in the days of David (1 Sam. viii. 15; 1 Chron. xxviii. 1). In the Northern Kingdom we first hear of them in the harem of the polygamous Ahab.

[214] 2 Kings xviii. 18; Isa. xxii. 15.

[215] 2 Sam. xx. 24. He is not mentioned in 1 Chron. xxvii. 25-31.

[216] This use of patronymics only is common among the Arabs, but not in Scripture (Reuss, Hist. d. Isr., i. 423).

[217] If he was the son of David's elder brother (1 Sam. xvi. 8, xvii. 13) he was Solomon's first cousin. The materialistic or non-religious element in Solomon seems to come out in the names of his only known children. The element "Jehovah," afterwards so universal, does not occur in them. Basmath, characteristically, means "fragrant"; Taphath is perhaps connected with טָפַת, to go mincingly; Rehoboam means "enlarger of the people."

[218] The LXX. indeed reads καὶ νασὲφ εἷς ἐν γῇ Ἰούδα ("and he was the only officer in the land of Judah"). But this would make thirteen fiscal overseers. The Targum, adopting the same reading, says that the thirteenth nitzab was to maintain the king in the intercalary month.

[219] Taking the cor at a low estimate this would amount to eighteen thousand pounds of bread a day.

[220] 1 Kings iv. 23, בַּרְבֻּרִים. Vulg., Avium altilium.

[221] Athen., Deipnos., iv. 146.

[222] 2 Sam. iv. 6 (LXX.).

[223] This description of agricultural felicity soon became an anachronism.

[224] Not "dromedaries" (A.V.). The ruins of his stables are still pointed out at Jerusalem. He traded with Egypt for horses and chariots which his merchants brought to Tekoa, and he then sold them at a profit to the Hittite princes. The forty thousand stalls of 1 Kings iv. 26 should doubtless be four thousand (2 Chron. ix. 25), as Solomon only had fourteen hundred chariots (1 Kings x. 26). In 1 Kings x. 28 the meaning and reading is "as for the export of horses, which Solomon got from Egypt even from Tekoa" (LXX., καὶ ὲκ θεκουὲ), "the royal merchants used to fetch a troop of horses at a price." The "linen yarn" of the A.V. is a mistranslation.

[225] Cant. i. 9.

[226] 1 Kings v. 6, ix. 19, x. 26, 28. Two of those passages are omitted in the LXX. Comp. 1 Kings xvi. 9.

[227] Deut. xvii. 16.

[228] Josh. xi. 9; 1 Sam. viii. 11, 12; 2 Sam. viii. 4.

[229] The energetic dislike to the importation or use of horses is also found in Isa. ii. 7, xxx. 16, 17, xxxi. 1-3; Micah v. 10-14; Zech. ix. 10, x. 5, xii. 4.

[230] Psalm xxxiii. 17, lxxvi. 6, cxlvii. 10.

[231] Compare Poludemos, Eurudemos.

[232] Xen., Anab., i. 4, 11; Arrian, ii. 13, iii. 7. For the phrase "on this side of the river," see ante, p. 18.

[233] Psalm lxxviii. 58-64.

[234] According to 2 Chron. i. 3.

[235] David's suggestion does not seem to have been received favourably at first (2 Sam. vii. 1-17). The chronicler (1 Chron. xxviii. 19) indulges in the amazing hyperbole that David had been made to understand all the works of the pattern of the Temple "in writing from the hand of the Lord."

[236] The ancient Israelites named their months from the seasons, as did the Canaanites. Only four of those old names are preserved in the Bible: Zif, "brightness" (comp. Floreal, Lenz); Bul, "rain-month" (Pluviose); Abib, "corn-ear month"; Ethanim, "fruit-month" (Fructidor).

[237] In 1 Kings vi. 1 we read "in the 480th year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt." This may possibly be a later gloss. The LXX., Origen, Josephus, etc., omit the words, and the Old Testament does not, as a rule, date events by epochs. Further, the date is full of difficulties, though our received chronology is based on it. It was perhaps arrived at after the Exile, by counting backwards from the Decree of Cyrus, b.c. 535. See note at the end of the volume.

[238] 1 Chron. xxii. 14 says that David (comp. xxviii., xxix.) "with much labour" (A.V., "in my trouble," 1 Chron. xxii. 14) bequeathed to Solomon 100,000 talents of gold and 100,000 talents of silver! This impossible number is very considerably reduced in 1 Chron. xxix. 4, where the mention of darics shows an author living in the captivity.

[239] Comp. Ezek. xxvii. 17; Acts xii. 20.

[240] According to Tatian, Orat. ad Græc., p. 171, Solomon married a daughter of Hiram. Hiram, like the Queen of Sheba, acknowledges Jehovah as the (local) God of Israel. He was the son of Abibaal, and, according to Menander (a Greek historian of Ephesus about b.c. 300, who consulted Tyrian records), he began to reign at nineteen, and reigned thirty-four years. Josephus thinks that there were two successive Hirams.

[241] Giblim, 1 Kings v. 18, where "and the stone-squarers" should be "and especially the men of Gebal." LXX., Alex., οἱ Βίβλιοι; Vulg., Giblii, Comp. Ezek. xxvii. 9, Psalm lxxxiii. 7, "The ancients of Gebal and the wise thereof were in thee." It is now Jebeil, between Beyrout and Tripoli. The Phœnician and Sidonian artisans were famous from the earliest antiquity for metal-work, embroidery, dyes, ship-building, and the fine arts (Hom., Il., xxiii. 743; Od., iv. 614-18, xv. 425; Herod., iii. 19, vii. 23, 96, etc.).

[242] 2 Chron. ii. 13, iv. 16, where "a cunning man of Huram my father's" should be "even Huram, my father," i.e., master-workman or deviser (comp. Gen. xlv. 8). In Chronicles he is called the son of a Danite mother. Here we have another of the manipulations used by later Jewish tradition to get rid of what they disliked; for in Eupolemos (Euseb., Præp. Evang., ix. 34) Hiram is said to belong to the family of David. "Quite a little romance," as Wellhausen says, "has been constructed out of the fact that the chronicler assigns his mother to the tribe of Dan; but it is not worth repeating, being a mass of hypotheses." To the dislike of Sidonian and semi-Sidonian influence, we perhaps owe the notion that David had already received a design from the hand of God Himself (1 Chron. xxviii. 11-19) (Ewald, iii. 227). Jerome mentions the Jewish fable that the artist Hiram was of the family of Aholiab, the artist of the wilderness.

[243] "Araunah the king" (2 Sam. xxiv. 23). The Temple Mount was usually called the "Mount of the House." It is only called Mount Moriah in 2 Chron. iii. 1. It cannot be regarded as certain that "the land of Moriah" (Gen. xxii. 2) is identical with it.

[244] "The present platform is 1521 feet long on the east, 940 on the south, 1617 on the west, 1020 on the north." Bartlett, Walks about Jerusalem, pp. 161-70; Williams, The Holy City, pp. 315-62. Kugle, Gesch. der Baukunst, p. 125. The excellent stone was supplied by quarries at Jerusalem itself. Comp. "Cavati sub terra montes." (Tac., Hist., v. 12). It may have been extended by Justinian when he built his church. See Ewald, iii. 232, "The Mount of the Temple was 500 yards square"; Middoth, c. 2. Comp. Ezek. xiii. 15-20, xlv. 2; Josephus, Antt., XV. xi. 3.

[245] Exod. i., ii.

[246] 1 Kings iv. 6, v. 13, 14, 17, 18, ix. 15, 21, xii. 18.

[247] Ewald thinks that it was only "at the beginning" that Solomon, like Sesostris (Diod. Sic., Hist., i. 56), could boast that his work was done without exacting bitter labour from his own countrymen. But 1 Kings ix. 22 shows that the king's opinion on this subject differed widely from that of his people (1 Kings xi. 28, xii. 3); for we are told that he did not make servants of the children of Israel, but used them as military officers (Sarim) and chariot-warriors (Shalishim, τριστάται) and knights. It required a little euphemism to gild the real state of affairs. The details of numbers in the Books of Chronicles differ from those in the Kings.

[248] 1 Kings v. 13, ix. 22; 2 Chron. viii. 9. (Omitted in the LXX.)

[249] In token of this defeat of Solomon he was represented in a statue outside the church leaning his hand on his cheek with a gesture of sorrow.

[250] Professor Williams, Prolus. Architectonicæ.

[251] Professor Hoskins (Enc. Brit.); Canina, Jewish Antiquities; Thrupp, Ancient Jerusalem; Count de Vogüé, Le Temple de Jérusalem.

[252] Fergusson, Temples of the Jews; E. Robbins, Temple of Solomon.

[253] Eupolemos (Euseb., Præp. Evang., ix. 30) and Alex. Polyhistor (Clem. Alex., Strom., i. 21) idly talk of help furnished to Solomon in building the Temple by an Egyptian King Vaphres, and of letters interchanged between them. Vaphres seems to be a mere anachronism for Hophra.

[254] The Phœnician style may, however, have been borrowed in part from Egypt.

[255] I have spoken of the Temple in Solomon and his Times (Men of the Bible), and have there furnished some illustrations. The following special authorities may be referred to. Stade, i. 311-57, Friederich, Tempel und Palast Salomo's (Innsbruck, 1887); Chipiez et Perrot, Le Temple de Jérusalem (Paris, 1889); Warren, Underground Jerusalem; Wilson and Warren, Recov. of Jerusalem (1871).

[256] Parbarim (2 Kings xxiii. 11). Comp. 1 Chron. xxvi. 18 (A.V., "suburbs"; R.V., "precincts" and "Parbar"). Descriptions of the Temple, imperfect, and not always accordant with each other, are found in 1 Kings v.-vii.; 2 Chron. ii.-v.; Josephus, Antt., VIII. iii. 7, 8.

[257] As we infer from Psalms lii. 8, lxxxiv. 3, lxxvi. 2 (where "tabernacle" should be "covert"). Eupolemos (ap. Euseb., Præp. Evang., etc.). Scattered passages of the Talmud which refer mainly to Herod's Temple are full of extravagances.

[258] Jer. xxxvi. 10.

[259] 2 Chron. iv. 1. This could not have been the brazen altar of the wilderness, the fate of which we do not know. It was far larger, but probably on the same model, except that steps were forbidden as an approach to the altar of the Tabernacle (Exod. xx. 24-26). It is difficult to reconcile the description of the brazen altar with the distinct prohibition of that passage. Comp. Ezek. xliii. 17.

[260] The huge stone vase of Amathus was borne on a bull (Duncker, ii. 184). Josephus says that in making these oxen Solomon broke the law (Antt., VIII. vii. 5), as well as by the lions on his throne. The Romans called huge vases lacus.

[261] The descriptions of these lavers, whether in the Hebrew, the LXX., or Josephus, are not intelligible, and are wholly unimportant.

[262] Like the palace of Ecbatana (Polyb., x. 27, 10; Herod., i. 98), and possibly the upper stories of the great temple of Bel at Birs-Nimrud (Borsippa).

[263] In 1 Kings x. 12 "pillars" should be "a rail" or "balustrade." Heb., מִסְעָד; LXX., ὑποστηρίγματα; Vulg., fulcra.

[264] Lilies symbolised beauty and innocence; pomegranates good works (so the Chaldee in Cant. iv. 13, vi. 11, Bähr, Symbol., ii. 122). Raphael crowns his Theology with pomegranates, Giotto places a pomegranate in the hand of his youthful Dante, and Giovanni Bellini in the hand of the Virgin Mary.

[265] Some suppose that the words imply "He will establish" (Jachin) "in strength" (Boaz). "After some favourite persons of the time, perhaps young sons of Solomon," says Ewald, very improbably. LXX. (2 Chron. iii. 17), Κατόρθωσις and Ἰσχύς. See a description of these pillars in Jer. lii. 21-23.

[266] Some writers have supplied the Temple with a porch 180 feet high, misled by the astounding method of the chronicler of adding the four sides into the total. Thus, he tells us that the wings of the cherubim were 30 feet long, meaning that each single wing was 7½ feet long (2 Chron. iii. 11). Josephus does the same in telling us the height of the Temple wall.

[267] The ground plans of most ancient temples were alike.

[268] 2 Sam. viii. 7; 1 Chron. xviii. 7.

[269] So 2 Chron. iv. 8. But it would seem from 1 Kings vii. 48; 2 Chron. xiii. 11, xxix. 18 that only one table and one candlestick were ordinarily used.

[270] St. Jerome rendered debir by oraculum, but some derive it from the Arabic root dabar, "to be behind," not from דָבָר, "to speak" (Munk, p. 290).

[271] In Zerubbabel's and Herod's Temples there was a curtain (Parocheth) before the Holiest; but we read of no such curtain in Solomon's, except in 2 Chron. iii. 14. The fact that the staves of the Ark were visible seems to show that there was not one. The chronicler speaks of "the vail" (2 Chron. iii. 14), showing, apparently, that there was only one; and does not mention the Māsak, which hung between the Porch and the Holy Place. Except in 2 Chron. iii. 14, the only mention of either is in the "Priestly Code." Since the Oracle had a door, one hardly sees why there should also have been a curtain. But the whole subject is obscure, and perhaps the chronicler is sometimes thinking of the second Temple.

[272] We read nothing, however, of any observance of the Day of Atonement till centuries later.

[273] 2 Sam. xxiv. 25 (LXX.); 1 Chron. xxii. 1; 2 Chron. iii. 1; Josephus, Antt., I. xiii. 1, VII. xiii. 4; Targum of Onkelos on Gen. xii.

[274] "The Ark of the Lord," or "of the Testimony," or "of the Covenant," was an oblong chest of acacia wood, overlaid with gold, surmounted by a border of gold, and resting on four feet, to which (A.V. corners) were attached golden rings.

[275] 1 Kings viii. 9. The pot of manna and the budded rod of Aaron were placed before it (Exod. xvi. 34; Numb. xvii. 10), and the Book of the Law beside it (Deut. xxxi. 26). The Mercy-seat above was more sacred than the Ark itself (Lev. xvi. 2). It was the cover (Kapporeth, ἐπίθεμα) of the Ark, and was partly formed of two winged cherubim which gazed down upon it and faced each other.

[276] Stanley, ii. 203.

[277] The Tyrian adornments; the steps to the altar; the ten candlesticks, and tables; the lions and oxen.

[278] The Temple was finished in the eighth month of Solomon's eleventh year, and dedicated in the seventh month (Ethanim, or Tisri) of the twelfth year. The first eight days (8th to 15th) were devoted to the Feast of Dedication, and then from the 15th to the 22nd they kept the Feast of Tabernacles. On the 23rd (the eighth day from the beginning of the Feast of Tabernacles, called 'atsereth, 2 Chron. 10) Solomon dismissed the people. The עֲצֶרֶת, "solemn assembly," is not mentioned in Exodus or Deuteronomy, but in Lev. xxiii. 36.

[279] It was perhaps stored away in one of the Temple chambers (2 Macc. ii. 4). The Gibeonites (Nethinim) were at the same time transferred to Jerusalem. The chronicler (2 Chron. v. 6) says that the Levites took the Ark, according to the Levitic rule; but 1 Kings viii. 3 says that the priests bore it, as in Deut. xxxi. 9, and in all the præ-exilic histories (Josh. iii. 3, vi. 6; 2 Sam. xv. 24-29, etc.). W. Robertson Smith, p. 144.

[280] The sheykhs are heads of clans; the emîrs of tribes (Reuss, i. 444).

[281] The Greek Ἐπιφάνεια. Solomon seems to have had some jurisdiction there (2 Chron. viii. 6).

[282] The torrent (nachal) of Egypt.

[283] The Holiest, being an unlighted cube, must always have been dim; but, as we have seen, we have no proof that in Solomon's Temple the entrance to it was shrouded by a curtain. In 1 Kings viii. 12, for "The Lord said that He would dwell in the thick darkness," the Targum had "In Jerusalem."

[284] In 1 Kings viii. 4 we read that "the priests and the Levites" brought up to Jerusalem "the Tabernacle of the congregation." But the LXX. only has οἱ ἱερεῖς. In 2 Chron. v. 5 the Hebrew text has "the Levites" in some MSS., or "the priests, the Levites"—i.e., the Levitic priests. For "the priests took up the ark" (1 Kings viii. 3) the chronicler has "the Levites" (comp. Numb. iii. 31, iv. 15). It is at least doubtful whether the distinction between priests and Levites is older than the Priestly Code and the days of Ezekiel. Also, the LXX. in 1 Kings viii. 4 puts "witness" for "congregation," and some critics maintain that "congregation" ('edah) is post-exilic. (See Robertson Smith, Enc. Brit., s.v. Kings). See infra, pp. 189, 190.

[285] Some psalm, like Psalm cxxxvi., was probably sung by alternate choirs, but hardly in the attitude of prostration which followed the sudden blaze of glory (2 Chron. vii. 3).

[286] "The prayer" is of extreme beauty, but it belongs by its ideas to the seventh and not to the eleventh or tenth centuries b.c. (Ewald). It is probably added by a later editor who took the Deuteronomic standpoint. It is found, sometimes almost word for word, in Lev. xxvi. and Deut. xxviii.; but there are many variations between the Hebrew and the LXX., and Kings and Chronicles. Looking only at actual facts, not at a priori theories, we see that, as Professor Driver says (Contemporary Review, Feb. 1890), "the Hebrew historians used some freedom in attributing speeches to historical characters." Thus, both the syntax and vocabulary, to say nothing of the thoughts of various speeches attributed to David by the chronicler, are sometimes such as mark the latest period in the history of the language, and are often quite without precedent in præ-exilic literature. Some feelings which gathered round the Temple find expression in Psalms xxiv., xxvii., xlii., lxxii., lxxxiv., cxxii., and in more extravagant and less spiritual forms throughout the Talmud. Soteh, f. 48; Berachoth, f. 591; Moed Qaton, f. 261, etc.

[287] The Khalif Moktader sacrificed at Mecca 40,000 camels and 50,000 sheep (Burton's Pilgrimage, i. 318). Solomon offered burnt offerings (oloth) and thank offerings (shellamim). No mention is made of sin offerings; and it may be doubted whether they had any separate existence till the days of the Exile.

[288] 1 Kings viii. 66, "went unto their tents," is a reminiscence of earlier days. The chronicler (1) extends the feast to fourteen days, according to which there is an interpolation, "and seven days, even fourteen days," in verse 65; (2) he says that the sacrifices were consumed by fire from heaven.

[289] 1 Kings ix. 25. The Hebrew text seems to have been tampered with, and the allusions significantly disappear from 2 Chron. viii. 12, 13. The commentators assiduously try to clear away the difficulty.

[290] The scepticism of modern critics, who doubt whether there ever was a Tabernacle in the wilderness at all, seems to be insufficiently grounded.

[291] Vit. Mos., iii.; Antt., III. vi. 4, vii. 7; B. J., VII. v. 5.

[292] E.g., Origen (Hom., ix.), Clement of Alexandria (Strom., v.), Theodoret (Qu., xl. in Exod.), Jerome (Ep., lxiv.), and others. See Kalisch, Exodus, p. 495.

[293] Wisdom ix. 8: "A copy of the holy tabernacle which Thou didst prepare from the beginning."

[294] Exod. xxv. 40, xxvi. 30; Acts vii. 44; Heb. viii. 5.

[295] More Nebochim, iii, 45-49; Kalisch, Exodus, p. 497.

[296] The three names given to the Tabernacle are Ohel ("tent"), Mishkan ("tabernacle," "habitation," or "dwelling-place"), and Baith ("house"). It is undoubted that the Tabernacle followed the ordinary construction of the Oriental tent, with its two divisions, of which the interior could not be entered by strangers.

[297] Numb. xvii. 7, xviii. 2; 2 Chron. xxiv. 6; Acts vii. 44; Exod. xxix. 10, etc.; 1 Kings viii. 4; 2 Chron. viii. 13. The phrase "Tent of Meeting" in the R.V. removes the complete obscuring of the meaning involved by the A.V. rendering of "Tabernacle of the Congregation."

[298] Exod. xxv. 22.

[299] Exod. xxix. 42, 43.

[300] Kuenen's notion that the cherubim had come to the Jews through the Phœnicians from the Assyrians is quite improbable. The symbol was common throughout the East, whatever be the derivation of the word.

[301] Compare Ezek. i. 10 with x. 14, where "the face of an ox" is identical with "the face of a cherub." Perhaps this gave rise to the pagan calumnies that the Jews worshipped an ass. Josephus says (insincerely) that no man could tell or even conjecture the shape of the cherubim.

[302] Bähr, whose profound studies on symbolism command respect, says that "as standing on the highest step of created life, and uniting in themselves the most perfect created life, they are the most perfect revelation of God and the Divine" (Symbolik, i. 340).

[303] Compare the Homeric epithet νέποδες, and Milton's "smooth-gliding, without step."

[304] One of the Scriptural functions of the cherubim was to guard treasure (Ezek. xxviii. 13-15). This conception, too, was widely diffused throughout the East:—

"As when a Gryphon through the wilderness
Pursues the Arimaspian, who, by stealth,
Has from his watchful custody purloined
The guarded gold."
Milton.

[305] I follow the Rabbis in saying that the first broken slabs were in the Ark.

[306] Like the Greek images of the gods, they were made of olive, the least corruptible kind of wood, and overlaid with the purest gold.

[307] See, especially, Deut. xii. 5-19. In the later Priestly Code the centralisation of worship is not inculcated, but supposed to be already established. In the original Book of the Covenant it is not required at all.

[308] Judg. ii. 5, vi. 24, viii. 27, xx. 1, xxi. 2, 4; 1 Sam. vii. 9, x. 8, xi. 15, xiii. 9, xvi. 5, etc.

[309] ἡ νηστεία (Acts xxvii. 9); Philo, Lib. de Septenariis.

[310] Neh. viii. 17.

[311] Canon Cook in the Speaker's Commentary (Leviticus, p. 496) admits: "It is by no means unlikely there are insertions of a later date, which were written and sanctioned by the prophets and holy men who after the captivity arranged and edited the Scriptures of the Old Testament."

[312] Book by Book, p. 7.

[313] See Professor Robertson, Book by Book, p. 56. I quote Professor Robertson as one of the ablest and most competent opponents of extreme conclusions; but it does not seem to me that he touches on some of the arguments which constitute the main strength of the case against him.

[314] See 2 Kings xxii. 11; Ezra ix. 1, 7; Neh. ix. 3.

[315] "Sacrificia symbolicæ preces" (Outram, De Sacrif., p. 108).

[316] Yoma, f. 21, a.

[317] On vast ancient holocausts, see Athen., Deipnos., i. 5; Diod. Sic., xi. 72; Porph., De abstin., ii. 60; Suet., Calig., 14; Sen., De Benef., iii. 27; Ammian. Marcel., xxii. 4, xxv. 4; and other passages collected by the diligence of commentators. See, too, Josephus (B. J., VI. ix. 3) who reckons that at a passover in Nero's time 256,000 sacrifices were offered.

[318] Amos vi. 5; 1 Chron. xxiii. 5.

[319] Edersheim, The Temple and its Services, p. 54.

[320] The chronicler says that there were 38,000 Levites, of which 24,000 were "to oversee the work of the house of the Lord; and 6000 were officers and judges, and 4000 door-keepers; and 4000 praised the Lord with the instruments which I made," said David, "to praise therewith."

[321] Some of these titles of the Psalms are, however, very uncertain. Gesenius thinks that this last title (Psalm ix.) means that the Psalm "was to be sung by boys with virgins' voices." It is, to say the least, a very curious coincidence, that in 1 Chron. xxv. 4 the names of the sons of Heman, Giddalti and Romamti-ezer, Joshbekashah, Mallothi, Hothir, Mahazioth, mean (omitting the strange Joshbekashah, for which the LXX. Cod. Alex. reads Σεβακαιτάν), consecutively, "I have given | great and high help: | I have spoken | visions | in abundance." Had the names any reference to tunes?

[322] Ezra ii. 65; Neh. vii. 67; Psalm lxxxvii. 7.

[323] Of these, perhaps, were "the children" who shouted their hosannas to Jesus in the Temple (Matt. xxi. 15).

[324] The Temple and its Services, p. 67.

[325] Exod. xix. 5, 6.

[326] Rev. xv. 6.

[327] Comp. Rev. i. 13, xv. 6.

[328] On this sagan, the later title for the "second priest," see 2 Kings xxv. 18; Jer. lii. 24.

[329] He refers to Wünsche, Die Leiden des Messias.

[330] Mark ix. 49.

[331] Lev. vi. 17, vii. 1, xiv. 13. On this whole subject see Edersheim, pp. 79-111.

[332] See Judg. vi. 19-21; 1 Sam. ii. 13, xiv. 35; 1 Kings xix. 21; 2 Kings v. 17.

[333] LXX., ὁλοκαύτωμα.

[334] LXX., περὶ ἁμαρτίας. Chattath and Ashâm both imply guilt, debt, sin. "The trespass offering affected rights of property, but no precise definition of the two kinds of expiatory offerings can be based upon the statements made in the Pentateuch in respect to them. Perhaps they cannot all be referred to the same time and to one author; for they prescribe both sin and trespass offerings in cases of Levitical impurity, and also for moral offences. All Levites attempting to establish palpable distinctions between them must inevitably fail." (Kalisch, Leviticus, part ii., p. 272). The general scheme of sacrifices, as they now stand in the Pentateuch, is as follows:—

                    Sacrifice (Zebach, Minchah).
                        |
       +----------------+----------------+-------------+
       |                |                |             |
Burnt offering.  Peace offering.    Expiatory     Offering of
                        |           offering.    Purification.
                        |                |             |
                        |                |    +-----+--+----------+
                        |                |    |     |             |
                        |                |  Child   Leprosy.    Issue.
                        |                |  birth.
                        |           +----+----------+------------+
                        |           |               |            |
                        |      Sin offering     Trespass      Offering
                        |   (Chattath).   offering    Jealousy.
                        |                     (Ashâm).
                        |
   +--------+---------+-+--------+--------------+
   |        |         |          |              |
Thank    Praise.  Paschal     Firstborn    Firstfruits.
offerings.           Lamb.     of animals.

[335] LXX., πλημμελεία.

[336] LXX., θυσία σωτηρίον.

[337] The phrase "wave offering" indicates the ceremony used by the priests in presenting peace offerings to God.

[338] For the full development of these views, see Wellhausen's Prolegomena.

[339] See Bishop Barry's article on Sacrifice in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, to which, in this paragraph, I am much indebted.

[340] Lev. v. 11-13.

[341] See Kuenen, Rel. of Israel, ii. pp. 259-76.

[342] Speaker's Commentary, Leviticus, p. 508. In Lev. xvii. 11—"For the soul of the flesh is in the blood, and I have ordained it for you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for the blood it is which makes atonement by means of the soul"—Kurtz points out that the blood is simply chosen as a symbol, and the superstition that there is any atoning virtue in the blood itself is excluded.

[343] Pæd., ii. 2, § 19.

[344] The Priestly Code is that part of the Pentateuch which is occupied with public worship and the function of priests—viz., most of Leviticus; Exod. xxv.-xl.; Numb. i.-x., xv.-xx., xxv.-xxxvi. (with inconsiderable exceptions)

[345] In Psalm xl. 6, "Sin offering hast Thou not required." The Psalm is perhaps of the age of Jeremiah.

[346] He argues that even in Chronicles it is not mentioned; and that there was no curtain (Parocheth) before the Holiest in Solomon's Temple (1 Kings vi. 31, 32. Comp. Ezek. xli. 23, 24; 1 Kings viii. 8). He considers that 2 Chron. iii. 14 (the only place in the Old Testament where Parocheth occurs except in the P.C.) cannot overthrow 1 Kings vi. 21, which speaks only of chains of gold between the Holy and the Holiest. (There was a curtain in Herod's Temple, Matt. xxvii. 51; Heb. ix. 3). But if there was no Parocheth in Solomon's Temple, the rule of Lev. xvi. 2, 12, 15 could not have been observed.

[347] This caused immense perplexity to the Rabbis. Shabbath, xiii. 2; Chagigah, xiii. 1; Menachoth, xlv. 1.

[348] 1 Sam. xv. 22.

[349] Amos v. 21-23.

[350] Micah vi. 6-8. Some suppose that the words are attributed to Balaam (see verse 5).

[351] Hosea vi. 6.

[352] Isa. i. 11-16.

[353] Jer. vii. 22, xi. 15.

[354] Jer. xxxiii. 14-26 seems to speak in a different tone, but is probably an interpolation. It is not found in the LXX.

[355] Psalm l. 8-14.

[356] Psalm li. 16, 17. It is difficult to believe that the two last verses of the Psalm are not a later addition.

[357] Psalm xl. 6.

[358] Prov. xxi. 3.

[359] Psalm lxix. 30, 31.

[360] Mark xii. 32, 33. So in the Talmud: "Acts of justice are more meritorious than all sacrifices" (Succoth., lxix. 2).

[361] Matt. ix. 13.

[362] Matt. xii. 7.

[363] Rom. xii. 1; 1 Peter ii. 5.

[364] Heb. x. 4, 11.

[365] Heb. xiii. 16.

[366] Ecclus. xxxv. 1-15.

[367] Comp. Ov., Trist., ii. 1, 75; Ep. xx. 81; Persius, ii. 45; Varro, ap. Arnob., c. Natt., vii. 1. "Dii veri neque desiderant ea, neque deposcunt."

[368] Philo, De Victimis, 5.

[369] A. Geiger, Judenthum und seine Geschichte, Sect. 5.

[370] Vajikra R., 22 and 34 b. They got over Jer. xxxiii. 18 (in Yalkuth, on the passage) by saying, "He that doeth repentance it is counted to him as if he offered all the sacrifices of the land." They held that the place of sacrifices was taken by prayer, penitence, and good works. See Edersheim, Jesus the Messiah, i. 275.

[371] See Spencer, De Legg. Ritual., iii.; Dissert., ii., chap. 1.

[372] Evang. Ebion, ap. Epiph., Hær., xxx. 16.

[373] Mark vii. 19.

[374] It was twice repaired—about b.c. 856 in the reign of Joash, and about two centuries later under Josiah.

[375] See Isa. xxix. 13, 14; Ezek. xxxiii. 31; Matt. xv. 7-9; Col. i. 20-22, etc. Comp. Wellhausen, pp. 77-79.

[376] Rev. xxi. 22.

[377] 1 Kings ix. 6-9. The phrase "at this house which is high" is uncertain. The Vulgate has "domus hæc erit in exemplum"; the Peshito and Arabic have "and this house shall be destroyed."

[378] To form some notion of these buildings, see the excellent illustrations in Stade, i. 318-25.

[379] The hill of Zion, the city of David, had become overcrowded, and the hill which lay to the north, which was called Millo, or "the border," had to be included in it. A narrow valley lay between them. "Mount Moriah, and its offshoot Ophel, remained outside the city, and the latter was inhabited by the remnant of the Jebusites" (Grätz, Hist. of the Jews, E. T., i. 121); Millo, LXX., ἡ ἄκρα. See 1 Macc. iv. 41, xiii. 49-52; Josephus, Antt., XIII. vi. 7.

[380] 1 Kings ix. 19.

[381] The "linen yarn" of 1 Kings x. 28 seems to be an error. The Hebrew is מִקְוֵה; LXX., ἐκ Θεκουέ; Vulg., de Coâ; R.V., "in droves."

[382] 2 Chron. ix. 21.

[383] See Max Müller, Lectures on Language, i. 191. The names Shen Habbim, "ivory" (Sanskr. ibhas, "elephant"), Kophim, "apes" (Sanskr. kapi), Tukkyim, "peacocks" (Tamil, togei), "algum trees" (Sanskr. Valgaka, LXX. πελεκητά, Alex. ἀπελέκητα, Vulg. thyina), all point to India. Aloes (ahalim, Psalm xlv. 8) are a fragrant tree of Malacca; cassia (Ind. koost), cinnamon (cacyn-nama) come from Ceylon. See Stanley, ii. 185. European history here first comes into contact with Sanskrit.

[384] See Eccles. ii. 4-6. See on the extensive water-works, Ewald, iii. 252-57.

[385] 2 Chron. ix. 21.

[386] נֶשֶׁק; LXX., στακτή, "oil of myrrh."

[387] 1 Kings x. 25.

[388] See Cant. i. 9, iii. 6-11, iv. 8; 2 Chron. xi. 6; Josephus, Antt., VIII. vii. 3; Psalm xlv.

[389] The great statue of Athene by Phidias was of this "Chryselephantine" work. Comp. "ivory palaces" (Psalm xlv. 8; 1 Kings xxii. 39; Amos iii. 15) and "ivory couches" (Amos vi. 4).

[390] Josephus, Antt., VIII. v. 2; Hosea iv. 16; Jer. xxxi. 18, etc.

[391] Ezek. xxvii., xxviii.; Zech. ix. 3.

[392] The Abyssinian, confusing Sheba (Arabia Felix) with Seba (as do Origen and Augustine), call her Makeda, Queen of Abyssinia, and say that she had a son by Solomon named Melinek (Ludolphus, Æthiop., ii. 3), from whom all their emperors down to Theodore were descended. The legend of the Queen of Sheba is related in the Qur'an, Sura xxvii. 20-40 (chapter of the Ant). The Arabs call her Balkis, whose legends are narrated by D'Herbelot (Bibl. Or., s.v. Balki). Josephus identifies her with Nicaule (the Nitocris of Herod., ii. 100), Josephus, Antt., VIII. vi. 2. In the New Testament she is called "the Queen of the South" (Matt. xii. 42).

[393] He had made two hundred large shields (tzinnîm, θυρεοί, scuta) and three hundred targets (maginnîm, ἀσπίδες, clypei) of gold at fabulous cost (1 Kings x. 16). They were all plundered by Shishak.

[394] 1 Kings x. 5, but "ascent" should perhaps be "burnt offering," as in margin of R.V. and in all the versions. Comp. 2 Chron. ix. 4 (LXX.). A special seat or platform of brass seems to have been assigned to Solomon in the Temple court (2 Kings xi. 14, xvi. 18, xxiii. 3; 2 Chron. vi. 13).

[395] Josephus says that she introduced the balsam plant into Palestine, which, in later years at Jericho, became a great source of revenue. Jer. viii. 22, xlvi. 11; Ezek. xxvii. 17; Josephus, Antt.; VIII. vi. 6, XIV. iv. 1, XV. iv. 2; Pliny, H. N., xii. 54, xiii. 9 (but see Gen. xliii. 11).

[396] Psalm lxxii. 15. Spices, Herod., iii. 107-113. For one hundred and twenty talents we should probably read twenty (comp. Josephus, Antt., VIII. vi. 6), i.e., twelve thousand pounds. Into the riddles of Balkis (1 Kings x. 1, "hard questions"; LXX., αἰνίγματα), and all the strange Talmudic and Arabian legends which have gathered round her visit, we need not enter. I may perhaps refer to my little monograph on Solomon (pp. 134-37), in the Men of the Bible series.

[397] The 666 gold talents of his revenue are estimated at £3,613,500, and this is described as his own revenue, exclusive of tolls, tributes, etc. (1 Kings x. 15). Presents reached him from "kings of the mingled people" (Jer. xxv. 24), Pachas of the country (פֶחָה Ezra v. 6; Neh. v. 14).

[398] See Weil, Biblische Legenden; D'Herbelot, Bibl. Oriental, s.v. Soliman ben-Daoud; Qur'an, Suras xxii., xxvii., xxviii., xxxiv. "Suleyman" means "Little Solomon," a term of affection.

[399] Stanley, Lectures, ii. 166, 167.

[400] See Euseb., Præp. Evang., x. 11.

[401] Lev. xxv. 23, 24. See Judg. i. 31, 32.

[402] Hence, perhaps, the name "Galilee of the nations" (Isa. ix. 1). Comp. "Harosheth of the nations" (Judg. iv. 2, 13). Hazor was in this district.

[403] Milman, Hist. of the Jews, i. 321.

[404] 1 Kings ix. 10-13. There was a place called Cabul in Asher (Josh. xix. 27). Ewald thinks that Cabul was a sort of witticism meaning "as nothing." Josephus (Antt., VIII. v. 3) says that in Phœnician χαβαλὼν means "not pleasing," and that Hiram would not take the cities. Nothing can be made of the allusion to this transaction in 2 Chron. viii. 1, 2. Why did Solomon re-occupy these cities? and why did Hiram give him one hundred and twenty talents of gold? The gloss put on the matter by late tradition cannot conceal the fact that Solomon tried to diminish his embarrassments by alienating some of the sacred territory.

[405] The later Jews chose the name "Alexander" as the Western equivalent for Solomon: hence the names "Alexander Jannæus," etc.

[406] 1 Kings iii. 15. See Ecclus. xlvii. 12-21.

[407] "L'amour du luxe et de la nouveauté le conduira peu à peu à défaire l'œuvre de son père, à ruiner le peuple dont il pouvait faire le bonheur, à detruire les institutions, et à dédaigner le culte national, auquel il avait d'abord cherché à donner le plus grand éclat."—Munk, Palestine, p. 285.

[408] 1 Kings ix. 25.

[409] Modern criticism generally regards the Book of Deuteronomy, or some elements of it, as "the Book of the Law" which was found in the Temple by the high priest Hilkiah in the reign of Josiah. We shall speak of this in the following volume (in 2 Kings). See Deut. xvii. 18.

[410] LXX., ἦν φιλογύνγς. Vulg., adamavit mulieres alienigenus.

[411] Some suppose that this clause about Milcom is an interpolation from 2 Kings xxiii. 13.

[412] See Exod. xxxiv. 11-17; Deut. vii. 1-4. The Talmud makes one of its dishonest attempts to get rid of the fact; Shabbath, p. 56, b. Sanhedrin, ff. 55, 56. Justin Martyr preserves a tradition (Dial. c. Tryph., 34) that Solomon in taking a Sidonian wife worshipped idols at Sidon. Muslim tradition attributes Solomon's idolatry to the tricks of demons who assumed his form (Qur'an, Sura ii. 99; but see Sura xxxviii. 30).

[413] Prov. xxxi. 3.

[414] The Song of Solomon (vi. 8) gives him, besides the 'alamoth ("damsels") "without number," the sixty wives (saroth), and the eighty concubines, who were partly perhaps their slaves.

[415] Parmen. ap. Athen., Deipnos., iii. 3. Comp. Quint. Curt., Vit. Alex., iii. 3. Amehhate of Egypt had more than three hundred and seventeen wives (Brugsch, Egypt, iii. 607, E.T.). Rehoboam, who had eighteen wives and sixty concubines, left twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters. Solomon, so far as we know, had only one son and two daughters.

[416] Cant. vi. 8.

[417] The Vatican MS. of the LXX. adds Syrian and Amorite princesses to the number. Marriages with Sidonians and Hittites are expressly forbidden in Exod. xxxiv. 12-16, and with Canaanites in Deut. vii. 3 (comp. Ezra ix. 2 and Neh. xiii. 23).

[418] Numb. xxv. 3.

[419] See Prov. ii. 10-22, v. 1-14, vi. 24-35, etc. (contrast Psalm cxliv. 12-15).

[420] In 1 Kings xi. 9-25 the mischief inflicted by Rezon and Hadad is represented as a punishment for Solomon's apostasy. It has been said that here "the pragmatism belongs to the redactor," because these enemies sprang into existence when he came to the throne. But, as I have here represented it, nothing seems more probable than that Rezon and Hadad were practically impotent to inflict much damage before the period of Solomon's decline. (Verse 23 is omitted in some MSS. of the LXX.)

[421] An isolated anecdote of the exterminating war is preserved in 1 Chron. xi. 22, 23, from which it would seem that Egypt had interfered in favour of Edom.

[422] Renan conjectures that the real Egyptian name is Ahotepnes. The LXX. wrongly calls this Pharaoh Sheshonk (Σουσακείμ), who came later, and whose queen's name was Karaäma (not Thekemina, as the LXX. says).

[423] Canon Rawlinson (Speaker's Commentary, ad loc.) points out that fugitives once received at Eastern courts found it very difficult to get away, e.g., Democedes, Herod., iii. 132-37. Histiæus, in leaving the court of Persia, has expressly to say that he had lacked nothing—τεῦ δὲ ἐνδεὴς ὤν; Herod., v. 106; comp. 1 Kings xi. 22.

[424] 1 Kings xi. 14: "The Lord stirred up an adversary" (שָׂטָן).

[425] Stade, i. 302. In 1 Kings xi. 22, 25 the text is corrupt. Verse 25 should partly be transferred to the end of verse 22, and should run, "And Hadad returned to his own land," i.e., to Edom. (Edom has been confused with "Aram.")

[426] The additions to the LXX. call her Sarira. But the names "Sarira," "Enlamite," "Ano" are all suspicious; and possibly the LXX. additions may be only part of some Alexandrian Haggadah.

[427] In 2 Chron. ix. 29 the LXX. reads "Joel." He wrote "visions" against Jeroboam, a life of Ahijah, and a book "on (or after the manner of) genealogies" (2 Chron. ix. 29, xii. 15, xiii. 22). Jerome (on 2 Chron. xv. 1) identifies him with Oded.

[428] 2 Chron. ix. 29. Perhaps 1 Kings xi. may be borrowed from the historic records of Ahijah.

[429] For in the LXX. 1 Kings xi. 29-39 is absent in some MSS., as well as 1 Kings xiv. (Ahijah and Abijah), which has been added from the Greek version of Aquila. In verse 29, for "Ahijah the Shilonite" we have in some MSS. of the LXX. "Shemaiah the Elamite" or "Eulamite."

[430] 1 Kings xi. 29, addition of LXX.

[431] The square cloth worn over the other dress, and now called abba, seems to represent the salemâh (שַׂלְמָה) here mentioned.

[432] The story is usually made to apply to Jeroboam's new robe; but in the addition to the LXX., where the action is ascribed to Shemaiah, the word of the Lord says to him, λάβε σεαυτῷ ἱμάτιον καινὸν τὸ οὐκ εἰσεληλυθὸς εἰς ὕδωρ κ. τ. λ. The method of "acted parables" was common among the Hebrew prophets (See Jer. xiii., xix., xxvii.; Ezek. iii., iv., v., etc.); but this is the earliest recorded instance of the kind.

[433] Not "two tribes," as the LXX. says. But neither the number 1 nor the number 2 are literally exact, for certainly Jeroboam did not command the territory of Simeon, south of Judah. The adherence of Benjamin, or part of Benjamin, to Judah was mainly a geographical accident, due to the fact that Jerusalem lay in both tribes (Josh. xv. 8, xviii. 16; Jer. xx. 2). Late in David's reign a Benjamite (Sheba, son of Bichri) had headed a revolt against David (2 Sam. xx. 1).

[434] 1 Kings xi. 34-39.

[435] The story occurs in the additions to the LXX., and is highly improbable. Shishak came to the throne, according to R. S. Poole, about b.c. 972; others date his accession in 975 or 988. No such name as Tahpanes or Thekemina is found in the Egyptian records, and the wife of Shishak was Karaämat.

[436] Compare the names Eshbaal, Meribaal, Jerubbaal, Baaljada, with Ishjo (LXX. 1 Sam. xiv. 49, Heb.), Mephibosheth Eliada. In later days Baal was changed into the nickname Bosheth, "shame": hence Ishbosheth, Jerubesheth, Mephibosheth. See Kittel, ii. 87.

[437] See Kittel, Gesch. der Hebr., ii. 169-76.

[438] See Buddæus, Hist. Eccl., ii. 237.

[439]

"The fifth light shining with a beauty pure
Breathes from such love that all the world below
Craves to have tidings of him true and sure.
Within it is the lofty mind, where so
Deep knowledge dwelt, that, if the truth be true,
Such insight ne'er a second rose to know."
Parad., x. 109-114, and Dean Plumtre's notes.

[440] Qur'an, xxxiv. 10; Chapter of Sebâ (Palmer's translation, p. 151).

[441] Sale's Koran, ii. 287; Palmer's Qur'an, ii. 152.

[442] The Earl of Lytton.

[443] "Rehoboam" means "enlarger of the people" (comp. Eurudemos); Jeroboam, "whose people is many" (Poludemos; comp. Thiodric, Thierry). But Cheyne makes it mean "the kingdom contendeth" (Kleinert, Volkstreiter).

[444] So we read in the LXX. Cod. Vat., and (partly) in the Vulgate (see Robertson Smith, The Old Testament, p. 117). Unless Jeroboam had spontaneously returned from Egypt on hearing of the death of Solomon, there would hardly have been time to summon him thence. 2 Chron. x. 2 represents the matter thus. Possibly his name has crept by error into 1 Kings xii. 3. See Wellhausen-Bleek's Einleitung, p. 243.

[445] In the LXX. the Ephraimites complain of the expensive provision for Solomon's table. "Thy father made his yoke grievous upon us, and made grievous to us the meats of his table." LXX. (Cod. Vat.), καὶ ἐβάρυνε τὰ βρώματα τῆς τραπέζης αὐτοῦ.

[446] Dante, Inferno, Cant. xxvii.

[447] They are called yeladim, which surely cannot apply to men of forty, so that Rehoboam was probably little more than a youth, na'ar (2 Chron. xiii. 7; comp. Gen. xxxiii. 13).

[448] Herod., ii. 124-28.

[449] "My little finger." Heb., "my littleness"; LXX., ἡ μικρότης μου. But the paraphrase is perfectly correct (Vulg., Pesh., Josephus, and the Rabbis).

[450] "Virga si est nodosa et aculeata scorpios vocatur, quia arcuato vulnere in corpus infigitur" (Isodore., Orig., i. 175).

[451] 2 Sam. xx. 1.

[452] Or, "Now feed thine own house" (LXX., βόσκε, reading רעה for ראה); and the LXX. adds, "For this man is not (fit) to be a ruler, nor to be a prince." Evidently the revolt was the culmination of those jealousies which the haughty tribe of Ephraim had already manifested in the lives of Gideon, Abimelech, and David.

[453] Heb., "strengthened himself."

[454] In fact, the δωδεκάφυλον became more of a reminiscence than anything else. Simeon, for instance, practically disappeared (1 Chron. iv. 24-43).

[455] 1 Kings xii. 17.

[456] In 1 Kings xix. 3 it is reckoned as belonging to Judah (comp. Josh. xv. 28), being really a town of Simeon (Josh. xix. 2); but from Amos v. 5, viii. 14, we should infer that it was at any rate largely frequented by Israelites.

[457] 1 Kings xvi. 34; 2 Kings ii. 4.

[458] See Stanley, Lectures on the Jewish Church, ii. 269-71.

[459] Amos v. 11, vi. 4-6.

[460] 2 Kings iv. 18, 22, viii. 1-6; Stanley, ii. 271.

[461] See Ewald, iv. 9 (E. T.).

[462] 2 Chron. xx. 37.

[463] Zech. xi. 4-17, xiii. 7-9.

[464] If we may regard Kobolam as a real person (2 Kings xv. 10, LXX.). Thus, in the Northern Kingdom twenty kings belong to nine different dynasties in two hundred and forty-five years; and in the Southern only nineteen kings of one dynasty rule for three hundred and forty-five years.

[465] Jeroboam lived for a time at Penuel, on the east of the Jordan, perhaps to escape all danger from Shishak's invasion. For Penuel, on the eastern side of the Jabbok, see Gen. xxxii. 22, 30; Judg. viii. 8, 17. It was important as commanding the caravan route from Damascus to Shechem.

[466] Zech. x. 4 (R.V., "exactors").

[467] Hist. of Isr., iv. 12.

[468] It recurs twenty-three times: 1 Kings xiv. 16, xv. 26, 30, 34, xvi. 2, 19, 26, 31, xxi. 22, xxii. 52; 2 Kings iii. 3, x. 29, 31, xiii. 2, 6, xiv. 24, xv. 9, 18, 24, 28, xvii. 21, 22, xxiii, 15.

[469] Literally, "he filled the hand," because the priests were consecrated by putting into their hands the parts of the sacrifice which were to be presented to God on the altar (Exod. xxviii. 41, xxix. 9-35; Lev. viii. 27).

[470] Such is the true reading. The "Manasseh" of our existing text is a Jewish falsification of the text timidly and tentatively introduced to protect the memory of Moses (see Judg. xviii. 26 ff.).

[471] For the sanctity of Bethel, "House of God," where God had twice appeared to Jacob, see Gen. xxviii. 11-19, xxxv. 9-15. The Ark had once rested there under Phinehas (Judg. xx. 26-28), and it had been the home of Samuel (1 Sam. vii. 16). Dan, too, was "a holy city" (Judg. xviii. 30, 31; Tobit i. 5, 6). In 1 Kings xii. 30 ("the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan") some words may have dropped out. Klostermann adds, "and neglected Bethel"; but is that the fact? The LXX. adds, καὶ εἲασαν τὸν ἇκον Κυρίου. On the other hand, the clause has been taken to imply the opposite—i.e., that even as far as Dan some were found who went in preference to Bethel, "the king's chapel" (Amos vii. 13). In 1 Kings xii. 28 the fairer rendering would be, "These are thy God," not "gods."

[472] Lev. xxiii. 39. There is no hint about the other two annual feasts of Passover and Pentecost. Josephus implies that Jeroboam's feast was in the seventh month, as in Judah (Antt., VIII. viii. 5).

[473] 2 Sam. iv. 7.

[474] Conceivably there may have been a reference to the heraldic sign of Ephraim (Deut. xxxiii. 17), as Klostermann supposes.

[475] Exod. xx. 23, xxxii. 4, 8. See Professor Paul Cassel, König Jeroboam, p. 6. The identity of Jeroboam's words with Exod. xxxii. 4 may be due to the narrator.

[476] It has been considered probable that he found an additional sanction for these material symbols in an ancient existing image at Gilgal, to which there may be obscure allusion in the Prophet Hosea (iv. 15, ix. 15).

[477] See 2 Chron. xi. 15, where the chronicler in his flaming hatred calls them devils (i.e., "satyrs," Feldtäufel, Isa. xiii. 21; comp. Hosea viii. 5, xiii. 2). They were probably two young bulls of brass overlaid with gold (see Psalm cvi. 19; Isa. xl. 19).

[478] Tobit i. 5.

[479] Ἡ δάμαλις Βάαλ. If this be the right reading, not δύναμις, the feminine implies special scorn, either implying ἡ αἰσχύνη (Bosheth), or pointing, as Baudissin thinks, to an androgynous deity. Grätz thinks that "Bethel" may be the true reading.

[480] Josh. xxiv. 1; 1 Sam. x. 19; 2 Sam. v. 1-3; 1 Kings viii. 1-5, 62.

[481] Vilmar.

[482] Now Talura, six miles north of Nablus.

[483] So, too, Jarchi. No doubt they were guided by the remark in 2 Chron. ix. 29, "the visions of Iddo the seer against Jeroboam." But it is not possible, for Iddo lived to a later date (2 Chron. xiii. 22). Ephrem Syrus and Tertullian suppose him to have been Shemaiah (comp. 2 Chron. xii. 5). These are untenable guesses. Epiphanius calls him Joas; Clement, Abd-adonai; Tertullian, Sameas.

[484] Not "by the altar," as in A.V. LXX., ἐπὶ τὸ θυσιαστήριον; Vulg., super altare.

[485] The ashes of the animal offerings (דֶּשֶׁן) used to be carried away to a clean place (Lev. vi. 11).

[486] Amos ix. 1. The Vatican LXX. distinctly makes the sign a future one (1 Kings xiii. 3), καὶ δώσει ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἐκείνῃ τέρας. The narrative seems to suppose, but it does not assert that the altar was rent then and there. Had these miracles immediately followed, it is difficult to imagine that no deeper impression should have been made. As it was the new cult does not seem to have been interrupted for a single day.

[487] The mention by name of a king three centuries before he was even born is wholly alien from every characteristic of Jewish prophecy, and, as in the case of Cyrus (Isa. xliv. 28), it would be false to say that we have even a particle of evidence to show that the name was not added from a marginal gloss or by the latest redactor. He also makes the mistake of putting into the old prophet's mouth the phrase "all the cities of Samaria" at least fifty years before Samaria existed (1 Kings xvi. 24). Keil's remark that "Josiah" is only used appellatively for one whom Jehovah will support (!) is one of the miserable expedients of reckless harmonists. Even Bähr, ad loc., admits that the narrative is of later date, and has received a traditional colouring. In 2 Kings xxiii. 15-18 there is no hint that Josiah had been prophesied of by name.

[488] 1 Kings xiii. 6, "Intreat now" (lit., "make soft") "the face of the Lord." Klostermann, "Besänftige noch das Angesicht Jahve's."

[489] Gal. i. 8.

[490] Klostermann, in his Kurzgefasster Kommentar, gets rid of the lion altogether by one of his sweeping emendations of the text, p. 352. He considers that the whole story comes from a book of edifying anecdotes for the use of young prophets in the schools; and that it may have some connexion with the threat of another Jewish prophet against the altar at Bethel in the days of another Jeroboam (Amos iii. 14, vii. 9).

[491] Comp. Jer. xxii. 18.

[492] The older expositors at any rate see in the prophet's rest under the terebinth, so near Bethel, "peccati initium; moras utique nectere non debuit." It was like Eve's lingering near the place where temptation lay.

[493] "'Whom the gods love die young' was said of yore" (Byron). It was said by Menander: "Ὃν γὰρ θεοὶ φιλοῦσιν ἀποθνήσκει νεὸς"; and by Plautus: "Quem dii diligunt, adolescens moritur" (Bacch., iv. 7, 18). A similar thought is found in Plutarch, in St. Chrysostom, and many others.

[494] Ahijah had not followed the example of the Levites and pious persons who, the chronicler says, went in numbers to the Southern Kingdom.

[495] Nikuddim (only elsewhere in Josh. ix. 5-12); LXX., κολλυρίδες; Vulg., crustula; A.V., "cracknels." They were some sort of cakes. Presents to prophets were customary (see 1 Sam. ix. 7, 8; 1 Kings xiii. 7; 2 Kings v. 5, viii. 8, 9).

[496] Heb., "His eyes stood" (comp. 1 Sam. iv. 15). It seems to imply amaurosis.

[497] This tremendous expression only occurs elsewhere in Ezek. xxiii. 35; but comp. Psalm l. 17; Neh. ix. 26.

[498] The coarse expression of 1 Kings xiv. 10 (1 Sam. xxv. 22; 2 Kings ix. 8) means "every male." The phrase "him that is shut up and him that is left in Israel" (Deut. xxxii. 36) is obscure and alliterative. It has been variously explained to mean, (1) "bond and free," (2) "imprisoned or released," (3) "kept in by legal impurity or at large" (Jer. xxxvi. 5), (4) "under or over age," (5) "married or unmarried." (Reuss renders the paronomasia, "qu'il soit caché ou lâché en Israel.") LXX. ἐχόμενον καὶ ἐγκαταλελειμμένον; Vulg. clausum et novissimum.

[499] In ancient days this was regarded as the most terrible of calamities.

"Ἀλλ' ἄρα τόνγε κύνες τε καὶ οἰωνοὶ κατέδαψαν
Κείμενον ἐν πεδίῳ ἑκὰς ἄστεος, οὐδέ κέ τίς μιν
Κλαῦσεν Ἀχαιΐάδων· μάλα γὰρ μέγα μήσατο ἔργον."
Hom., Od., iii. 258.

Comp. Deut. xxviii. 26; 1 Sam. xvii. 44, 45. And after in Jeremiah (vii. 33, viii. 2, ix. 22, etc.) and Ezekiel (xxix. 5, xxxix. 17, etc.).

[500] 1 Kings xiv. 14: "That day: but what? even now."

[501] It is almost identical with the message of doom pronounced on other kings, like Baasha (1 Kings xvi. 3-5) and Ahab (1 Kings xxi. 19-23).

[502] Ewald pronounces them to be clearly an addition of the Deuteronomist.

[503] LXX., εἰς γῆν Σαριρά. The additions to the LXX. have the touching incident, "Καὶ ἐγένετο ὡς εἰσῆλθεν εἰς τὴν Σαριρὰ καὶ τὸ παιδάειον ἀπέθανεν, καὶ ἐξῆλθεν ἡ κραυγὴ εἰς ἀπαντήν."

[504] Verg., Æn., vi. 870.

[505] See Job xii. 12; Psalm xxi. 4; Prov. iii. 2-16.

[506] Wisdom iv. 8-14.

[507] Josh. xix. 44, xxi. 23; 1 Kings xv. 27, xvi. 15.

[508] His father therefore could not have been Ahijah the prophet, who was an Ephraimite. He was the only ruler who came from slothful Issachar (Gen. xlix. 14, 15) except the unknown Tola (Judg. x. 1).

[509] For any other records of Nadab the writer refers to "the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel."

[510] 2 Chron. xvi. 7-10.

[511] 2 Chron. xx. 34.

[512] Comp. Hosea vii. 3-7.

[513] If Zimri was a descendant of the House of Saul, as is possible from the occurrence of the name in the number of Saul's descendants (1 Chron. viii. 36), we perhaps see an excuse for his ill-considered conspiracy. He acted, says Grotius, upon the principle, "Νήπιος ὃς πατέρα κτείνας υιοὺς καταλείπει."

[514] Comp. 2 Kings ix. 7 with Hosea i. 4. Thus Babylon is at once commissioned to punish, and condemned for ruthlessness: Isa. xlvii. 6.

[515] According to the LXX. she was a daughter of Hanun, son of Naash, King of Ammon (2 Sam. x. 1).

[516] Canon Rawlinson, Kings of Israel and Judah.

[517] 1 Kings xiv. 21. "A boy and faint-hearted" (2 Chron. xiii. 7). The additions to the LXX. say that he was sixteen, and reigned twelve years.

[518] In the LXX. additions it was a little before this occasion (after the revolt) that "Shemaiah the Enlamite" tore his new cloak and gave ten parts to Jeroboam.

[519] The Chammanim were, according to some, pillars to Baal-Hammon. For the Asherim, see Deut. xvi. 21; 2 Kings xxi. 3. They were wooden pillars to Asherah, and were called Asherim just as statues of the Virgin are called "Virgins." Asheroth seem to be various forms of the Nature-goddess herself (2 Chron. xxxiii. 3). Asherah = Ὀρθία. Like the other kings of Judah, Rehoboam had an exaggerated harem, and provided for the young princes by settling them in separate cities as governors.

[520] Jerome compares them to the horrible Galli of the Syrian goddess. LXX., τετελεσμένοι ("initiated"); Aquila, ἐνηλλαγμένοι ("changed"); Theodotion, κεχωρισμένοι ("set apart"); Symmachus, ἑταιρίδες. They were also called "dogs" (comp. Deut. xxiii. 18).

[521] According to the chronicler Rehoboam's defection only began in the fourth year of his reign.

[522] He was the first king of the twenty-second dynasty of Bubastis or Pibeseth, and succeeded about b.c. 988 in the fourteenth year of Solomon. The Egyptians (Manetho) called him Shesonk (Sesonsochosis) Sasychis, Herod., ii. 136; LXX., Σουσακίμ; Vulg., Sesac.

[523] He was of alien, perhaps of Assyrian, race. His family had settled at Bubastis, and his grandfather had married the daughter of the Pharaoh. His son Osorkhon also married the Princess Keramat, a daughter of the last Tanite king. Imitating the example of Hir-hor, he combined many offices, and then quietly seized the crown.

[524] Brugsch, Geogr. Inschriften altägyptischer Denkmäler, ii. 58; Lepsius, Denkmäler, iii. 252; Story of the Nations: Egypt, pp. 228-307; Stade, i. 354 (who reproduces the sculptures). They are carved on the wall of a Temple of Amon on the southern side of a smaller temple (built by Rameses III.). Shishak is smiting with his club a number of captive Jews, whom he grasps by the hair. The names of the towns and districts are paraded in two long rows, each name being enclosed in a shield. Amon is delivering them all to his beloved son "Shashonq." These smitten people are described as "the Am of a distant land, and the Fenekh" (Phœnicians).

[525] Lit., "Judah-king." Brugsch thinks it is the name of a town. It cannot mean, as Champollion thought, "King of Judah."

[526] See Shishak in Bibl. Dict. It is extremely difficult to believe that these cities were taken by the Egyptian army in order to help Jeroboam.

[527] Josephus says that Shishak did all this ἀμαχητὶ (Antt., VIII. x. 2, 3), but he confuses Shishak with Sesostris (Herod., ii. 102, 106).

[528] 1 Kings x. 17.

[529] LXX., 2 Sam. viii. 7; 1 Kings x. 17. A timely humiliation saved Rehoboam from extinction, but he practically became a vassal of Egypt (2 Chron. xii. 5).

[530] תָּא (Ezek. xl. 7).

[531] Ratzim; comp. "Celeres," Liv., i. 14. We hear no more of Cherethites and Pelethites. The later kings could not afford to keep up these mercenaries.

[532] Jewish Church, ii. 385.

[533] Renan.

[534] 2 Chron. xii. 16; comp. Abiel (1 Sam. ix. 1).

[535] Abijam seems to mean "father of the sea"; vir maritimus, Gesenius.

[536] So perhaps, for the same reason, Jehoahaz was shortened into Ahaz. See Canon Rawlinson on 2 Kings xv. 38 (Speaker's Commentary). But Simonis, Onomasticon, regards the final m as intensive.

[537] 2 Chron. xi. 18-23. Rehoboam had eighteen wives, sixty concubines, twenty-eight sons, and sixty daughters. A fragment of the Stemma Davidis may make things clearer to the reader:—

                          Jesse.
                            |
                 +----------+------------+
               Eliab.                  David.
                 |                       |
                 |                +------+--------+
             Abihial.          Solomon.        Absalom.
                                  |               |
                               +--+               |
                               |                  |
                 Abihail = Rehoboam = Maachah.  Tamar = Uriel.
                                    |                 |
                                  Abijah.          Maachah.

Thus on both sides, as a great-grandson and great-great-grandson, Abijah was descended from David.

[538] The lamp (LXX., κατάλειμμα; in xi. 36, θέσις) is the sign of home (1 Kings xi. 36; 2 Kings viii. 19. Comp. Psalm xviii. 28, cxxxii. 17). There was, as the chronicler boldly expressed it, "a covenant of salt" between God and the House of David (2 Chron. xiii. 5; comp. Numb. xviii. 19).

[539] Chron. xiii. 22.

[540] Zemaraim was in Benjamin near Bethel (Josh. xviii. 22), apparently Kirbet el-Szomer in the Jordan valley, four miles north of Jericho.

[541] 2 Chron. xiii. 3-19. So that the golden calf and its chapel and its priests must, if the account be true, have fallen into his power. But it does not seem to have made the least difference. It is certain that "the calf" remained undisturbed till the days of the Assyrian invasion.

[542] How atrocious these "abominations were" may be seen from the Pentateuch (Lev. xviii. 3-25, xx. 1-23; Deut. xviii. 6-12).

[543] 1 Kings xv. 15.

[544] Ewald, iv. 49.

[545] Comp. the Madame Mère in the French court.

[546] The LXX. (Vat.) calls her Ana.

[547] That it was not perfectly successful we see from 1 Kings xxii. 46.

[548] The word is an ἅπαξ λεγόμενον. It is only applied to this grotesque and obscene figure (1 Kings xv. 13; 2 Chron. xv. 16).

[549] 2 Kings xi. 16, xxiii. 4, 6, 12; 2 Chron. xxix. 16, xxx. 14. Vulg., in Sacris Priapi. Jerome (ad Hos., i. 4) calls Maachah's "horror" a Simulacrum Priapi (see Selden, De Dis Syris Syntagma, ii. 5).

[550] 2 Chron. xvi. 8. Zarkh, perhaps Osorkhon I. (O-serek-on, "Ammon's darling"), was the feebler successor of Shesonk, Maspero, p. 362; Ewald, iii. 470. Shishak's army also consisted of Sushim and Lubim (2 Chron. xii. 3).

[551] The defeat had important consequences. Egypt did not again attack Palestine till three centuries later, under Pharaoh Nechoh (b.c. 609). The defeat weakened the Bubastite dynasty (Rawlinson, p. 36), though it continued to reign for two centuries. The "invasion" may have been a mere raid. The Pharaohs always seem to have degenerated from the founders of their dynasty, both in personal beauty and intellectual force.

[552] Josh. xviii. 25, now Er-Ram. No great importance can be attached to the dates, which are often self-contradictory.

[553] Ben-Hadad, "son of Hadad," the Sun-god (Macrob., Saturn, i. 24). Tabrimmon, "Rimmon is good." According to Sayce (Hibbert Lectures, p. 42), Rimmon—an Accadian name, which became, in Semitic, Rammânu, "the exalted"—was identified by the Syrians with the Sun-god Hadad, whom Shahmanaser called Dada. In Assyrian Dadu ("dear child") is akin to David and to Dido.

[554] Ijon is probably Merj Ayion, "the meadow of the House of Maachah"; called also, Abel-maim, "the meadow of the waters"; "a city and a mother in Israel" (2 Sam. xx. 19); now Abil in the Ard-el-Huleh.

[555] See Numb. xxxiv. 11; Josh. xiii. 27.

[556] Josh. xxi. 17; 2 Kings xxiii. 8.

[557] LXX., ἡ σκοπία. Jer. xli. 5-9. Into this well Ishmael flung the corpses of the murdered adherents of Gedaliah.

[558] Renan, Hist. du Peuple Israel, ii. 248. Comp. Rephaiah.

[559] 2 Chron. xv. 1-15.

[560] 2 Chron. xvi. 9, 10.

[561] Following the precedent set by Rehoboam, he established his six younger sons in castles and fenced cities. Athaliah must have found it difficult to exterminate their families if she attempted this.

[562] The Nitzab or Præfect of Edom was allowed the barren title of king.

[563] 2 Chron. xx. 37. His name faintly recalls that of Eleazar, son of Dodo (2 Sam. xxiii. 9). Dodavahu means "friend of God."

[564] 2 Chron. xx. 36, 37. It would be monstrous to send ships to circumnavigate Africa in order to reach Tartessus. The last resource of the harmonists (e.g., Keil) to save the accuracy of the chronicler is to suppose that Jehoshaphat meant to drag the whole fleet across the Isthmus of Suez, and so to sail from one of the havens of Palestine!

[565] "Cette version," says Munk (Palestine, p. 314), "a probablement pris naissance dans l'esprit de rigorisme qui animait plus tard les écrivans Juifs." "This," says Dr. Robertson Smith, "is a mere pragmatical inference from the story in Kings." See his further remarks in The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, chap. ii., p. 146. He regards parts of the Books of Chronicles as being, in fact, a Jewish Midrash. "It is not History, but Haggada, moralising romance. And the chronicler himself gives the name of Midrash (R.V., 'story') to two of the sources from which he drew (2 Chron. xiii. 22, xxiv. 27), so that there is really no mystery as to the nature of the work when it departs from the old canonical histories" (p. 148).

[566] We shall have further glimpses of Jehoshaphat in the reigns of Ahab and even of Jehoram.

[567] See 1 Chron. xvi. 34; 2 Chron. v. 13, vii. 3, xx. 21; Psalms cvi., cvii., cxviii., etc. The eighty-third Psalm may owe its origin to this deliverance, and Hengstenberg thinks Psalms xlvii. and xlviii. also.

[568] The title "valley of Jehoshaphat" is thought also to have derived its origin from these events. Comp. Joel iii. 2.

[569] 2 Chron. xxi. 2, 3.

[570] There is a little exaggeration here.

[571] 2 Kings ix. 31.

[572] R.V., "the castle of the king's house."

[573] Justin, Hist., i. 3; cf. Herod., i. 176, vii. 107; Liv., xxi. 14. Ewald elaborates out of his own consciousness an extraordinary romance about Zimri and the queen-mother.

[574] Josephus (Antt., VIII. xii. 5) says that Tibni was assassinated, as does the Rabbinic Seder Olam Rabba, chap. xvii. LXX., καὶ ἀπέθανε Θαβνὶ καὶ Ἰωρὰμ ὁ ἀδελφὸς αὐτοῦ.

[575] Athaliah is called "the daughter of Omri."

[576] The Aramæans have come to be incorrectly called Syrians because the Greeks confused them with the Assyrians.

[577] 1 Kings xx. 34.

[578] 2 Kings iii. 4.

[579] 1 Kings xvi. 25.

[580] Micah vi. 16.

[581] Isa. xxviii. 1-4.

[582] Stanley, Lectures, ii. 242.

[583] 1 Kings xx. 1; 2 Kings vi. 24.

[584] Josephus, Antt., XV. vii. 7. One of the few instances in Palestine where the ancient name has been superseded by a more modern one. The early Assyrians call it Beth-Khumri, "House of Omri"; but the name Sammerin occurs in the monument of Tiglath-Pileser II.

[585] About £800 of our money.

[586] LXX., Σκοπία; שָׁמַר, "to watch."

[587] Meyer, Gesch. d. Alt., 331; Kittel, ii. 221; Schrader, Keilinschr., i. 165.

[588] נְבוּרָתֹו (1 Kings xvi. 27).

[589] It is needless in each separate case to enter into the chronological minutiæ about which the historian is little solicitous. A table of the chronology so far as it can be ascertained is furnished, infra.

[590] 1 Kings xx. 5; 2 Kings x. 7.

[591] Hitzig thinks that Psalm xlv. was an epithalamium on this occasion, from the mention of "ivory palaces" and "the daughter of Tyre." Had it been composed for the marriage of Solomon, or Jehoram and Athaliah, or any king of Judah, there would surely have been an allusion to Jerusalem. Moreover, the queen is called שֵׁנָל, which is a Chaldee (Dan. v. 2), or perhaps a North Palestine word. The word in Judah was Gebira.

[592] Ἰθόβαλος, Josephus, Antt., VIII. xiii. 1; c. Ap., I. 18 (quoting the heathen historian Menander of Ephesus). It may, however, be "Man of Baal," like Saul's son Ishbaal (Ishbosheth). In Tyre the high priest was only second to the king in power (Justin, Hist., xviii. 4), and Ethbaal united both dignities. He died aged sixty-eight. Another Ethbaal was on the throne during the siege of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar (Josephus, Antt., X. xi. I).

[593] Josephus, c. Ap., I. 18. The genealogy is:—

                  +-----------------------+
                  |                       |
               Phelles                 Ethbaal.
            (a usurper, whom his          |
            brother Ethbaal slew).        |
                                          |
                               +----------+------+
                               |                 |
                            Badezon.          Jezebel.
                               |
                        Matger (Belus).
                               |
                      +--------+------+
                      |               |
                 Pygmalion.          Dido.

See Canon Rawlinson, Speaker's Commentary, ad loc.

[594] Plaut., Pænul., V. ii. 6, 7. Phœnician names abound in the element "Baal."

[595] Ahaziah ("Jehovah supports"), Jehoram ("Jehovah is exalted"), Athaliah (?). The word Baal merely meant "Lord"; and perhaps the fact that at one time it had been freely applied to Jehovah Himself may have helped to confuse the religious perceptions of the people. Saul, certainly no idolater, called his son Eshbaal ("the man of Baal"); and it was only the hatred of the name Baal in later times which led the Jews to alter Baal into Bosheth ("shame"), as in Ishbosheth, Mephibosheth. David himself had a son named Beeliada ("known to Baal"), which was altered into Eliada (1 Chron. xiv. 7, iii. 8; 2 Sam. v. 16; comp. 2 Chron. xvii. 17). We even find the name Bealiah ("Baal is Jah") as one of David's men (1 Chron. xii. 5). Hoshea too records that Baali ("my Lord") was used of Jehovah, but changed into Ishi ("my husband") (Hosea ii. 16, 17). It is used simply for owner ("the baal of an ox") in "the Book of the Covenant" (Exod. xxi. 28). See Robertson Smith, Rel. of the Semites, 92.

[596] Ethbaal is called King of Sidon (1 Kings xvi. 31), and was also King of Tyre (Menander ap. Josephus, Antt., VIII. xiii. 1).

[597] 1 Kings xvi. 23; 2 Kings iii. 2, x. 27.

[598] Asherim seem to be upright wooden stocks of trees in honour of the Nature-goddess Asheroth. The Temple of Baal at Tyre had no image, only two Matstseboth, one of gold given by Hiram, one of "emerald" (Dius and Menander ap. Josephus, Antt., VIII. v. 3; c. Ap., I. 18; Herod., ii. 66).

[599] Döllinger, Judenth. u. Heidenthum (E. T.), i. 425-29.

[600] 2 Sam. x. 5; Judg. iii. 28.

[601] 2 Chron. xxviii. 15.

[602] Comp. Josh. vi. 26; 2 Sam. x. 5.

[603] Rev. ii. 20.

[604] 1 Kings xxi. 25, 26.

[605] Henry Smith, The Trumpet of the Lord sounding to Judgment.

[606] Tobit i. 2.

[607] Josephus, Antt., VIII. xiii. 2; Vat. (LXX.), Θεσβίτης ὁ ἐκ θεσβῶν. The Alex. LXX. omits Θεσβίτης. An immense amount has been written about Elijah. Among others, see Knobel, Der Prophetismus, ii. 73; Köster, Der Thesbiter; Stanley, ii., lect. xxx.; Maurice, Prophets and Kings, serm. viii.; F. W. Robertson, ii., serm. vi.; Milligan, Elijah (Men of the Bible).

[608] See 1 Chron. ii. 55.

[609] See Cheyne, The Hallowing of Criticism, p. 9.

[610] Zech. xiii. 4.

[611] The word also means "sea-mist" (Cheyne, p. 15).

[612] Lev. xxvi. 19; Psalm cxxxiv. 1; Heb. x. 11.

[613] So too Ecclus. xlviii. 2, "He brought a sore famine upon them, and by his zeal he diminished their number"; but the writer adds, "By the word of the Lord he shut up the heavens." Deut. xxviii. 12; Amos iv. 7.

[614] 2 Sam. xxi. 1.

[615] 2 Sam. xxiv. 13. "Three," not "seven," is probably here the true reading.

[616] Not "by," as in the A.V. Cherith means "cut off" (1 Kings xvii. 3). "The Lord hid him" (Jer. xxxvi. 26). "In famine he shall redeem thee from death.... At famine and destruction thou shalt laugh" (Job v. 20-22).

[617] Robinson.

[618] Benjamin of Tudela.

[619] Marinus Sanutus (1321).

[620] The ravens were unclean birds (Deut. xiv. 14), and this naturally startled and offended the Rabbis.

[621] Prov. xxx. 17.

[622] Orbo was a small town near the Jordan and Bethshan.

[623] On the other side, Bunsen (Bibelwerk, v. 2, 540) speaks too strongly when he says that "nothing but boundless ignorance, or, where historical criticism has not died out, an hierarchical dilettanti reaction, foolhardy hypocrisy, and weak-hearted fanaticism would wish to demand the faith of a Christian community in the historic truths of these miracles as if they had actually taken place." He regards the whole narrative as a "popular epic—the fruit of an inspiration, which he, as it were some superhuman being, awakened in his disciples."

[624] I append the remarks of Professor Milligan, a theologian of unimpeachable orthodoxy. "The miracle," he says, "is so remarkable, so much out of keeping with most of the other miracles of Scripture, that even pious and devout minds may well be perplexed by it, and we can feel no surprise at the attempts made to explain it. Such attempts are not inconsistent with the most devout reverence for the word of God. They are rather, not unfrequently, the result of a just persuasion that the Eastern mind did not express itself in forms similar to those of the West" (Elijah, p. 22). He proceeds to protest against the harsh condemnation of those who thus only try to interpret the real ideas present in the mind of the writer. He regards it as perhaps a highly poetic and figurative representation of the truth that the God of Nature was with Elijah. "The value of the Prophet's experience is neither heightened by a literal, nor diminished by a figurative, interpretation of what passed" (p. 24).

[625] 1 Kings xvii. 7. Perhaps years (Lev. xxv. 29; 1 Sam. xxvii. 7).

[626] Job vi. 17.

[627] Menander, quoted by Josephus, Antt., VIII. xiii. 2. He says it lasted for a year.

[628] LXX., "My sons"—perhaps with reference to "her house" in verse 15.

[629] Perhaps the language of the Hebrew is not actually decisive. Josephus says, τὴν ψυχὴν ἀφεῖναι καὶ δόξαι νεκρόν. In any case his recovery was due to Elijah's prayer.

[630] The phrase "man of God" is characteristic of the Book of Kings, in which it occurs fifty-three times. It became a normal description of Elijah and Elisha. "What have I to do with thee?" Comp. 2 Sam. xvi. 10; Luke v. 8. It was a common superstition that death always followed the appearance of superhuman beings.

[631] Compare the similar revivals of life wrought by Elisha (2 Kings iv. 34), and by St. Paul (Acts xx. 10).

[632] Amos ix. 3: "And though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence." The phrase shows the security and seclusion of these caves and thickets, the haunt once of lions and bears, and still of leopards and hyænas.

[633] The LXX. adds that he inflicted vengeance because Elijah was not found: "Καὶ ἐνέπρησε τὴν βασιλείαν καὶ τὰς χωρὰς αὐτῆς ὅτι οὐχ εὔρηκέ σε" (1 Kings xviii. 10).

[634] Obadiah seems to have believed in miraculous transference of the Prophet from place to place. Comp. Ezek. iii. 12-14 (where "the spirit" may be rendered "a spirit," or "a wind"), viii. 3; 2 Kings ii. 16; Acts viii. 39; and the Ebionite Gospel of St. Matthew. "My mother, the Holy Ghost, took me by a hair of the head, and carried me to Mount Tabor" (Orig. in Joann., ii., § 6; and Jer. in Mic. vii. 6). So in Bel and the Dragon 33-36 (Abarbanel, Comm. in Habakkuk) the prophet Habakkuk is said to have been taken invisibly to supply food to Daniel in the den of lions. "Then the angel of the Lord took him by the crown and bare him by the hair of his head, and through the vehemency of his spirit" (Midr. Robshik Rabba, "in the might of the Holy Ghost") "set him in Babylon."

[635] 1 Kings xviii. 15, LXX., "The Lord God of Israel" has now become to him more prominently "the Lord God of Hosts."

[636] The phrase had already been applied to Achan (Josh. vii. 25).

[637] I.e., were maintained at Jezebel's expense. The subsequent narration is silent as to the presence of the prophets of the Asherah, and Wellhausen thinks that the words here are an interpolation.

[638] Isa. xxxiii. 9, xxxv. 2; Micah vii. 14. Its beauty and fruitfulness are alluded to in Jer. xlvi. 18, l. 19; Amos i. 2, ix. 3; Nahum i. 4; Cant. vii. 5.

[639] Sir George Grove, to whose excellent article in Smith's Dict. of Bible (i. 279) I am indebted, quotes Martineau (i. 317), Porter's Handbook, Van de Velde, etc. See, too, Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, pp. 353-56.

[640] On these Lapides judaici, see my Life of Christ, i. 129. Illustrations are given in the illustrated edition.

[641] Jambl., Vit. Pythag., iii.; Suet., Vesp., 5; Tac., Hist., ii. 78; Reland, Palest., pp. 327-30.

[642] Megiddo lies in the plain below, and this scene of conflict between good and the powers of evil was an anticipated Armageddon.

[643] Isa. xlix. 2; Cheyne, p. 16.

[644] LXX., 1 Kings xviii. 21, ἕως πότε ὑμεῖς χωλανεῖτε ἐπ' ἀμφοτέραις ταῖς ἰγνύαις. Vulg., usquequo claudicatis in duas partes? Cheyne renders it: "How long will ye go lame upon tottering knees?" In Psalm cxix. 113, סֵעֲפִים are "the double-minded." In Ezek. xxxi. 6, סְעַפּוֹת, "diverging branches." In Isa. ii. 21, סְעִפֵי, "clefts of rocks" (Bähr).

[645] Herodian (Hist., v. 3) describes the dance of Heliogabalus round the altar of the Emesene Sun-god, and Apuleius describes at length the fanatic leapings and gashings of the execrable Galli—the eunuch-mendicant priests of the Syrian goddess. From these sources and from allusions in Seneca, Lucian, Statius, Arnobius, etc., Movers (Phöniz., i. 682) derives his description (quoted by Keil, ad loc., E.T., p. 281): "A discordant howling opens the scene. Now they fly wildly through one another, with the head sunk down to the ground, but turning round in circles, so that the loose flowing hair drags through the mire. Thereupon they first bite themselves on the arm, and at last cut themselves with two-edged swords, which they are wont to carry. Then begins a new scene. One of them who surpasses all the rest in frenzy, begins to prophesy with sighs and groans, openly accuses himself of past sins, which he now wishes to punish by the mortifying of the flesh, takes the knotted whip which the Galli are wont to bear, lashes his back, cuts himself with swords, till the blood trickles down from his mangled body."

[646] Verse 27. Others render it "meditating" (De Wette Thenius) or "peevish" (Bähr). Comp. Hom., Il., i. 423; Od., i. 22, etc.

[647] This instance of "grim sarcastic humour" is almost unique in Scripture. It was made more mordant by the paronomasia כִּי־שִׂיחַ וְכִי־שִׂיג לֹּו (2 Sam. i. 22).

[648] Plutarch (De Superstit., p. 170) says: "The priests of Bellona offered their own blood, which was deemed powerful to move their gods." Comp. Herod., ii. 61; Lucian, De Dea Syra, 50; Apul., Metam., viii. 28.

[649] עַד לַעֲלוֹת הַמִּנחָה, "till towards (Numb. xxviii. 4) the offering of the Minchah." LXX., θυσία; Vulg., sacrificium and holocaustum. In verse 39 it is omitted in the LXX. "There is a great concurrence of evidence that the evening sacrifice of the first Temple was not a holocaust, but a cereal oblation" (Robertson Smith, p. 143, quoting 1 Kings xviii. 34; 2 Kings xvi. 15; Ezek. ix. 4, Heb).

[650] Heb., וַיִתְנַבְּאוּ; LXX., διέτρεχον; Vulg., transiliebant. Literally, they acted like frantic prophets (1 Sam. xviii. 10; Jer. xxix. 26).

[651] LXX., θαλάσσαν, or "sea"—the name given to Solomon's molten laver; but the description, "as great as would contain two seahs of seed," is curious, for a seah was only the third of an ephah.

[652] Blunt (Undesigned Coincidences, II. xxxii.) thinks that as the drought had been so intense the water must have been sea-water. But Josephus says it was drawn ἀπὸ τῆς κρήνης (Antt., VIII. xiii. 5); and the well still exists.

[653] Priests, both pagan and mediæval, have been adepts at deception. At the Reformation the mechanism of winking Madonnas, etc., was exposed to the people. At Pompeii may still be seen the secret staircase behind the altar, and the pipes let into the head of Isis from behind, through which the priests spoke her pretended oracles. St. Chrysostom (Orat. in. Petr. et Eliam, which is of uncertain genuineness) tells us that he had himself seen (θεάτης αὐτὸς γενομένος) altars with concealed hollows in the middle, into which the unsuspected operator crept, and blew up a fire which the people were assured was self-kindled (see Keil, p. 282). One legend says that on this occasion a man was suffocated, who had been concealed by the Baal priests inside their altar.

[654] 1 Kings xviii. 36.

[655] Comp. Lev. ix. 24. Analogous stories existed among pagans (Hom., Il., ii. 305; Od., ii. 143; Verg., Ecl., viii. 105). Pliny says that annals recorded the eliciting of lightning by prayers and incantations (H. N., ii. 54; Winer, Realwörterb. 371).

[656] It is after Elijah's time, and probably from his influence, that from this time proper names compounded with Jehovah become almost the rule—as in Ahaziah, Jehoram, Jehu, Jehoahaz, Joash, Pekahiah, etc.

[657] 1 Kings xix. 1, בְּחָרֶב; LXX., ἐν ῥομφάιᾳ.

[658] Renan, Vie de Jésus, 100.

[659] Matt. xii. 19, 20; Isa. xlii. 2, 3; Ezek. xxxiv. 16.

[660] LXX., ὅτι φωνὴ τῶν ποδῶν τοῦ ὑετοῦ. Perhaps, with reference to this reading, Josephus afterwards describes "the little cloud" as "no bigger than a human footstep" (οὐ πλέον ἴχνους ἀνθρωπίνου).

[661] LXX., τῷ παιδαρίῳ αὐτοῦ.

[662] LXX., 1 Kings xviii. 45, Καὶ ἔκλαιε καὶ ἐπορεύετο Ἀχαὰβ ἕως Ιεζράελ.

[663] Menander of Ephesus (Josephus, Antt., VIII. xiii. 2).

[664] Eisenlohr, Das Volk Israel, p. 162.

[665] He refers to Gibbon, iv. 232.

[666] See Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brönte.

[667] LXX., 1 Kings xix. 2.

[668] The touch "which belongeth to Judah" shows that the Elijah-narrative emanated from some prophet in the northern schools. In later days it was much visited by pilgrims from the Northern Kingdom (Amos v. 5, viii. 14).

[669] Matt. xxvi. 36.

[670] 1 Kings xix. 4, 5, רֹתֶם אֵחָת; Vulg., subter unam juniperum. The plant is the Genista monosperma, with papilionaceous flowers. Not "juniper," as in Luther (Wachholder) and the A.V. LXX., ῥαθμὲν φύτον. See Robinson, Researches, i. 203, 205. It gave its name to the station Rithmah (Numb. xxxiii. 18) and the Wadies Retemît and Retâmah.

[671] Comp. Moses (Numb. xi. 15), Jonah (Jonah iv. 3).

[672] Pope's epitaph on Mrs. Elizabeth Corbet, in St. Margaret's Westminster.

[673] Jer. xx. 1-18.

[674] Psalm cii. 6, 8.

[675] Psalm xxxviii. 11, 12.

[676] Jer. v. 31, xxix. 9.

[677] John xvi. 32.

[678] Krummacher.

[679] The coals (reshaphim) for the cake (LXX., ἔγκρυφίας ὀλυρίτης; Vulg., subcinericius panis) were the dry twigs of the broom plant, still sold for that purpose in the markets of Cairo. Comp. Psalm cxx. 4; "coals of juniper."

[680] 1 Kings xix. 5. מַלְאָךְ means "a messenger," and in verse 2 is used of the messenger of Jezebel.

[681] Exod. xxxiii. 22.

[682] Bible Educator, iii. 135.

[683] The use of the plural, and the absence of any objections to an uncentralised worship, are proofs of the northern origin of the Elijah-episode.

[684] LXX., αὔριον; Josephus, Antt., VIII. xiii. 7; Comp. Exod. xxxiv. 2. It is hardly likely that the stupendous vision would follow instantly and without a moment's preparation.

[685] Deut. iv. 12, 15, (comp. v. 4, 22, 23). Of Moses, on the other hand, it is said, "the similitude of the Lord shall he behold" (Numb. xii. 8; Exod. xxxiii. 11; Deut. xxxiv. 10).

[686] מָקוֹם, τόπος, "place," was a sort of recognised euphemism for God in Rabbinic and Alexandrian exegesis. Thus, in Exod. xxiv. 10, for "they saw the God of Israel," the LXX. have εἷδον τὸν τόπον οὗ εἱστήκει ὁ θεός. Philo says, "God Himself is called Place" (De Somn., i. 525). Rabbi Isaac says, "God is not in Makom, but Makom is in God." See my Bampton Lectures on Hist. of Interpretation, p. 120; Early Days of Christianity, i. 261.

[687] Psalm civ. 4; Heb. i. 7. This intermediacy of angels is prominently alluded to in Acts vii. 53; Gal. iii. 19; Heb. ii. 2, 3; Deut. xxxiii. 2; Psalm lxviii. 17.

[688] The anthropomorphism which the Targumists disliked vanishes in the Chaldee: "And before Him was a host of angels of the wind rending the mountains, and breaking the rocks, before the Lord but the Shechinah was not in the hosts of the angels of the wind, and after the hosts of the angels of the wind was the host of the angel of the earthquake, etc."

[689] Job xxxviii. 1, xl. 6.

[690] Ezek. i. 4.

[691] Jer. xxiii. 19, 20, xxv. 32, xxx. 23.

[692] Psalms xviii. 10, civ. 3, 5.

[693] Nahum i. 3, 5.

[694] Psalm xviii. 7, lxxvii. 18, xcvii. 4; Judg. v. 4; 2 Sam. xxii. 8.

[695] Hab. iii. 3-16.

[696] 1 Kings xix. 12; LXX., φωνὴ αὔρας λεπτῆς; Vulg., Sibilus auræ tenuis; Chaldee, "a voice of angels singing in silence."

[697] Jehu was the grandson of Nimshi, and was the son of Jehoshaphat (2 Kings ix. 2).

[698] Isa. xi. 4, xlix. 2; comp. Jer. i. 10, xviii. 7.

[699] Comp. Rom. xii. 5. Kissing images was a sign of idolatry then as it is now. The foot of the statue of St. Peter in Rome is worn away with kisses. Hosea xiii. 2 tells us of the custom of kissing the calves. Comp. Psalm ii. 12. Cicero tells us that the lovely brazen statue of Hercules at Agrigentum had the mouth and chin partly worn away by the kisses of the devout (in Verr., iv. 43).

[700] Herder, who was a devout poet, and therefore a true imaginative interpreter of devout poetry, says: "The vision was to show the fiery zeal of the Prophet that would amend everything by the storm, the mild process of God, and proclaim His longsuffering tender nature as previously the voice did to Moses: hence the scene was so beautifully changed." Long before him the wise Theodoret had said: Διὰ δὲ τούτων ἔδειξεν ὅτι μακροθυμία καὶ φιλανθρωπία μόνη φίλη Θεῷ. Irenæus, still earlier (c. Hær., iv. 27), saw in the vision an emblem of the difference between the law and the gospel; and Grotius, following him, says, "Evangelii figuratio, quod non venit cum vento, terræ motu, et fulminibus ut lex," Exod. xix. 16 (see Keil, ad loc., whose illustrations are often valuable when his exegesis is false and obsolete).

[701] Psalm xviii. 7-9; comp. 2 Sam. xxii. 8-11.

[702] Isa. xiii. 13.

[703] Isa. xxix. 6; comp. Ecclus. xxxix. 28.

[704] W. S. Landor.

[705] 1 Kings iv. 12. It was in the north part of the Jordan valley.

[706] 1 Kings xix. 19.

[707] The Hebrew can hardly bear the meaning that he was finishing the twelfth furrow in his field, ploughed by his single yoke of oxen.

[708] For these particulars, and the following translations, see Dr. Ginsburg in Records of the Past, xi. 163; and Dr. Neubauer, id., New Series, ii. 194; The Moabite Stone, Second Edition (Reeves & Turner), 1871; Dr. Schlottmann, Die Sieggessaüle Mesas, 1870; Nöldeke, Die Inschrift der König Mesa, 1870; Stade, i. 534; Kittel, ii. 198, etc.

[709] Chemosh-Gad perhaps came to the throne in the fourth year of Omri, about b.c. 926, and reigned till the close of Ahaziah's reign (b.c. 896).

[710] Comp. 1 Sam. vii. 12.

[711] For it is indirectly mentioned that "his father" had taken cities from Omri.

[712] LXX., Exod. iii. 16.

[713] Comp. Josh. ix. 18; Judg. xi. 11.

[714] 1 Kings xx. 10. Elohim here, doubtless, means the false gods of Benhadad. Vat. LXX., ὁ θεός; but Chaldee, "the terrors."

[715] "Fanfaronnade, qui veut dire; je réduirai cette bicoque en poussière; j'ai avee moi plus de monde qu'il ne faudra pour l'emporter tout entière" (Reuss). Comp. Herod., viii. 226, where Dieneces answers the braggart vaunt of the Medes.

[716] Reuss renders it, "Ceignant n'est pas encore gaignant." The proverb resembles in different aspects the precept of Solon, τέρμα ὁρᾶν βιότοιο, and "Praise a fair day at night"; and the Italian, "Capo ha cosa fatta"; and the Latin, "Ne triumphum canas ante victoriam"; and the French, "Il ne faut pas vendre le peau de l'ours avant de l'avoir tué."

[717] A.V., "pavilions"; but the word (sukkoth) implies that they were temporary booths rather than tents. They resembled the birchwood pavilions made for the Turkish pachas in campaigns (Keil).

[718] A.V., "Set yourselves in array." LXX., οἰκοδομήσατε χάρακα; Vulg., circumdate civitatem.

[719] Now in the British Museum.

[720] 1 Kings xx. 14 (נַעָרִים).

[721] Jarchi—more Rabbinico—says that these were the seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal.

[722] 1 Kings xx. 20, LXX., καὶ ἐδευτέρωσεν ἒκαστος τὸν παῤ αὐτοῦ.

[723] Or, "pell-mell." The Hebrew in 1 Kings xx. 20 is, עַל־סוּס וּפָרָשִׁים, "on a horse with (some) horsemen." Klostermann would supply הוּא. Jonathan takes וּפָרָשִׁים as a dual—"and two riders with him"; LXX., ἐφ' ἵππων ἱππέων; Vulg., in equo cum equitibus suis; Luther, "sammt Rossen und Reitern."

[724] See 2 Sam. xi. 1. The custom of all countries in the ancient world was to devote the summer months only to campaigns. There were few or no standing armies, and the citizen-conscripts had to look after their farms, or the nation would have starved. The Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians introduced a gradual revolution in these respects.

[725] 1 Kings xx. 24. LXX., σατράπας.

[726] R.V., "and were victualled," not, as in A.V., "and were all present." Alex. LXX., διοικήθησαν; Vulg., acceptis cibariis.

[727] Why two? No explanation is given. It has been conjectured that Judah had sent a separate contingent to help them in their distress.

[728] Some have supposed that an earthquake occurred, and Canon Rawlinson mentions (Speaker's Commentary) that the earthquake of Lisbon is said to have destroyed sixty thousand persons in five minutes.

[729] חֶדֶר בְּחֶדֶר. Comp. for similar phrases, (Heb.) Lev. xxv. 53; Deut. xv. 20; 1 Kings xxii. 25; 2 Chron. xxviii. 26. Klostermann, with one of his amazing conjectures, reads "by the spring Harod in Harod"! LXX., εἰς τὸν οἶκον τοῦ κοιτῶνος, εἰς τὸ ταμεῖον; Vulg., in cubiculum quod erat intra cubiculum. Josephus makes it a cellar (εἰς ὑπόγαιον οἶκον ἐκρύβη), "like the modern serdaubs in which the inhabitants of many Eastern cities live in the summer" (Rawlinson).

[730] The accidental sigh of the engineer was sufficient to prevent the colossal Egyptian statue of a Pharaoh from being moved to its destination. Even Rome shared the immemorial superstition.

[731] Suet., Claud.

[732] xx. 33, יֲנִחֲשׁוּ, from נַחַשׁ, "an augury"; LXX., ἀνελέξαντο τὸν λόγον (οἰωνίσαντο); Vulg., quod acceperunt viri pro omine.

[733] Layard, Nineveh, 317-19.

[734] The compact is vainly dignified with the name of a בְרִית, or "covenant."

[735] חֻצֹות. Compare the Lombard Streets, and the Jewries in London and Paris.

[736] Clericus says, rightly: "Factum Ahabi, quamvis clementiæ speciem præ se ferret, non erat veræ clementiæ, quæ non est erga latrones exercenda; qui si dimittantur multo magis nocebunt."

[737] The object and necessity of this for his purpose is by no means apparent. Perhaps it was to figure the wound which Ahab had by his conduct wilfully inflicted on himself or on Israel.

[738] Verse 38. This, and not "with ashes upon his face," is the meaning of the Hebrew אֲפֵר. LXX., τελαμών, "a headband"; Vulg., aspersione pulveris; and so, too, Peshito, Aquila, and Symmachus.

[739] 1 Kings xx. 39. שַׂר in the sense of סַר, according to Ewald's reading.

[740] About £350. Evidently, therefore, the captive is supposed to be a very important person.

[741] אִישׁ חֵרְמִי.

[742] סַר וְזָעֵף; Vulg., indignans, et frendens, a phrase only used of Ahab (xxi. 4-5). Josephus (Antt., XIII. xv. 5) says that Ahab imprisoned and punished the prophet, whom, with the Rabbis, he identifies with Micaiah.

[743] Zech. xiii. 4.

[744] On this defection and imposture of prophets, see Jer. xxiii. 21-40. Isa. xxx. 9, 10; Ezek. xiii. 7-9; Micah ii. 11; Deut. xviii. 20.

[745] Jer. xxii. 17.

[746] De Gubernat. Dei., viii.; Ambrose, Ep., xli.; Cassian, De Instit. Monastic. passim. See chap. xvi. of my Lives of the Fathers (St. Jerome), and Zöckler, Gesch. der Askese, for many authorities.

[747] See my Lives of the Fathers, vol. i. (St. Martin of Tours).

[748] See Jer. xxiii. 20-40.

[749] The Alex. LXX. throughout calls Naboth "an Israelite," not "a Jezreelite."

[750] Both the Hebrew text of 1 Kings xxi. 1 and Josephus (Antt., XIII. xv. 6) locate the vineyard of Naboth at Jezreel. The LXX., however, place it apparently near the threshing-floor of Ahab in Samaria (παρὰ τῇ ἅλῳ Ἀχαὰβ βασίλεως Σαμαρείας), which is the same as the "void place" of 1 Kings xxii. 10. At both cities Ahab's palace was on the city wall, and on either supposition Naboth's vineyard was close by the palace.

[751] Lev. xxv. 23, "The land shall not be sold for ever, for the land is Mine." Numb. xxxvi. 7; Ezek. xlvi. 18.

[752] 2 Sam. xxiv. 24; 1 Kings xvi. 24.

[753] The word rendered "sad" is rendered "mutinous" by Thenius.

[754] LXX., 1 Kings xxi. 7, Σὺ νῦν οὓτως ποιεῖς βασιλέα ἐπὶ Ισραήλ·

[755] The signet was carved with the king's name. Rawlinson aptly compares Lady Macbeth's "Infirm of purpose give me the daggers!"

[756] Josephus calls it an ἐκκλησία. "Set Naboth on high" (Heb.) "at the head of the people"; LXX., ἐν ἀρχῇ τοῦ λαοῦ; Vulg., inter primos populi.

[757] The charge was that "he cursed God and the king." LXX. (by euphemism), εὐλόγησε; Vulg., Benedixit. The Hebrew word has both meanings (comp. Exod. xxii. 28, where some would render Elohim not "God," but "the judges." See marg. of R.V.). Stoning was the punishment of blasphemy (Lev. xxiv. 16), and took place outside the city (Acts vii. 58).

[758] 2 Kings ix. 26.

[759] 2 Sam. xvi. 4.

[760] In 1 Kings xxi. 16 the LXX. curiously says, that "when Ahab heard that Naboth was dead he rent his garments, and clothed himself in sackcloth; and after this he also arose," etc. This mourning for the means but acceptance of the fact would not be in disaccord with Ahab's moral weakness.

[761] 2 Kings ix. 25, 36.

[762] LXX.

[763] 2 Kings ix. 36. LXX., ἐν τῷ προτειχίσματι. The חֵל of an Eastern city is the desert space outside the walls where the "pariah dogs prowl on the mounds."

[764] אַט, LXX., κλαίων; Josephus, Chaldee, and Peshito, "shoeless."

[765] 1 Kings xxi. 27. καὶ περιεβάλετο σάκκον ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ᾗ ἐπάταξε Ναβουθαί.

[766] Psalm cix. 17, 18.

[767] 2 Chron. xviii. 2.

[768] 2 Kings iii. 7.

[769] 1 Kings xxii. 10 (Peshito).

[770] The LXX. has, "The Lord shall deliver into thy hands even the king of Syria." At first they all said, "Adonai shall deliver it"; but afterwards, perhaps stung by the doubts of Jehoshaphat, or encouraged by the audacity of Zedekiah, they said, "Jehovah shall deliver it."

[771] Deut. xxxiii. 17. "His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people altogether to the ends of the earth."

[772] The LXX., omitting "besides," implies Jehoshaphat's opinion that these were not true prophets of Jehovah. So, too, the Vulg., "Non est hic propheta Domini quispiam?"

[773] Compare Agamemnon's bitter complaint of Calchas.

[774] 1 Kings xxii. 9. LXX., εὐνοῦχον ἔνα. And this is probably the meaning of סָרִיס, not "officer," as in A.V.

[775] For he had seventy sons, besides daughters (2 Kings x. 7)

[776] The words implied that the king would fall, though the army would escape (1 Kings xxii. 17, בְּשָׁלוֹם). Comp. Numb. xxvii. 16, 17 "Let the Lord ... set a man over the congregation, ... who may lead them out and in; that the congregation of the Lord be not as sheep which have no shepherd."

[777] Theodoret explains it as anthropomorphism, and condescension to human modes of speech (προσωποποιΐα τίς ἐστι διδάσκουσα τὴν θείαν συγχώρησιν).

[778] 1 Kings xxii. 21. It is "the," not "a" spirit, i.e., the unclean spirit of deception (τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς πλάνης, 1 John iv. 6). Comp. Zech. xiii. 2, "Also I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land." St. Paul says in 2 Thess. ii. 11: "God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe the lie."

[779] The worst of insults (Job xvi. 10; Lam. iii. 30).

[780] The words (verse 28) "And he said, Hearken, O people, every one of you," are believed by Nöldeke, Klostermann, and others to be an interpolation from Micah i. 2, by some one who confused Micaiah with Micah. They are omitted in the LXX.

[781] We have no reason to accuse Ahab of any bad or selfish motives here. No doubt Micaiah's prophecy of his approaching death had made him anxious. If the LXX. reading, "but put thou on my robes," were right, the case would be different.

[782] We see in this order a trace of the single combats which mark the Homeric battles.

[783] 2 Chron. xviii. 31: "And the Lord helped him, and God moved them from him."

[784] So Jarchi. Josephus calls him Aman.

[785] 1 Kings xxii. 34. "At a venture"; marg., "in his simplicity"; comp. 2 Sam. xv. 11.

[786] What the French call le défaut de la cuirasse (Keil). Luther has, zwischen den Panzer und Hengel.

[787] Josephus, Antt., VIII. xv. 6.

[788] Köster thinks that there may be reference to the fact that the name "dog" was given to the unchaste.

[789] Amos iii. 15; Psalm xlv. 8; Hom., Od., iv. 72.

[790] It is supposed that Mohammed alludes to Elijah in the Qur'an, Sura xxi. 85: "And Ishmael, and Idris, and Dhu'l Kifl ("he of the portion")—all these were of the patient; and we made them enter into our mercy; verily they were among the righteous" (Palmer's Qur'an, ii. 53).

[791] See W. Robertson Smith, Journ. of Philology, x. 20.

[792] See Reuss, Hist. d'Israel, i. 101-103.

Transcriber's Notes:

Obvious punctuation and spelling errors have been fixed throughout. Inconsistent hyphenation left as in the original text. Page 27: The reign of Josiah was listed as A.D. 621, this was actually B.C. 621, corrected. Page 27: The sentence beginning "Thus from the Exodus..." originally said "Thus from the Exile...". The sentence was changed to be historically accurate. Footnote 13: There was a missing verse reference for 2 Kings xvi. Corrected to be 2 Kings xvi. 2. Footnote 29: There was no anchor for this footnote. Left as in the original text.