Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

for collecting water [vid. Jer, riv, 3), which would suddenly flow down through the brook-valli This large quantity of water came on the (following) morning u by the way of Edom" (ver. 20), a heavy Call of rain or violent storm having taken place, as is evident from the context, in the eastern mountains of Edom, at a great distance from the Israelitish camp, the water of which filled the brook-valley, i.>. the V- thy and el

Alisy (see at ver. 9) at once, without the Israelites observing anything either of the wind, which always precedes rain in the East (Harinar, Bcohb. i. pp. 51, 52), or of the rain itself. ^y:?D are the flocks intended for slaughtering, 03^*?'!)? ^ie beasts of burden. — Vers. 18, 19. Elisha continued: " and this is too little for Jehovah (the comparative force of /j?J is implied in the context, especially in the alternating combination of the two clauses, which is indicated by)... \ see Ewald, § 360, c): He will also give Moab into your hand, and ye will smite all the fortified and choice cities, fell all the good trees (fruit-trees), stop up all the springs of water, and spoil all the good fields with stones." 1J10 and "linnp are intended to produce a play upon words, through the resemblance in their sound and meaning (Ewald, § 160, c). In the announcement of the devastation of the land there is an allusion to Deut. xx. 19, 20, according to which the Israelites were ordered to spare the fruit-trees when Canaan was taken. These instructions were not to apply to Moab, because the Moabites themselves as the arch-foes of Israel would not act in any other way with the land of Israel if they should gain the victory. 2*pn to add pain, is a poetical expression for spoiling a field or rendering it infertile through the heaping up of stones. — Ver. 20. The water came in the morning at the time of the morning sacrifice (see 1 Kings xviii. 36), to indicate that the Lord was once more restoring His favour to the people on account of the sacrifice presented to Him in His temple.

The help of God, which preserved the Israelitish army from destruction, also prepared destruction for the Moabites. Vers. 21-23. On hearing the report of the march of the allied kings, Moab had raised all the men that were capable of bearing arms, and stationed them on the frontier. In the morning, when the sun had risen above the water, the Moabites saw the water opposite to them like blood, and said: " That is blood: the (allied) kings have destroyed themselves and smitten one another; and now to the spoil, Moab! " Coming with this expectation to the Israelitish camp, they were received by the allies, who were ready for battle, and put to flight. The divine help consisted, therefore, not in a miracle which surpassed the laws of nature, but simply in the fact that the Lord God, as He had predicted through His prophet, caused the forces of nature ordained by Him to wrork in the predetermined manner. As the sudden supply of an abundance of w^ater was caused in a natural way by a heavy fall of rain, so the illusion, which was so fatal to the Moabites, is also to be explained in the natural manner indicated in the text. From the reddish earth of the freshly dug trenches the water collected in them had acquired a reddish colour, which was considerably intensified by the rays of the rising sun, so that when seen from a distance it resembled blood. The Moabites, however, were the less likely to entertain the thought of an optical delusion, from the fact that with their accurate acquaintance with the country they knew very well that there was no water in the wady at that time, and they had neither seen nor heard anything of the rain which had fallen at a great distance off in the Edomitish mountains. The thought was therefore a natural one, that the water was blood, and that the cause of the blood could only have been that their enemies had massacred one another, more especially as the jealousy between Israel and Judah was not unknown to them, and they could have no doubt that Edom had only come with them as a forced ally after the unsuccessful attempt at rebellion which it had made a short time before; and, lastly, they cannot quite have forgotten their own last expedition against Judah in alliance with the Edomites and Ammonites, which had completely failed, because the men composing their own army had de 1 one another. But if they came into collision with the allied army of the Israelites under such a delusion as this, the battle could only end in defeat and in a general flight SO fl they were concerned. —

Vera 2 1. 25. The Israelites followed the fugitives into their own land and laid it wa Klisha had prophesied (\vr. 25 compared with ver. 19). Ti 'Mb WTOI is to be read W \V\

:• HOT, afl in 1 Kings xii. 12): and (Israel) came into the land and smote Moab. The K> ri **3 is a bad emendation. rrtan is either the infinitive construct used instead of the infin. absolute (Ewald, ji 351, c), or an unusual form of the inf. absol. (Ewald, § 240, b). W^n?, till one (= so that one only) left its stones in Kir-dkaraetk. On the infinitive form *^N£'n see at Josh. viii. 22. The suflix in rW3*| probably points forward to the following noun (Ewald, § 309, c). The city called nirin Tp here and Isa. xvi. 7, and iHj vp in isa. xvi. 11 and Jer. xlviii. 31, 36, i.e. probably city of potsherds, is called elsewhere ^P 3^0, the citadel of Moab (Isa. xv. 1), as the principal fortress of the land (in the Chaldee Vers. SNiDi K3TO), and still exists under the name of Kerak, with a strong castle built by the Crusaders, upon a lofty and steep chalk rock, surrounded by a deep and narrow valley, which runs westward under the name of Wady Kerak and falls into the Dead Sea (yid. Burckhardt, Syr. pp. 643 sqq., C. v. Kaumer, Pal. pp. 271, 272). This fortress the allied kings besieged. " The slingers surrounded and smote it," i.e. bombarded it. — Ver. 26. When the king of Moab saw that the battle was too strong for him, he attempted to fight a way through the beseigers with 700 men with drawn swords (ViP^np, lit. to split them) to the king of Edom, i.e. on the side which was held by this king, from whom he probably hoped that he should meet with the weakest resistance. — Ver. 27. But when this attempt failed, in his desperation he took his first-born son, who was to succeed him as king, and offered him as a sacrifice upon the wall, i.e. in the sight of the besiegers, not to the God of Israel (Joseph., Ephr. Syr., etc.), but to his own god Camos (see at 1 Kings xi. 7), to procure help from him by appeasing his wrath; just as the heathen constantly sought to appease the wrath of their gods by human sacrifices on the occasion of great calamities (yid. Euseb. prcepar. ev. iv. 16, and E. v. Lasaulx, die Siihnopfer der Griechen und Earner, pp. 8 sqq.). — " And there was (came) great wrath upon Israel, and they departed from him (the king of Moab) and returned into their land." As bv *|Xj? JTn is used of the divine wrath or judgment, which a man brings upon himself by sinning, in every other case in which the phrase occurs, we cannot understand it here as signifying the " human indignation," or ill-will, which broke out among the besieged (Budd., Schulz, and others). The meaning is: this act of abomination, to which the king of the Moabites had been impelled by the extremity of his distress, brought a severe judgment from God upon Israel. The besiegers, that is to say, felt the wrath of God, which they had brought upon themselves by occasioning human sacrifice, which is strictly forbidden in the law (Lev. xviii. 21, xx. 3), either inwardly in their conscience or in some outwardly visible signs, so that they gave up the further prosecution of the siege and the conquest of the city, without having attained the object of the expedition, namely, to renew the subjugation of Moab under the power of Israel.

From ch. iv.-ch. viii. 6 there follows a series of miracles on the part of Elisha, which both proved this prophet to be the continuer of the work which Elijah had begun, of converting Israel from the service of Baal to the service of the living God, and also manifested the beneficent fruits of the zeal of Elijah for the honour of the Lord of Sabaoth in the midst of the idolatrous generation of his time, partly in the view which we obtain from several of these accounts of the continuance and prosperity of the schools of the prophets, and partly in the attitude of Elisha towards the godly in the land as well as towards Joram the king, the son of the idolatrous Ahab, and in the extension of his fame beyond the limits of Israel. (See the remarks on the labours of both prophets at pp. 229 sqq, and those on the schools of the prophets at 1 Sam. xix. 24.) — All the miracles described in this section belong to the reign of Joram king of Israel. They are not all related, however, in chronological order, but the chronolojv i< frequently disregarded lor the purpose of grouping together events which are hom< is in their nature. This is evident, not only from the fact that (a) several of these accounts are attached quite loosely to one another without any particle to indicate sequence («*i ch iv. 1, 38, 42, v, l.vi. 8, and viii 1), and (h) we have first <>f all those miracles which were performed for the good of the scholars of tin- prop] 'I of particular private persons (ch, iv.-vi. 7), and then such works of the prophet bore more upon the political circumstances i t the nation, and of the king as the leader of the nation (ch. vi. 8-vii -<>, hut also from the circumstance that in the case of some of th vou

Substantia] relation to what pn or what follows, without any regard to the time at which they occurred Thus, for example, the occurrence described in ch. viii. 1—6, which should undoubtedly stand before ch. v. so far as the chronology is concerned, is placed at the end of the miracles which Klisha wrought tor king Joram, simply because it exhibits in the clearest manner the salutary fruit of what he had done. An igain, the account of Naaman the leper is placed in ch. v., although its proper position would be after ch. vi. 7, because it closes the series of miracles performed for and upon private persons, and the miracle was wrought upon a foreigner, so that the fame of the prophet had already penetrated into a foreign country; whereas in order of time it should either stand between vers. 23 and 24 of the sixth chapter (because the incursions of the flying parties of Syrians, to which ch. vi. 8-23 refers, had already taken place), or not till after the close of ch. vii. On the other hand, the partial separation of the miracles performed for the schools of the prophets (ch. iv. 1-7, 38-41, 42-44, and ch. vi. 1-7) can only be explained on chronological grounds; and this is favoured by the circumstance that the events inserted between are attached by a Vav consec, which does indicate the order of sequence (ch. v. 8 sqq. and vi. 1 sqq.). Regarded as a whole, however, the section ch. iv. 1-viii. 6, which was no doubt taken from a prophetical monograph and inserted into the annals of the kings, is in its true chronological place, since the account in ch. iii. belongs to the earlier period of the history, and the events narrated from ch. viii. 7 onwards to the later period.

Vers. 1-7. The Widow's Cruse of Oil. — A poor widow of the scholars of the prophets complained to Elisha of her distress, namely, that a creditor was about to take her two sons as servants (slaves). The Mosaic law gave a creditor the right to claim the person and children of a debtor who was unable to pay, and they were obliged to serve him as slaves till the year of jubilee, when they were once more set free (Lev. xxv. 39, 40). When the prophet learned, on inquiry, that she had nothing in her house but a small flask of oil (^DK, from!pD, means an anointing flask, a small vessel for the oil necessary for anointing the body), he told her to beg of all her neighbours empty vessels, not a few (^ytpfi"7K, make not few, sc. to beg), and then to shut herself in with her sons, and to pour from her flask of oil into all these vessels till they were full, and then to sell this oil and pay her debt with the money, and use the rest for the maintenance of herself and her children. She was to close the house-door, that she might not be disturbed in her occupation by other people, and also generally to avoid all needless observation while the miracle was being performed. T^n fcosn, let that which is filled be put on one side, namely by the sons, who handed her the vessels, according to vers. 5 and 6, so that she was able to pour without intermission. The form np^D is a participle Piel, and is quite appropriate as an emphatic form; the Keri ripvio (Hijphil) is an unnecessary alteration, especially as the Hiphil of PTT is PS?H. \®f? T^BH then the oil stood, i.e. it ceased to flow. The asyndeton W3 nao is very harsh, and the Vav copul. has probably dropped out. With the alteration proposed by L. de Dieu, viz. of ftKI into JiNi, " live with thy sons," the verb *Wl would necessarily stand first (Thenius).

Vers. 8-37. The Shunammite and her Son. — Ver. 8. When Elisha was going one day (lit. the day, i.e. at that time, then) to Shuncm (Solam, at the south-western foot of the Lesser Hermon; see at 1 Kings i. 3), a wealthy woman (Wfaj as in 1 Sam. xxv. 2, etc.) constrained him to eat at her house; whereupon, as often as he passed by that place in his subsequent journeys from Carmel to Jezreel and back, he was accustomed to call upon her (~iid as in Gen. xix. 2). — Vers. 9, 10. The woman then asked her husband to build a small upper chamber for this holy man of God, and to furnish it with the necessary articles of furniture (viz. bed, table, seat, and lamp), that he might always turn in at their house. ^"P'^vV is either a walled upper chamber, i.e. one built with brick and not with wooden walls (Cler., Then.), or an upper chamber built upon the wall of the lmuse (Ges.). — Vers. 11-1 time, when

Elisha had spent the night in the chamb- ided for him, he wanted to make boom acknowledgment to his h< I >r the love which the had Bhown him, and told his servant ( lehazi to call her,;m«l i her: "Thou ha o all this care for us, what shall I do to thee I Hast thou (anything) b to the king or the chief captain I thou any wish that I could convey to them, and intercede for th< There is something striking here in the fact that Elisha did not address the woman himself, as she \ aiding him, but told fa nit to announce to hei his will • some return for what she had done. This was. probably, Simply from kid to the great awe which she had of the " holy man of God" (ver, and to inspire her with courage to the wishes of her heart.1 She ai. ' I dwell among my people/1 i.e.

and peaceably among my countrymen, so that 1 have no need for any intercession with the king and great men of the kingdom. 'ATrpay/jLocrvvri yalpw, kcli eipTjvifcajs Bidycj icai irpos riva a/jL<f)i(T(3>']Tr)(TLv ovtc cwe^o^at (Theodoret). — Vers. 14-16. When Elisha conversed with (lehazi still further on the matter, the latter said: " But she has no son, and her husband is old." Elisha

1 The conjecture that Elisha would not speak to her directly for the sake of maintaining his dignity, or that the historian looked upon such conversation with women as unbecoming in a teacher of the law (Thenius), is already proved to be untenable by vers. 15, 16, where Elisha does speak to her directly.

then had her called again, and told her when she had entered the door: "At this time a year hence (njn riV3, lit. at the time when it revives again; see at Gen. xviii. 1 0) thou wilt embrace a son." The same favour was to be granted to the Shunammite as that which Sarah had received in her old age, that she might learn that the God of Abraham still ruled in and for Israel. She replied: " No, my lord, thou man of God," aianrpK, i.e. do not excite in thy servant any deceptive hopes. — Ver. 17. But however incredible this promise might appear to her, as it had formerly done to Sarah (Gen. xviii. 12, 13), it was fulfilled at the appointed time (cf. Gen. xxi. 2). — Vers. 18-20. But even the faith of the pious woman was soon to be put to the test, and to be confirmed by a still more glorious revelation of the omnipotence of the Lord, who works through the medium of His prophets. When the child presented to her by God had grown up into a lad, he complained one day to the reapers in the field of a violent headache, saying to his father, u My head, my head!" He was then taken home to his mother, and died at noon upon her knees, no doubt from inflammation of the brain produced by a sunstroke. — Vers. 21-23. The mother took the dead child at once up to the chamber built for Elisha, laid it upon the bed of the man of God, and shut the door behind her; she then asked her husband, without telling him of the death of the boy, to send a young man with a sheass, that she might ride as quickly as possible to the man of God; and when her husband asked her, " Wherefore wilt thou go to him to-day, since it is neither new moon nor Sabbath? " 1 she replied, shalom; i.e. either " it is all well," or " never mind." For this word, which is used in reply to a question after one's health (see ver. 26), is apparently also used, as Clericus has correctly observed, when the object is to avoid giving a definite answer to any one, and yet at the same time to satisfy him. — Vers. 24, 25. She then rode without stopping, upon the animal

1 From these words, Theod., Kimchi, C. a Lap., Vatabl., and others have drawn the correct conclusion, that the pious in Israel were accustomed to meet together at the prophets' houses for worship and edification, on those days which were appointed in the law (Lev. xxiii. 3; Num. xxviii. 11 sqq.) for the worship of God; and from this Hertz and Hengstenberg have still further inferred, that in the kingdom of the ten tribes not only were the Sabbath and new moons kept, as is evident from Amos viii. 5 also, but the prophets supplied the pious in that kingdom with a substitute for the missing Levitical priesthood.

driven by the young man, to Elisha at mount Carmel. yivyrrbK 3Sr6, literally, do not hinder me from riding. — Vers. 25-27. When the prophet saw her *W|D (from the opposite), that is to say, saw her coming in the distance, and recognised her as the Shunammite, he sent Gehazi to meet her, to ask her about her own health and that of her husband and child. She answered, shalom, i.e. well, that she might not be detained by any further discussion, and came to the prophet and embraced his feet, to pray for the help of the " holy man of God." Gehazi wanted to thrust her away, " because it seemed to him an immodest importunity to wisli to urge the prophet in such a way as this, and as it were to compel him " (Seb. Schm.); but the prophet said, " Let her alone, for her soul is troubled, and Jehovah has hidden it from me and has not told me." 1 — Ver. 28. The pious woman then uttered this complaint to the prophet: "Did I ask a son of the Lord? Did I not say, Do not deceive me?" What had happened to her she did not say, — a fact which may easily be explained on psychological grounds from herder]) sorrow, — but Elisha could not fail to discover it from what she said. — Ver. 29. lb- therefore directed his servant Gehazi: " Gird thy Loins and take thy staff in thy hand ami go: if thou meet any one, thou wilt not salute him; and if any one salute thee, thou wilt not answer him; and lay my stall' upon the face of the boy." The object of this command neither to salute nor to return salutations by the way, was not merely to ensure the greatest haste (Thenius and many others), inasmuch as the people of the East lose a great deal of time in prolonged salutations (Niebuhr, Beschr. r. Arab. p. 48),2 but the prophet wished thereby to preclude at the very outset the possibility of attributing the failure of Gehazi's attempt to awaken the child to any external or accidental circumstance of this kind. For since it is inconceivable that the prophet should have adopted a wrong method, that is to say, should have sent Gehazi with the hope

1 All that we can infer from these last words with regard to the nature of prophecy, is that the donum propheticum did not involve a supernatural revelation of every event.

2 Or, as C. a Lap. supposes: " that Gehazi might avoid all distraction of either eyes or ears, and prepare himself entirely by prayers for the accomplishment of so great a miracle." Theodoret explains it in a similar manner: u He knew that he was vainglorious and fond of praise, and that he would be sure to tell the reason of his journey to those who should meet him by the way. And vaiDglory is a hindrance to thaumaturgy."

that he would restore the dead boy to life, his only intention in sending the servant must have been to give to the Shunammite and her family, and possibly also to Gehazi himself, a practical proof that the power to work miracles was not connected in any magical way with his person or his staff, but that miracles as works of divine omnipotence could only be wrought througli faith and prayer; not indeed with the secondary intention of showing that he alone could work miracles, and so of increasing his own importance (Koster), but to purify the faith of the godly from erroneous ideas, and elevate them from superstitious reliance upon his own human person to true reliance upon the Lord God. — Ver. 30. The mother of the boy does not appear, indeed, to have anticipated any result from the measures adopted by Elisha; for she swears most solemnly that she will not leave him. But the question arises, whether this urging of the prophet to come himself and help arose from doubt as to the result of Gehazi' s mission, or whether it was not rather an involuntary utterance of her excessive grief, and of the warmest wish of her maternal heart to see her beloved child recalled to life. We may probably infer the latter from the fulfilment of her request by Elisha. — Ver. 31. Gehazi did as he was commanded, but the dead child did not come to life again; the prophet's staff worked no miracle. " There was no sound and no attention," i.e. the dead one gave no sign of life. This is the meaning of 7\\> px 2Vp. T$\ both here and 1 Kings xviii. 29, where it is used of dead idols. The attempt of Gehazi to awaken the child was unsuccessful, not propter fidem ipsi a muliere non adhibitam (Seb. Schm.), nor because of the vainglory of Gehazi himself, but simply to promote in the godly of Israel true faith in the Lord. — Vers. 32—35. Elisha then entered the house, where the boy was lying dead upon his bed, and shut the door behind them both {i.e. himself and the dead child), and prayed to the Lord. He then lay down upon the boy, so that his mouth, his eyes, and his hands lay upon the mouth, eyes, and hands of the child, bowing down over him ("in*; see at 1 Kings xviii. 42); and the flesh (the body) of the child became warm. He then turned round, i.e. turned away from the boy, went once up and down in the room, and bowed himself over him again; whereupon the boy sneezed seven times, and then opened his eyes. This raising of the dead boy to life does indeed resemble the raising of the dead by Elijah (1 Eongs xvii. 20 sqq.); but it differs so obviously in the manner in which it was effected, that we may see at once from this that Elisha did not possess the double measure of the spirit of Elijah. It is true that Elijah stretched himself three times upon the dead child, but at his prayer the dead returned immediately to life, whereas in the case of Elisha the restoration to life was a gradual thing.1 And they both differ essentially from the raising of the dead by Christ, who recalled the dead to life by one word of His omnipotence (Mark v. 39-42; Luke vii. 13-15; John xi. 43, 44), a sign that He was the only-begotten Son of God, to whom the Father gave to have life in Himself, even as the Father has life in Himself (John v. 25 sqq.), in whose name the Apostle Peter also was able through prayer to recall the dead Tabitha to life, whereas Elisha and Elijah had only to prophesy by word and deed of the future revelation of the glory of God. — Vers. 36, 37. After the restoration of the boy to life, Elisha had his mother called and gave her back her son, for which she fell at his feet with thanksgiving.

Vers. 38-41. Elisha maki:s Uneatable Food Wholesome. — Ver. 38. When Elisha had returned to Gilgal, the seat of a school of the prophets (see at ch. ii. 1),?>. had come thither once more on his yearly circuit, during the famine which prevailed in the land (see at ch. viii. 1), and the prophets' scholars sat before him (the teacher and master), he directed his servant (i.e. probably not Gehazi, but the pupil who waited upon him) to put the large pot to the lire and boil a dish for the pupils of the prophets, nw answers to the German bcisctzm, which is used for placing a vessel upon the fire (cf. Ezek. xxiv. 3). — Ver. 39. One (of these pupils) then went to the held to gather vegetables (nik, olcra: for the different explanations of this word see Celsii Hicrobot. i. 459 sqq., and Ges. Thcs. p. 56), and found p| hTl", i.e. not wild vines, but wild creepers (Luther), field-creepers

1 The raising of the dead by Elijah and Elisha, especially by the latter, has been explained by many persons as being merely a revivification by magnetic manipulations or by the force of animal magnetism (even Passavant and Ennemoser adopt this view). But no dead person was ever raised to life by animal magnetism; and the assumption that the two boys were only apparently dead is at variance with the distinct words of the text, in addition to which, both Elisha and Elijah accomplished the miracle through their prayer, as is stated as clearly as possible both here (ver. 33) and also at 1 Kings xvii. 21, 22.

resembling vines; and having gathered his lap full of wild cucumbers, took them home and cut them into the vegetable pot, because they did not know them. n"yj5S is rendered in the ancient versions colocyntlis (LXX. ttoXvtttj aypla, i.e., according to Suid., colocynthis), whereas Gesenius (Thes. p. 1122), Winer, and others, following Celsius (I.e. i. 393 sqq.), have decided in favour of wild cucumbers, a fruit re'sembling an acorn, or, according to Oken, a green fleshy fruit of almost a finger's length and an inch thick, which crack with a loud noise, when quite ripe, on very gentle pressure, spirting out both juice and seeds, and have a very bitter taste. The reason for this decision is, that the peculiarity mentioned answers to the etymon Vi?s, to split, in Syr. and Chald. to crack Nevertheless the rendering given by the old translators is apparently the more correct of the two; for the colocynths also belong to the genus of the cucumbers, creep upon the ground, and are a round yellow fruit of the size of a large orange, and moreover are extremely bitter, producing colic, and affecting the nerves. The form of this fruit is far more suitable for oval architectural ornaments (D^PT^, 1 Kings vi. 18, vii. 24) than that of the wild cucumber. — Ver. 40. The extremely bitter flavour of the fruit so alarmed the pupils of the prophets when they began to eat of the dish, that they cried out, '• Death in the pot," and therefore thought the fruit was poison. If eaten in any large quantity, colocynths might really produce death: vid. Dioscorid. iv. 175 (178). — Ver. 41. Elisha then had some meal brought and poured it into the pot, after which the people were able to eat of the dish, and there was no longer anything injurious in the pot. Wfi, then take, } denoting sequence in thought (vid. Ewald, § 348, a). The meal might somewhat modify the bitterness and injurious qualities of the vegetable, but could not take them entirely away; the author of the Exegetical Handbook therefore endeavours to get rid of the miracle, by observing that Elisha may have added something else. The meal, the most wholesome food of man, was only the earthly substratum for the working of the Spirit, which proceeded from Elisha, and made the noxious food perfectly wholesome.

Vers. 42-44. Feeding of a hundred Pupils of the Prophets with Twenty Barley Loaves. — A man of Baal-Shalisha (a place in the land of Shalisha, the country to the west of Gilgal, Jiljilia; see at 1 Sam. ix. 4) brought the prophet as firstfruits twenty barley loaves and 7D"i3=bD")3 kna, i.e. roasted ears of corn (see the Cornm. on Lev. ii. 14), in his sack (????, air. \ey., sack or pocket). Elisha ordered this present to be given to the people, i.e. to the pupils of the prophets who dwelt in one common home, for them to eat; and when his servant made this objection: " How shall I set this (this little) before a hundred men? " he repeated his command, " Give it to the people, that they may eat; for thus hath the Lord spoken: They wrill eat and leave" (into 7iSlfi infin. absol.; see Ewald, § 328, a); which actually was the case. That twenty barley loaves and a portion of roasted grains of corn were not a sufficient quantity to satisfy a hundred men, is evident from the fact that one man was able to carry the whole of this gift in a sack, and still more so from the remark of the servant, which shows that there was no proportion between the whole of this quantity and the food required by a hundred persons. In this respect the food, which was so blessed by the word of the Lord that a hundred men were satisfied by so small a quantity and left some over, forms a type of the miraculous feeding of the people by Christ (Matt. xiv. 1G sqq., xv. 36, 37; John vi. 11, 12); though there was this distinction between them, that the prophet Elisha did not produce the miraculous increase of the food, but merely predicted it. The object, therefore, in communicating this account is not to relate another miracle of Elisha, but to show how the Lord cared for His servants, and assigned to them that which had been appropriated in the law to the Levitical priests, who were to receive, according to Deut. xviii. 4, 5, and Num. xviii. 13, the first-fruits of corn, new wine, and oil. This account therefore furnishes fresh evidence that the godly men in Israel did not regard the worship introduced by Jeroboam (his state-church) as legitimate worship, but sought and found in the schools of the prophets a substitute for the lawful worship of God (vid. Hengstenberg, Beitrr. ii. S. 13G f).

Vers. 1-19. Curing of jSTaaman from Leprosy. — Ver. 1. Naaman, the commander-in-chief of the Syrian king, who was a very great man before his lord, i.e. who held a high place in the service of his king and was greatly distinguished (D^p NbJ, cf. Isa. iiL 3, ix. 14), because God had given the Syrians salvation (vie- tory) through him, was as a warrior afflicted with leprosy. The l has not dropped out before V*JVD; nor has the copula been omitted for the purpose of sharpening the antithesis (Thenius), for the appeal to Ewald, § 354, a, proves nothing, since the passages quoted there are of a totally different kind; but 7J} "ri33 is a second predicate: the man was as a brave warrior leprous. There is an allusion here to the difference between the Syrians and the Israelites in their views of leprosy. Whereas in Israel lepers were excluded from human society (see at Lev. xiii. and xiv.), in Syria a man afflicted with leprosy could hold a very high stateoffice in the closest association with the king. — Vers. 2, 3. And in Naaman's house before his wife, i.e. in her service, there was an Israelitish maiden, whom the Syrians had carried off in a marauding expedition (Q^*U lN-£: they had gone out in (as) marauding bands). She said to her mistress: " 0 that my lord were before the prophet at Samaria! (where Elisha had a house, ch. vi. 32,) he would free him from his leprosy." njn»D *|DK, to receive (again) from leprosy, in the sense of " to heal," may be explained from Num. xii. 14, 15, where ^IpN is applied to the reception of Miriam into the camp again, from which she had been excluded on account of her leprosy. — Vers. 4, 5. When Naaman related this to his lord (the king), he told him to go to Samaria furnished with a letter to the king of Israel; and he took with him rich presents as compensation for the cure he was to receive, viz. ten talents of silver, about 25,000 thalers (£3750 — Tr.); 6000 shekels ( = two talents) of gold, about 50,000 thalers (£7500); and ten changes of clothes, a present still highly valued in the East (see the Comm. on Gen. xlv. 22). This very large present was quite in keeping with Naaman's position, and was not too great for the object in view, namely, his deliverance from a malady which would be certainly, even if slowly, fatal. — Vers. 6, 7. When the king of Israel (Joram) received the letter of the Syrian king on Naaman's arrival, and read therein that he was to cure Naaman of his leprosy (nW, and now, — showing in the letter the transition to the main point, which is the only thing communicated here; cf. Ewald, § 353, b), he rent his clothes in alarm, and exclaimed, " Am I God, to be able to kill and make alive?" i.e. am I omnipotent like God? (cf. Deut. xxxii. 39; 1 Sam. ii. 6;) " for he sends to me to cure a man of his leprosy." The words of the letter taBDW, " so cure him," were certainly not so insolent in their meaning as Joram supposed, but simply meant: have him cured, as thou hast a wonder-working prophet; the Syrian king imagining, according to his heathen notions of priests and goetes, that Joram could do what he liked with his prophets and their miraculous powers. There was no ground, therefore, for the suspicion which Joram expressed: " for only observe and see, that he seeks occasion against me." njKTC?, to seek occasion, sc. for a quarrel (cf. Judg. xiv. 4). — Ver. 8. When Elisha heard of this, he reproved the king for his unbelieving alarm, and told him to send the man to him, " that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel." — Vers. 9, 10. When Naaman stopped with his horses and chariot before the house of Elisha, the prophet sent a messenger out to him to say, " Go and wash thyself seven times in the Jordan, and thy flesh will return to thee, i.e. become sound, and thou wilt be clean." 3b*, return, inasmuch as the flesh had been changed through the leprosy into festering matter and putrefaction. The reason why Elisha did not go out to Naaman himself, is not to be sought for in the legal prohibition of intercourse with lepers, as Ephraem Syrus and many others suppose, nor in his fear of the leper, as Thenius thinks, nor even in the wish to magnify the miracle in the eyes ot' Naaman, as C. a Lapide imagines, but simply in Naaman's be of mind. This is evident from his exclamation concerning the way in which he v. ited. Em it his treatment, he said to his servant (vers. 11, 12): "I thought* he will come out to me and stand and call upon the name of Jehovah his God, and go with his hand over the place (i.e. move his hand to and fro over the diseased places), and take away the leprosy." rjteBR, the leprous = the disease of leprosy, the scabs and ulcers of leprosy. "Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? (for the combination of 2iB with fliin:, see Ewald, jj 174,/.) Should I not bathe in them, and become clean? " With these words he turned back, going away in a rage. Naaman had been greatly strengthened in the pride, which is innate in every natural man, by the exalted position winch he held in the state, and in which every one bowed before him, and served him in the most reverential manner, with the exception of his lord the king; and he was therefore to receive a salutary lesson of humiliation, and at the same time was also to learn that he owed his cure not to any magic touch from the prophet, but solely to the power of God working through him. — Of the two rivers of Damascus, Abana or Amana (the reading of the Keri with the interchange of the labials 2 and d, see Song of SoL iv. 8) is no doubt the present

(Strabo, xvi. p. 755; Plin. h. n. 18 or 16), which rises in the table-land to the south of Zebedany, and flows through this city itself, and then dividing into two arms, enters two small lakes about 4£ hours to the east of the city. The Pharpar is probably the only other independent river of any importance in the district of Damascus, namely, the Avaj, which arises from the union of several brooks around Sasa\ and flows through the plain to the south of Damascus into the lake Heijany (see Rob. Bill. Researches, p. 444). The water of the Barada is beautiful, clear and transparent (Eob.), whereas the water of the Jordan is turbid, " of a clayey colour " (Rob. Pal. ii. p. 256); and therefore Naaman might very naturally think that his own native rivers were better than the Jordan. — Ver. 13. His servants then addressed him in a friendly manner, and said, " My father, if the prophet had said to thee a great thing {i.e. a thing difficult to carry out), shouldst thou not have done it? how much more then, since he has said to thee, Wash, and thou wilt be clean V* *3K, my father, is a confidential expression arising from childlike piety, as in ch. vL 2 1 and 1 Sam xxiv. 1 2; and the etymological jugglery which traces ^N from *X>=n?=:v (Ewald, Gr. § 358, Anm.), or from EX (Thenius), is quite superfluous (see Delitzsch on Job, voL ii p. 265, transL). — TOT... *>na "izn is a conditional clause without DN (see Ewald, § 357, b), and the object is placed first for the sake of emphasis (according to Ewald, § 309, a). s3 *)N, how much more (see Ewald, § 354, c), sc. shouldst thou do what is required, since he has ordered thee so small and easy a thing. — Ver. 14. Naaman then went down (from Samaria to the Jordan) and dipped in Jordan seven times, and his flesh became sound (p^\ as in ver. 10) like the flesh of a little boy. Seven times, to show that the healing was a work of God, for seven is the stamp of the works of God. — Vers. 15, 16. After the cure had been effected, he returned with all his train to the man of God with this acknowledgment: " Behold, I have found that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel," and with the request that he would accept a blessing (a present, nD") 3, as in Gen. xxxiii. 11, 1 Sam. xxv. 27, etc.) from him, which the prophet, however, stedfastly refused, notwithstanding all his urging, that he might avoid all appearance of selfishness, by which the false prophets were actuated. — Vers. 17, 18. Then Naaman said: N?}, " and not " = and if not, kol el firj (LXX.; not " and 0/' according to Ewald, § 358, b, Anm.), " let there be given to thy servant ( = to me) two mules' burden of earth (on the construction see Ewald, § 287, h), for thy servant will no more make (offer) burnt-offerings and slain-offerings to any other gods than Jehovah. May Jehovah forgive thy servant in this thing, when my lord (the king of Syria) goeth into the house of Rimmon, to fall down (worship) there, and he supports himself upon my hand, that I fall down (with him) in the house of Rimmon; if I (thus) fall down in the house of Rimmon, may," etc. It is very evident from Naaman's explanation, " for thy servant," etc., that he wanted to take a load of earth with him out of the land of Israel, that he might be able to offer sacrifice upon it to the God of Israel, because he was still a slave to the polytheistic superstition, that no god could be worshipped in a proper and acceptable manner except in his own land, or upon an altar built of the earth of his own land. And because Naaman's knowledge of God was still adulterated with superstition, he was not yet prepared to make an unreserved confession before men of his faith in Jehovah as the only true God, but hoped that Jehovah would forgive him if he still continued to join outwardly in the worship of idols, so far as his official duty required. Rimmon {i.e. the pomegranate) is here, and probably also in the local name Hadad-rimmon (Zech. xii. 11), the name of the supreme deity of the Damascene Syrians, and probably only a contracted form of Had "d -rimmon, since Hadad was the supreme deity or sun-god of the Syrians (see at 2 Sam. viii. 3), signifying the sun-god with the modification expressed by Rimmon, which has been differently interpreted according to the supposed derivation of the word. Some derive the name from DO"] = EV*1, as the supreme god of heaven, like the 'EXiovv of Sanchun. (Cler., Seld., Ges. thes. p. 1292); others from f&l a pomegranate, as a personification of the power of generation, as numen naturcc omnia feccundantis, since the pomegranate with its abundance of seeds is used in the symbolism of both Oriental and Greek mythology along with the Phallus as a symbol of the generative power (vid. Bahr, Symholik, ii. pp. 122, 123), and is also found upon Assyrian monuments (vid. Layard, Nineveh and its Remains, p. 343); others again, with less probability, from no"J, jaculari, as the sun-god who vivifies and fertilizes the earth with his rays, like the e/cr;/3o\o? 'AiroXkwv; and others from DQ"j — * compu- truit, as the dying winter sun (according to Movers and Hitzig; see Leyrer in Herzog's Cyclopaedia). — The words " and he supports himself upon my hand" are not to be understood literally, but are a general expression denoting the service which Naaman had to render as the aide-de-camp to his king (cf. ch. vii. 2, 17). For the Chaldaic form WVWn see Ewald, § 156, a. — In the repetition of the words " if I fall down in the temple of Eimmon," etc., he expresses the urgency of his wish. — Ver. 19. Elisha answered, "Go in peace," wishing the departing Syrian the peace of God upon the road, without thereby either approving or disapproving the religious conviction which he had expressed. For as Naaman had not asked permission to go with his king into the temple of Eimmon, but had simply said, might Jehovah forgive him or be indulgent with him in this matter, Elisha could do nothing more, without a special command from God, than commend the heathen, who had been brought to belief in the God of Israel as the true God by the miraculous cure of his leprosy, to the further guidance of the Lord and of His grace.1

Vers. 20-27. Punishment of Gehazi. — Vers. 20-22. When Naaman had gone a stretch of the way (PJK ^1??, ver 1 9; see at Gen. xxxv. 16), there arose in Gehazi, the servant of Elisha,

1 Most of the earlier theologians found in Elisha's words a direct approval of the religious conviction expressed by Naaman and his attitude towards idolatry; and since they could not admit that a prophet would have permitted a heathen alone to participate in idolatrous ceremonies, endeavoured to get rid of the consequence resulting from it, viz. licitam ergo esse Christianis ovptyavwiv Trirjrov piToL oLttigzov, seu symbolizationem et communicationem cum ceremonia idololatrica, either by appealing to the use of ninri^H and to the distinction between incurvatio regis voluntaria et religiosa (real worship) and incurvatio servilis et coacta Naemaui, aux erat politico, et civilis (mere prostration from civil connivance), or by the ungrammatical explanation that Naaman merely spoke of what he had already done, not of what he would do in future (vid. Pfeiffer, Dub. vex. p. 445 sqq., and J. Meyer, ad Seder Olam, p. 904 sqq., Budd., and others). — Both are unsatisfactory. The dreaded consequence falls of itself if we only distinguish between the times of the old covenant and those of the new. Under the old covenant the time had not yet come in which the heathen, who came to the knowledge of the true deity of the God of Israel, could be required to break off from all their heathen ways, unless they would formally enter into fellowship with the covenant nation.

the desire for a portion of the presents of the Syrian which his master had refused (DN *3 '* VI, as truly as Jehovah liveth, assuredly I run after him; EN *? as in 1 Sam. xxv. 34). He therefore hastened after him; and as Naaman no sooner saw Gehazi running after him than he sprang quickly down from his chariot in reverential gratitude to the prophet (?'&\ as in Gen. xxiv. 64), he asked in the name of Elisha for a talent of silver and two changes of raiment, professedly for two poor pupils of the prophets, who had come to the prophet from Mount Ephraim. — Ver. 23. But Naaman forced him to accept two talents (pp. ifctfn, be pleased to take; and D'!??, with the dual ending, ne per cat indicium numcri — Winer) in two parses, and two changes of raiment, and out of politeness had these presents carried by two of his servants before Gehazi — Ver. 24. When Gehazi came to the hill (/E'y?, the well-known hill before the city) he took the presents from the bearers, and dismissing the men, laid them up in the house. 3 "ip3, to bring into safe custody. — Vers. 25, 26. But when he entered hifl master's presence again, he asked him, "Whence (comest thou), Gehazi?" and on his returning the lying answer that he had not been anywhere, charged him with all that he had done. 1?n *ff to, " had not my heart gone, when the man turned from his chariot to meet th< This is the simplest and the only correct interpretation of these difficult words, which have been explained in very different ways. Theodoret {ov^i rj KLiphla pov?]v fiera gov) and the Vulgate (nonnc cor mcuiii in prassenti crat, quando, etc.) have already given the same explanation, and so far as the sense is concerned it agrees with that adopted by Thenius. was I not (in spirit) away (from here) and present (there)??pn stands in a distinct relation to the *l5fj *o of Gehazi. — fW HfTI: "is it time to take silver, and clothes, and olive-trees, and vineyards, and sheep and oxen, and servants and maidens?" i.e. is this the time, when so many hypocrites pretend to be prophets from selfishness and avarice, and bring the prophetic office into contempt with unbelievers, for a servant of the true God to take money and goods from a non-Israelite for that which God lias done through him, that he may acquire property and luxury for himself? — Ver. 2 7. " And let the leprosy of Naaman cleave to thee and to thy seed for ever." This punishment took effect immediately. Gehazi went out from Elisha covered with leprosy as if with snow (cf. Ex. iv. 6,!Num. xii. 10). It was not too harsh a punishment that the leprosy taken from Naaman on account of his faith in the living God, should pass to Gehazi on account of his departure from the true God. For it was not his avarice only that was to be punished, but the abuse of the prophet's name for the purpose of carrying out his selfish purpose, and his misrepresentation of the prophet.1

Vers. 1-7. Elisha causes an Iron Axe to float. — The following account gives us an insight into the straitened life of the pupils of the prophets. Vers. 1-4. As the common dwelling-place had become too small for them, they resolved, with Elisha's consent, to build a new house, and went, accompanied by the prophet, to the woody bank of the Jordan to fell the wood that was required for the building. The place where the common abode had become too small is not given, but most of the commentators suppose it to have been Gilgal, chiefly from the erroneous assumption that the Gilgal mentioned in ch. ii. 1 was in the Jordan valley to the east of Jerichcv Thenius only cites in support of this the reference in T.J?f 0*3^* (dwell with thee) to ch. iv. 38; but this decides nothing, as the pupils of the prophets sat before Elisha, or gathered together around their master in a common home, not merely in Gilgal, but also in Bethel and Jericho. We might rather think of Jericho, since Bethel and Gilgal (Jiljilia) were so far distant from the Jordan, that there is very little probability that a removal of the meetingplace to the Jordan, such as is indicated by CripB D^ Mjrnfc^ja, would ever have been thought of from either of these localities. — Ver. 5. In the felling of the beams, the iron, i.e. the axe, of one of the pupils of the prophets fell into the water, at which he exclaimed with lamentation: " Alas, my lord (i.e. Elisha), and it was begged!" The sorrowful exclamation implied a petition for help, pparrnw: "and as for the iron, it fell into the water" so that even here n$ does not stand before the nominative, but

1 u This was not the punishment of his immoderate lapoooKiotg (receiving of gifts) merely, but most of all of his lying. For he who seeks to deceive the prophet in relation to the things which belong to his office, is said to lie to the Holy Ghost, whose instruments the prophets are" (yid. Acts v. 3). — Grotius.

serves to place the noun in subjection to the clause (cf. Ewald, §277, a). 7WW does not mean borrowed, but begged. The meaning to borrow is attributed to hsv from a misinterpretation of particular passages (see the Comm. on Ex. iii. 22). The prophets' pupil had begged the axe, because from his poverty he was unable to buy one, and hence the loss was so painful to him. — Vers. 6, 7. When he showed Elisha, in answer to his inquiry, the place where it had fallen, the latter cut off a stick and threw it thither (into the water) and made the iron flow, i.e. float (*|£ from *]W, to flow, as in Deut. xi. 4); whereupon the prophets' pupil picked the axe out of the water with his hand. The object of the miracle was similar to that of the stater in the fish's mouth (Matt, xvii. 27), or of the miraculous feeding, namely, to show how the Lord could relieve earthly want through the medium of His prophet. The natural interpretation of the miracle, which is repeated by Thenius, namely, that " Elisha struck the eye of the axe with the long stick which he thrust into the river, so that the iron was lifted by the wood," needs no refutation, since the raising of an iron axe by a long stick, so as to make it float in the water, is impossible according to the laws of gravitation.

Vers. 8-23. Elisha's Action in the War with the Syrians. — Vers. 8-10. In a war which the Syrians carried on against the Israelitish king Joram (not Jehoahaz, as Ewald, Gesch. iii. p. 557, erroneously supposes), by sending flying parties into the land of Israel (cf. ver. 23), Elisha repeatedly informed king Joram of the place where the Syrians had determined to encamp, and thereby frustrated the plans of the enemy, ^nn... DiptrPK: " at the place of so and so shall my camp be." ^bf K *i?B as in 1 Sam. xxi. 3 (see at Ruth iv. 1). flforw, the encamping or the place of encampment (cf. Ewald, § 161, a), is quite appropriate, so that there is no need either for the alteration into ^^nn; "ye shall hide yourselves " (Then.), or into Vima, with the meaning which is arbitrarily postulated, " ye shall place an ambush " (Ewald, Gesch. iii. p. 558), or for the much simpler alteration into y >:^, " pitch the camp for me " (Bottcher). The singular suffix in *n:nn refers to the king as leader of the war: " my camp " = the camp of my army. " Beware of passing over (">3Jf) this place," i.e. of leaving it unoccupied, " for there have the Syrians determined to make their invasion." D^n?, from nro, going down, with dagesh cvphon., whereas Ewald (§ 187, b) is of opinion that B^r1?, instead of being an intrans. part. Kal, might rather be a part. Niph. of rin; which would not yield, however, any suitable meaning. Thenius renders *foVQt "to pass by this place," which would be grammatically admissible, but is connected with his conjecture concerning ^njj and irreconcilable with ver. 10. When the king of Israel, according to ver. 10, sent to the place indicated on account of Elisha's information, he can only have sent troops to occupy it; so that when the Syrians arrived they found Israelitish troops there, and were unable to attack the place. There is nothing in the text about the Syrians bursting forth from their ambush. ^n?*? means to enlighten, instruct, but not to warn. DB>— IDB^ "he took care there," i.e. he occupied the place with troops, to defend it against the Syrians, so that they were unable to do anything, " not once and not twice," i.e. several times. — Ver. 11. The king of the Syrians was enraged at this, and said to his servants, " Do ye not show me who of our men (leans) to the king of Israel? " i.e. takes his part. ^?fc = ^y) 1BWD, probably according to an Aramaean dialect: see Ewald, 181, b, though he pronounces the reading incorrect, and would read ^?31?, but without any ground and quite unsuitably, as the king would thereby reckon himself among the traitors. — Vers. 12 sqq. Then one of the servants answered, " ISTo, my lord king," i.e. it is not we who disclose thy plans to the king of Israel, " but Elisha the prophet tells him what thou sayest in thy bed-chamber;" whereupon the king of Syria inquired where the prophet lived, and sent a powerful army to Dothan, with horses and chariots, to take him prisoner there. Dothan (see Gen. xxxvii. 17), which according to the Onom. was twelve Eoman miles to the north of Samaria, has been preserved under its old name in a Tell covered with ruins to the south-west of Jenin, on the caravan-road from Gilead to Egypt (see Bob. Bill. Res. p. 158, and V. de Velde, Journey, i. pp. 273, 274). — Vers. 15-17. "When Elisha's servant went out the next morning and saw the army, which had surrounded the town in the night, he said to the prophet, " Alas, my lord, how shall we do? " But Elisha quieted him, saying, " Eear not, for those with us are more than those with them." He then prayed that the Lord might open his servant's eyes, whereupon he saw the mountain upon which Dothan stood full of fiery horses and chariots round about Elisha. Opening the eyes was translation into the ecstatic state of clairvoyance, in which an insight into the invisible spirit-world was granted him. The fiery horses and chariots were symbols of the protecting powers of Heaven, which surrounded the prophet. The fiery form indicated the super-terrestrial origin of this host. Fire, as the most ethereal of all earthly elements, was the most appropriate substratum for making the spirit-world visible. The sight was based upon Jacob's vision (Gen. xxxii 2), in which he saw a double Sirmy of angels encamped around him, at the time when he was threatened with danger from Esau. — ■ Vers. 18-20. When the enemy came down to Elisha, he prayed to the Lord that He would smite them with blindness; and when this took place according to his word, he said to them, This is not the way and this is not the city; follow me, and I will lead you to the man whom ye are seeking; and led them to Samaria, which was about four hours' distance from Dothan, where their eyes were opened at Elisha's prayer, so that they saw where they had been led. lyx ITJ1 cannot be understood as referring to Elisha and his servant, who went down to the Syrian army, as J. H. Mich., Budd., F. v. Meyer, and Thenius, who wants to alter lyx into Errbs, suppose, but must refer to the Syrians, who went down to the prophet, as is evident from what follows. For the assumption that the Syrians had stationed themselves below and round the mountain on which Dothan stood, and therefore would have had to come up to Elisha, need not occasion an unnatural interpretation of the words. It is true that Dothan stands upon an isolated hill in the midst of the plain; but on the eastern side it is enclosed by a range of hills, which project into the plain (see V. de Velde, E. i. p. 273). The Syrians who had been sent against Elisha had posted themselves on this range of hills, and thence they came d&iun towards the town of Dothan, which stood on the hill, whilst Elisha went out of the town to meet them. It is true that Elisha's going out is not expressly mentioned, but in ver. 19 it is clearly presupposed. E-tod is mental blindness here, as in the similar case mentioned in Gen. xix. 11, that is to say, a state of blindness in which, though a man has eyes that can see, he does not see correctly. Elisha's untruthful statement, "this is not the way," etc., is to be judged in the same manner as every other ruse de guerre, by which the enemy is deceived. — Vers. 21-23. Elisha forbade king Joram to slay the enemy that he had brought to him, because he had not taken them prisoners in war, and recommended him to treat them hospitably and then let them return to their lord. The object of the miracle would have been frustrated if the Syrians had been slain. For the intention was to show the Syrians that they had to do with a prophet of the true God, against whom no human power could be of any avail, that they might learn to fear the almighty God. Even when regarded from a political point of view, the prophet's advice was more likely to ensure peace than the king's proposal, as the result in ver. 23 clearly shows. The Syrians did not venture any more to invade the land of Israel with flying parties, from fear of the obvious protection of Israel by its God; though this did not preclude a regular war, like that related in the following account. For *?K see the Comm. on ch. v. 13. W rttf* igw: " art thou accustomed to slay that which thou hast taken captive with sword and bow? " i.e. since thou dost not even slay those whom thou hast made prisoners in open battle, how wouldst thou venture to put these to death? rna Drip ni3*} he prepared them a meal, nns is a denom. from HT3, a meal, so called from the union of several persons, like ccena from kolvtj (vid. Dietr. on Ges. Lex. s. v. hid).

Vers. 24-33. After this there arose so fearful a famine in Samaria on the occasion of a siege by Benhadad, that one mother complained to the king of another, because she would not keep her agreement to give up her son to be eaten, as she herself had already done. — Ver. 25. The famine became great — till an ass's head was worth eighty shekels of silver, and a quarter of a cab of dove's dung was worth five shekels. 3 HJJ, to become for = to be worth. The ass was an unclean animal, so that it was not lawful to eat its flesh. Moreover the head of an ass is the most inedible part of the animal. Eighty shekels were about seventy thalers (£10, 10s. — Tr.), or if the Mosaic bekas were called shekels in ordinary life, thirty-five thalers (£5, 5s.; see Bertheau, Zur Gesch. der 1st. p. 49). According to Thenius, a quarter of a cab is a sixth of a small Dresden measure (Mdsscheri), not quite ten Parisian cubic inches. Five shekels: more than four thalers (twelve shillings), or more than two thalers (six shillings). The Chctlub DWin is to be read ^fj &$\ cxcremcnta columbarum, for which the Keri substitutes the euphemistic 0*31* OT, fiuxus, profluvium columbarum. The expression may be taken literally, since dung has been known to be collected for eating in times of terrible famine (vid. Joseph. Bell. Jud. v. 13, 7); but it may also be figuratively employed to signify a very miserable kind of food, as the Arabs call the

Asafcetida Teufelsdreck. But there is no ground for thinking of wasted chick-pease, as Bochart (Hieroz. ii. p. 582, ed. Eos.) supposes (see, on the other hand, Celsii Hicrobot. ii. p. 30 sqq.).1 — Ver. 26. As the king was passing by upon the wall to conduct the defence, a woman cried to him for help; whereupon he replied: '" 11PPtvvSJ M should Jehovah not help thee, whence shall I help thee? from the threshing-floor or from the winepress?" It is difficult to explain the. **, which Ewald (8 355, b) supposes to stand for *> DK. Thenius gives a simpler explanation, namely, that it is a subjective negation and the sentence hypothetical, so that the condition would be only expressed by the close connection of the two clauses (according to Ewald, S 357). "From the threshing-floor or from the wine-press? " I can neither help thee with corn nor with wine, cannot jure thee either food ot drink. He then asked her what her trouble was; upon which she related to him the horrible account of the slaying of her own child to appease her hunger,,— Ver. 30. The king, shuddering at this horrible account, in which the curses of the law in Lev. xxvi. 29 and Deut. xxviii. 53, 57 had been literally fulfilled, rent his clothes; and the people then saw that he wore upon his body the hairy garment of penitence and mourning, T)\2'Ot within, i.e. beneath the upper garment, as a sign of humiliation before God, though it was indeed more an opus operatum than a true bending of the heart before God and His judgment. This is proved by his conduct in ver. 31. When, for example, the complaint of the

1 Clericus gives as a substantial parallel the following passage from Plutarch (Artax. c. 24): " he only killed the beasts of burden, so that the head of an ass was hardly to be bought for sixty drachmae;" and Grotius quotes the statement in Plin. h. n. viii. 57, that when Casalinum was besieged by Hannibal a mouse was sold for 200 denaria.

woman brought the heart-breaking distress of the city before him, he exclaimed, " God do so to me... if the head of Elisha remain upon him to-day." Elisha had probably advised that on no condition should the city be given up, and promised that God would deliver it, if they humbled themselves before Him in sincere humility and prayed for His assistance. The king thought that he had done his part by putting on the hairy garment; and as the anticipated help had nevertheless failed to come, he flew into a rage, for which the prophet was to pay the penalty. It is true that this rage only proceeded from a momentary ebullition of passion, and quickly gave place to a better movement of his conscience. The king hastened after the messenger whom he had sent to behead Elisha, for the purpose of preventing the execution of the murderous command which he had given in the hurry of his boiling wrath (ver. 32); but it proves, nevertheless, that the king was still wanting in that true repentance, which would have sprung from the recognition of the distress as a judgment inflicted by the Lord. The desperate deed, to which his violent wrath had impelled him, would have been accomplished, if the Lord had not protected His prophet and revealed to him the king's design, that he might adopt defensive measures. — Ver. 32. The elders of the city were assembled together in Elisha's house, probably to seek for counsel and consolation; and the kingj sent a man before him (namely, to behead the prophet); but before the messenger arrived, the prophet told the elders of the king's intention: " See ye that this son of a murderer (Joram, by descent and disposition a genuine son of Ahab, the murderer of ISTaboth and the prophets) is sending to cut off my head? " and commanded them to shut the door against the messenger and to force him back at the door, because he already heard the sound of his master's feet behind him. These measures of Elisha, therefore, were not dictated by any desire to resist the lawful authorities, but were acts of prudence by which he delayed the execution of an unrighteous and murderous command which had been issued in haste, and thereby rendered a service to the king himself. — In ver. 33 we have to supply from the context that the king followed close upon the messenger, who came down to Elisha while he was talking with the elders; and he (the king) would of course be admitted at once. Eor the subject to "|P^J! is not the messenger, but the king, as is evident from ch. vii. 2 and 1 7. The king said: " Behold the calamity from the Lord, why shall I wait still further for the Lord? " — the words of a despairing man, in whose soul, however, there was a spark of faith still glimmering. The very utterance of his feelings to the prophet shows that he had still a weak glimmer of hope in the Lord, and wished to be strengthened and sustained by the prophet; and this strengthening he received.

Ch. vii. 1, 2. Elisha announced to him the word of the Lord: " At the (this) time to-morrow a seah of wheaten flour (r6b, see at 1 Kings v. 2) will be worth a shekel, and two seahs of barley a shekel in the gate, i.e. in the market, at Samaria." A seah, or a third of an ephah = a Dresden peck (Metzc), for a shekel was still a high price; but in comparison with the prices given in ch. vi. 2 5 as those obtained for the most worthless kinds of food, it was incredibly cheap. The king's aide-de-camp (tf'w: see at 2 Sam. xxiii. 8; IJRW ^fttpp "NCte, an error in writing for 'W rfyssy TV*, cf. ver. 17, and for the explanation ch. v. 18) therefore replied with mockery at this prophecy: " Behold (i.e. granted that) the Lord made windows in heaven, will this indeed be?" i.e. such cheapness take place. (For the construction, see Ewald, § 357, b.) The ridicule lay more especially in the " windows in heaven," in which there is an allusion to Gen. vii. 11, sc. to rain down a flood of flour and corn. Elisha answered seriously: " Behold, thou wilt see it with thine eyes, but not eat thereof " (see vers. 1 7 sqq.). The fulfilment of these words of Elisha was brought about by the event narrated in vers. 3 sqq. — Vers. 3—7. " Four men were before the gate as lepers," or at the gateway, separated from human society, according to the law in Lev. xiii. 46, Num. v. 3, probably in a building erected for the purpose (cf. ch. xv. 5), just as at the present day the lepers at Jerusalem have their huts by the side of the Zion gate (yid. Strauss, Sinai u. Golgatha, p. 205, and Tobler, DaMlattcr aus Jci*us. p. 411 sqq.). These men being on the point of starvation, resolved to invade the camp of the Syrians, and carried out this resolution ^2, in the evening twilight, not the morning twilight (Seb. Schm., Cler., etc.), on account of ver. 12, where the king is said to have received the news of the flight of the Syrians during the night. Coming to " the end of the Syrian camp," i.e. to the outskirts of it on the city side, they found no one there. For (vers. 6, 7) "the Lord had caused the army of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots and horses, a noise of a great army," so that, believing the king of Israel to have hired the kings of the Hittites and Egyptians to fall upon them, they fled from the camp in the twilight DKterpK, with regard to their life, i.e. to save their life only, leaving behind them their tents, horses, and asses, and the camp as it was. — The miracle, by which God delivered Samaria from the famine or from surrendering to the foe, consisted in an oral delusion, namely, in the fact that the besiegers thought they heard the march of hostile armies from the north and south, and were seized with such panic terror that they fled in the greatest haste, leaving behind them their baggage, and their beasts of draught and burden. It is impossible to decide whether the noise which they heard had any objective reality, say a miraculous buzzing in the air, or whether it was merely a deception of the senses produced in their ears by God; and this is a matter of no importance, since in either case it was produced miraculously by God. The kings of the Hittites are kings of northern Canaan, upon Lebanon and towards Phoenicia; t^nn in the broader sense for Canaanites, as in 1 Kings x. 29. The plural, "kings of the Egyptians," is probably only occasioned by the parallel expression " kings of the Hittites," and is not to be pressed. — Vers. 8-11. When these lepers {these, pointing back to vers. 3 sqq.) came into the camp which the Syrians had left, they first of all satisfied their own hunger with the provisions which they found in the tents, and then took different valuables and concealed them. But their consciences were soon aroused, so that they said: We are not doing right; this day is a day of joyful tidings: if we are silent and wait till the morning light, guilt will overtake us; " for it is the duty of citizens to make known things relating to public safety" (Grotius). They then resolved to announce the joyful event in the king's palace, and reported it to the watchman at the city gate. "Ppn "W stands as a generic term in a collective sense for the persons who watched at the gate; hence the following plural 0\b, and in ver. 1 1 Dnjtfn. " And the gate-keepers cried out (what they had heard) and reported it in the king's palace." — Vers. 1 2 sqq. The king imagined that the unexpected departure of the Syrians was only a ruse, namely, that they had left the camp and hidden themselves in the field, to entice the besieged out of the fortress, and then fall upon them and press into the city. n*l^na according to later usage for "T]lpa (vid. Ewald, S 244, a). In order to make sure of the correctness or incorrectness of this conjecture, one of the king's servants (counsellors) gave this advice: " Let them take (the Vav before tflj* as in ch. iv. 41) five of the horses left in the city, that we may send and see how the matter stands." The words, " Behold they (the five horses) are as the whole multitude of Israel that are left in it (the city); behold they are as the whole multitude of Israel that are gone," have this meaning: The five horsemen (for horses stand for horsemen, as it is self-evident that it was men on horseback and not the horses themselves that were to be sent out as spies) can but share the fate of the rest of the people of Samaria, whether they return unhurt to meet deatli by starvation with the people that still remain, or fall into the hands of the enemy and are put to death, in which case they will only suffer the lot of those who have already perished. Five horses is an approximative small number, and is therefore not at variance with the following statement, that two pair of horses were sent out with chariots and men. The ChctJiib PE?? is not to be altered, since there are other instances in which the first noun is written with the article, though in the construct state (vid. Ewald, § 290, e); and the Keri is only conformed to the following jiDfpoa. — Vers. 14A and 15. They then sent out two chariots with horses, who pursued the Hying enemy to the Jordan, and found the whole of the road full of traces of the hurried flight, consisting of clothes and vessels that had been thrown away. The Chcthib BTEnnzi is the only correct reading, since it is only in the Niphcd that T?n has the meaning to fly in great haste (cf. 1 Sam. xxiii. 2G, Ps. xlviii G, civ. 7). — Vers. 1G, 17. When the returning messengers reported this, the people went out and plundered the camp of the Syrians, and this was followed by the consequent cheapness of provisions predicted by Klisha. As the people streamed out, the unbelieving aide-de-camp, whom the king had ordered to take the oversight at the gate p'i?-1?, to deliver the oversight) for the purpose of preserving order in the crowding of the starving multitude, was trodden down by the people, so that he died, whereby this prediction of Elisha was fulfilled. The exact fulfilment of this prediction appeared so memorable to the historian, that he repeats this prophecy in vers. 18-20 along with the event which occasioned it, and refers again to its fulfilment.

CHAP. VIIL ELISHA HELPS THE SHUNAMMITE TO HER PROPERTY THROUGH THE HONOUR IN WHICH HE WAS HELD; AND PRE- DICTS TO HAZAEL HIS POSSESSION OF THE THRONE. REIGNS OF JORAM AND AHAZIAH, KINGS OF JUDAH.

Vers. 1-6. Elisha's Influence helps the Shunammite to the Possession of her House and Field. — Vers. 1 and 2. By the advice of Elisha, the woman whose son the prophet had restored to life (ch. iv. 33) had gone with her family into the land of the Philistines during a seven years' famine, and had remained there seven years. The two verses are rendered by most commentators in the pluperfect, and that with perfect correctness, for they are circumstantial clauses, and Djjrn is merely a continuation of Wl, the two together preparing the way for, and introducing the following event. The object is not to relate a prophecy of Elisha of the seven years' famine, but what afterwards occurred, namely, how king Joram was induced by the account of Elisha's miraculous works to have the property of the Shunammite restored to her upon her application. The seven years' famine occurred in the middle of Joram's reign, and the event related here took place before the curing of Naaman the Syrian (ch. v.), as is evident from the fact that Gehazi talked with the king (ver. 4), and therefore had not yet been punished with leprosy. But it cannot have originally stood between ch. iv. 37 and iv. 38, as Thenius supposes, because the incidents related in ch. iv. 38-44 belong to the time of this famine (cf. ch. iv. 38), and therefore precede the occurrence mentioned here. By the words, " the Lord called the famine, and it came seven years " (sc. lasting that time), the famine is described as a divine judgment for the idolatry of the nation. — Ver. 3. When the woman returned to her home at the end of the seven years, she went to the king to cry, i.e. to invoke his help, with regard to her house and her field, of which, as is evident from the context, another had taken possession during her absence. — Ver. 4. And just at that time the king was asking Gehazi to relate to him the great things that Elisha had done; and among these he was giving an account of the restoration of the Shunammite's son to life. — Vers. 5, 6. While he was relating this, the woman herself came in to invoke the help of the. king to recover her property, and was pointed out to the king by Gehazi as the very woman of whom he was speaking, which caused the king to be so interested in her favour, that after hearing her complaint he sent a chamberlain with her (saris as in 1 Kings xxii. 9), with instructions to procure for her not only the whole of her property, but the produce of the land during her absence. — For nziiy without mappiq, see Ewald, § 247, d.

Vers. 7-15. Elisha predicts to Hazael at Damascus the

Possession of the Throne. — Vers. 7 sqq. Elisha then came to

Damascus at the instigation of the Spirit of God, to carry out the commission which Elijah had received at Horeb with regard to Hazael (1 Kings xix. 15). Benhadad king of Syria was sick at that time, and when Elisha's arrival was announced to him, sent Hazael with a considerable present to the man of

The form of the name /Kfljn (here and ver. 15) is etymologically correct; but afterwards it is always written without ft with a more precise description of the minchah — " a burden of forty camels." The present consisted of produce or wares of the rich commercial city of Damascus, and was no doubt very considerable; at the same time, it was not so large that forty camels wore required to carry it. The affair must be judged according to the Oriental custom, of making a grand display and (for) Jehovah has shown me that he will die;" according to the Kcri n*n fy " tell him: Thou wilt live, but Jehovah," etc.

Kcri, p. 62 seq.), and some of the codices, and decide in favour of the Kcri. (1) because the conjecture that & was altered into with which a negative stands before the inf. abs. with the finite verb following. But there is not much force in either argument.

The rarity of the position of t6 before the inf. abs. followed by a finite verb, in connection with the omission of the pronoun Sh after "ibtf, might be the very reason why *6 was taken as a pronoun; and the confirmation of this opinion might be found in the fact that Hazael brought back this answer to the king: "Thou wilt live" (ver. 14). The reading in the text *6 {non) is favoured by the circumstance that it is the more difficult of the two, partly because of the unusual position of the negative, and partly because of the contradiction to ver. 14. But the &6 is found in the same position in other passages (Gen. iii. 4, Ps. xlix. 8, and Amos ix. 8), where the emphasis lies upon the negation; and the contradiction to ver. 14 may be explained very simply, from the fact that Hazael did not tell his king the truth, because he wanted to put him to death and usurp the throne. We therefore prefer the reading in the text, since it is not in harmony with the character of the prophets to utter an untruth; and the explanation, " thou wilt not die of thine illness, but come to a violent death," puts into the words a meaning which they do not possess. For even if Benhadad did not die of his illness, he did not recover from it. — Ver. 11. Elisha then fixed Hazael for a long time with his eye, and wept. 'W *7B£>, literally, he made his face stand fast, and directed it (upon Hazael) to shaming. &2TIV as in Judg. iii. 25; not in a shameless manner (Thenius), but till Hazael was embarrassed by it. — Ver. 12. When Hazael asked him the cause of his weeping, Elisha replied: " I know the evil which thou wilt do to the sons of Israel: their fortresses wilt thou set on fire (C>N3 rw^ see at Judg. i. 8), their youths wilt thou slay with the sword, and wilt dash their children to pieces, and cut asunder their women with child" (V%3, split, cut open the womb). This cruel conduct towards Israel which is here predicted of Hazael, was only a special elaboration of the brief statement made by the Lord to Elijah concerning Hazael (1 Kings xix. 17). The fulfilment of this prediction is indicated generally in ch. x. 32, 33, and xiii. 3 sqq.; and we may infer with certainty from Hos. x. 1 4 and xiv. 1, that Hazael really practised the cruelties mentioned. — Vers. 13 sqq. But when Hazael replied in feigned humility, What is thy servant, the dog (i.e. so base a fellow: for X>3 see at 1 Sam. xxiv. 15), that he should do such great things? Elisha said to him, " Jehovah has shown thee to me as king over Aram/' whereupon Hazael returned to his lord, brought him the pretended answer of Elisha that he would live (recover), and the next day suffocated him with a cloth dipped in water. "&30, from "133, to plait or twist, literally, anything twisted; not, however, a net for gnats or flies (Joseph., J. D. Mich., etc.), but a twisted thick cloth, which when dipped in water became so thick, that when it was spread over the face of the sick man it was sufficient to suffocate him.

Vers. 16-24. Eeign of Joram of Judah (cf. 2 Chron. xxi. 2—20). — Joram became king in the fifth year of Joram of Israel, while Jehoshaphat his father was (still) king, the latter handing over the government to him two years before his death (see at ch. i. 17), and reigned eight years, namely, two years to the death of Jehoshaphat and six years afterwards.1 The Chcthib!W nab^ is not to be altered, since the rule that the numbers two to ten take the noun in the plural is not without exception (cf. Ewald, § 287, i). — Vers. 18, 19. Joram had married a daughter of Ahab, namely Athaliah (ver. 26), and walked in the ways of the house of Ahab, transplanting the worship of Baal into his kingdom. Immediately after the death of Jehoshaphat he murdered his brothers, apparently with no other object than to obtain possession of the treasures which his father had left them (2 Chron. xxi. 2-4). This wickedness of Joram would have been followed by the destruction of Judah, had not the Lord preserved a shoot to the royal house for David's sake. For "TO v nn? see 1 Kings xi. 36. The following word v:3? serves as an explanation of "TO v, " a light with regard to his sons," i.e. by the fact that he kept sons (descendants) upon the throne. — Vers. 20-22. Nevertheless the divine chastisement was not omitted. The ungodliness of Joram was punished partly by the revolt of the Edomites and of the city of Libnah from his rule, and partly by a horrible sickness of which he died (2 Chron. xxi. 12-15). Edom, which had hitherto had only a

Arabic and Syriac, and by Luther, Dathe, and De Wette from their translations; whilst Schulz, Maurer, Thenius, and others pronounce it a gloss. The genuineness of the words is attested by the LXX. (the Edit. Complut. being alone in omitting them) and by the Chaldee: and the rejection of them is just as arbitrary as the interpolation of HD, which is proposed by Kimchi and vicegerent with the title of king (see ch. iii. 9 and 1 Kings xxii. 48), threw off the authority of Judah, and appointed its own king, under whom it acquired independence, as the attempt of Joram to bring it back again under his control completely failed. The account of this attempt in ver. 21 and 2 Chron. xxi. 9 is very obscure. " Joram went over to Zair, and all his chariots of war with him; and it came to pass that he rose up by night and smote the Edomites round about, and indeed the captains of the war-chariots, and the people fled (i.e. the Judaean men of war, not the Edomites) to their tents." It is evident from this, that Joram had advanced to Zair in Idumaea; but there he appears to have been surrounded and shut in, so that in the night he fought his way through, and had reason to be glad that he had escaped utter destruction, since his army fled to their homes. nT^r is an unknown place in Idumsea, which Movers, Hitzig, and Ewald take to be Zoar, but without considering that Zoar was in the land of Moab, not in Edom. The Chronicles have instead Xnjf QV, " with his captains," from a mere conjecture; whilst Thenius regards mw as altered by mistake from ny*y& (" to Seir "), which is very improbable in the case of so well-known a name as ">W. y'lbn is a later mode of writing for 2niD[^ probably occasioned by the frequently occurring word ZT3D. " To this day," i.e. to the time when the original sources of our books were composed. Eor the Edomites were subjugated again by Amaziah and Uzziah (ch. xiv. 7 and 22), though under Ahaz they made incursions into Judah again (2 Chron. xxviii. 1 7). — At that time Libnah also revolted. This was a royal city of the early Canaanites, and at a later period it was still a considerable fortress (ch. xix. 8). It is probably to be sought for in the ruins of AraJc el Menshiych, two hours to the west of Beit- Jibrin (see the Comm. on Josh. x. 29). This city probably revolted from Judah on the occurrence of an invasion of the land by the Philistines, when the sons of Joram were carried off, with the exception of the youngest, Jehoahaz (Ahaziah: 2 Chron. xxi. 16, 17). — Vers. 23, 24. According to 2 Chron. xxi. 18 sqq., Joram died of a terrible disease, in which his bowels fell out, and was buried in the city of David, though not in the family sepulchre of the kings.1

1 " The building of Carthage, Dido, her husband Sichaeus, her brother Pygmalion king of Tyre (scelere ante alios immanior omnes), all coincide with the reign of Joram. This synchronism of the history of Tyre is not without

Vers. 25-29. Reign of Ahaziah of Judah (cf. 2 Chrort. xxii. 1-6). — Ahaziah, the youngest son of Joram, ascended the throne in the twenty-second year of his age. The statement in 2 Chron. xxii. 2, that he was forty-two years old when he became king, rests upon a copyist's error, namely, a confusion of d twenty with d forty. Now, since his father became king at the age of thirty-two, and reigned eight years, Ahaziah must have been born in the nineteenth year of his age. Consequently it may appear strange that Ahaziah had brothers still older than himself (2 Chron. xxi. 17); but as early marriages are common in the East, and the royal princes had generally concubines along with their wife of the first rank, as is expressly stated of Joram in 2 Chron. xxi. 17, he might have had some sons in his nineteenth year. His mother was called Athaliah, and was a daughter of the idolatrous Jezebel. In ver. 26 and 2 Chron. xxii. 2 she is called the daughter, ie. grand-daughter, of Omri; for, according to ver. 18, she was a daughter of Ahab. Omri, the grandfather, is mentioned in ver. 26 as the founder of the dynasty which brought so much trouble upon Israel and Judah through its idolatry. — Ver. 27. Ahaziah, like his father, reigned in the spirit of Ahab, because he allowed his mother to act as his adviser (2 Chron. xxii. 3, 4). — Vers. 28, 29. Ahaziah went with Joram of Israel, his mother's brother, to the war with the Syrians at IJamoth. The contest for this city, which had already cost Ahab his life (1 Kings xxii.), was to furnish the occasion, according to the overruling providence of God, for the extermination of the whole of Omri's family. Being wounded in the battle with the Syrians, Joram king of Israel returned to Jezreel to be healed of his wounds. His nephew Ahaziah visited him there, and there he met with his death at the same time as Joram at the hands of Jehu, who had conspired against Joram (see ch. ix. 14 sqq. and 2 Chron, xxii. 7-9). Whether the war with Hazael at Iiamoth was for the recapture of this city, which had been taken by the Syrians, or simply for holding it against the Syrians, it is impossible to determine. All

significance here. The Tynan, Israelitisb, and Judsean histories are closely connected at this time. Jezebel, a Tyrian princess, was Ahab's wife, and again her daughter Athaliah was the wife of Joram, and after his death the murderess of the heirs of the kingdom, and sole occupant of the throne. Tyre, through these marriages, introduced its own spirit and great calamity into both the Israelitish kingdoms." — J. D. Michaelis on ver. 24.

that we can gather from ch. ix. 1 4 is, that at that time Ramoth was in the possession of the Israelites, whether it had come into their possession again after the disgraceful rout of the Syrians before Samaria (ch. vii.), or whether, perhaps, it was not recovered till this war. For D^l« without the article see Ewald, § 277, c. — Ver. 29. rara=n$a hbna, ver. 28; see at 1 Kings xxii. 4.

Vers. 1-10. Anointing of Jehu by command of Elisha. — While the Israelitish army was at Ramoth, Elisha executed the last of the commissions which Elijah had received at Horeb (1 Kings xix. 16), by sending a pupil of the prophets into the camp to anoint Jehu the commander-in-chief of the army as king, and to announce to him, in the name of Jehovah, that he would be king over Israel; and to charge him to exterminate the house of Ahab. — Vers. 1-3 contain the instructions which Elisha gave to the pupil of the prophets. iOt£n!]Q as in 1 Sam. x. 1. wn* nv ran, look round there for Jehu. 131 inbgn, let him (bid him) rise up from the midst of his brethren, i.e. of his comrades in arms. "H.rQ Tin: the true meaning is, " into the innermost chamber" (see at 1 Kings xx. 30). Ver. 3 contains only the leading points of the commission to Jehu, the full particulars are communicated in the account of the fulfilment in vers. 6 sqq. " And flee, and thou shalt not wait." Elisha gave him this command, not to protect him from danger on the part of the secret adherents of Ahab (Theodoret, Cler.), but to prevent all further discussions, or " that he might not mix himself up with other affairs" (Seb. Schmidt). — Ver. 4. "And the young man, the servant of the prophet, went." The second TJ3 has the article in the construct state, contrary to the rule (yid. Ges. § 110, 2, b). — Vers. 5 sqq. After the communication of the fact that he had a word to Jehu, the latter rose up and went with him into the house, i.e. into the interior of the house, in the court of which the captains were sitting together. There the pupil of the prophets poured oil upon Jehu's head, and announced to him that Jehovah had anointed him king for Israel, and that he was to smite, i.e. exterminate, the house of Ahab, to avenge upon it the blood of the prophets {yid. 1 Kings xviii. 4, xix. 10). — Vers. 8-10 are simply a repetition of the

Vers. 11-15. Jehu's Conspiracy against Joeam. — Ver. 11. When Jehu came out again to his comrades in arms, after the departure of the pupil of the prophets, they inquired DwH, i.e. " is it all well? why did this madman come to thee?" not because they were afraid that he might have done him some injury (Ewald), or that he might have brought some evil tidings (Thenius), but simply because they conjectured that he had brought some important news. They called the prophet VW'P, a madman, in derision, with reference to the ecstatic utterances of the prophets when in a state of holy inspiration. Jehu answered evasively, " Ye know the man and his muttering," i.e. ye know that he is mad and says nothing rational. (TO includes both meditating and speaking. — Ver. 12. They were not contented with this answer, however, but said ">i?P, i.e. thou dost not speak truth. Jehu thereupon informed them that he had anointed him kin<^ over Israel in the name of Jehovah. — Ver. 13. After hearing this, they took quickly every man his garment, laid it under him upon the steps, blew the trumpet, and proclaimed him king. The clothes, which consisted simply of a large piece of cloth for wrapping round the body (see at 1 Kings xi. 29), they spread out in the place of carpets upon the steps, whicli served as a throne, to do homage to Jehu. For these signs of homage compare Matt. xxi. 7 and Wetstein, N. Test, ad h. I The difficnlt words ni^sn DW^M, as to the meaning of which the early translators have done nothing but guess, can hardly be rendered in any other way than that proposed by Kimchi (Jib. rad.), super ipsosmet gradus, upon the steps themselves = upon the bare steps; D"ij being taken according to Chaldee usacje like the Hebrew cvy in the sense of substantia rci, whereas the rendering given by Lud. de Dieu, after the Arabic. -^, scctio — super aliqucm c gradibus, is without analogy in Hebrew usage (yid. L. de Dieu ad h. /., and Ges. Thcs.

1 The objection raised by Thenius, that it is only in combination with personal pronouns that the Chaldaic D"i} signifies self either in the Chaldee or Samaritan versions, is proved to be unfounded by D"U? hi Job i. 3 (Targ.). Still less can the actual circumstances be adduced as an objection, since place on which to erect a throne, they laid their clothes upon the bare steps, or the staircase of the house in which they were assembled, and set him thereon to proclaim him king. — Vers. 14, 15. Thus Jehu conspired against Joram, who (as is related again in the circumstantial clause which follows from rPfi UiV) to Enx S&B; cf. ch. viii. 28, 29) had been keeping guard at Eamoth in Gilead, i.e. had defended this city against the attacks of Hazael, and had returned to Jezreel to be healed of the wounds which he had received; and said, " If it is your wish (DSK's:), let no fugitive go from the city, to announce it in Jezreel (viz. what had taken place, the conspiracy or the proclamation of Jehu as king)." It is evident from this, that the Israelites were in possession of the city of Eamoth, and were defending it against the attacks of the Syrians, so that "HBP in ver. 14 cannot be understood as relating to the siege of Eamoth. The Chethib T» for Tan? is not to be altered according to the Keri, as there are many examples to be found of syncope in cases of this kind (vid. Olshausen, Lchrb. d. Hcbr. Spr. p. 140).

Vers. 16-29. Slaying of the two Kings, Joram of Israel and Ahaziah of Judah. — Ver. 16. Jehu drove without delay to Jezreel, where Joram was lying sick, and Ahaziah had come upon a visit to him. — Vers. 17-21. As the horsemen, who were sent to meet him on the announcement of the watchman upon the tower at Jezreel that a troop was approaching, joined the followers of Jehu, and eventually the watchman, looking down from the tower, thought that he could discover the driving of Jehu in the approaching troop, Joram and Ahaziah mounted their chariots to drive and meet him, and came upon him by the portion of ground of Xaboth the Jezreelite. The second nyBP in ver. 17 is a rarer form of the absolute state (see Ges. § 80, 2, Anm. 2, and Ewald, § 173, d).—^^ jfm: " what hast'thou to do with peace?" i.e. to trouble thyself about it. n_n*T'*? 3*D: " turn behind me," sc. to follow me. 'ED ynmn; " the driving is like the driving of Jehu; for he drives like a madman." |W3K>*3, in insania, i.e. in actual fact in prcecipitatione (Vatabl.). " The there is no evidence to support the assertion that there was no staircase in front of the house. The perfectly un-Hebraic conjecture D^'~^X rriSyftn, "as a figure (or representation) of the necessary ascent" (Thenius), has not the smallest support in the Vulgate rendering, ad similitudluem tribunalis.

portion of Naboth" is the vineyard of Naboth mentioned in 1 Kings xxi., which formed only one portion of the gardens of the king's palace. — Ver. 22. To Joram' s inquiry, " Is it peace, Jehu?" the latter replied, " What peace, so long as the whoredoms of thy mother Jezebel and her many witchcrafts continue? " The notion of continuance is implied in "W (see Ewald, § 2 1 7, e); DW is spiritual whoredom, i.e. idolatry. Q^^?, incantationes magiccc, then witchcrafts generally, which were usually associated with idolatry (cf. Deut. xviii. 10 sqq.). — Ver. 23. Joram detecting the conspiracy from this reply, turned round (VT ^ri^ as in 1 Kings xxii. 34) and fled, calling out to Ahaziah n?1P, " deceit," i.e. we are deceived, in actual fact betrayed. — Ver. 24. But Jehu seized the bow (n^n It *6d, lit. filled his hand with the bow), and shot Joram " between his arms," i.e. in his back between the shoulders in an oblique direction, so that the arrow came out at his heart, and Joram sank down in his chariot. — Ver. 25. Jehu then commanded his aide-de-camp (Vy&, see at 2 Sam. xxiii. 8) Bidkar to cast the slain man into the field of Naboth the Jezreelite, and said, " For remember how we, I and thou, both rode (or drove) behind his father Ahab, and Jehovah pronounced this threat upon him." nnao ":** are accusatives, written with a looser connection for ^jrriw *Jlk, as the apposition D?3*l shows: literally, think of me and thee, the riders. The olden translators were misled by ^#, and therefore transposed *fct into the first person, and Thenius naturally follows them. 0*!*?? ^??^, riding in pairs. This is the rendering adopted by most of the commentators, although it might be taken, as it is by Kimchi and Bochart, as signifying the two persons who are carried in the same chariot. NEto, a burden, then a prophetic utterance of a threatening nature (see the Comm. on ISTah. i. 1). For the connection of the clauses 'El frifPJ, see Ewald, § 338, a. In ver. 26 Jehu quotes the word of God concerning Ahab in 1 Kings xxi. 19 so far as the substance is concerned, to show that he is merely the agent employed in executing it. " Truly (N?"Dtf, a particle used in an oath) the blood of Naboth and the blood of his sons have I seen yesterday, saith the Lord, and upon this field will I requite him." The slaying of the sons of Naboth is not expressly mentioned in 1 Kings xxi. 13, * because it was so usual a thing, that the historian might leave it out as a matter of course " (J. D. Mich., Ewald). It necessarily followed, however, from the fact that Naboth's field was confiscated (see at 1 Kings xxi. 14). — Vers. 27, 28. When Ahaziah saw this, he fled by the way to the garden-house, but was smitten, i.e. mortally wounded, by Jehu at the height of Gur near Jibleam, so that as he was flying still farther to Megiddo he died, and was carried as a corpse by his servants to Jerusalem, and buried there. After ^3?, " and him also, smite him," we must supply tflS^, " and they smote him," which has probably only dropped out through a copyist's error. The way by which Ahaziah fled, and the place where he was mortally wounded, cannot be exactly determined, as the situation of the localities named has not yet been ascertained. The " garden-house " (ijn n%3) cannot have formed a portion of the royal gardens, but must have stood at some distance from the city of Jezreel, as Ahaziah went away by the road thither, and was not wounded till he reached the height of Gur near Jibleam. TO'nJjgD, the ascent or eminence of Gury is defined by Jibleam. Now, as Ahaziah fled from Jezreel to Megiddo past Jibleam, Thenius thinks that Jibleam must have been situated between Jezreel and Megiddo. But between Jezreel and Megiddo there is only the plain of Jezreel or Esdrelom, in which we cannot suppose that there was any such eminence as that of Gur. Moreover Jibleam or Bileam (1 Chron. vi. 55, see at Josh. xvii. 11) was probably to the south of Jenin, where the old name Dpn has been preserved in the well hour's journey off. And it is quite possible to bring this situation of Jibleam into harmony with the account before us. For instance, it is a priori probable that Ahaziah would take the road to Samaria when he fled from Jezreel, not only because his father's brothers were there (ch. x. 13), but also because it was the most direct road to Jerusalem; and he might easily be pursued by Jehu and his company to the height of Gur near Jibleam before they overtook him, since the distance from Jezreel (Zerin) to Jenin is only two hours and a half (Eob. Pal. iii. p. 828), and the height of Gur might very well be an eminence which he would pass on the road to Jibleam. But the wounded king may afterwards have altered the direction of his flight for the purpose of escaping to Megiddo, probably because he thought that he should be in greater safety there than he would be in Samaria.1

1 In 2 Chron. xxii. 8, 9, the account of the slaying of Ahaziah and his brethren (ch. x. 12 sqq.) is condensed into one brief statement, and then

— In ver. 29 we are told once more in which year of Joram's reign Ahaziah became king. The discrepancy between " the eleventh year" here and "the twelfth year" in cli. viii. 25 may be most simply explained,, on the supposition that there was a difference in the way of reckoning the commencement of the years of Joram's reign.

Vers. 30-37. Death of Jezebel. — Ver. 30. When Jehu came to Jezreel and Jezebel heard of it, " she put her eyes into lead polish (i.e. painted them with it), and beautified her head and placed herself at the window." Tpa is a very favourite eye-paint with Oriental women even to the present day. It is prepared from antimony ore (J<s^> Cohol or Stibium of the Arabs), which when pounded yields a black powder with a metallic brilliancy, which was laid upon the eyebrows and eyelashes either in a dry state as a black powder, or moistened generally with oil and made into an ointment, which is applied with a line smooth eye-pencil of the thickness of an ordinary goose-quill, made either of wood, metal, or ivory. The way to use it was to hold the central portion of the pencil horizontally between the eyelids, and then draw it out between them, twisting it round all the while, so that the edges of the eyelids were blackened all round; and the object was to heighten the splendour of the dark southern eye, and give it, so to speak, a more deeply glowing lire, and to impart a youthful appearance to the whole of the eyelashes even in extreme old age. Eosellini found jars with eye-paint of this kind in the early Egyptian graves (vid. Hille, fiber den Gebrauch u. elic afterwards it is stated with regard to Ahaziah, that M Jehu sought him, and they seized him when lie was hiding in Samaria, and brought him to Jehu and slew him," from which it appears that Ahaziah escaped to Samaria. From the brevity of these accounts it is impossible to reconcile the discrepancy with perfect certainty. On the one hand, our account, which is only limited to the main fact, does not preclude the possibility that Ahaziah really escaped to Samaria, and was there overtaken by Jehu's followers, and then brought back to Jehu, and wounded upon the height of Gur near Jibleam, whence he fled to Megiddo, where he breathed out his life. On the other hand, in the perfectly summary account in the Chronicles, jiiobb fcOnriE N3H1 may be understood as referring to the attempt to escape to Samaria and hide himself there, and may be reconciled with the assumption that he was seized upon the way to Samaria, and when overtaken by Jehu was mortally wounded.

Zusammensctzung der oriented. Augenschmhike: Dcutsch. morg. Ztsch. v. p. 236 sqq.). — Jezebel did this that she might present an imposing appearance to Jehu and die as a queen; not to allure him by her charms (Ewald, after Ephr. Syr.). For (ver. 31) when Jehu entered the palace gate, she cried out to him, " Is it peace, thou Zimri, murderer of his lord? " She addressed Jehu as Zimri the murderer of the king, to point to the fate which Jehu would bring upon himself by the murder of the king, as Zimri had already done {vid. 1 Kings xvi. 10-18). — Vers. 32, 33. But Jehu did not deign to answer the worthless woman; he simply looked up to the window and inquired: * Who is (holds) with me? who?" Then two, three chamberlains looked out (of the side windows), and by Jehu's command threw the proud queen out of the window, so that some of her blood spirted upon the wall and the horses (of Jehu), and Jehu trampled her down, driving over her with his horses and chariot. — Ver. 34. Jehu thereupon entered the palace, ate and drank, and then said to his men: " Look for this cursed woman and bury her, for she is a king's daughter." ^"1£nj the woman smitten by the curse of God. — Vers. 35, 36. But when they went to bury her, they found nothing but her skull, the two feet, and the two hollow hands. The rest had been eaten by the dogs and dragged away. When this was reported to Jehu, he said: " This is the word of the Lord, which He spake by His servant Elijah," etc. (1 Kings xxi. 23), i.e. this has been done in fulfilment of the word of the Lord. Ver. 37 is also to be regarded as a continuation of the prophecy of Elijah quoted by Jehu (and not as a closing remark of the historian, as Luther supposes), although what Jehu says here does not occur verbatim in 1 Kings xxi. 23, but Jehu has simply expanded rather freely the meaning of that prophecy, njni (Chethib) is the older form of the 3d pers. fern. Kal, which is only retained here and there (vid. Ewald, § 194, a). ">£;N is a conjunction (see Ewald, § 337, a): "that men may not be able to say, This is Jezebel," i.e. that they may no more be able to recognise JezebeL