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The
Expositor's Bible
Edited by
W. Robertson Nicoll, D.D., LL.D.
[Illustration]
THE EXPOSITORS' BIBLE
_Edited by_ W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, D.D., LL.D.
_New and Cheaper Edition. Printed from original plates
Complete in every detail. Uniform with this volume_
Price 50 cents per volume. (If by mail add 10 cents postage)
OLD TESTAMENT VOLUMES
GENESIS. By Rev. Prof. Marcus Dods, D.D.
EXODUS. By Very Rev. G. A. Chadwick, D.D., Dean of Armagh.
LEVITICUS. By Rev. S. H. Kellogg, D.D.
NUMBERS. By Rev. R. A. Watson, D.D.
DEUTERONOMY. By Rev. Prof. Andrew Harper, B.D.
JOSHUA. By Rev. Prof. W. G. Blaikie, D.D., LL.D.
JUDGES AND RUTH. By Rev. R. A. Watson, D.D.
FIRST SAMUEL. By Rev. Prof. W. G. Blaikie, D.D., LL.D.
SECOND SAMUEL. By same author.
FIRST KINGS. By F. W. Farrar, D.D., Dean of Canterbury.
SECOND KINGS. By same author.
FIRST AND SECOND CHRONICLES. By Rev. Prof. W. H. Bennett.
EZRA, NEHEMIAH, AND ESTHER. By Rev. Prof. W. F. Adeney.
JOB. By Rev. R. A. Watson, D.D.
PSALMS. In 3 vols. Vol. I., Chapters I.-XXXVIII.; Vol. II., Chapters
XXXIX.-LXXXIX.; Vol. III., Chapters XC.-CL. By Rev.
Alexander Maclaren, D.D.
PROVERBS. By Rev. R. F. Horton, D.D.
ECCLESIASTES. By Rev. Samuel Cox, D.D.
SONG OF SOLOMON and LAMENTATIONS. By Rev. Prof. W. F. Adeney.
ISAIAH. In 2 vols. Vol. I., Chapters I.-XXXIX.; Vol. II.,
Chapters XL.-LXVI. By Prof. George Adam Smith, D.D., LL.D.
JEREMIAH. Chapters I.-XX. With a Sketch of his Life and Times. By
Rev. C. J. Ball.
JEREMIAH. Chapters XXI.-LII. By Rev. Prof. W. H. Bennett.
EZEKIEL. By Rev. Prof. John Skinner.
DANIEL. By F. W. FARRAR, D.D., Dean of Canterbury.
THE TWELVE (Minor) PROPHETS. In 2 vols. By Rev. George Adam Smith,
D.D., LL.D.
NEW TESTAMENT VOLUMES
ST. MATTHEW. By Rev. J. Monro Gibson, D.D.
ST. MARK. By Very Rev. G. A. Chadwick, D.D., Dean of Armagh.
ST. LUKE. By Rev. Henry Burton.
GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN. In 2 vols. Vol. I., Chapters I.-XI.; Vol. II.,
Chapters XII.-XXI. By Rev. Prof. Marcus Dods, D.D.
THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. In 2 vols. By Rev. Prof. G. T. Stokes, D.D.
ROMANS. By Rev. Handley C. G. Moule, D.D.
FIRST CORINTHIANS. By Rev. Prof. Marcus Dods, D.D.
SECOND CORINTHIANS. By Rev. James Denney, D.D.
GALATIANS. By Rev. Prof. G. G. Findlay, D.D.
EPHESIANS. By same author.
PHILIPPIANS. By Rev. Principal Robert Rainy, D.D.
COLOSSIANS and PHILEMON. By Rev. Alexander Maclaren, D.D.
THESSALONIANS. By Rev. James Denney, D.D.
PASTORAL EPISTLES. By Rev. A. Plummer, D.D.
HEBREWS. By Rev. Principal T. C. Edwards, D.D.
ST. JAMES and ST. JUDE. By Rev. A. Plummer, D.D.
ST. PETER. By Rev. Prof. J. Rawson Lumby, D.D.
EPISTLES OF ST. JOHN. By Rt. Rev. W. Alexander, Lord Bishop of Derry.
REVELATION. By Prof. W. Milligan, D.D.
INDEX VOLUME TO ENTIRE SERIES.
_New York_: HODDER & STOUGHTON, _Publishers_
THE
SECOND BOOK OF KINGS
BY
F. W. Farrar, D.D., F.R.S.
LATE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE; ARCHDEACON OF
WESTMINSTER
HODDER & STOUGHTON
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
AHAZIAH BEN-AHAB OF ISRAEL (B.C. 855-854) 3
A weak, shadowy, and faithless king--1. Relations between Judah and
Israel--2. Alliance with Jehoshaphat--3. Revolt of Moab--Mesha and
the Moabite Stone--4. The fall from the lattice--Baal-Zebub--Elijah
calling down fire from heaven--How are we to judge respecting the
Elijah-spirit?--Variations of moral standard.
CHAPTER II
THE ASCENSION OF ELIJAH 19
Uncertain date--The journey to Gilgal; to Bethel; to Jericho; to
the Jordan--The double portion--Chariot and horses of fire--Elisha
recrosses the Jordan--The young prophets and their
search--Grandeur of Elijah.
CHAPTER III
ELISHA 25
Cycle of supernatural stories--Elisha and Elijah--The cure of the
unwholesome fountain--"Go up, thou bald-head"--The children and
the bears.
CHAPTER IV
THE INVASION OF MOAB 29
Death of Ahaziah--Jehoram Ben-Ahab of Israel--Good
beginnings--Attempts to recover Moab--Alliance with Judah and
Edom--The invasion--An army perishing of
thirst--Elisha--Music--Trenches in the wâdy--Error of the
Moabites--Their disastrous rout--Devastation of the
country--Mesha propitiates Chemosh--"Great wrath against
Israel"--The invading army retreats.
CHAPTER V
ELISHA'S MIRACLES 40
Their chronological vagueness--Difference between Elisha and
Elijah--Contrasts and resemblances--Social life in Israel--1. The
widow and the oil--2. The lady of Shunem--Her hospitality--Her
reward--3. The boy's death--Her distress--The resuscitation--4.
Death in the pot--5. The multiplied first-fruits.
CHAPTER VI
THE STORY OF NAAMAN 50
The little maid--The leper--Letter of Benhadad to Jehoram--His
indignation--Elisha's message--Naaman's disappointment and
anger--His servants--His healing--His gratitude--Bowing in the
house of Rimmon--Mean cupidity of Gehazi--Stricken with
leprosy--The axe-head.
CHAPTER VII
ELISHA AND THE SYRIANS 66
Syrian marauders--They are baffled--Anger of Benhadad--The vision
at Dothan--Meaning of the promises--How fulfilled to God's saints
on earth--Some are delivered, some are not--Elisha misleads the
Syrians--His generosity to them--Its effects--A fresh Syrian
invasion.
CHAPTER VIII
THE FAMINE AND THE SIEGE 76
Horrible straits of the besieged Samaritans--Stress of famine--The
King of Israel--The miserable women--Sackcloth under the
purple--The king's fury and despair--He threatens Elisha--The
messenger--The king upbraids him--Prophecy of sudden plenty--The
disbelieving lord--The extramural lepers--The Syrian camp--The
king's misgivings--The lord killed in the rush of the people.
CHAPTER IX
THE SHUNAMMITE AND HAZAEL 87
The lady of Shunem leaves her estate--Her return--Gehazi talks with
the king--Entrance of the Shunammite--Her estates restored--Elisha
visits Damascus--A royal present--Benhadad's illness--Hazael--The
dark prophecy--Unexplained death of Benhadad--Hazael's
usurpation--Real meaning of Elisha's words to Hazael.
CHAPTER X
TWO SONS OF JEHOSHAPHAT 99
Jehoram (B.C. 851-843)--Ahaziah (B.C. 843-842)--Jehoram
ben-Jehoshaphat of Judah--Perplexing uncertainty of minute
chronological details--The blight of the Jezebel-alliance--The
husband of Athaliah--His apostasies--Revolt of Edom--Narrow escape
of Jehoram--Revolt of Libnah--Jehoram's murder by his
brethren--Philistine invasion--Incurable disease--Ahaziah
ben-Jehoram--Joins his uncle (Jehoram ben-Ahab) in the campaign
against Ramoth-Gilead--Visits him at Jezreel--Shot down by Jehu.
CHAPTER XI
THE REVOLT OF JEHU (B.C. 842) 106
Misery of Jehoram's reign--Thwarted invasion of Moab--Aggression
of Benhadad--At Ramoth-Gilead--The young prophet--The two kings
absent from the camp--The dangerous commission--The assembled
captains--Jehu secretly anointed--His accession enthusiastically
welcomed by the army--His sudden enthronement--His swift
resolution--The watchman at Jezreel--The two horsemen--The two
kings--Their murder--Ferocity of Jehu--Elijah's
prophecy--Jezebel--She is hurled down--Jehu drives over her
body--The curse fulfilled.
CHAPTER XII
JEHU ESTABLISHED ON THE THRONE (B.C. 842-814) 125
His politic subtlety--The murder of the seventy princes--The
ghastly heaps--Hypocritic ferocity.
CHAPTER XIII
FRESH MURDERS--THE EXTIRPATION OF BAAL-WORSHIP (B.C. 842) 131
Wading through blood to a throne--The ride to Samaria--The brethren
of Ahaziah of Judah--The corpse-choked tank of the shepherds--The
Bedawy ascetic--The scene of slaughter in the temple of Baal--Did
Elisha approve of these atrocities?--Prophetic judgment on
Jehu--Ravages of Hazael--Jehu's anguish--He pays tribute to Assyria.
CHAPTER XIV
ATHALIAH (B.C. 842-836)--JOASH OF JUDAH (B.C. 836-796) 146
The murderess-daughter of Jezebel--Fierce ambition--Jehosheba--The
rescued child--Reared in the Temple--The high priest's plot--The
coronation of the boy-king--Athaliah enters the Temple--Her
murder--The fate of Baal's high priest--Proposed restoration of
the Temple--Joash calls to task the defaulting priests--Death of
Jehoiada--Defection of Joash--Murder of Zechariah--Bad record of
the line of Jewish priests--Hazael attacks Judah--Defeat of Joash
and plunder of Jerusalem--Murder of Joash--Names of the murderers.
CHAPTER XV
AMAZIAH OF JUDAH (B.C. 796-783[?]) 167
The House of David--Amaziah brings to justice the murderers of his
father, but spares their children--Grounds for this--Different
views taken of him by the historian and the chronicler--Splendid
victory of Amaziah in the Valley of Salt--Expansion of the story
in the Chronicles--His defiance of Joash--His defeat and murder.
CHAPTER XVI
THE DYNASTY OF JEHU--JEHOAHAZ (B.C. 814-797)--JOASH
(B.C. 797-781) 175
Israel at its nadir--Calf-worship--Oppression of
Hazael--Disappearance of Elisha--Repentance of Jehoahaz--Joash of
Israel visits the death-bed of Elisha--"The arrow of the Lord's
deliverance"--Three victories over the Syrians--Death of Elisha,
and posthumous marvels--Joash and Amaziah--Contemptuous answer to
the King of Judah--Crushing defeat of Judah.
CHAPTER XVII
THE DYNASTY OF JEHU (CONTINUED)--JEROBOAM II. (B.C. 781-740) 187
Jeroboam II. the greatest of the kings of Israel--His conquests
and wide dominion--A dying gleam of prosperity--Cause of his
success--Relations with Assyria--Dawn of written prophecy--Jonah.
CHAPTER XVIII
AMOS AND HOSEA--ZACHARIAH BEN-JEROBOAM (B.C. 740) 193
Amos describes the condition of Israel--Growth of usury and
vice--Humble origin of Amos--His burdens--Degenerations of the
"calf-worship"--Uncompromising denunciation--Collision of Amos
with Amaziah the high priest at Bethel--His expulsion from
Bethel--The curse denounced--His justification of his
mission--Hosea the saddest of the prophets--His pictures of
Ephraim--Jeroboam II.--His death--His son Zachariah--His
desertion and shameful end.
CHAPTER XIX
UZZIAH OF JUDAH (B.C. 783[?]-737)--JOTHAM (B.C. 737-735) 209
Wane of Assyria--Uzziah a wise and good king--His other name
Azariah--Expansion of the story of his conquests in the
Chronicles--Training of his army--Defeated by the Assyrians
(?)--Stricken with leprosy--The story--Jotham acts as his public
representative--Diminished power of Judah under Jotham--Beginning
of Isaiah's prophecies--Death of Jotham.
CHAPTER XX
THE AGONY OF THE NORTHERN KINGDOM--SHALLUM, MENAHEM, PEKAHIAH,
PEKAH (B.C. 740-734) 217
Shallum, an usurping murderer--Rapid disappearance of
kings--Distracted epoch--The prophet Zechariah and the three
shepherds--Zechariah's prophecies--The cruel shepherd,
Menahem--His savage deeds--Portentous appearance of the Assyrians
in Israel--Menahem pays tribute--Tiglath-Pileser--Fulfilment of
Hosea's prophecy--Pekahiah--His murder--Pekah--His alliance with
Rezin against Judah--Ahaz appeals to Assyria--Defeat and death of
Rezin--Fulfilment of prophecy of Amos--Beginning of the captivity
of the Ten Tribes--Tiglath-Pileser's successors--Murder of Pekah
by Hoshea--Horrible state of Israel as described by Isaiah.
CHAPTER XXI
KING HOSHEA AND THE FALL OF THE NORTHERN KINGDOM (B.C.
734-725) 235
The name Hoshea--The king and the prophet--Occasional gleams of hope
and promise--A humiliating reign--Death of Tiglath-Pileser--Hoshea
revolts to Sabaco of Egypt--Seized by Shalmaneser--Samaria
besieged--Terrible state of the city--Sabaco renders no
help--Usurpation of Sargon--Capture of the city--Greatness of
Sargon--Fall of the Northern Kingdom--Blighted destiny--God's
mercy--"God, and not man"--Despoliation of the tribes--Moral of the
story--Assyria and Egypt--The strength and weakness of a
nation--Machiavelli--Mixture of alien emigrants--Their worship--The
lions--Strange syncretism--The Jews and the Samaritans.
CHAPTER XXII
THE REIGN OF AHAZ (B.C. 735-715) 260
The chronology--A distracted kingdom--Dark pictures from
Isaiah--No sign of repentance--Grapes and wild grapes.
CHAPTER XXIII
ISAIAH AND AHAZ 265
Isaiah--Rezin and Pekah--Ahaz meets Isaiah--He receives a promise of
deliverance--He refuses a sign--The sign given him--Immanuel--Birth
of Messianic prophecy--Maher-shalal-hash-baz--The promised
Deliverer.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE APOSTASIES OF AHAZ 273
Moloch-worship--Sacrifice of children--Ahaz appeals to Assyria for
help--Ruin of Damascus and death of Rezin--Ahaz does homage to
Tiglath-Pileser at Damascus--Records of Tiglath-Pileser--The new
altar--Complaisance of the priest Urijah--Unpopularity of
Ahaz--Further misgivings--His death.
CHAPTER XXV
HEZEKIAH (B.C. 715-686) 287
Dates--Importance of the reign--Hezekiah's age--His character--His
reformation--Partial suppression of the _bamoth_--Removal of the
_matstseboth_ and _Asherim_--Destruction of the brazen
serpent--Trust in Jehovah--Psalm xlvi.--Chastisement of the
Philistines--Three parties in Jerusalem--1. The Assyrian party--2.
The Egyptian party--3. The national party--Its attitude to the
others--Micah--Mockery of Egypt--Anger and insults of the priests
against Isaiah--Confidence of Isaiah--Waverings of Hezekiah.
CHAPTER XXVI
HEZEKIAH'S SICKNESS--THE BABYLONIAN EMBASSY 305
The story of Hezekiah's illness misplaced--At the point of
death--Isaiah's message--The king's agony of mind--The prayer--The
reprieve--The sun-dial of Ahaz--The king's gratitude and
thanksgiving--Merodach-Baladan--Rising power of Babylon--Object of
the embassy--The king's action--The prophet's reproof--The king's
humble submission.
CHAPTER XXVII
HEZEKIAH AND ASSYRIA (B.C. 701) 319
Greatness of Sargon--His campaigns--Defeat of Egypt at the battle
of Raphia--Ashdod--Defeat of Merodach-Baladan--Grandeur of
Sennacherib--His invasion of Judæa--Earlier collisions--His
campaigns--1. Against Babylon--2. Against Elam--3. Against the
Hittites and Philistines--Defeat of the Ethiopian Tirhakah at
Altaqu--Heavy mulct imposed on Hezekiah--Siege of
Lachish--Sennacherib breaks his compact--Distress of Jerusalem.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE GREAT DELIVERANCE (B.C. 701) 331
Embassy of the Turtan, the Rabsaris, and the Rabshakeh--Misery and
licence in the city--The conference--Oration of the Rabshakeh--Its
effect on the king's ministers and on the people--Taunting insults
of the Rabshakeh--Faithfulness and self-control of the
people--Heroic faith of Isaiah--Failure of the
embassy--Sennacherib's threatening letter--Hezekiah's
prayer--Isaiah promises deliverance in the name of Jehovah--The
sign--The angel of death--Scene of the catastrophe--The Egyptian
tradition of Sethos and the mice--Death and burial of
Hezekiah--The campaign as recorded on the Assyrian monuments--The
triumph of indomitable faith--Grandeur of Isaiah--Wane of
Assyria--Beautiful tolerance of Isaiah.
CHAPTER XXIX
MANASSEH (B.C. 686-641) 351
The name Manasseh--His tender age--Influence of evil
counsellors--Heathenising party--Their dislike of Hezekiah's
reformation and of the exclusive worship of Jehovah--Tendency to
trust in sacrifices and asceticism--Sanctification of
licence--Arguments of the heathenisers--Disparagement of the work
of Isaiah--Doubts and disbelief--Influence of the
_bamoth_-priests--Reliance on Assyria--The immoral and idolatrous
reaction--1. Restoration of the _bamoth_, and arguments in their
favour--2. Adoption of Phœnician nature-worship--3. Assyrian
Sabaism and star-worship--Connivance of the priests--4. Canaanite
Moloch-worship--5. Mesopotamian Shamanism--6. The
_Asherah_--Denunciation of the prophets--Persecution and the
shedding of innocent blood--Asserted captivity, repentance, and
reforming energy of Manasseh--Difficulties of the story--Reign of
Amon (B.C. 641-639)--Wretchedness of his reign--Zephaniah and
Jeremiah--Murder of Amon.
CHAPTER XXX
JOSIAH (B.C. 639-608) 374
Three vast movements--Jeremiah's earlier prophecies--The state of
society--The Scythians--Prophecies of Ezekiel--Herodotus--The fate
of Nineveh--Rise of the Chaldæans--Habakkuk.
CHAPTER XXXI
JOSIAH'S REFORMATION 385
Growth of Josiah's character--Repairs of the Temple--Hilkiah finds
the Book of the Law--Intense effect produced on mind of the
king--His message to the prophetess Huldah--Great
assembly--Renewal of a solemn league and covenant with
Jehovah--The _bamoth_-priests degraded--Defiling of Tophet--He
carries the reformation into Samaria--Its stringency and
severity--The Passover--Suppression of heathen
corruptions--Jeremiah's share in the reformation--Its dangers and
disappointing results--Jeremiah's warnings against all trust in
externals--The prophecy of a new covenant--NOTE TO CHAPTER XXXI.:
The Book found in the Temple.
CHAPTER XXXII
THE DEATH OF JOSIAH (B.C. 608) 402
Prosperity and happiness of Josiah--Accession of the great Pharaoh
Necho II.--His excursion against Carchemish--Josiah determines to
bar his path--Warnings of Pharaoh Necho--Disaster at Megiddo and
death of Josiah--Mistaken hopes--God's dealings with men and
nations--Distress among Josiah's subjects--The king's
burial--Misgivings respecting the future--Sorrow of
Jeremiah--Ultimate fulfilments.
CHAPTER XXXIII
JEHOAHAZ (B.C. 608) 411
Four sons of Josiah--Shallum chosen by the people of the land--Elegy
of Ezekiel--Change of name from Shallum to Jehoahaz--Conquests of
Pharaoh Necho II.--Jehoahaz summoned to Riblah--Carried captive by
Pharaoh to Egypt--Tribute imposed on Judæa.
CHAPTER XXXIV
JEHOIAKIM (B.C. 608-597) 416
Eliakim--His change of name--Ignored by Ezekiel--Evil
influences--Æsthetic selfishness and oppressive
greed--Denunciation by Habakkuk--Denunciation by Jeremiah--Murder
of Urijah--Threatened murder of Jeremiah averted by Ahikam--Fall
of Nineveh--Utterances of the prophets--Rise of the
Chaldæans--Nabopolassar--Defeat of Pharaoh Necho by
Nebuchadrezzar--His return to Babylon--His invasion of
Judæa--Beginning of the Babylonian captivity--Jehoiakim revolts to
Egypt in spite of Jeremiah's warnings--Imprisonment of
Jeremiah--Baruch--The menacing roll--Alarm of the princes--Rage of
the king--He cuts the scroll to pieces and burns it--Wretchedness
of the times--A great drought--Captives of Jerusalem--Miserable
death of Jehoiakim--"That which was found in him."
CHAPTER XXXV
JEHOIACHIN (B.C. 597) 431
Bad influence over him--His brief reign--Allusions to him by
Jeremiah at Jerusalem--Second captivity--Regret felt for
Jehoiachin--Did he die childless?
CHAPTER XXXVI
ZEDEKIAH, THE LAST KING OF JUDAH (B.C. 597-586) 437
His oath to the King of Assyria--Ezekiel's prophecies--The exiles
and the remnant--Weakness of Zedekiah--Continuance of idolatry as
described by Ezekiel--The king breaks his oath with
Assyria--Indignation and warnings of Jeremiah--The false prophet
Hananiah--The wooden and iron yokes--Death of Hananiah--False
prophets--The broken covenant--Advance of
Nebuchadrezzar--Belomancy and Babylonian divinations--Siege of
Jerusalem--Gloom of Jeremiah's prophecies.
CHAPTER XXXVII
JEREMIAH AND HIS PROPHECIES 449
Pathos of Jeremiah's lot--The sad epoch in which he
lived--Religious changes--Arrest of Jeremiah--Progress of the
siege--Zedekiah sends for the prophet--His hardships
alleviated--Horrors of famine--Wicked defiance--A sudden
death--Anger of the priests and nobles against Jeremiah--He is
thrust into a miry pit--Compassion of Ebed-Melech--Purchase of a
field at Anathoth--Secret interview with Zedekiah--It becomes
known--Distress of Zedekiah.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE FALL OF JERUSALEM (B.C. 586) 457
Nebuzaradan and the Babylonians--The final captivity--Dreadful
fate of Zedekiah--Prophecies of Ezekiel and Jeremiah--Sack of the
city--Massacre of the chief inhabitants--Burning of the city and
Temple--Desolation--Respect shown by the Babylonian general to
Jeremiah--He decides to remain with the remnant in Judæa.
CHAPTER XXXIX
GEDALIAH (B.C. 586) 465
Sad parting from the exiles--The wail at Ramah--Gedaliah's
appointment as satrap perhaps due to Jeremiah--Desolation of
Jerusalem--The seat of government removed to Mizpah--A respite and
a gleam of hope--Guerilla bands--Johanan warns Gedaliah against
Ishmael--Unsuspecting generosity of the governor--He receives
Ishmael and his confederates with hospitality--He is brutally
murdered--Massacre of the pilgrims from Shiloh--The horrible
well--Johanan pursues Ishmael--His escape--Proposal to migrate to
Egypt--Jeremiah consulted--His advice refused--Prophecy of
Jeremiah at the khan of Chimham--Kindness shown by Evil-Merodach
to Jehoiachin.
EPILOGUE 477
The interest of the preceding history and the great moral lessons
which it involves--The central conceptions of Hebrew prophecy--The
end of the whole matter.
APPENDIX I
THE KINGS OF ASSYRIA, AND SOME OF THEIR INSCRIPTIONS 487
APPENDIX II
INSCRIPTION IN THE TUNNEL OF THE POOL OF SILOAM 493
APPENDIX III
WAS THERE A GOLDEN CALF AT DAN? 494
APPENDIX IV
DATES OF THE KINGS OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH, AS GIVEN BY KITTEL AND
OTHER MODERN CRITICS 495
THE SECOND BOOK OF KINGS
"Theories of inspiration which impaginate the Everlasting Spirit, and
make each verse a cluster of objectless and mechanical miracles, are
not seriously believed by any one: the Bible itself abides in its
endless power and unexhausted truth. All that is not of asbestos is
being burned away by the restless fires of thought and criticism. That
which remains is enough, and it is indestructible."--BISHOP OF DERRY.
CHAPTER I
_AHAZIAH BEN-AHAB OF ISRAEL_
B.C. 855-854
2 KINGS i. 1-18
"Ye know not of what spirit are ye."--LUKE ix. 55.
"He is the mediator of a better covenant, which hath been enacted
upon better promises."--HEB. viii. 6.
Ahaziah, the eldest son and successor of Ahab, has been called "the most
shadowy of the Israelitish kings."[1] He seems to have been in all
respects one of the most weak, faithless, and deplorably miserable. He
did but reign two years--perhaps in reality little more than one; but
this brief space was crowded with intolerable disasters. Everything that
he touched seemed to be marked out for ruin or failure, and in character
he showed himself a true son of Jezebel and Ahab.
What results followed the defeat of Ahab and Jehoshaphat at
Ramoth-Gilead we are not told. The war must have ended in terms of
peace of some kind--perhaps in the cession of Ramoth-Gilead; for
Ahaziah does not seem to have been disturbed during his brief reign by
any Syrian invasion. Nor were there any troubles on the side of Judah.
Ahaziah's sister was the wife of Jehoshaphat's heir, and the good
understanding between the two kingdoms was so closely cemented, that
in both royal houses there was an identity of names--two Ahaziahs and
two Jehorams.
But even the Judæan alliance was marked with misfortune. Jehoshaphat's
prosperity and ambition, together with his firm dominance over
Edom--in which country he had appointed a vassal, who was sometimes
allowed the courtesy title of king[2]--led him to emulate Solomon by
an attempt to revive the old maritime enterprise which had astonished
Jerusalem with ivory, and apes, and peacocks imported from India. He
therefore built "ships of Tarshish" at Ezion-Geber to sail to Ophir.
They were called "Tarshish-ships," because they were of the same build
as those which sailed to Tartessus, in Spain, from Joppa. Ahaziah was
to some extent associated with him in the enterprise. But it turned
out even more disastrously than it had done in former times. So
unskilled was the seamanship of those days among all nations except
the Phœnicians, that the whole fleet was wrecked and shattered to
pieces in the very harbour of Ezion-Geber before it had set sail.
Ahaziah, whose affinity with the King of Tyre and possession of some
of the western ports had given his subjects more knowledge of ships
and voyages, then proposed to Jehoshaphat that the vessels should be
manned with sailors from Israel as well as Judah. But Jehoshaphat was
tired of a futile and expensive effort. He refused a partnership which
might easily lead to complications, and on which the prophets of
Jehovah frowned. It was the last attempt made by the Israelites to
become merchants by sea as well as by land.
Ahaziah's brief reign was marked by one immense humiliation. David, who
extended the dominion of the Hebrews in all directions, had smitten the
Moabites, and inflicted on them one of the horrible atrocities against
which the ill-instructed conscience of men in those days of ignorance
did not revolt.[3] He had made the male warriors lie on the ground, and
then, measuring them by lines, he put every two lines to death and kept
one alive. After this the Moabites had continued to be tributaries. They
had fallen to the share of the Northern Kingdom, and yearly acknowledged
the suzerainty of Israel by paying a heavy tribute of the fleeces of a
hundred thousand lambs and a hundred thousand rams. But now that the
warrior Ahab was dead, and Israel had been crushed by the catastrophe at
Ramoth-Gilead, Mesha, the energetic viceroy of Moab, seized his
opportunity to revolt and to break from the neck of his people the
odious yoke. The revolt was entirely successful. The sacred historian
gives us no details, but one of the most priceless of modern
archæological discoveries has confirmed the Scriptural reference by
securing and translating a fragment of Mesha's own account of the
annals of his reign. We have, in what is called "The Moabite Stone," the
memorial written in glorification of himself and of his god Chemosh,
"the abomination of the children of Ammon," by a contemporary of Ahab
and Jehoshaphat.[4] It is the oldest specimen which we possess of Hebrew
writing; perhaps the only specimen, except the Siloam inscription, which
has come down to us from before the date of the Exile. It was discovered
in 1878 by the German missionary Klein, amid the ruins of the royal city
of Daibon (Dibon, Num. xxi. 30), and was purchased for the Berlin Museum
in 1879. Owing to all kinds of errors and intrigues, it did not remain
in the hands of its purchaser, but was broken into fragments by the
nomad tribe of Beni Hamide, from whom it was in some way obtained by M.
Clermont-Ganneau. There is no ground for questioning its perfect
genuineness, though the discovery of its value led to the forgery of a
number of spurious and often indecent inscriptions. There can be no
reasonable doubt that when we look at it we see before us the identical
memorial of triumph which the Moabite emîr erected in the days of
Ahaziah on the _bamah_ of Chemosh at Dibon, one of his chief towns.
This document is supremely interesting, not only for its historical
allusions, but also as an illustration of customs and modes of thought
which have left their traces in the records of the people of Jehovah,
as well as in those of the people of Chemosh.[5] Mesha tells us that
his father reigned in Dibon for thirty years, and that he succeeded.
He reared this stone to Chemosh in the town of Karcha, as a memorial
of gratitude for the assistance which had resulted in the overthrow of
all his enemies. Omri, King of Israel, had oppressed Moab many days,
because Chemosh was wroth with his people. Ahaziah wished to oppress
Moab as his father had done. But Chemosh enabled Mesha to recover
Medeba, and afterwards Baal-Meon, Kirjatan, Ataroth, Nebo, and Jahaz,
which he reoccupied and rebuilt. Perhaps they had been practically
abandoned by all effective Israelite garrisons. In some of these towns
he put the inhabitants under a ban, and sacrificed them to Moloch in a
great slaughter. In Nebo alone he slew seven thousand men. Having
turned many towns into fortresses, he was enabled to defy Israel
altogether, to refuse the old burdensome tribute, and to re-establish
a strong Moabite kingdom east of the Dead Sea; for Israel was wholly
unable to meet his forces in the open field. Month after month of the
reign of the miserable son of Ahab must have been marked by tidings of
shame, defeat, and massacre.
Added to these public calamities, there came to Ahaziah a terrible
personal misfortune. As he was coming down from the roof of his
palace, he seems to have stopped to lean against the lattice of some
window or balcony in his upper chamber in Samaria.[6] It gave way
under his weight, and he was hurled down into the courtyard or street
below. He was so seriously hurt that he spent the rest of his reign on
a sick-bed in pain and weakness, and ultimately died of the injuries
he had received.
A succession of woes so grievous might well have awakened the wretched
king to serious thought. But he had been trained under the idolatrous
influences of his mother. As though it were not enough for him to walk
in the steps of Ahab, of Jezebel, and of Jeroboam, he had the fatuity to
go out of his way to patronise another and yet more odious superstition.
Ekron was the nearest town to him of the Philistine Pentapolis, and at
Ekron was established the local cult of a particular Baal known as
Baal-Zebub ("the lord of flies").[7] Flies, which in temperate countries
are sometimes an intense annoyance, become in tropical climates an
intolerable plague. Even the Greeks had their Zeus Apomuios ("Zeus the
averter of flies"), and some Greek tribes worshipped Zeus Ipuktonos
("Zeus the slayer of vermin"), and Zeus Muiagros and Apomuios, and
Apollo Smintheus ("the destroyer of mice").[8] The Romans, too, among
the numberless quaint heroes of their Pantheon, had a certain Myiagrus
and Myiodes, whose function it was to keep flies at a distance.[9] This
fly-god, Baal-Zebub of Ekron, had an oracle, to whose lying responses
the young and superstitious prince attached implicit credence. That a
king of Israel professing any sort of allegiance to Jehovah, and having
hundreds of prophets in his own kingdom, should send an embassy to the
shrine of an abominable local divinity in a town of the
Philistines--whose chief object of worship was
"That twice-battered god of Palestine,
Who mourned in earnest when the captive ark
Maimed his brute image on the grunsel edge
Where he fell flat, and shamed his worshippers"--
was, it must be admitted, an act of apostasy more outrageously
insulting than had ever yet been perpetrated by any Hebrew king.
Nothing can more clearly illustrate the callous indifference shown by
the race of Jezebel to the lessons which God had so decisively taught
them by Elijah and by Micaiah.
But
_Quem vult Deus perire, dementat prius_;
and in this "dementation preceding doom" Ahaziah sent to ask the
fly-god's oracle whether he should recover of his injury. His
infatuated perversity became known to Elijah, who was bidden by "the
angel," or messenger, "of the Lord"--which may only be the recognised
phrase in the prophetic schools, putting in a concrete and vivid form
the voice of inward inspiration--to go up, apparently on the road
towards Samaria, and meet the messengers of Ahaziah on their way to
Ekron. Where Elijah was at the time we do not know. Ten years had
elapsed since the calling of Elisha, and four since Elijah had
confronted Ahab at the door of Naboth's vineyard. In the interval he
has not once been mentioned, nor can we conjecture with the least
certainty whether he had been living in congenial solitude or had
been helping to train the Sons of the Prophets in the high duties of
their calling. Why he had not appeared to support Micaiah we cannot
tell. Now, at any rate, the son of Ahab was drawing upon himself an
ancient curse by going a-whoring after wizards and familiar spirits,
and it was high time for Elijah to interfere.[10]
The messengers had not proceeded far on their way when the prophet met
them, and sternly bade them go back to their king, with the
denunciation, "Is it because there is no God in Israel that ye go to
inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron? Now, therefore, thus saith
Jehovah, 'Thou shalt not descend from that bed on which thou art gone
up, but dying thou shalt die.'"
He spoke, and after his manner vanished with no less suddenness.
The messengers, overawed by that startling apparition, did not dream
of daring to disobey. They at once went back to the king, who,
astonished at their reappearance before they could possibly have
reached the oracle, asked them why they had returned.
They told him of the apparition by which they had been confronted.
That it was a prophet who had spoken to them they knew; but the
appearances of Elijah had been so few, and at such long intervals,
that they knew not who he was.
"What sort of man was he that spoke to you?" asked the king.
"He was," they answered, "a lord of hair,[11] and girded about his
loins with a girdle of skin."[12]
Too well did Ahaziah recognise from this description the enemy of his
guilty race! If he had not been present on Carmel, or at Jezreel, on
the occasions when that swart and shaggy figure of the awful Wanderer
had confronted his father, he must have often heard descriptions of
this strange Bedawy ascetic who "feared man so little because he
feared God so much."
"It is Elijah the Tishbite!" he exclaimed, with a bitterness which was
succeeded by fierce wrath; and with something of his mother's
indomitable rage he sent a captain with fifty soldiers to arrest him.
The captain found Elijah sitting at the top of "the hill," perhaps of
Carmel; and what followed is thus described:--
"Thou man of God," he cried, "the king hath said, Come down."
There was something strangely incongruous in this rude address. The
title "man of God" seems first to have been currently given to Elijah,
and it recognises his inspired mission as well as the supernatural
power which he was believed to wield. How preposterous, then, was it
to bid a man of God to obey a king's order and to give himself up to
imprisonment or death!
"If I be a man of God," said Elijah, "then let fire come down from
heaven, to consume thee and thy fifty."[13]
The fire fell and reduced them all to ashes.[14]
Undeterred by so tremendous a consummation, the king sent another
captain with his fifty, who repeated the order in terms yet more
imperative.[15]
Again Elijah called down the fire from heaven, and the second captain
with his fifty soldiers was reduced to ashes.
For the third time the obstinate king, whose infatuation must indeed
have been transcendent, despatched a captain with his fifty. But he,
warned by the fate of his predecessors, went up to Elijah and fell on
his knees, and implored him to spare the life of himself and his fifty
innocent soldiers.
Then "the angel of the Lord" bade Elijah go down to the king with him
and not be afraid.
What are we to think of this narrative?
Of course, if we are to judge it on such moral grounds as we learn from
the spirit of the Gospel, Christ Himself has taught us to condemn it.
There have been men who so hideously misunderstood the true lessons of
revelation as to applaud such deeds, and hold them up for modern
imitation. The dark persecutors of the Spanish Inquisition, nay, even
men like Calvin and Beza, argued from this scene that "fire is the
proper instrument for the punishment of heretics." To all who have been
thus misled by a false and superstitious theory of inspiration, Christ
Himself says, with unmistakable plainness, as He said to the Sons of
Thunder at Engannim, "Ye know not what spirit ye are of. I am not come
to destroy men's lives, but to save."[16] In the abstract, and judged by
Christian standards, the calling down of lightning to consume more than
a hundred soldiers, who were but obeying the orders of a king--the
protection of personal safety by the miraculous destruction of a king's
messengers--could only be regarded as a deed of horror. "There are few
tracks of Elijah that are ordinary and fit for common feet," says Bishop
Hall; and he adds, "Not in his own defence would the prophet have been
the death of so many, if God had not, by a peculiar instinct, made him
an instrument of His just vengeance."[17]
For myself, I more than doubt whether we have any right to appeal to
these "peculiar instincts" and unrecorded inspirations; and it is so
important that we should not form utterly false views of what
Scripture does and does not teach, that we must once more deal with
this narrative quite plainly, and not beat about the bush with the
untenable devices and effeminate euphemisms of commentators, who give
us the "to-and-fro-conflicting" apologies of _a priori_ theory instead
of the clear judgments of inflexible morality.
"It is impossible not to feel," says Professor Milligan,[18] "that the
events thus presented to us are of a very startling kind, and that it
is not easy to reconcile them either with the conception that we form
of an honoured servant of God, or with our ideas of eternal justice.
Elijah rather appears to us at first sight as a proud, arrogant, and
merciless wielder of the power committed to him: we wonder that an
answer should have been given to his prayer; we are shocked at the
destruction of so many men, who listened only to the command of their
captain and their king; and we cannot help contrasting Elijah's
conduct, as a whole, with the beneficent and loving tenderness of the
New Testament dispensation."
Professor Milligan proceeds rightly to set aside the attempts which
have been made to represent the first two captains and their fifties
as especially guilty--which is a most flimsy hypothesis, and would not
in any case touch the heart of the matter. He says that the event
stands on exactly the same footing as the slaughter of the 450
prophets of Baal at Kishon, and of the 3000 idolaters by order of
Moses at Sinai; the swallowing up of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram; the
ban of total extirpation on Jericho and on Canaan; the sweeping
massacre of the Amalekites by Saul; and many similar instances of
recorded savagery. But the reference to analogous acts furnishes no
justification for those acts. What, then, is their justification, if
any can be found?
Some would defend them on the grounds that the potter may do what he
likes with the clay. That analogy, though perfectly admissible when
used for the purpose to which it is applied by St. Paul, is grossly
inapplicable to such cases as this. St. Paul uses it simply to prove
that we cannot judge or understand the purposes of God, in which, as
he shows, mercy often lies behind apparent severity. But, when urged
to maintain the rectitude of sweeping judgments in which a man arms
his own feebleness with the omnipotence of Heaven, they amount to no
more than the tyrant's plea that "might makes right." "Man is a reed,"
said Pascal, "but he is a _thinking_ reed." He may not therefore be
indiscriminately crushed. He was made by God in His image, after His
likeness, and therefore his rights have a Divine and indefeasible
sanction.
All that can be said is that these deeds of wholesale severity were
not in disaccord with the conscience even of many of the best Old
Testament saints. They did not feel the least compunction in
inflicting judgments on whole populations in a way which would argue
in us an infamous callousness. Nay, their consciences approved of
those deeds; they were but acting up to the standard of their times,
and they regarded themselves as righteous instruments of divinely
directed vengeance.[19] Take, for instance, the frightful Eastern law
which among the Jews no less than among Babylonians and Persians
thought nothing of overwhelming the innocent with the guilty in the
same catastrophe; which required the stoning, not only of Achan, but
of all Achan's innocent family, as an expiation for his theft; and the
stoning, not only of Naboth, but also of Naboth's sons, in requital
for his asserted blasphemy. Two reasons may be assigned for the chasm
between their moral sense and ours on such subjects--one was their
amazing indifference to the sacredness of human life, and the other
their invariable habit of regarding men in their corporate relations
rather than in their individual capacity. Our conscience teaches us
that to slay the innocent with the guilty is an action of monstrous
injustice;[20] but they, regarding each person as indissolubly mixed
up with all his family and tribe, magnified the conception of
_corporate responsibility_, and merged the individual in the mass.
It is clear that, if we take the narrative literally, Elijah would not
have felt the least remorse in calling fire from heaven to consume these
scores of soldiers, because the prophetic narrator who recorded the
story, perhaps two centuries later, must have understood the spirit of
those days, and certainly felt no shame for the prophet's act of
vengeance. On the contrary, he relates it with entire approval for the
glorification of his hero. We cannot blame him for not rising above the
moral standard of his age. He held that the natural manifestation of an
angry Jehovah was, literally or metaphorically, in consuming fire.
Considering the slow education of mankind in the most elementary
principles of mercy and righteousness, we must not judge the views of
prophets who lived so many ages before Christ by those of religious
teachers who enjoy the inherited experience of two millenniums of
Christianity. Thus much is plainly taught us by Christ Himself, and
there perhaps we might be content to leave the question. But we are
compelled to ask, Do we not too much form all our judgments of the
Scripture narratives on _a priori_ traditions and unreasoned prejudices?
Can we with adequate knowledge and honest conviction declare our
certainty that this scene of destruction ever occurred as a literal
fact? If we turn to any of the great students and critics of Germany, to
whom we are indebted for the floods of light which their researches have
thrown on the sacred page, they with almost consentient voice regard
these details of this story as legendary. There is indeed every reason
to believe the account of Ahaziah's accident, of his sending to consult
the oracle of Baal-Zebub, of the turning back of his messengers by
Elijah, and of the menace which he heard from the prophet's lips. But
the calling down of lightning to consume his captains and soldiers to
ashes belongs to the cycle of Elijah-traditions preserved in the schools
of the prophets; and in the case of miracles so startling and to our
moral sense so repellent--miracles which assume the most insensate folly
on the part of the king, and the most callous ruthlessness on the part
of the prophet--the question may be fairly asked, Is there any proof, is
there anything beyond dogmatic assertion to convince us, that we were
intended to accept them _au pied de la lettre_? May they not be the
formal vehicle chosen for the illustration of the undoubted powers and
righteous mission of Elijah as the upholder of the worship of Jehovah?
In a literature which abounds, as all Eastern literature abounds, in
vivid and concrete methods of indicating abstract truths, have we any
cogent proof that the supernatural details, of which some may have been
introduced into these narratives by the scribes in the schools of the
prophets, were not, in some instances, _meant_ to be regarded as
imaginative apologues? The most orthodox divines, both Jewish and
Christian, have not hesitated to treat the Book of Jonah as an instance
of the use of fiction for purposes of moral and spiritual edification.
Were any critic to maintain that the story of the destruction of
Ahaziah's emissaries belongs to the same class of narratives, I do not
know how he could be refuted, however much he might be denounced by
stereotyped prejudice and ignorance. I do not, however, myself regard
the story as a mere parable composed to show how awful was the power of
the prophets, and how fearfully it might be exercised. I look upon it
rather as possibly the narrative of some event which has been
imaginatively embellished, and intermingled with details which we call
supernatural.[21] Circumstances which we consider natural would be
regarded as directly miraculous by an Eastern enthusiast, who saw in
every event the immediate act of Jehovah to the exclusion of all
secondary causes, and who attributed every occurrence of life to the
intervention of those "millions of spiritual creatures," who
"walk the earth
Unseen both when we wake and when we sleep."
If such a supposition be correct and admissible--and assuredly it is
based on all that we increasingly learn of the methods of Eastern
literature, and of the forms in which religious ideas were inculcated
in early ages--then all difficulties are removed. We are not dealing
with the mercilessness of a prophet, or the wielding of Divine powers
in a manner which higher revelation condemns, but only with the
well-known fact that the Elijah-spirit was not the Christ-spirit, and
that the scribes of Ramah or Gilgal, and "the men of the tradition"
and the "men of letters" who lived at Jabez, when they used the
methods of Targum and Haggadah in handing down the stories of the
prophets, had not received that full measure of enlightenment which
came only when the Light of the World had shone.[22]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Rawlinson, _Kings of Israel and Judah_, p. 86. "The name of
Ahaziah ('the Lord taketh hold'), like that of all Ahab's sons,
testifies to the fact that the husband of Jezebel still worshipped
Jehovah. Among the names of the judges and kings before Ahab in
Israel, and Asa in Judah, scarcely a single instance occurs of names
compounded with Jehovah; thenceforward they became the rule"
(Wellhausen, _Israel and Judah_, Es. 1, p. 66).
[2] 1 Kings xxii. 47; 2 Kings iii. 9: comp. viii. 20.
[3] 2 Sam. viii. 2. On the ethics of these wars of extermination, such
as are commanded in the Pentateuch, and were practised by Joshua,
Samuel, Saul, David, and others, see Josh. vi. 17; 1 Sam. xv. 3, 33; 2
Sam. viii. 2, etc., and Mozley's _Lectures on the Old Testament_, pp.
83-103.
[4] See Stade, i. 86. He gives a photograph and translation of it at
p. 534.
[5] See _Records of the Past_, xi. 166, 167.
[6] 2 Kings i. 2; Heb., _be'ad hass'bakāh_; LXX., διὰ τοῦ δικτυωτοῦ;
Vulg., _per cancellos_ (comp. 1 Kings vii. 18; 2 Chron. iv. 12).
[7] LXX., Βάαλ μυῖαν θεὸν Ἀκκαρών. So, too, Jos., _Antt._, IX. ii. 1.
It is possible that the god was represented holding a fly as the type
of pestilence, just as the statue of Pthah held in its hands a mouse
(Herod., ii. 141). Flies convey all kinds of contagion (Plin., _H.
N._, x. 28).
[8] Pausan., v. 14, § 2.
[9] The name, or a derisive modification of it, was given by the Jews
in the days of Christ to the prince of the devils. In Matt. xii. 24
the true reading is Βεελζεβούλ, which perhaps means (in contempt) "the
lord of dung"; but might mean "the lord of the [celestial] habitation"
(οἰκοδεσπότην). Comp. Matt. x. 25; Eph. ii. 2; "Baal Shamaim," the
Belsamen of Augustine (Gesen., _Monum. Phœnic._, 387; Movers,
_Phönizier_, i. 176). For "opprobrious puns" applied to idols, see
Lightfoot, _Exercitationes ad Matt._, xii. 24. The common word for
idols, _gilloolim_, is perhaps connected with _galal_, "dung." Hitzig
thinks that the god was represented under the symbol of the _Scarabæus
pillularius_, or dung-beetle.
[10] Lev. xx. 6.
[11] שֵׂצַר בַּאַל (LXX., δασύς), whether in reference to his long
shaggy locks, or his sheepskin _addereth_, μηλωτή (Zech. xiii. 4; Heb.
xii. 37).
[12] ζώνη δερματίνη (Matt iii. 4).
[13] There is perhaps an intentional play of words between "man (אישׁ)
of God" and "fire (אשׁ) of God" (Klostermann).
[14] Hebrew.
[15] "Come down _quickly_" (2 Kings i. 9).
[16] Luke ix. 51-56. This is a more than sufficient answer to the
censure of Theodoret, that "they who condemn the prophet are wagging
their tongues against God." The remark is based on utter
misapprehension; and if we are to form no judgment on the morality of
Scripture examples, they would be of no help for us. Compare the
striking remark of the minister to Balfour of Burleigh in Scott's _Old
Mortality_.
[17] Quoted by Rev. Professor Lumby, _ad loc._
[18] _Elijah_, p. 146.
[19] This is practically the sum-total of the answer given again and
again by Canon Mozley in his _Lectures on the Old Testament_, 2nd
edition, 1878. For instance, he says that "the Jewish idea of justice
gives us the reason why the Divine commands (of exterminating wars,
etc.) were then adapted to man as the agent for executing them, and
are not adapted now" (p. 102).
[20] Comp. Ezek. xviii. 2-30.
[21] For the _idea_ involved see Num. xi. 1; Deut. iv. 24; Psalm xxi.
9; Isa. xxvi. 11; Heb. x. 27, etc.
[22] 1 Chron. ii. 55, where "Shimeathites" means "men of the
tradition," and "scribes," "men of letters."