the man who had just received a great and holy commission from, the Lord" (0. v. Gerlach). It is true that no bodily punishment fell upon the old prophet, but this punishment he recer instead, that with his lie he was put to shame, and that his conscience must have accused him of having occasioned the death of the man of God from Judah. He was thereby to be cured of his weakness, that he mi ve honour to the truth of the testimony of God. " Thus did the wondrous providence of G know how to direct all things most gloriously, so that the bodilv destruction of the one contributed to the spiritual and eternal preservation of the soul of the other" (Berleb. Bible). — Concerning the design of these marvellous event-. II. Witsius has the following remarks in his Miscell. s& i. p. lis ed nov. L736):
i many wondrou..is all concurring in one result ear, the prophecy against the altar at Bethel to be preserved in the mouths and memori i all, and the mission of this prophet I i become far mere illustrious. Thus, although the falsehood of the old man:iel brought disgrace upon himself, it injured no one but the man d wh< lulity v; and, under the overruling pn God, it contributed in the mo J manner to the confii nd publication of the truth."1 The heaping upof the marvellous i onded to the great object of the mission of the man of G I out of Judah, through which the Lord would enter an Inst guard those wh<> I;:. I: whom tbi not away from Him by joining in the worship of the calves, and to tak 'in the ungodly who participated
Vei lid not le; imam to conversion. He turned not from his evil way, but continued to make high pi from the ma '-"Vi 3B^ " he re- cerning the altar. For the statement of such a man to I" lied: and this « ficient to fill with terror those who hi it: for if partaking of food contrary to the command:. and that not of his own accord, but under a deception, brought such retribution upon a righteoofl man. to what punishments would they fled who had for- saken the God who made them, and worshipped the likenesses of irrational creatines V"
turned and made," i.e. lie made again or continued to make. For the fact itself compare ch. xii. 31. " Whoever had pleasure (P?C»* cf. Ges. § 109), he fdled his hand, that he might become a priest of the high places." ^P"1? K?9, to fdl the hand, is the technical expression for investing with the priesthood, according to the rite prescribed for the consecration of the priests, namely, to place sacrificial gifts in the hands of the persons to be consecrated (see at Lev. vii. 37 and viii. 25 sqq.). The plural T\\02 W3 is used with indefinite generality: that he might be ranked among the priests of high places. — Ver. 34. " And it became in (with) this thing the sin of the house of Jeroboam, and the destroying and cutting off from the earth;" that is to say, this obstinate persistence in ungodly conduct was the guilt which had as its natural consequence the destroying of his house from the face of the earth. n*n nrnn is not a mistake for njn "lyjn, but 3 is used, as in 1 Chron. ix. 33, vii. 23, to express the idea of being and persisting in a thing (for this use of 3 compare Ewald, § 295,/).
Vers. 1-20. Eeign of Jeroboam. — Vers. 1-18. Ahijah1 s prophecy against Jeroboam and the kingdom of Israel. — As Jeroboam did not desist from his idolatry notwithstanding the threatened punishment, the Lord visited him with the illness of his son, and directed the prophet Ahijah, to whom his wife had gone to ask counsel concerning the result of the illness, to predict to him not only the cutting off of his house and the death of his sick son, but also the thrusting away of Israel out of the land of its fathers beyond the Euphrates, and in confirmation of this threat caused the sick son to die when the returning mother crossed the threshold of her bouse again. — Vers. 1—3. When his son fell sick, Jeroboam said to his wife: Disguise thyself, that thou mayest not be known as the wife of Jeroboam, and go to Shiloh to the prophet Ahijah, who told me that I should be king over this people; he will tell thee how it will fare with the boy. ™r\WT}? from rus£ to alter one's self, i.e. to disguise one's self. She was to go to Shiloh disguised, so as not to be recognised, to deceive the old prophet, because otherwise Jeroboam did not promise himself any favourable answer, as he had contemptuously neglected Ahijah' s admonition (ch. xi. 38, 39). But he turned to this prophet because he had spoken concerning him w$bf to be king, i.e. that he would become king, over this people. sfe? stands for =£0 n^V:, with which the infinitive esse can be omitted (yid. Ewald, ^ 336, b). As this prophecy, which was so favourable to Jeroboam, had come to pass (ch. xi. 20, 30), he hoped that he might also obtain from Ahijah a divine revelation conning the result of his sun's illness, provided that he did not know who it was who came to s tinsel concerning her sick son. To complete the deception, she was to take with her as a present for the prophet (cf. 1 Sam. ix. S) " ten loaves and crumbs" and a jar with hi. a tritlin mch as a simple citizen's wife mi According to the early versions and the context, I of plain cak (Sa (LXX tvlam
,,:,v in 1 Sam iv. 15, an expression applied to the Made him, B it before 1 ival the Lord had not onl} led to him her coming and her i \ but had also told him what wn uld di elf when she came.
dis: When 1 the sound of her fc< ' i._r the door (I iW3 to the with her i It', and t«»M her thai 1 entro thou hast exalted tlryself from the | ' and J have made thee prin< cf. ch. -.:.."'1),... hut thou hast not been as my servant David, who kept my commandments... (cf. ch. x: and hast d<>ne worse than all who were before thee (jud — Cler.), and hast -one ami hast made thyself other 'contrary to the express command in Ex. xx. 2, 3),... and hast i I me bi - hind thy hack: thercfl i I bring misfortune upon the house of Jeroboam," etc. The expression, to cast God behind the back, which only occurs here and in Ezek. xxiii. 35, denotes the most scornful contempt of God, the strict opposite of " keeping God before the eyes and in the heart." "Vpa }^V, every male person; see at 1 Sam. xxv. 22. A synonymous expression is "TOf ^Tyi, the fettered (i.e. probably the married) and the free (or single); see at Deut. xxxii. 30. "In Israel," i.e. in the kingdom of the ten tribes. The threat is strengthened by the clause in ver. 10, " and I will sweep out after the house of Jeroboam, as one sweepeth out dung, even to the end," which expresses shameful and utter extermination; and this threat is still further strengthened in ver. 11 by the threat added from Deut. xxviii. 26, that of those cut off not one is to come to the grave, but their bodies are to be devoured by the dogs and birds of prey, — the worst disgrace that could befall the dead. Instead of wild beasts (Deut. xxviii. 26) the dogs are mentioned here, because in the East they wander out in the streets without owners, and are so wild and ravenous that they even devour corpses (vicl. Harmar, Bcobaelitxirjjcn, i. p. 108). &??"£: with p of relationship, equivalent to of those related to Jeroboam. It is the same in ver. 13. — Vers. 12, 13. After this announcement of the judgment upon the house of Jeroboam, Ahijah gave the wife information concerning her sick son. He would die as soon as she entered the city, and of all the male members of the house of Jeroboam he only would receive the honour of a proper burial, because in him there was some good thing towards Jehovah found. Ewald (§ 247, b) regards the form n*P2 as standing for ^^r, and refers the suffix to the following word "vyn (yid. Ewald, § 309, c). But as this use of the suffix would be very harsh, the question arises whether nxa is not to be regarded as a feminine form of the infinitive, after the analogy of njH in Ex. ii. 4 and »tp in 2 Kings xix. 3, etc. From the fulfilment of this declaration in vers. 17 and 18 Jeroboam was to learn that the threatened destruction of his royal house would also be just as certainly fulfilled. The sick son appears to have been the heir-presumptive to the throne. This may be inferred partly from the lamentation of all Israel at his death (ver. 18), and partly from what follows here in the next verse. »"1jn>."^ means in his relation to Jehovah. — Ver. 1 4. " Jehovah will raise Himself up a king over Israel, who will cut off the house of Jeroboam this day; but what (sc. do I say)? even now," sc. has He raised him up. This appears to be the simplest explanation of the last words of the verse, of which very various interpretations have been given. W is placed before Oft?, to give it the stronger emphasis, as in Ex. xxxii. 1
But in order that not only Jeroboam, but also the people who had joined in his idolatry, might | erceive the severity of the divine judgment, Ahijah also announced to the nation its banishment into exile beyond the Euphrates. " Jehovah will smite Israel, as the reed shakes in the water,'' is an abbreviate!
phrase for: Jehovah will smite [srael in such a manner that it will sway to and fro like a reed in the water moved by a strong wind, which lias not a sufficiently firm h list the violence oft! rm, "And will thrust them out of the d land," etc., as Moses r aed the tran ore of the law (I)eut. xxix. 27), "an. bter them beyond the river
End of Ji I i which were di icribed id the annals of the kings | L2), the war with A.bijam of
Chron. xi. 5— xii. 16). — Ver. 21. Rehoboam, who ascended the throne at the age of forty-one, was horn a year before the accession of Solomon (see at eh. ii. 24). In the description of Jerusalem as the city chosen by the Lord (cf. ch. xi. 36) there is implied not so much an indirect condemnation of the falling away of the ten tribes, as the striking contrast to the idolatry of Rehoboam referred to in vers. 23 sqq. The name of his mother is mentioned (here and in ver. 31), not because she seduced the king to idolatry (Ephr. Syr.), hut generally on account of the great influence which the queen-mother appears to have had both upon the king personally and upon his government, as we may infer from the fact that the mother's name is given in the case of every king of Judah (yid. ch. xv. 2, 13, xxii. 42, etc.). — Vers. 22-24. The general characteristics of Eehoboam's reign are supplied and more minutely defined in the account in the Chronicles. According to 2 Chron. xi. 5— xii. 1, he appears to have been brought to reflection by the announcement of the prophet, that the falling away of the ten tribes had come from the Lord as a punishment for Solomon's idolatry (ch. xii. 23, 24; 2 Chron. xi. 2-4); and in the first years of his reign to have followed the law of God with earnestness, and to have been occupied in the establishment of his government partly by the fortification of different cities (2 Chron. xi. 5-12), and partly by setting in order his domestic affairs, placing his numerous sons, who were born of his many wives and concubines, in the fortified cities of the land, and thus providing for them, and naming Abijam as his successor (2 Chron. xi. 18-22); while his kingdom was still further strengthened by the priests, Levites, and pious Israelites who emigrated to Judah and Jerusalem from the ten tribes (2 Chron. xi. 13-17). But this good beginning only lasted three years (2 Chron. xi. 17). When he thought that he had sufficiently fortified his kingdom, he forsook the law of the Lord, and all Israel {i.e. all the covenant nation) with him (2 Chron. xii. 1). " Judah did that which was displeasing in the sight of the Lord; they provoked Him to jealousy more than all that their fathers (sc. under the Judges) had done with their sins." Kjjp, to provoke to jealousy (Num. v. 14), is to be explained, when it refers to God, from the fact that the relation in which God stood to His people was regarded under the figure of a marriage, in which Jehovah appears as the husband of the nation, who is angry at the unfaithfulness of his wife, i.e. at the idolatry of the nation. Compare the remarks on KJi? •£ in the Comm. on Ex. xx. 5. — Ver. 23. They also (the Judaeans as well as the Israelites) built themselves bamoth, altars of high places (see at ch. iii. 3), monuments and Asheraidols. J"ri32fp are n0£ actual images of gods, but stones set up as
among thi I
cially i,ut in all
dire for the i □ in th
went about; Carthage as a remnant of the Phoenician worship (de civ. Dei, vii. 26).M — Movers, p. 6 79. On the female ntehjj see the Comm.
This sinking into heathen abominations was soon followed by the punishment, that Judah was given up to the power of the heathen.— Vers. 25-28. King Shishak of Egypt invaded the land with a powerful army, conquered all the fortified cities, penetrated to Jerusalem, and would probably have put an end to the kingdom of Judah, if God had not had compassion upon him, and saved him from destruction, in consequence of the humiliation of the king and of the chiefs of the nation, caused by the admonition of the prophet Shemaiah, so that after the conquest of Jerusalem Shishak contented himself witli withdrawing, taking with him the treasures of the temple and of the royal palace. Compare the fuller account of this expedition in 2 Chron. xii. 2-9. Shishak (P&V) was the first king of the twenty-second (or Bubastitic) dynasty, called Sesonchis in Jul. Afric, Scsonchosis in Eusebius, and upon the monuments on which Champollion first deciphered his name, Sheshonk or Sheshenk. Shishak has celebrated his expedition against Judah by a bas-relief on the outer wall of the pillar-hall erected by him in the first palace at Karnak, in which more than 130 figures are led in cords by Ammon and the goddess Muth with their hands bound upon their backs. The lower portion of the figures of this long row of prisoners is covered by escutcheons, the border of which being provided with battlements, shows that the prisoners are symbols of conquered cities. About a hundred of these escutcheons are still legible, and in the names upon them a large number of the names of cities in the kingdom of Judah have been deciphered with tolerable certainty.1 Shishak was probably bent chiefly upon the conquest and
1 Compare Max Duncker, Gesch. des Altertlmms, Bd. i. p. 909, ed. 3, and for the different copies of this bas-relief in the more recent works upon Egypt, Ruetschi in Herzog's Cycl (art. Rehoboam). The latest attempts at deciphering are those by Brugsch, Geogr. Inschriften in den agypt. Denkmdlern, ii. p. 56 sqq., and 0. Blau, Sisaqs Zug gegen Juda aus dem Denkmale lei Karnak erlautert, in the Deutsch. morgenl. Ztschr. xv. p. 233 sqq. Champollion's interpretation of one of these escutcheons, in his Precis du systeme hierogl. p. 204, viz. Juda hammalek, " the king of Judah," has been rejected by Lepsius and Brugsch as philologically inadmissible. Brugsch writes the name thus: Judh malk or Joud-hamalok, and identifies Judh with Jehudijeh, which Robinson (Pal iii. p. 45) supposes to be the ancient Jehud (Josh. xix. 45)!
Vers. 1-8. JiEiGN of ABIJAM (cf. 2 Chron. xiii.). — Abijam reigned three years, and his mother's name was Maacah, daughter (i.e. grand-daughter) of Absalom. We have the same in 2 Chron. xi. 20, 21; but in 2 Chron. xiii. 2 she is called Michajahu, daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. If DvK*3X was without doubt Absalom, the well-known son of David, as we may infer from the fact that this name does not occur again in the Old Testament in connection with any other person, since Absalom had only one daughter, viz. Thamar (2 Sam. xiv. 27), who was fifty years old when Solomon died, Maacah must have been a daughter of this Thamar, who had married Uriel of Gibeah, and therefore a grand-daughter of Absalom. This is sustained by Josephus (Ant. viii. 10, 1). The form of the name VWD is probably an error in copying for,"|?VO> as the name is also written in 2 Chron. xi. 20 and 21, and not a different name, which Maacah assumed as queen, as Caspari supposes (Micha, p. 3, note 4). — Vers. 3, 4. Abijam walked as king in the footsteps of his father. Although he made presents to the temple (ver. 15), his heart was not BXP, wholly or undividedly given to the Lord, like the heart of David (cf. ch. xi. 4); but (*3, after a previous negative) for David's sake Jehovah had left him a light in Jerusalem, to set up his son after him and to let Jerusalem stand, because ("WW*) David had done right in the eyes of God, etc., i.e. so that it was only for David's sake that Jehovah did not reject him, and allowed the throne to pass to his son. For the fact itself compare ch. xi. 13 and 36; and for the words, " except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite," see 2 Sam. xi. and xii. — Ver. 6. " And there was war between Bchoboam and Jeroboam all his life;" i.e. the state of hostility which had already existed between Eehoboam and Jeroboam continued " all the days of his life," or so long as Abijam lived and reigned. If we take Pjn *pJ/3 in this manner (not Dnny-73, ver. 16), the statement loses the strangeness which it has at first sight, and harmonizes very well with that in ver. 7, that there was also war between Abijam and Jeroboam.
altars of high places dedicated to idols, but unlawful altars to Jehovah. It is so in the oilier passages in which this formula • ors (ch. xxii. 24; 2 Kings xii. 4, xiv. 4, xv. 4; and the parallel passages 2 Chron. xv. 17, xx. 33). The apparent discrepancy between the last-mentioned passages and 2 Chron. xiv. 29 4, and xvii. 0, may be solved very simply on the supposition that the kings (Asa and Jehoshaphat) did indeed abolish the altars on the high places, but did not carry their reforms in the nation thoroughly out; and not by distinguishing between the bamoth dedicated to Jehovah and those dedicated to idols, as Thenius, Bertheau, and Caspari, with many of the earlier commentators, suppose. For although 2 Chron. xiv. 2 is very favourable to this solution, since both nirD3 and "OSn nirDTO are mentioned there, it does not accord with 2 Chron. xvii. 6, where rri£3n cannot be merely idolatrous altars dedicated to the Canaanitish Baal, but unquestionably refer to the unlawful altars of Jehovah, or at any rate include them. Moreover, the next clause in the passage before us, " nevertheless Asa's heart was wrholly given to the Lord," shows that the expression vid N? does not mean that the king allowed the unlawful J ahoy ah-bamoth to remain, but simply that, notwithstanding his fidelity to Jehovah, the bamoth did not depart, so that he was unable to carry the abolition of them thoroughly out. — Ver. 15. He brought the sacred offerings of his father and his own sacred offerings into the house of Jehovah; probably the booty, in silver, gold, and vessels, which his father Abijam had gathered in the war with Jeroboam (2 Chron. xiii. 16, 17), and he himself on the conquest of the Cushites (2 Chron. xiv. 12, 13). The Kcri *gng1 is a bad emendation of the correct reading in the Chethib ifchp, i.e. VJHp (VBnp); for t\\jv rvn is an accusative, and is to be connected with &OJ1. — Vers. 16, 17. The state of hostility between Judah and Israel continued during the reign of Asa; and Baasha the king of Israel advanced, etc. These statements are completed and elucidated by the Chronicles. After the great victory obtained by Abijam over Jeroboam, the kingdom of Judah enjoyed rest for ten years (2 Chron. xiii. 23). Asa employed this time in exterminating idolatry, fortifying different cities, and equipping his army (2 Chron. xiv. 1-7). Then the Cushite Zerdh invaded the land of Judah with an innumerable army (in the eleventh year of Asa), but was totally defeated by the help of the Lord
(2 Chron. xiv. 8-14); whereupon Asa, encouraged by the prophet Azariah, the son of Oded, proceeded with fresh zeal to the extermination of such traces of idolatry as still remained in the kingdom, then renewed the altar of burnt-offering in front of the temple-hall, and in the fifteenth year of his reign held, with the whole nation, a great festival of thanksgiving and rejoicing to the Lord at Jerusalem (2 Chron. xv. 1—15). The next year, the sixteenth of his reign and the thirty-sixth from th»' division of the kingdom (2 Chron, xvi. 1), Baasha commenced hostilities, by advancii linst Judah, taking pos- which was only two hours and a quarter from Jerusalem, and fortifying it. occupation of Ramah is not expressly mentioned indeed, but it is implied in nrwr Tjf 7$$, which affirms tli— hostile invasi( d of Judah. F< i Etamah, from it situation in the heart of the tribe of Benjamin and the immedi hbourhood i '. ■ in neither have been a border city nor 1 aged to the kingdom i el The inten- merely to in bis ow n. - from r into the kingdom of Judah, but lently to cut off from the kingdom of Judah all Mimm: a with the north, *?f?f in I to cut off from tl. ill coi a with
A o, and at the same tin.' B from those with Asa all connection with this Bide. lain road from Jerusalem to the north I bj Raman, bo that by shutting up this road the line of communication i of Judah \ reatly disturbed. Moreover, the fortifii d of Ramah by I of the cities which Abijam had taken from the kingdom i xiii. 19), and which rding I EL xiii. 19, were still in
V( 19. In order to avert the danger with which his kingdom was three voured to induce the Syrian king, Benhadad of Damascus, to break the treaty which he had concluded with Baasha and to become his ally, by Bending him such treasui were left in
1 Asa had sought help from the Lord and obtained it, when the powerful army oi the Cushites invaded the land; but when an invasion of the Israelites took place, he sought help from the Syrians. This alteration in his con- fact that the temple and palace treasures had been plundered by Shishak in the reign of ltchoboam (ch. xiv. 2G); and therefore what Asa had replaced in the temple treasury (ver. 15), and had collected together for his palace, was only a remnant in comparison with the former state of these treasures. The name *Hrri?, i.e. son of Hadad, the sun-god (according to Macrobius, i. 23; cf. Movers, PhOniz. i. p. 196), was borne by three kincrs of Damascus: the one here named, his son in the time of Ahab (ch. xx. 1, 34), and the son of Hazael (2 Kings xiii. 24). The first was a son of Tabrimmon and grandson of Hczyon. According to ver. 19, his father Tabrimmon (good is Rimmon; see at 2 Kings v. 18) had also been king, and was the contemporary of Abijam. But that his grandfather Hezyon was also king, and the same person as the Rezon mentioned in ch. xi. 23, cannot be shown to be even probable, since there is no ground for the assumption that Hezyon also bore the name Rezon, and is called by the latter name here and by the former in ch. xi. 23. — Ver. 20. Benhadad consented to Asa's request, and directed his captains to advance into the kingdom of Israel: they took several cities in the north of the land, whereby Baasha was compelled to give up fortifying Raman and withdraw to Thirza. Ijon (PSV) is to be sought for in all probability in Tell Dibbin, on the eastern border of Merj Ayun; and in Ajun, although Ajun is written with Aleph, the name Ijon is probably preserved, since the situation of this Tell seems thoroughly adapted for a fortress on the northern border of Israel (vid. Eobinson, Bibl. Res. p. 375, and Van de Velde, Mem. p. 322). Dan is the present Tell el Kadi; see at Josh. xix. 47. Abel- Beth- Maachah, the present Abil el Kamh, to the north-west of Lake Huleh (see at 2 Sam. xx. 14). "All Ckinncroth" is the district of Chinnereth, the tract of land on the western shore of the Lake of Gennesareth (see at Josh. xix. 35). 'J P.^"-5? ^ together with all the land of Naphtali (for this meaning of;V compare the Comm. on Gen. xxxii. 12). The cities named were duct may probably be explained in part from the fact, that notwithstanding the victory, his army had been considerably weakened by the battle which he fought with the Cushites (2 Chron. xiv. 9), although this by no means justified his want of confidence in the power of the Lord, and still less his harsh and unjust treatment of the prophet Hanani, whom he caused to be put in the house of the stocks on account of his condemnation of the confidence which he placed in the Syrians instead of Jehovah (2 Chron. xvi.
the principal fortresses of the land of Naphtali, with which the whole of the country round was also smitten, i.e. laid waste — Ver. 21. ygi, and remained at Thirza. his place of residence (see at cdi. xiv. 17). — Ver. 2 2. Afia thereupon summoned all Jttdah 'i?? P*, nrminc immuni, /•. pto, no one being free (cf. Ewald, and had the stones and the wood carried away from Raman, and Otba and Mizpdh in Benjamin built. fortified, with them. Geba must not be confounded with Gtfbeak of Benjamin or Saul, but is the present Jtb*% three-quarters of an hour to the UOTtl man ( wiii. 24).
2 ("In mil xiv. Tl:- in his feet in tie of his old b to 2 < iron, rvi 1 2. in tlie
OX tribe, of 1 t him and slew him, and which was allotted to the I unites (Josh. xL\. 44, ha border, and was taken by the Philistines, from whom the I I ites attempted to wrest it by siege under both Nadah and Baasha (eh. xvi. 10), though apparently without success. N? r>:-:-2 YWpfcl as in Josh. xi. 14 (see the Comni. on Deut. xr,
1G). — Ver. 32 is simply a repetition of ver. 16; and the remark concerning Baasha's attitude towards Asa of Judah immediately after his entrance upon the government precedes the account of his reign, for the purpose of indicating at the very outset, that the overthrow of the dynasty of Jeroboam and the rise of a new dynasty did not alter the hostile relation between the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Judah.
Ver. 33-ch. xvi. 7. The Eeign of Baasha is described very briefly according to its duration (two years) and its spirit, namely, the attitude of Baasha towards the Lord (ver. 34); there then follow in ch. xvi. 1-4 the wrords of the prophet Jehu, the son of Hanani (2 Chron. xvi. 7), concerning the extermination of the family of Baasha; and lastly, in vers. 5-7, his death is related with the standing allusion to the annals of the kings. The words of Jehu concerning Baasha (ch. xvi. 1-4) coincide exactly mutatis mutandis with the words of Ahijah concerning Jeroboam.1 The expression " exalted thee out of the dust," instead of " from among the people" (ch. xiv. 7), leads to the conjecture that Baasha had risen to be king from a very low position, innma (his might) in ver. 5 refers, as in the case of Asa (ch. xv. 23), less to brave warlike deeds, than generally to the manifestation of strength and energy in his government. — Ver. 7 adds a supplementary remark concerning the wrords of Jehu (vers. 2 sqq.), not to preclude an excuse that might be made, in which case Wl would have to be taken in the sense of nevertheless, or notwithstanding (Ewald, § 354, a), but to guard against a misinterpretation by adding a new feature, or rather to preclude an erroneous inference that might be drawn from the words, " I (Jehovah) have made thee prince "
1 "There was something very strange in the perversity and stolidity of the kings of Israel, that when they saw that the families of preceding kings were evidently overthrown by the command of God on account of the worship of the calves, and they themselves had overturned them, they nevertheless worshipped the same calves, and placed them before the people for them to worship, that they might not return to the temple and to Asa, king of Jerusalem; though prophets denounced it and threatened their destruction. Truly the devil and the ambition of reigning blinded them and deprived them of their senses. Hence it came to pass, through the just judgment of God, that they all were executioners of one another in turn: Baasha was the executioner of the sons of Jeroboam; Zambri was the executioner of the sons of Baasha; and the executioner of Zambri was Oniri." — C. A Lapide.
2 a though Baasha had exterminated Nadab and his house by divine command (Thenius. M rimply means " and and is not to be conn lly with K*T!Ta, but
Jehovah had come to Baasha through Jehu,... not only because of the tc., but al w\ • he had Blain him
Omri king in the camp of the military commanders, and he at once, with all Israel, i.e. all the army, raised the siege of Gibbet lion, to lay siege to Thirza. Now when Zimri saw that the city was taken, he went into the castle of the royal palace and burned the king's house over his own head, as Sardanapalus did, according to Justin {Hist. i. 3). pB"1^ does not mean harem (Ewald), but the high castle (from tnx, to be high); here and in 2 Kings xv. 25, the citadel of the royal palace, which consisted of several buildings. — Ver. 19 is connected with nbji in ver. 1 8: " and so died for his sins," i.e. as a punishment for them. — Vers. 21, 22. But Omri did not come into possession of an undisputed sovereignty immediately upon the death of Zimri. The nation divided itself into two halves; one half was behind Tibni, the son of Ginath (i.e. declared in favour of Tibni), to make him king, the other adhered to Omri. Nevertheless Omri's gained the upper hand over the party of Tibni, and the latter died, whereupon Omri became king after four years, as we may see from a comparison of vers. 15, 16 with ver. 23. The "people of Israel" (ver. 21) are probably the fighting people, so that the succession to the throne was decided by the military. *"jnK fpn as in 2 Sam. ii. 10. ptn, with an accusative instead of with?V, in the sense of to overpower, as in Jer. xx. 7. According to Josephus (Ant. viii. 12, 5), Tibni was slain by his opponent; but this is not contained in the words; on the contrary, all that is implied in the connection of nbjl with 'til ptrpj is that he met with his death in the decisive engagement in which the opposing party triumphed.
Vers. 23-28. The Eeign of Omri. — Ver. 23. Omri reigned twelve years, i.e., if we compare vers. 15 and 23 with ver. 29, reckoning from his rebellion against Zimri; so that he only possessed the sole government for eight years (or, more exactly, seven years and a few months), viz. from the 31st to the 38th years of Asa, and the conflict with Tibni for the possession of the throne lasted about four years. " At Thirza he reigned six years," i.e. during the four years of the conflict with Tibni, and after his death two years more. — Ver. 24. As soon as he had obtained undisputed possession of the throne, he purchased the hill Shomron (Samaria) from Shcmer (Semcr) for two talents of silver, about 5200 thalers (£780 — Tr.), built houses upon it, and named the town which he built after the former owner of the hill fi^tiv, rendered by the LXX. Xefir^pcov here, but everywhere else Safidpeia (Samaria), after the Chaldee form p.0*? (Ezra iv. 10, 17). This city he made his seat (Resident, place of residence, or capital), in which he resided for the last six years of his reign, and where he was buried after his death (ver. 28). Samaria continued to be the capital of the kingdom of the ten tribes from that time forward, and the residence of all succeeding kings of Israel until the destruction of this kingdom after its conquest by Salmanasar (2 Kings xviii. 9, 10). The city was two hours and a half to the north-west of Siehem, upon a mountain or hill in a mountain-hollow (Bergkessel, lit. mountain-caldron) or i of about tw«» hours m diameter, surrounded on all sides by still higher mountains. ■ The mountains and valleys round about arc still for the most part arable, and are alive with num< and diligent cultivation." The mountain itself upon which Samarj.11 cultivated to the very top, and about the middle of the slope is surrounded by a narrow terrace of Level ground resembling a girdle. And
Samaria was retaken and demolished by John Byrcanus, and lav in ruins till Gabinius the Romai rnor rebuilt it (Joseph.
decorated it in a marvellous manner, built a temple there to the emperor Augustus, and named the city after him Zc/Saarj'}, me by a village which is.^till standing on the ancient site: ■•;i pitiable hamlet consisting of a few squalid houses, inhabit by a hand of plunden i urious as thi< ren among their nite church, with the reputed of John the Baptist and remains of limestone columns at the foot of the mountain (cf. l: binson, PaJL iii p 136 sqq.; Van de v< ria and Pal.
2. From Ahab's Ascent of the Throne to the Death of Joram of Israel and Ahaziah of Judah.
In this epoch, which embraces only thirty-four years, the history of the kings of Judah falls so far into the background behind the history of the kingdom of Israel, that it seems to form merely an appendix to it; and the history of the monarchy is so controlled by the description of the labours of the prophets, that it seems to be entirely absorbed in them. These phenomena have their foundation in the development of the two kingdoms during this period. Through the alliance and affinity of Jehoshaphat with the idolatrous Ahab, the kingdom of Judah not only lost the greatest part of the blessing which the long and righteous reign of this pious king had brought, but it became so entangled in the political and religious confusion of the kingdom of Israel in consequence of the participation of Jehoshaphat in the wars between Israel and the Syrians, and other foes, and the inclination of Joram and Ahaziah to the worship of Baal, that its further development during this period was almost entirely dependent upon the history of Israel. In the latter kingdom the prophets maintained a fierce conflict with the idolatry introduced by Ahab and Jezebel, in which the worship of Baal did indeed eventually succumb, but the pure lawful worship of Jehovah did not attain to full supremacy, so that this great spiritual conflict was no more followed by a permanent blessing to the kingdom as such, than the single victories of Ahab and Joram over the Syrians by outward peace and rest from its oppressors. To guard against the spreading apostasy of the people from the living God through the exaltation of the worship of Baal into the ruling national religion, in Israel, the Lord raised up the most powerful of all the prophets, Elijah the Tishbite, with his fiery zeal, who worked so mightily upon the formation of the spiritual life of the covenant nation and the fate of the kingdom, not only in his own person in the reigns of Ahab and Ahaziah (ch. xvii.-2 Kings ii), but indirectly in the person of his successor Elisha under Joram (2 Kings iii.-ix.), and also under the succeeding kings of Israel, that the labours of these prophets and their disciples form the central and culminating point of the Old Testament kingdom of God during the period in question.
The ascent of the throne of Israel by Aiiab (ver. 29) formed a turning-point for the worse, though, as a comparison of ver. 30 with ver. 25 clearly shows, the way had already been prepared by his father Omri. — Vera 30, 31. Whereas the former kings of [srael had only perpetuated the sin of Jeroboam, i>. the calf-worship, or worship of Jehovah under the image of an ox, which he had introduced, Ahab was not satisfied with this. toy ^5 ^l "it can. was it too little P U, because it was tOO little (ef. Ewald, § i) to walk in the sins of ted a similar pillar (TC»D) to Baa] in his temple at Samaria (vtrf. 2 Kings iii. 2, x. L}7;. 1 | 'atues or images of Baa] not met with in the earlier til ftnd the Dv$f? re not statues oi Baal, but different modifier f that deity. It was only in the later temple of Baal or Hercules at Tyre that there was, as
Cicero observes (Vcrr. iv. 43), ex cere simulacrum ipsius Hcrculis. quo non facile quidquam dixcrim me vidisse pulcrius. — Ver. 33. " And Ahab made rnwnTW, ^€ tjie Asherah belonging to the temple of Baal" (see at Judg. vi. 25 and Ex. xxxiv. 13), an idol of Astarte (see at ch. xiv. 23). — Ver. 34. In his time Hid the Bethelite tf*n rV2; compare Ges. § 111, 1 with § 86, 2. 5) built Jericho: * he laid the foundation of it with Abiram his firstborn, and set up its gates with Segub his youngest, according to the word of Jehovah," etc. (for the explanation see the Comm. on Josh. vi. 26). The restoration of this city as a fortification, upon which Joshua had pronounced the curse, is mentioned as a proof how far ungodliness had progressed in Israel; whilst the fulfilment of the curse upon the builder shows how the Lord will not allow the word of His servants to be transgressed with impunity. Jericho, on the border of the tribe of Ephraim (Josh. xvi. 7), which was allotted to the Benjaminites (Josh, xviii. 21), had come into the possession of the kingdom of Israel on the falling away of the ten tribes from the royal house of David, and formed a border city of that kingdom, through the fortification of which Ahab hoped to secure to himself the passage across the Jordan,
When Ahab, who was not satisfied with the sin of Jeroboam, had introduced the worship of Baal as the national religion in the kingdom of the ten tribes, and had not only built a temple to Baal in his capital and place of residence, but had also appointed a very numerous priesthood to maintain the worship (see ch. xviii. 19); and when his godless wife Jezebel was persecuting the prophets of Jehovah, for the purpose of exterminating the worship of the true God: the Lord God raised up the most powerful of all the prophets, namely Elijah the Tishbite, who by his deeds attested his name ^pK or nj?&^ i.e. whose God is Jehovah. Eor however many prophets of Jehovah arose in the kingdom of the ten tribes from its very commencement and bore witness against the sin of Jeroboam in the power of the Spirit of God, and threatened the kings with the extermination of their house on account of this sin, no other prophet, either before or afterwards, strove and worked in the idolatrous kingdom for the honour of the Lord of Sabaoth with anything like the same mighty power of God as the prophet Elijah. And there was no other prophet whom the Lord so gloriously acknowledged by signs and wonders as Elijah, although He fulfilled the words of all His servants by executing the judgments with which they had threatened the rebellious, and whenever it i necessary accredited them as His me ra by miraculous
— Although, in accordance witli the plan of our books, which 1 to depict the leading features in the historical development of the kingdom, all that is related in detail of the life and labours of Elijah is the mi: M hieh he performed in his conflict with the worshippers of Baal, and the miraculous display of the onmi- bui i, and by which he revived; he was tl. lorn of God in i which Moses was the founder. Hi that of Moses in many namely, his flight into thi 1 i, the pearance of the Lord t<» him at Horeb, and the marvellous I - mination of his life. ft and Elijah are the Coryphai of the
I witli I I and Jeri
Old Testament, in whose life and labours the nature and glory of this covenant are reflected. As the thunder and lightning and the blast of trumpets and the smoking mountain bare witness to the devouring tire of the holiness of the God who had come down upon Sinai to give effect to the promises He had made to the fathers, and to make the children of Israel the people of His possession; so does the fiery zeal of the law come out so powerfully in Moses and Elijah, that their words strike the ungodly like lightning and flames of fire, to avenge the honour of the Lord of Sabaoth and maintain His covenant of grace in Israel. Moses as lawgiver, and Elijah as prophet, are, as Ziegler has well said (p. 206), the two historical anticipations of those two future witnesses, which are " the two olive-trees and two torches standing before the God of the earth. And if any one will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth and devoureth their enemies; and if any man will hurt them, he must therefore be slain. These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy, and have power over waters to turn them into blood, and to smite the earth with all kinds of plagues, as often as they will " (Rev. xi. 4 sqq.). Elijah was called to this office of witness to turn the heart of the fathers to the sons, and of the sons to their fathers (Mai. iii. 24), so that in his ministry the prophecy of the future of the kingdom of God falls quite into the background. Nevertheless he was not only a forerunner but also a type of the Prophet promised by Moses, who was to fulfil both law and prophets (Matt. v. 17); and therefore he appeared as the representative of prophecy, along with Moses the representative of the law, upon the mount of the Transfiguration, to talk with Christ of the decease which He was to accomplish at Jerusalem (Luke ix. 31; Matt. xvii. 3). — To continue his work, Elijah, by command of God, called Elisha the son of Shaphat, of Abel- Meholah, who during the whole of his prophetic course carried on with power the restoration of the law in the kingdom of Israel, which his master had begun, by conducting schools of the prophets and acting as the counsellor of kings, and proved himself by many signs and wonders to be the heir of a double portion of the gifts of Elijah.
Modern theology, wThich has its roots in naturalism, has taken offence at the many miracles occurring in the history of these two prophets, but it has overlooked the fact that these miracles w^ere regulated by the extraordinary circumstances under which Elijah and Elisha worked. At a time when the sovereignty of the living God in Israel was not only called in question, but was to be destroyed by the worship of Baal, it was necessary that Jehovah as the covenant God should interpose in a supernatural manner, and declare His eternal Godhead in extraordinary miracles. In the kingdom of the ten tribes there were no pri itical duties performed, nor was there the regular worship of God in a temple Banctified by Jehovah Himself; whilst the whole order of life prescribed in the law was undermined by nnrighfc od ongodlim
Bat with all this, the kingdom was not yet ripe for the judgment of rejection, because there \ thousand in the land who had not bowed their ki Baal the sake of; righteous men, the Lord had still patience with the sinful kingdom, and Bent it prophets to call the rebellious to repentance. If, then, under the circumstances mentioned, the prophets were to fulfil the purpo their mission and carry on the COnfli ' mat the | 1':1 wit::
they needed a much rapport ontfa 1. through the medium of mfanoles, than the prophets in the kingdom of Judah, who had powerful and v.'i.. in the Levi-
the hi t our proph( living i link in the whole of the grand chain of the marvellous work- of God, which
etches from Sinai t I od the Mom md
r in mind the peculiarity of the p □ and circum of Elijah, the in itself, and even tin*
limulation of them and ti • rnality, will
1 M When the temple m waatu rorririp tool its place, and
the prh an unlawfu, only by linary |
that tin- spn i vil could b illegitimacy, which was rep
here by the hy ami priesthood, wai. 1 by the prophetic order a.-*
the representative of the law, and then aliarly constitc
and str |y divided op it* able scope, and having
a firm organiaatiofi. And this the only accredited re:
sentative of the law, also took the w, and was then-fore I n-
dowed with tin aid ma law which had been manifested in wonders ami ^igns. Not only was the spirit of Moses inherited by Elijah and others, but his miraculous power also." — HaEVERNICE, Eitil. in d. A. Test ii. 1,
appear to us in a very different light. — Without miracle, without very striking, i.e. external miracles, their ministry would have been without basis, without a starting-point, and without hold." — The miracles are still more numerous in the history of
Elisha, and to some extent bear such a resemblance to those of Elijah, that the attempt has been made to set them down as merely legendary imitations of the latter; but considered as a whole, they are more of a helpful and healing nature, whereas those of Elijah are for the most part manifestations of judicial and punitive wrath. The agreement and the difference may both be explained from Elisha's position in relation to Elijah and his time. By the performance of similar and equal miracles (such as the division of the Jordan, 2 Kings ii. 8 and 14; the increase of the oil, 2 Kings iv. 3 sqq. compared with 1 Kings xvii. 14 sqq.; the raising of the dead, 2 Kings iv. 34 sqq. compared with 1 Kings xvii. 19 sqq.) Elisha proved himself to be the divinely-appointed successor of Elijah, who was carrying forward his master's work (just as Joshua by the drying up of the Jordan proved himself to be the continuer of the work of Moses), and as such performed more miracles, so far as number is concerned, than even his master had done, though he was far inferior to him in spiritual power. But the difference does not prevail throughout. For whilst the helpful and healing side of Elijah's miraculous power is displayed in his relation to the widow at Zarephath; the judicial and punitive side of that of Elisha comes out in the case of the mocking boys at Bethel, of Gehazi, and of Joram's knight. But the predominance of strict judicial sternness in the case of Elijah, and of sparing and helpful mildness in that of Elisha, is to be accounted for not so much from any difference in the personality of the two, as from the altered circumstances. Elijah, with his fiery zeal, had broken the power of the Baal- worship, and had so far secured an acknowledgment of the authority of Jehovah over His people that Joram and the succeeding kings gave heed to the words of the prophets of the Lord; so that Elisha had for the most part only to cherish and further the conversion of the people to their God, for which Elijah had prepared the way.
The prophet Elijah predicts to Ahab, as a punishment for his idolatry, the coming of a drought and famine. During their continuance he is miraculously preserved by God, first of all at the brook Cherith, and then at the house of a widow at Zarephath (vers. 1-16), whose deceased son he calls to life again (vers
Ver. 1. Elijah the Tishbite is introduced without the formula " The word of the Lord came to...," with which the appearance of the prophets is generally announced, proclaiming to king Ahab in the name of tl. Lord the punitive miracle a drought that will last for This abrupt appearance of
Elijah cannot be satisfactorily explained from toe fact that we have not the real commencement of hia history here; it is rather a part of the ch of bhifl mightiest of all the prophets, and indicates that in him the divine power of the S] it wen and his life and the di:
of the hi •_ wer by which I impelled Hii origin is also uncertain. Ti:. Jly derived from a place called to Tobit i. 2, th- where a 1 who wa i in Bethlehi m ~: in the ti; Bphraim.1 1 truly as Jehovah that Elijah WM a f tile by birth, after further exaininati< I can do longer uphold, though not from the h priori objection rinst it by Kurtz (in Hei fcL)t namely, tliat it would show a comph apprehension of the significance of Israel in relation to sacred history and the history of the world, and that neither at this nor any other time in the Old Testament history could a prophet for Israel be called from among the Gentiles.— an assertion of which it would bedifficult to find any proof, but because the God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand {i.e. whom I serve; see at ch. i. 2), there shall not fall dew and rain these years, except at my word," was a special application of the threats of the law in Deut. xi. 16, 17, xxviii. 23, 24, and Lev. xxvi. 19, to the idolatrous kingdom, npxn EPJtfn, " these (ensuing) years," does not fix any definite terminus. In ■W *sb there is involved an emphatic antithesis to others, and more especially to the prophets of Baal. " When I shall say this by divine authority and might, let others prate and lie as they may please " (Berlcb. Bibcl). Elijah thereby describes himself as one into whose power the God of Israel has given up the idolatrous king and his people. In Jas. v. 17, 18, this act of Elijah is even if the Thisbeh in Tob. i. 2 should not be Elijah's birthplace, it would not follow that there was no other place named Thisbeh in existence. How many places in Canaan are there that are never mentioned in the Old Testament!
And such cases as that described in Judg. vii. 7, where the Levite is said to have left his birthplace and to have lived in another tribe as a foreigner or settler, may not have been of rare occurrence, since the Mosaic law itself refers to it in Lev. xxv. 41. — Again, the LXX. were unable to explain *2OTO rrt; Toi'hctxo, from which Thenius and Ewald conjecture that there was a Thisbeh in Gilead, and that it was probably the Tisieh (<LUmjJ?) mentioned by Robinson (Pal. iii. 153) to the south of Busra=Bostra. The five arguments by which Kurtz has attempted to establish the probability of this conjecture are very weak. For (1) the defective writing ">2^FVO by no means proves that the word which is written plene (Dt^'in) in every other case must necessarily have been so written in the stat. constr. plur.; and this is the only passage in the whole of the Old Testament in which it occurs in the stat. constr. plur.; — (2) the precise description of the place given in Tobit i. 2 does not at all lead " to the assumption that the Galilean Thisbeh was not the only place of that name," but may be fully explained from the fact that Thisbeh was a small and insignificant place, the situation of which is defined by a reference to a larger town and one better known; — (3) there is no doubt that " Gilead very frequently denotes the whole of the country to the east of the Jordan," but this does not in the least degree prove that there was a Thisbeh in the country to the east of the Jordan; — (4) uthat the distinction and difference between a birthplace and a place of abode are improbable in themselves, and not to be expected in this connection," is a perfectly unfounded assumption, and has first of all to be proved; — (5) the Tisieh mentioned by Robinson cannot be taken into consideration, for the simple reason that the assumption of a copyist's error, the confusion of x with _\ (Tisieh instead of Thisbeh), ascribed to the power of his prayers, since Elijah " was also a man such as we are," inasmuch as the prophets received their power to work solely through faith and intercourse with God in prayer, and faith gives power to remove mountains.
Vers. 2-9. After the announcement of this judgment, Elijah had to hide himself, by the command of God, until the period of punishment came to an end, not so much that he might be safe from the wrath and pursuit of Ahab and Jezebel, as to preclude all earnest entreaties to remove the punishment " For inasmuch the prophet had said that the rain would come at his word, how would they have urged him to order it to come!" (.v Schm.) He o turn Wip^ eastwai unaria, where he had no doubt proclaimed the divine judgment to Ahab, to the Jordan, and to hide himself at the brook Cherith, which is in front of the Jordan. The brook Cherith was in any a brook emptying itself into the Jordan; but whether upon the eastern or the:n side of that river, the ambiguity of'Sfi?, which means both " to th... is and also* in th< of,"
::. xvi. 1 2, rviii 1 6 H is impossible to determine with certainty. That it i! to the cast of the Jordan " hei. iWij) with anything like the certainty that Thenius suppo An ancient tradition pis the Cherith on this I Ian, and idenl I with the which tak in the of the mountains into the Jordan valley ah..v.- tl. and empl places it on the othi the J and Thenius think the apparently d VI All that can bo
►me into i ration: the latter for the Bimple i that the locality in the neighbourhood of Jericho was unsuitable for a hiding-place. Elijah wi drink of this brook, and the ravens by divine command were to provide him with bread and meat, which they brought him, according to ver. G, both morning and evening. It is now generally admitted that ^nnyn does not mean either Arabs or Orebites (the inhabitants of an imaginarycity named Oreb), but ravens. Through this miracle, which unbelievers reject, because they do not acknowledge a living God, by whom, as the Creator and Lord of all creatures, even the voracious ravens are made subservient to His plans of salvation, Elijah was not only cut off from intercourse with men, who might have betrayed his place of abode to the king, but was mightily strengthened himself, through the confidence inspired in the almighty assistance of his God, for his approaching contests with the worshippers of idols, and for the privations and sufferings which awaited him in the fulfilment of his vocation. — Vers. 7-9. After some time this brook dried up for want of rain. Then the Lord directed His servant to go to the Sidonian Zarephath, and to live with a widow whom He had commanded to provide for him. WW YPP does not mean post annum, for D*pj merely derives this meaniug in certain passages from the context (cf. Lev. xxv. 29; 1 Sam. xxvii. 7; Judg. xvii. 1 0); whereas in this instance the context does not point to the space of a year, but to a longer period of indefinite duration, all that we know being that, according to ch. xviii. 1, the sojourn of Elijah at Cherith and Zarephath lasted at least two years. Zarephath (Xapeirja, LXX.) was situated on the Mediterranean Sea between Tyre and Sidon, where a miserable Mohammedan village with ruins and a promontory, Surafend, still preserve the name of the former town (Kob. iii. p. 413 sqq., and V. de Velde, Syria and Palestine, i. pp. 101-3, transl.). Vers. 10—16. When Elijah arrived at the city gate, he met a widow engaged in gathering wood. To discover whether it was to her that the Lord had sent him, he asked her for something to drink and for a morsel of bread to eat; whereupon she assured him, with an oath by Jehovah, that she had nothing baked (Jto = nay, £<yKpv$ia$, a cake baked in hot ashes), but only a handful of meal in the 1? (a pail or small vessel in which meal was kept) and a little oil in the pitcher, and that she was just gathering wood to dress this remnant for herself and her son, that they might eat it, and then die. Erom this statement of the widow it is evident, on the one hand, that the drought and famine had spread across the Phoenician frontier, as indeed Menander of Ephesus attests j1 on the other hand, the widow showed by the oath, " as Jehovah thy God liveth," that she was a worshipper of the true God, who spoke of Jehovah as his God,
1 Josephus gives this statement from his Phoenician history: a/3 pc%ic& re k' avTOv (sc. 'l^c/,3aAoy) iykuiio cc7ro tov rT7rsp/3sptroc.iov pcYivog tug rov tp%o/xsvou erovg 'T^ipfiipiroclov {Ant. viii. 13, 2). Hyperbcretseus answers to Tisliri of the Hebrews; cf. Benfey and Stern, die Monatsnamen, p. 18.
because she recognised the prophet as an Israelite. — Vera 13 sqq. In Older, however, to determine with indisputable certainty whether this believing Gent: the protectress flffiligimi him by the Lord, Elijah comforted her, and at the same time desired her first of all to bake him a little cake DtfD, i.e. of the last of the meal in t: I and of the oil in the pitcher, and then to bake for herself and her son, adding this promise: Jehovah the God of [srael will n the meal m the Kad tnd the oil in the pitcher tail, till Be Bends rain upon the earth again And the widow did aoootrding to hi i. Sfa op the certain for tain, 1 ted the word of the Lord, and received the iei I her believing i in the bet that
L This the pious Gentile woman, who had w( ' 1 with a simple heart tl Ige of the tree many wid! f whom Would sJ the prophet it' I ned by him the pi of the famine, And t Ions in I I meal and oil did not n. ng the propb urn mil; the femini to?&H[ i,,-d primarily by the preceding verb-, and may be tab d indefinite neuter: " and thei.e." The offence which Thenius has taken at tW (days) has no foundation, if we do not understand the sentence as referring merely to their eating once of the bread just baked, but take it generally as signifying that in consequence of their acting according to the word of Jehovah, they (Elijah, the widow, and her family) ate for days, i.e. until God sent rain again (ver. 14).
Vers. 17—24. Tlie widows deceased son raised to life again. — Ver. 17. After these events, when Elijah had taken up his abode in the upper room of her house, her son fell sick, so that he breathed out his life. 'W "ijfa "iy, literally till no breath remained in him. That these words do not signify merely a death-like torpor, but an actual decease, is evident from what follows, where Elijah himself treats the boy as dead, and the Lord, in answer to his prayer, restores him to life again. — Ver. 18. The pious woman discerned in this death a punishment from God for her sin, and supposed that it had been drawn towards her by the presence of the man of God, so that she said to Elijah, " What have we to do with one another fy\ y HO; cf. Judg. xi. 1 2; 2 Sam. xvi. 1 0), thou man of God? Hast thou come to me to bring my sin to remembrance (with God), and to kill my son? " In this half-heathenish belief there spoke at the same time a mind susceptible to divine truth and conscious of its sin, to which the Lord could not refuse His aid. Like the blindness in the case of the man born blind mentioned in John ix., the death of this widow's son was not sent as a punishment for particular sins, but was intended as a medium for the manifestation of the works of God in her (John ix. 3), in order that she might learn that the Lord was not merely the God of the Jews, but the God of the Gentiles also (Rom. iii. 29). — Vers. 19, 20. Elijah told her to carry the dead child up to the chamber in which he lived and lay it upon his bed, and then cried to the Lord, " Jehovah, my God! hast Thou also brought evil upon the wridow with whom I sojourn, to slay her son? " These words, in which the word also refers to the other calamities occasioned by the drought, contain no reproach of God, but are expressive of the heartiest compassion for the suffering of his benefactress and the deepest lamentation, which, springing from living faith, pours out the whole heart before God in the hour of distress, that it may appeal to Him the more powerfully for His aid. The meaning is, " Thou, 0 Lord my God, according to Thy grace and righteousness, canst not possibly leave the son of this widow in death." Such confident belief carries within itself the certainty of being heard. The prophet therefore proceeds at once to action, to restore the boy to life. — Ver. 21. lie stretched himself pl's^T.) three times upon him, not to ascertain whether there was still any life left in him, as Paul did in Acts xx. 10, nor to warm the body of the child and set its blood in circulation, as Elisha did with a dead child (2 Kings iv. 34), — for the action of Elisha is described in a different manner, and the youth mentioned in Actsxx 10 was only apparently dead, — but to bring down the vivifying power of God upon th' ly, and thereby support his own word and prayer.1 Ho then cried to the Lord, " Jehovah, m G d, I pray Thee let the soul of this boy return within it." taniT^P, inasmuch I vital principle springs from ab
— \ ] Lord ] tyer; the boy came to life again; whereupon Elijah gave him back to his mother. — V( • Through this miracle, in which Elijah Bhowed himself of Him who h all the dead to life, the tile woman was mightily 1 in her faith in the God of I 1. she now i. Elijah as a man
1 dght i>c the instrument of the miracle, just as in other cases of ition of the hand."
— Seb. Schmidt.
Thenius, and others assume, from the commencement of the drought, but from the event last mentioned, namely, the sojourn of Elijah at Zarephath. This view merits the preference as the simplest and most natural one, and is shown to be the oldest by Luke iv. 25 and Jas. v. 17, where Christ and James both sa^y, that in the time of Ahab it did not rain for three years and six months. And this length of time can only be obtained by allowing more than two years for Elijah's stay at Zarephath. — Erom ver. 2b to ver. 6 we have parenthetical remarks introduced, to explain the circumstances which led to Elijah's meeting with Ahab. The verbs ^\ W, TDtfj, and *WJ3 (vers. 3, 4, 5, 6) carry on the circumstantial clauses: " and the famine was..." (ver. 2b), and " Obadiah feared..." (ver. 3b), and are therefore to be expressed by the pluperfect. When the famine had become very severe in Samaria (the capital), Ahab, with Obadiah the governor of his castle fiBfc W»3n Sy? see at ch. iv. 6), who was a God-fearing man, and on the persecution of the prophets of Jehovah by Jezebel had hidden a hundred prophets in caves and supplied them with food, had arranged for an expedition through the whole land to seek for hay for his horses and mules. And for this purpose they had divided the land between them, so that the one explored one district and the other another. We see from ver. 4 that Jezebel had resolved upon exterminating the worship of Jehovah, and sought to carry out this intention by destroying the prophets of the true God. The hundred prophets whom Obadiah concealed were probably for the most part pupils (" sons ") of the prophets. &$ D'^pn must signify, according to the context and also according to ver. 13, " fifty each," so that D^pn must have fallen out through a copyist's error. IP nnro $Sy\, that we may not be obliged to kill (a portion) of the cattle (IP partitive). The Keri HDnano is no doubt actually correct, but it is not absolutely necessary, as the Chethib hdhzi jp may be taken as an indefinite phrase: " any head of cattle." — Vers. 7, 8. Elijah met Obadiah on this expedition, and told him to announce his coming to the king. — Vers. 9 sqq. Obadiah was afraid that the execution of this command might cost him his life, inasmuch as Ahab had sent in search of Elijah " to every kingdom and every nation," — a hyperbole suggested by inward excitement and fear. PN WOKi is to be connected with what follows in spite of the accents: " and if they said he is not here, he took an oath," etc. — Vers. 12, 13. "And if it comes to pass (that) I go away from thee, and the Spirit of Jehovah carries thee away whither I know not, and I come to tell Ahab (as, that thou art here) and he fiftieth thee not, he will slay me, and thy servant feareth the Lord from his youth," etc.; i.e. since I as a God-fearing man and a protector of the prophets cannot boast of any special favour from Ahab. ■TPID, from mij youth up: u thy servant " being equivalent to " I myself." From the i\ar expressed by Obadiah that the Spirit of Jehovah might suddenly carry the prophet to some unknown pla B bmidt and
1 occurred some cases of this kind of sudden u though they have not been handed down; but the anxipressed by I the Liah might v.. lCt, that afl: Elijah had announced tl trough! to he disapp m Jl the inquiries institut
1 Sam. i. 3) that he wuukl show himself to Ahab that d idiali went to am. it to the king; whereupon Ahab
:i. xxxiv. 30). But Elijah threw back tiiis charge: " It is not I who have brought Israel into trouble, but thou and thy family, in that aken the commandments of Jehovah, and thou goest after Baalim." He then called upon the king to gather together all Israel to him upon Carmel, together with the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of
Carmel, a mountain ridge " with many peaks, intersected by hundreds of larger and smaller ravines," which stands out as a promontory running in a north-westerly direction into the Mediterranean (see at Josh. xix. 26), and some of the loftiest peaks of which rise to the height of 1800 feet above the level of the sea, when seen from the northern or outer side shows only " bald, monotonous rocky ridges, scantily covered with short and thorny bushes;" but in the interior it still preserves its ancient glory, which has procured for it the name of " fruitfield," the valleys being covered with the most beautiful flowers of every description, and the heights adorned with myrtles, laurels, oaks, and firs (cf. V. de Velde, R. i. p. 292 sqq.). At the north-western extremity of the mountain there is a celebrated Carmelite monastery, dedicated to Elijah, whom tradition represents as having lived in a grotto under the monastery; but we are certainly not to look there for the scene of the contest with the priests of Baal described in the verses which follow. The scene of Elijah's sacrifice is rather to be sought for on one of the south-eastern heights of Carmel; and Van de Velde (i. p. 320 sqq.) has pointed it out with great probability in the ruins of el Mohraka, i.e. " the burned place," " a rocky level space of no great circumference, and covered with old gnarled trees with a dense entangled undergrowth of bushes." For " one can scarcely imagine a spot better adapted for the thousands of Israel to have stood drawn up on than the gentle slopes. The rock shoots up in an almost perpendicular wall of more than 200 feet in height on the side of the vale of Esdraelon. On this side, therefore, there was no room for the gazing multitude; but, on the other hand, this wall made it visible over the whole plain, and from all the surrounding heights, so that even those left behind, who had not ascended Carmel, would still have been able to witness at no great distance the fire from heaven that descended upon the altar." — " There is not a more conspicuous spot on all Carmel than the abrupt rocky height of el Mohraka, shooting up so suddenly on the east." Moreover, the soil was thoroughly adapted for the erection of the altar described in vers. 31 and 32: "it showed a rocky surface, with a sufficiency of large fragments of rock lying all around, and, besides, wTell fitted for the rapid digging of a trench."
There is also water in the neighbourhood, as is assumed in vtT. 34. " Nowhere doea the Kiahon run so close to Mount Carmel as just beneath el nfohraka," which is w 1635 I above the sea, and perhaps 1000 feet above the Kisli<-n. This
'lie up and down in the short time allowed by the Scripture vera 40—44." But it was possible to find water than this, to pour upon the burnt-offering in I manner described in \ Close by the Bteep rocky wall of thf height, just where you ran descend to the Kishon through a 'i find, t it might be beneath the altar plateau, a vaulted and very abundant fountain built in the form <»f a tank, witli a: ding down into it.
dxoov; {i.e. ~~:s" Ttr$u* ■.. which Thenini regaidi a.s to original porl of the text, though withoul iraotcr of the I, XV If the
AsJierah prophets also. From the principle fl p fi'iri ft, etc., it may be possible to explain the omission of the Asherah prophets in ver. 25, but not in vor. 40.
Elijah's intention, which was uy no means •• to prove to the king that he (Ahab) and not Elijah had brought Israel into trouble" (Vat, S bm.), but to put before the eyes of the whole nation a convincing practical proof of the sole deity oi Jehovah and of the nothingness of the Baals, that wore regarded as gods, and by slaying the priests of Baal to give a death-blow to idolatry in Israel. — Ver. 21. Elijah addressed the assembled people as follows: u How long do ye limp upon both sides? Is Jehovah God, then go after Him; but if Baal be God, then go after him" — and the people answered him not a word. They wanted to combine the worship of Jehovah and Baal, and not to assume a hostile attitude towards Jehovah by the worship of Baal; and were therefore obliged to keep silence under this charge of infatuated halving, since they knew very well from the law itself that Jehovah demanded worship with a whole and undivided heart (Deut. vi. 4, 5). This dividing of the heart between Jehovah and Baal Elijah called limping?$ D^BJHpn W, «* upon the two parties (of Jehovah and Baal)." Eor Ds3yp the meaning " divided opinions, parties," is well established by the use of B^pyp in Ps. cxix. 113; and the rendering of the LXX. lyvvac, the hollow of the knee, is only a paraphrase of the sense and not an interpretation of the word. — Vers. 22-25. As the people adhered to their undecided double-mindedness, Elijah proposed to let the Deity Himself decide who was the true God, Jehovah or Baal. The prophets of Baal were to offer a sacrifice to Baal, and he (Elijah) would offer one to Jehovah. And the true God should make Himself known by kindling the burnt-offering presented to Him with fire from heaven, and in this way answering the invocation of His name. This proposal was based upon the account in Lev. ix. As Jehovah had there manifested Himself as the God of Israel by causing fire to fall from heaven upon the first sacrifice presented in front of the tabernacle and to consume it, Elijah hoped that in like manner Jehovah would even now reveal Himself as the living God. And the form of decision thus proposed would necessarily appear all the fairer, because Elijah, the prophet of Jehovah, stood alone in opposition to a whole crowd of Baal's prophets, numbering no less than 450 men. And for that very reason the latter could not draw back, without publicly renouncing their pretensions, whether they believed that Baal would really do what was desired, or hoped that they might be able to escape, through some accident or stratagem, from the difficult situation that had been prepared for them, or fancied that the God of Elijah would no more furnish the proof of His deity that was desired of Him than Baal would. In order, however, to cut off every subterfuge in the event of their attempt proving a failure, Elijah not only yielded the precedence to them on the occasion of this sacrifice, but gave them the choice of the two oxen brought to be offered; which made the fairness of his proposal so much the more conspicuous to every one, that the people willingly gave their consent
26—29. The prophets of Baal then pro< to the performance of the duty requii They prepare I &£) the and called solemnly upon Baal from morning to noon.- " 0 Baal, hear us," limping round the altar; " but there was no voice, and no one to hear (to answer), and D ation." HDB
: contemptuous epithet applied to tin1 pantomimic sacrificial ace performed by i its round about the altar,1 "-">* been received 1 ooon, Elijah i them in derision: "Call to him with a loud i r lie is God (se >rd-
, or is on the journey V-. on the ws ipe he is Bleeping, that he may wake up." ridicule lies more with the enumeration of thi hich m have occasioned their obtaining no answer, and is heightened by the earnest and tl bition of the V?. With regard to th< of Clericus:
absurd things possible, ve such this may » Tic ts of Baal did actually in tli. louder tl and scratched themselves with sv\ nd lai till the blood poured out, >( according to their cu zl:::,:,v:i. Movers describes this as follows (Phoni:i>r, i. pp. I from statements made by ancient authors concerning the processions of the strolling
1 The following is the description which Herod ian {hist. v. 3), among others, gives of Heliogabalus when dancing as chief priest of the Emesinian
bands of the Syrian goddess: " A discordant howling opens the scene. They then rush wildly about in perfect confusion, with their heads bowed down to the ground, but always revolving in circles, so that the loosened hair drags through the mire; they then begin to bite their arms, and end with cutting themselves with the two-edged swords which they are in the habit of carrying. A new scene then opens. One of them, wrho surpasses all the rest in frenzy, begins to prophesy with sighs and groans; he openly accuses himself of the sins which he has committed, and which he is now about to punish by chastising the flesh, takes the knotted scourge, which the Galli generally carry, lashes his back, and then cuts himself with swords till the blood trickles down from his mangled body." The climax of the Bacchantic dance in the case of
the priests of Baal also was the prophesying (K33nn), and it was for this reason, probably, that they were called prophets (CPtftU). This did not begin till noon, and lasted till about the time of the evening sacrifice (Hv|6 IV, not TOg TV, ver. 29). nrDBn nvy, " the laying on (offering) of the meat-offering," refers to the daily evening sacrifice, which consisted of a burnt-offering and a meat-offering (Ex. xxix. 38 sqq.; Num. xxviii. 3-8), and was then offered, according to the Rabbinical observance (see at Ex. xii. 6), in the closing hours of the afternoon, as is evident from the circumstances which are described in vers. 40 sqq. as having taken place on the same day and subsequently to Elijah's offering, which was presented at the time of the evening sacrifice (ver. 36).
Vers. 30-39. Elijah's sacrifice. — As no answer came from Baal, Elijah began to prepare for his own sacrifice. Ver. 30. He made the people come nearer, that he might have both eyewitnesses and ear-witnesses present at his sacrifice, and restored the altar of Jehovah which was broken down. Consequently there was already an altar of Jehovah upon Carmel, wThich either dated from the times anterior to the building of the temple, when altars of Jehovah were erected in different places throughout the land (see at ch. iii. 2), or, what is more probable, had been built by pious worshippers belonging to the ten tribes since the division of the kingdom (Hengstenberg, Dissertations on the Pentateuch, vol. i. p. 183, transL), and judging from ch. xix. 10, had been destroyed during the reign of Ahab, when the worship of Baal gained the upper hand. — Vers. 31, 32.
Elijah took twelve stones, " according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come (Gen. xxxii. 29, xxxv. 10), Israel shall be thy name," and built these stones into an altar. The twelve stones were a practical declaration on the part of the prophet that the division of the nation into two kingdoms wa variance with the divine calling of Israel, inasmuch as rding to the will of God the twelve tribes to form i of Jehovah, and to ha
Jehovah had given to the forefather of the nation the name of 1 rael, directs attention to the wrong which the seceding ten tribes had done in claiming the name of Israel fox themseh whereas it really belonged to the whole nation, njrv dlmzi (in the name of Jehovah belongs to r:-\ (built), and signifies by the authority and for ti. of Jehovah. "And made a trench a- the space of two seahs of Beed L& so large that you could bow two seat I upon the ground which it covert round about the altar.'" The trench must therefore have be* n of considerable breadth and depth, although it is impossible to defined Ho then arranged tl. • upon tli«' altar, and had four i • r poured time times in ion upon the burnt-offering which was laid upon the pieces of wood, that the \ flowed round about the altar, and then had the trench filled with w I tins i lor the purpose of precluding all suspicion i a the possibility of fraud in connection with the miraculous burning length, that they w re to the v acrificea from upon the hi count, on the ground that M the authoi avid the terrible drought, by which the Dumero Cai i '!-aN'':
i raised by otto and baa completely overthrown it by pointing out the U of el Alohraka, in n to which be makea the following
remark: "In such springs tb remaina alwaya cool, under the ibade
of a vaulted roof, and with 00 hot atmosphere to evaporate it. While all other fountains were dried up, I can well understand that there might have been found here that superabundance of water which Elijah poured bo profusely over the altar" (toL L p. 32o, trausl.). But the drying up of the
Kishon is a mere conjecture, which cannot be historically proved.
hollow spaces concealed beneath the altars, in order to make the credulous people believe that the sacrifice had been miraculously set on fire by the deity. Ephraem Syrus and Joh. Chry sos torn both affirm this; the latter in his Or alio in Petrum A post, et Eliam proph. t. ii. p. 737, ed. Montf., the genuineness of which, however, is sometimes called in question. — Vers. 36, 37. After these preparations at the time of the evening sacrifice, Elijah drew near and prayed: " Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel (this name is used with deliberate purpose instead of Jacob: see at ver. 31), let it be known this day that Thou art God in Israel, and I am Thy servant, and do all these things through Thy word. Hear me, Jehovah, hear me, that this people may know that Thou Jehovah art God, and turnest back their hearts!" (i.e. back from idols to Thyself.) This clearly expresses not only the object of the miracle which follows, but that of miracles universally. The perfects WW}/ and J?2Dn are used to denote not only what has already occurred, but what will still take place and is as certain as if it had taken place already. Wkj refers not merely to the predicted drought and to what Elijah has just been doing (Thenius), but to the miracle which was immediately about to be performed; and rispn to the conversion of the people to the Lord their God, for which Elijah's coming had already prepared the way, and which was still further advanced by the following miracle. — Ver. 38. Then fire of Jehovah fell and consumed the burntoffering and the pieces of wood, etc. njnj \tfaf the fire proceeding from Jehovah, was not a natural flash of lightning, which could not produce any such effect, but miraculous fire falling from heaven, as in 1 Chron. xxi. 26, 2 Chron. vii. 1 (see at Lev. ix. 24), the supernatural origin of which was manifested in the fact, that it not only consumed the sacrifice with the pile of wood upon the altar, but also burned up (in calcem redegit — Cler.) the stones of the altar and the earth that was thrown up to form the trench, and licked up the water in the trench. Through this miracle Jehovah not only accredited Elijah as His servant and prophet, but proved Himself to be the living God, whom Israel was to serve; so that all the people who were present fell down upon their faces in worship, as they had done once before, viz. at the consecration of the altar in Lev. ix. 24, and confessed " Jehovah is God:" DWxn, the true or real God.
250 THE FIHST BOOK ok kings.
the people for the Lord, to deal a fatal blow at the prophets of I al, who turned away the people from the living God. He commanded the people to seize them, and had them slain at the brook Kishon, and that not so much from revenge, Le. because it was at their instigation that queen Jezebel had murdered the prophets of the true God (ver. 13 earn out the fundamental law of the Old Testament kingdom of God, which prohibited idolatry on pain of death, and commanded that t prophets should be fed I'eut. xvii.! in. 13! —
\ I L. Elijah then called upon the king, who had eaten nothing from morning till evening in his. the contest between the prophet and the priests of Baal, to come up ii the brook Kishon; place < | upon Carmel, where his wants were provided for, and to partake of meat and drink, tor he Elijah) could already hear ti. I tall of rain. ^r curse of drought, which had fallen upon the land, had 1
LOVed by • LCtiOD of the idolatrous | ving himself af re&h to be the representative of G I 0. v.
-i While the king thing himself with food and drink. Elijah went up to ti. Carmel bat the I till til 1 i i the visible corns; the fulfilment of his prayer \ announced by 1 rvant, wl looking out upon tl
1 It fftl ii' rj that iilolatry and I the worship of idols tod Lord oi B fthedii - was to did what the law requ loch M the ordinary administrators of justice did not fultil their oblig he did this as an extraordinary ines- f Clod, whom t: Hls prophet before all the the miraculous ansu D to his prayer. — To infer from this act of Elijah the right t<> institute a bloody persecution of heretics, would not only indicate a complete ght of the difference between heathen idolaters and Christian heretics, but the same reprehensible confounding of the evangelical standpoint of the New Testament with the I.ndpoint of the Old, which Christ condemued in liia own disciples iu Luke ix. 55, 5G.
about the size of a mans hand.1 The peculiar attitude assumed by Elijah when praying (Jas. v. 18), viz. bowing down even to the earth p^V.) and putting his face between his knees, probably the attitude of deep absorption in God, was witnessed by Shaw and Chardin in the case of certain dervishes (yid. Harmar, Beobachtungcn, iii. pp. 373-4). — Ver. 44. As soon as the small cloud ascended from the sea, Elijah sent his servant to tell the king to set off home, that he might not be stopped by the rain. Tj, go down, sc. from Carmel to his chariot, which was standing at the foot of the mountain.2 — Ver. 45. Before any provision had been made for it (^""W niny: hither and thither, i.e. while the hand is being moved to and fro, "very speedily;" cf. Ewald, § 105, b) the heaven turned black with clouds and wind, i.e. with storm-clouds (Thenius), and there came a great fall of rain, while Ahab drove along the road to Jezreel. It was quite possible for the king to reach Jezreel the same evening from that point, namely, from the foot of Carmel below el Mohraka: but only thence, for every halthour farther west would have taken him too far from his capital for it to be possible to accomplish the distance before the rain "Overtook him (V. de Velde, i. p. 326). Jezreel, the present Zerin (see at Josh. xix. 18), was probably the summer residence of Ahab (see at Josh. xxi. 1). The distance from el Mohraka thither is hardly 2£ German geographical miles (? 14 Engl, miles — Tit.) in a straight line. — Ver. 46. When Ahab drove off, the hand of the Lord came upon Elijah, so that he ran before Ahab as far as Jezreel, — not so much for the purpose of bringing the king to his residence unhurt (Seb. Schm.), as to give him a proof of his humility, and thus deepen the impression already made upon his heart, and fortify him all the more against the strong temptations of his wife, who abused his weakness to support the cause of ungodliness. This act of Elijah, whom Ahab had hitherto only
1 V. de Velde has shown how admirably these circumstances (vers. 43 and 44) also apply to the situation of el Mohraka: " on its west and north-west
side the view of the sea is quite intercepted by an adjacent height. That height may be ascended, however, in a few minutes, and a full view of the sea obtained from the top " (i. p. 326).
2 " After three years' drought all herbage must have disappeared from the plain of Jezreel, and the loose clay composing its soil must have been changed into a deep layer of dust. Had time been allowed for the rain to convert that dust into a bed of mud, the chariot-wheels might have stuck fast in it." — V. de Velde, i. pp. 326-7.
known as a stern, imperious, and powerful prophet, by which he now showed himself to be his faithful subject and servant, was admirably adapted to touch the heart of the king, and produce the conviction that it was not from any personal dislike to him, but only in the service of the Lord, that the prophet was angry at his idolatry, and that lie was not trying to effect his ruin, but rather his conversion and the salvation of his soul. nirp T, the hand (/.c the power) of the Lord, denotes the supernatural strength with which the Lord endowed him, to accomplish superhuman feats. Tins formula is generally applied to the divine inspiration by which the prophets were prepared for their prophesying (c£ 2 Kings iii. 15; Ezek. i. 3, ni. 15, etc.).
The hop mpleting his victory over the idolaters and overthrowing the worship oi in the capital of the kingdom, with which Elijah may have hastened to Jeareel, was frustrated by the malice of the queen, who v far from dia-
;' the almighty ( rod in the rant given her by Ahah of what had occurred on Carmel, and bending before His mighty hand, that, on the conta full of wrath at the slayin prophet I as to send to the prophet Elijah to threaten him with death. This apparent failure of his mini- inward conflict, in which Elijah v, mght to a ondency and fled from the land Ih< Lord allowed B rvant to pass through this conflict, that he might n< Lt himself, but, being mindful of his own impotence, might I with the of his i, whoa ogth is mighty in the weak 2 Cor. xii 8, 9), and who would refine and strengthen him for the further fulfilment of his calling.
Vera 1-8. Elijah' Into tl I and g dance to
>eb. — Vers. 1, 2. When -Ahah told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and all, how lie had slain all the prophets (of Baal)/1 she sent a m to Elijah in her impotent wrath, with a threat, which she confirmed by an oath (see at ch. ii. 21 3), that in the morning she would have him slain like the prophets whom he had put to death. The early commentators detected in this threat the impotent ia muliebris iracundicc, and saw that all that
Jezebel wanted was to get rid of the man who was so distressing and dangerous to her, because she felt herself unable to put him to death, partly on account of the people, who were enthusiastic in his favour, and partly on account of the king himself, upon whom the affair at Carinel had not remained without its salutary effect. — Vers. 3, 4. But when Elijah saw (**"!?!!), sc. how things stood, or the audacity of Jezebel, from which the failure of his work was evident, he rose up and went to Beersheba in Judah, i.e. Bir-seba on the southern frontier of Canaan (see at Gen. xxi. 31). The expression tmtb nete, "which to Judah," i.e. which belonged to the kingdom of Judah, for Beersheba wTas really allotted to the tribe of Simeon (Josh. xix. 2), is appended not merely as a geographical indication that Elijah went outside the land, but to show that he meant to leave the kingdom of Israel, the scene of his previous labours, just as Jeremiah in a similar internal conflict gave utterance to the wish that lie could leave his people, if he had but a lodging-place in the wilderness (Jer. ix. 2). N"W is not to be altered into NTJ1, et timuit, after the LXX. and Vulg., notwithstanding the fact that some Codd. have this reading, which only rests upon an erroneous conjecture. For it is obvious that Elijah did not flee from any fear of the vain threat of Jezebel, from the fact that he did not merely withdraw into the kingdom of Judah, where he would have been safe under Jehoshaphat from all the persecutions of Jezebel, b.ut went to Beersheba, and thence onwards into the desert, there to pour out before the Lord God his weariness of life (ver. 4). iS?M"vK TJJJ, he went upon his soul, or his life, i.e. not to save his life (as I once thought, with many other commentators), for his wish to die (ver. 4) is opposed to this; but to care for his soul in the manner indicated in ver. 4, i.e. to commit his soul or his life to the Lord his God in the solitude of the desert, and see what He would determine concerning him.1 — He left his servant in Beersheba, while he himself went a day's journey farther into the desert (Paran), not merely because he was so filled with weari-
1 G. Menken (christl. Homil. ub. den Proph. Elias, p. 231) lias given the following admirable explanation of i£>£3 ptf so far as the sense is concerned: " For conscience sake, from conviction, out of obligation, not from fear. After all his former experience, and from the entire relation in which Elijah stood to God, it was impossible that he should be afraid, and not be firmly convinced that the God who had shut up heaven at his word, who had supplied him with bread and flesh for a whole year in the desert through the medium of ravens, who had supported him miraculously for years in a foreign land through the ness of life in his dark oppression, that he thought he should have no further need of his servant, and there lore left him behind in 1 ha, but that he might pour out his heart bei God alone in the desert and yield himself up to His guidance.
however unquestionably his lamentation in vet 4 ample, ex]:.riness of life, this merely indicates the feeling which had taken possession of his soul after a day's journey in the barren desert. And even th< re he lays his wish to die bei
I in prayer; so that this feeling is merely to he rt I as one result of the spiritual conflict, which his bodily exhaustion
I now i i height that it i have reached when he
If. therefore, he did not start with the intention of inaki: rtainly gone into the fc for the pi.- ing whether the b>rd would ma v to him, as He fa merly doi His pie nndei M see, i He would withdraw Eis hand entirely from him. A.. n uiuh ttrfi trued here a minine,in S as a masculini and m arub of the Aral. wing constantly which th by night from the wind and by day from
.1 might die (a kind of itive with intini:. raid, for 1 am D than l. [ have worked and endured enough, and deserve no longer li: I sqq. In this disturl f mind he lay down and slept under a broom-tree Then the Lord earn.' with His power to the help of: ring man. I touched him (wakened him saw at hi- DCBT] •":. hotstOD try article of food which is still trite with the and a half from the search of the kin£, who had accredited and honoured him in the sight of all Uu ait, who had given an immediate answer to his prayer for rain, could also defeod him in this extremity, and rescue him fro;n this danger, if such should be His will."
and ate and drank, and lay down again. — Ver. 7. But the angel wakened him a second time, and called upon him to eat with these woida: " for the way is too far for thee " (TJ£? V&Q 31, iter est majus quam pro vinous tuis — Vat.). — Ver. 8. " Then he arose, ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to the mount of God at Horeb." As the angel did not tell him whither he was to go, and Elijah wandered to Horeb in consequence of this strengthening, it appears to have been his intention from the very beginning to go into the desert, and see whether the Lord would still further acknowledge him and his work; so that in the support and strength imparted by the angel he saw an indication that he was to follow the footsteps of the divine grace still farther into the desert, and make a pilgrimage to Horeb, with the hope that there perhaps the Lord would reveal to him His counsel concerning the further guidance of the people of His covenant, as He had formerly done to His servant Moses, and give him the necessary instruction for the continuance of his prophetic service. Horeb is called the mount,)f God here, as it was proleptically in Ex. iii. 1, as the place where the Lord confirmed the covenant, already made with the patriarchs, to their descendants, and adopted the tribes of Israel as His people and made them into a kingdom of God. The distance from Beersheba to Horeb is about 200 miles. Consequently Elijah would not have required forty days to travel there, if the intention of God had been nothing more than to cause him to reach the mountain, or " to help him on his way " (Thenius). But in the strength of the food provided by the angel Elijah was not only to perform the journey to Horeb, but to wander in the desert for forty days and forty nights, i.e. forty whole days, as Moses had formerly wandered with all Israel for forty years; that he might know that the Lord was still the same God who had nourished and sustained His whole nation in the desert with manna from heaven for forty years. And just as the forty years' sojourn in the desert had been to Moses a time for the trial of faith and for exercise in humility and meekness (Num. xii. 3), so was the strength of Elijah's faith to be tried by the forty days' wandering in the same desert, and to be purified from all carnal zeal for the further fulfilment of His calling, in accordance with the divine will. What follows shows very clearly that this was the object of the divine guidance of Elijah <cf. Hengstenberg, Diss, on the Pentateuch, vol. i. 171, 172).
Elijah arrived at Horeb, he went into the cave (the definite article in nTOp?, with the obvious connection between the ap- 1, which follows here, and that described in Ex. xxxiii. 12 sqq., points back to the clefl in the rock, Wjrnpa) in which M had stood while the glory of Jehovah I by
(se< icxxiii 22. and there he passed the night And behold the word of the Lord came to him in the night: "What thou here, Elijah!" This question did involve a reproof, as thou h Elijah had nothing to do there, but - simply intended to ' him to give utterance to the thoughts and feelings of his heart— Ver. LO, Elijah answered:" I I striven a i | of bo i the children of I jrael hav< ken Thy i Thine altars, and killed Thy prophets with the 1 1 only am left, and they seek my life." In these words there was nut only the great edition of thin—, but i a i I whirl, would gladly I lown the imi dial ace of the Aim: a all id >m- quictl oductol the ungodly.
1 1 the indirect appeal that II would own ey< -. tl a in tl hbourhood of the kin- him there lived a pious and faithful worshipper « Obadiah, who had i hundred prophi I and tl whole of the i pie assembled upon Carmel hi a glory t<» the I. command had B ■ d and put them u> death, and therefore that the true worship] 1 could not all have vanished mi: of Israel "*"" •fnupidg • ■ ]]. to mind the i of Phinehas Num. \\v. 1 ] which put an end to the whoredom of tl \ of Israel with the daughters of Ifoah.
But whereas Phinehas an everlasting priesth r his seal, Elijah had o little fruit from 1 his life. I^nnrp are altars, which pious Israelites in the kingdom of the ten tribes hail built in different places for the worship of Jehovah (see at ch. xviii. 30). — Vers. 11 sqq. The Lord replied to the prophet's complaint first of all by the manifestation of His control of the phenomena of nature (vers. 11-13), and then by a verbal explanation of His design (vers. 15-18).
In this divine revelation men have recognised from the very earliest times a repetition of the appearance of God which was granted to Moses upon Sinai. As God, in token of His grace, granted the prayer of Moses that he might see His glory, after he had striven zealously for the honour of the Lord when the people rebelled by worshipping the golden calf; so did He also display His glory upon Horeb to Elijah as a second Moses for the purpose of strengthening his faith, with this simple difference, that He made all His goodness pass by Moses, and declared His name in the words, " Jehovah, a gracious and merciful God," etc. (Ex. xxxiv. G, 7), whereas He caused Elijah first of all to behold the operation of His grace in certain phenomena of nature, and then afterwards made known to him His will with regard to Israel and to the work of His prophets. This difference in the form of the revelation, while the substance and design were essentially the same, may be explained from the difference not only in the historical circumstances, but also in the state of mind of the two servants to whom He manifested His glory. In the case of Moses it was burning love for the welfare of his people which impelled him to offer the prayer that the Lord would let him see His glory, as a sign that He would not forsake His people; and this prayer was granted him, so far as a man is ever able to see the glory of God, to strengthen him for the further discharge of the duties of his office. Hidden in the cleft of the rock and shielded by the hand of God, he saw the Lord pass by him, and heard Him utter in words His inmost being. Elijah, on the other hand, in his zeal for the honour of God, which was not quite free from human passion, had been led by the want of any visible fruit from his own labour to overlook the work of the Lord in the midst of His people; so that he had fled into the desert and wished to be released from this world by death, and had not been brought out of his despair by the strengthening with meat and drink which he had received from the angel, and which enabled him to travel for forty days to the mount of
God without suffering from want, a fact which was intended to remind him of the ancient God of the fathers, to whose omnipotence and goodness there is no end; so that it was in a most gloomy state of mind that at last. And n « the Lord d not only to manif! st II:- glory as the love in which grace and righteous w him that his zeal for the honour of the Lord was not in harmony with the lo\ md long-suffering of God ■ 'I tain with a salutary dread of II lble m. of the l it (see at Ex. xix. 1 h sqq.). Lord was not in did not work in I! thly k;. with th of wrath, or with the pitiless s of judgment It was in
14. When Elijah heard this, he covered up his face in his cloak (nyjN; see at 2 Kings i. 8) and went out to the entrance to the cave. And behold lie heard the question a second tune, " What doest tliou here, Elijah?" and answered with a repetition of his complaint (see vers. 9 and 10). — While the appearance of God, not in the tempest, the earthquake, and the fire, but in a gentle rustling, revealed the Lord to him as a merciful and gracious God, long-suffering, and of great goodness and truth (Ex. xxxiv. 6), the answer to his complaint showed him that He did not leave guilt unpunished (Ex. xxxiv. 7), since the Lord gave him the following command, vers. 15 sqq.: " Go back in thy way to the desert of Damaseus, and anoint Hazael king over Aram (see 2 Kings viii. 12, 13), and Jehu the son of Nimshi king over Israel (see 2 Kings ix. 2), and Elisha the son of Shaphat prophet in thy stead " (see ver. 19); and then added this promise, which must have quieted his zeal, that was praiseworthy in the feelings from which it sprang, although it had assumed too passionate a form, and have given him courage to continue his prophetic work: " And it will come to pass, that whoever escapeth the sword of Hazael, him will Jehu slay, and whoever escapeth the sword of Jehu, him will Elisha slay." — Ver. 18. But in order that he might learn, to his shame, that the cause of the Lord in Israel appeared much more desperate to his eye, which was clouded by his own dissatisfaction, than it really was in the eye of the God who knows His own by number and by name, the Lord added: " I have seven thousand left in Israel, all knees that have not bent before Baal, and every mouth that hath not kissed him." p^*! nnnip^ into the desert of Damascus (with the He loc. with the construct state as in Deut. iv. 41, Josh. xii. 1, etc.; cf. Ewald, § 21G, b), i.e. the desert lying to the south and east of the city of Damascus, which is situated on the river Barady; not per desertion in Damascum (Yulg., Luth., etc.); for although Elijah would necessarily pass through the Arabian desert to go from Horeb to Damascus, it was superfluous to tell him that he was to go that way, as there was no other road. The words " return by thy way... and anoint Hazael," etc., are not to be understood as signifying that Elijah wras to go at once to Damascus and anoint Hazael there, but simply that he was to do this at a time which the Spirit wTould more precisely indicate. According to wdaat follows, all that Elijah accomplished immediately was to call Elisha to be his successor; whereas the other two commissions were fulfilled by Elisha after Elijah's ascension to heaven
(2 Kings viii. and ix.). The opinion that Elijah also anointed Hazael and Jehu immediately, but that this anointing was kept secret, and was repeated by Elisha when the time for their public appearance arrived, has not only very little probability in itself, but is directly precluded by the account of the anointing of Jehu in 2 Kings ix. The anointing of Hazael and Jehu is mentioned first, because God had chosen these two kings to be the chief instruments of His judgments upon the royal family and people for their idolatry. It was only in the case of Jehu that a real anointing took place (2 Kings ix. G); Hazael was merely told by Elisha that he would be king (2 Kings viii. 13), and Elisha was simply called by Elijah to the prophetic office by having the cloak of the latter thrown upon him. A£< the Messianic p. I -a. Ixi I, is the only one in which there is any allusion to thi oting of a prophet. I [uently