Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Vers. 38-41. Elisha makes Uneatable Food Wholesome. — Ver. 38. When Elisha had returned to Gilgal, the seat of a school of the prophets (see at ch. ii. 1), i.e. 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 fire and boil a dish for the pupils of the prophets, na*^ answers to the German beisetzcn, which is used for placing a vessel upon the fire (cf. Ezek. xxiv. 3). — Ver. 39. One (of these pupils) then went to the field to gather vegetables (nn«, olera: for the different explanations of this word see Celsii Hierobot. i. 459 sqq., and Ges. Thes. p. 56), and found J23 mb, 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, ha3 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'yi?B is rendered in the ancient versions colocyntlis (LXX. iroXvirr] 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 VP&, 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 (^JJfJs, 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. injp^ then take, 1 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?cn3=bp")3 bna, i.e. roasted ears of corn (see the Comm. on Lev. ii. 14), in his sack (P^py, air. Xey., 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 will eat and leave" p™™ ^3?, 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. 136 f).

Vers. 1-19. Curing of Naaman 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 (E^p X&2} cf. Isa. iii. 3, ix. 14), because God had given the Syrians salvation (vie- tory) through him, was as a warrior afflicted with leprosy. The 1 lias not dropped out before IT)**?, 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 b)n "ttaa 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 (0^*1} *&W£: 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." rijntfjp p]ptf; to receive (again) from leprosy, in the sense of " to heal," may be explained from Num. xii. 14, 15, where HP? 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 toBD«l, * 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." »",3Nnn> 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 of Naaman, as C. a Lapide imagines, but simply in Naaman's state of mind. This is evident from his exclamation concerning the way in which he was treated. Enraged at 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." jntoBH, 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 ato with Ohjji see Ewald, § 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 which 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 J 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 Eob. 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?" *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 *3K from Ws^sfl (Ewald, Gr. § 358, Anm.), or from EK (Thenius), is quite superfluous (see Delitzsch on Job, voL ii p. 265, transL). — TS*... TftJiyj 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). *3 *1N, 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,, n3") 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*5), " and not " = and if not, koX el /xtj (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 Eimmon, to fall down (worship) there, and he supports himself upon my hand, that I fall down (with him) in the house of Eimmon; if I (thus) fall down in the house of Eimmon, may," etc. It is very evident from Naaman's explanation, " for thy servant," etc., that he wanted to take a load of earth witli 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 Hadad-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 Eimmon, which has been differently interpreted according to the supposed derivation of the word. Some derive the name from Eon = on as the supreme god of heaven, like the 'EXiovv of Sanchun. (Cler., Seld., Ges. thes. p. 1292); others from jHsn, a pomegranate, as a personification of the power of generation, as numen naturae omnia fcecundantis, 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]f36\o<; 'AttoWwv; and others from D^n = * 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 Wnwn 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 (p.£ rn??, 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 ovpQuvwiv tthjtov f&sTcc aTT/cToy, seu symbolizationem et communicationem cum ceremonia idololatrica, either by appealing to the use of rnWlBTI and to the distinction between incur vatio regis voluntaria et religiosa (real worship) and incurvatio servilis et coacta Naemaui, quse erat politico, et civilis (mere prostration from civil connivance), or by the uugrammatical explanation that Naaman merely spoke of what he had already done, not of what he would do in future (yid. 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 (DK *2 '* *nf 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 (?B\ 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 (n|5 bsin, be pleased to take; and ^3?, with the dual ending, ne percat indicium numeri — Winer) in two purses, 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 (/S'yn, 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 ipQ, to bring into safe custody. — Vers. 25, 26. But when he entered his 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. ^l?n %*? l6, " had not my heart gone, when the man turned from his chariot to meet thee?" This is the simplest and the only correct interpretation of these difficult words, which have been explained in very different ways. Theodoret (ov^l rj Kaphla fiov tjv fiera crov) and the Vulgate (nonne cor meum in prcescnti erat, 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)? ^S"J stands in a distinct relation to the ^n *? of Gehazi. — 'W nyn: " 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 1ms 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 Jericho. Thenius only cites in support of this the reference in T.JP? MB* (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 tripo DP Bjrnfe^g, 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. OTSErnKI: "and as for the iron, it fell into the water" so that even here ns does not stand before the nominative, but

1 " This was not the punishment of his immoderate lupoooKiag (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). — Gkotius.

serves to place the noun in subjection to the clause (cf. Ewald, § 277, a). vflNK' does not mean borrowed, but begged. The meaning to borrow is attributed to b$w from a misinterpretation of particular passages (see the Comm. on Ex. iii. 2 2). 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 *)i¥, 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, Gcsch. 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. VflHp... EripO"?K: " at the place of so and so shall my camp be." ^b7K *JpB as in 1 Sam. xxi. 3 (see at Ruth iv. 1). flfanp, 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 *K3JJ?, "ye shall hide yourselves " (Then.), or into 'inrun, 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 wrw, " pitch the camp for me " (Bottcher). The singular suffix in "n:nn refers to the king as leader of the wTar: " my camp " = the camp of my army. " Beware of passing over ("oy) this place," i.e. of leaving it unoccupied, " for there have the Syrians determined to make their invasion." ffWJ, from nnj, going down, with dagesh eujohon., whereas Ewald (§ 187, V) is of opinion that D>nri3, instead of being an intrans. part. Kal, might rather he a part. Niph. of rin, which would not yield, however, any suitable meaning. Thenius renders ^VO, "to pass by this place," which would be grammatically admissible, but is connected with his conjecture concerning ^nn, 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, "i^n means to enlighten, instruct, but not to warn. DB*—»Dt23, " 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, w&Q = ^J "*5>M?j probably according to an Aramaean dialect: see Ewald, 181, h, though he pronounces the reading incorrect, and would read ^?3©, 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, " No, 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 Eob. Bibl. Res. p. 158, and V. de Velde, Journey,!, 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 army 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 VTtJ 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 lyK into B»J?K, 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, R. i. p. 273). The Syrians who had been sent against Elisha had posted themselves on this range of hills, and thence they came down 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. D^p 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 »?« see the Comm. on ch. v. 13. 'W n<3P "w«n: " 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? >"n3 Dr6 rro^ he prepared them a meal. n*}3 is a denom. from rna, a meal, so called from the union of several persons, like ccena from kolvtj (vid. Dietr. on Ges. Lex. s. v. ms).

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 rwj, 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, 5 s.; see Bertheau, Zur Gesch. der Isr. 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 thaler s (twelve shillings), or more than two thalers (six shillings). The Chctliib D^vnn is to be read *in tF3t%, excrementa columbarum, for which the Keri substitutes the euphemistic C^ V% fluxus, profluvium columbarum. The expression may be taken literally, since dung has been known to be collected for eating in times of terrible famine (yid. 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 (Hicroz. 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: '" yNffi**$$ " should Jehovah not help thee, whence shall I help thee? from the threshing-floor or from the winepress?" It is difficult to explain the?K, which Ewald (§355, b) supposes to stand for *? Dfc*. 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, vj 357). "From the threshing-floor or from the wine-press?" i.e. I can neither help thee with corn nor with wine, cannot procure thee either food or 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, etc. — Vet. 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'Oi within, i.e. beneath the upper garment, as a sign of humiliation before God, though it was indeed more an opus opcratum 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 king 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 Naboth 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. For the subject to "•p^'l 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 wTheaten flour (npb, 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 (Metze), 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 (PyB>: see at 2 Sam. xxiii. 8; ]$'&} ^]?tt? "Nftt, an error in writing for '£;J -J^SH nefc, 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 (vid. Strauss, Sinai u. Golgatha, p. 205, and Tobler, BcnlMatter aus Jerus. p. 411 sqq.). These men being on the point of starvation, resolved to invade the camp of the Syrians, and carried out this resolution *\Wtt, 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 D^Stf"'5?, 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; EPnn 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. "^Pn "\w stands as a generic term in a collective sense for the persons who watched at the gate; hence the following plural U\h, and in ver. 1 1 D*15#n. " 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, nit^na according to later usage for nnfrzi (yid. Ewald, & 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 ^?\ 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 death 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 Chethib P^l]? 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 Kcri is only conformed to the following jiDrOM. — Vers. 14& and 15. They then sent out two chariots with horses, who pursued the flying 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 Chethib BTDnna is the only correct reading, since it is only in the Nijohal that T^n has the meaning to fly in great haste (cf. 1 Sam. xxiii. 2G, Ps. xlviii. 6, civ. 7). — Vers. 16, 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 Elisha. As the people streamed out, the unbelieving aide-de-camp, whom the king had ordered to take the oversight at the gate ("^pS?, 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. VIII. ELISIIA HELrS THE SIIUNAMMITE TO HER PROPERTY THROUGH THE HONOUR IN WHICH HE WAS HELD; AND PEE* DICTS TO IIAZAEL HIS POSSESSION OF THE THRONE. REIGNS OF JORAM AND AIIAZIA1I, 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 DjJ^n is merely a continuation of "^i, 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 nary 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 twnin (here and ver. 15) is etymologically correct; but afterwards it is always written without n.

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 were required to carry it. The affair must be judged according to the Oriental custom, of making a grand display to the Chethib n*n *6, Elisha's answer was, " Thou wilt not live, and (for) Jehovah has shown me that he will die;" according to the Keri n*n fcf " tell him: Thou wilt live, but Jehovah," etc.

Keri, p. 62 seq.), and some of the codices, and decide in favour of the Keri. (1) because the conjecture that)b 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 nS before the inf. abs. followed by a finite verb, in connection with the omission of the pronoun S*? after Tbg, might be the very reason why fc6 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 xi? 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 "TOJM, literally, he made his face stand fast, and directed it (upon Hazael) to shaming. ^3"iy 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 wreeping, Elisha replied: " I know the evil which thou wilt do to the sons of Israel: their fortresses wilt thou set on fire (cto rb&) 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" (P£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. 1?2?p) from ">23^ 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. 1G-24. Reign of Joram of Judaii (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 nrc> njbip 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, vj 287, i). — Vers. 18, 19. Joram had married a daughter of Ahab, namely Athaliah (ver. 2G), 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 T\ro see 1 Kin^s xi. 30. The following word vj:t? serves as an explanation of "TO \?t " 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

1 The words nTJV 7]ta DBBn»P1 have been improperly omitted by the 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 riD, which is proposed by Kimchi and vicegerent with the title of kin£ (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 Judasan 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^¥ *s 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 FH6? oy, "with his captains," from a mere conjecture; whilst Thenius regards fltJH as altered by mistake from n*y$? (" to Seir "), which is very improbable in the case of so well-known a name as 1W. M"B0 is a later mode of writing for sniDn, probably occasioned by the frequently occurring word Mp. " 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 2 2), though under Ahaz they made incursions into Judah again (2 Chron. xxviii. 1 7). — At that time Zibnah 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 Arah el Menshiycli, 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 Sichseus, 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. Eeign of Ahaziah of Judah (cf. 2 Chron. 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 3 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, i.c grand-daughter, of Omri; for, according to ver. 18, she was a daughter of Aliab. 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 Ramoth. 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 Ramoth 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, Israelitish, and Judssan histories are closelyconnected 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. 14 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 DW without the article see Ewald, § 277, c. — Ver. 29. fim3=^ hfarja, ver. 28; see at 1 Kings xxii. 4.

Vers. 1-10. Anointing of Jehu by command of Elisha. — While the Israelitish army was at Eamoth, 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. i£#n ^ as in 1 Sam. x. 1. mm nf mpp 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. "Hna 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 "WJ has the article in the construct state, contrary to the rule (vid. Ges. § 110, 2, V). — 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 {vid. 1 Kings xvni. 4, xix. 10). — Vers. 8-10 are simply a repetition of the

Vers. 11-15. Jehu's Conspiracy against Joram. — Ver. 11. When Jehu came out again to his comrades in arms, after the departure of the pupil of the prophets, they inquired

BW£j» i-6' " *s ^ a^ we^ ' w^y ^id 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 yiJPD, 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, nv includes both meditating and speaking. — Ver. 12. They were not contented with this answer, however, but said "ipP, 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, wdiich 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 difficult words ni^'Gn D-iri>x, 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 (lib. rati.), super ipsosmet gradus, upon the steps themselves = upon the bare steps; cna being taken according to Chaldee usa^e like the Hebrew cvy in the sense of stib- analogy in Hebrew usage (vicl. L. de Dieu ad h. I., and Ges. Thes. p. 303).1 The meaning is, that without looking for a suitable

1 The objection raised by Thenius, that it is only in combination with personal pronouns that the Chaldaic D"0 signifies self either in the Chaldee or Samaritan versions, is proved to be unfounded by Q"i^ in 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 a^ain in the circumstantial clause which follows from fl*n DW to B"ix T)7D; 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 "upt? in ver. 14 cannot be understood as relating to the siege of Eamoth. The Chethib Tap for Tjn? 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. Hebr. Spr. p. 140).

Vers. 16-29. Slaying of the two Kings, Joram of Israel AtfD Ahaziah of Judaii. — 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 iSTaboth the Jezreelite. The second riyaB> in ver. 17 is a rarer form of the absolute state (see Ges. § 80, 2, Anm. 2, and Ewald, § 173, $.—- trif«^ ^jrnp: « what hast'thou to do with peace? " i.e. to trouble thyself about it. *!!!)Jw*5 ^D- " turn behind me," sc. to follow me. 'D3 *n3Dn: " the driving is like the driving of Jehu; for he drives like a madman." fW^z, in insania, i.e. in actual fact in jprcecijpitatione (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 D75T7K nvP&Hi "as a figure (or representation) of the necessary ascent" (Thenius), has not the smallest support in the Vulgate rendering, ad similitudimm 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); Itttft is spiritual whoredom, i.e. idolatry. D>^3, 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 (1HJ Sjbrj as in 1 Kings xxii. 34) and fled, calling out to Ahaziah ntrjD, " deceit," i.e. we are deceived, in actual fact betrayed. — Ver. 24. But Jehu seized the bow (npa n; «J», 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 p?w, see at 2 Sam. xxiii. 8) Bidkar to cast the slain man into the field of Xaboth 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." TOW \>x are accusatives, written with a looser connection for iniw?nfcj as the apposition tTOOh shows: literally, think of me and thee, the riders. The olden translators were misled by W, and therefore transposed *6j into the first person, and Thenius naturally follows them. D^ipV &??^, 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. $ty?, a burden, then a prophetic utterance of a threatening nature (see the Comm. on Nan. LI). For the connection of the clauses 'U! *$?*% 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 (Nt~DK, a particle used in an oath) the blood of Xaboth 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 ISTaboth is not expressly mentioned in 1 Kings xxi. 1 3, " 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 Kaboth'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 VT3H, " and him also, smite him," we must supply VISJ, " 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 rva) 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'HJgD, the ascent or eminence of Gur, 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 Gar. Moreover Jibleam or Bileam (1 Chron. vi. 55, see at Josh. xvii. 11) was probably to the south of Jenin, where the old name D$y3 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 vear of Joram's reign Ahaziah became king. The discrepancy between " the eleventh year " here and " the twelfth year " in cli. viii. 2 5 may l)e 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." 7]is is a very favourite eye-paint with Oriental women even to the present 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 fine 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 fire, 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, ilber den Gcbrauch u. die afterwards it is stated with regard to Ahaziah, that " Jehu sought him, and they seized him when he 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, p-ijQBQ NZinnD wm 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.

Zusammcnsctzung dcr oriental. Augcnscliminlcc: Darfsch. morg. Ztsch. v. p. 23G 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." n^lKn, 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. JVrn (Chethib) is the older form of the 3d pers. fern. Kcd, which is only retained here and there (vid. Ewald, § 194, a), "i^x 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

CHAP. X. 1-27. EXTERMINATION OF THE OTHER SONS OF AHAB, OF THE BRETHREN OF AHAZIAH OF JUDAH, AND OF THE PROPHETS OF BAAL.

Vers. 1-11. Extermination of the Seventy Sons of Aiiab in Samaria. — Vers. 1-3. As Ahab had seventy sons in Samaria (D^a in the wider sense, viz. sons, including grandsons [see at ver/ 13], as is evident from the fact that IWDfc, foster-fathers, are mentioned, whereas Ahab had been dead fourteen years, and therefore his youngest sons could not have had foster-fathers any longer), Jehu sent a letter to the elders of the city and to the foster-fathers of the princes, to the effect that they were to place one of the sons of their lord upon the throne There is something very strange in the words *»?" *$•£ ^», ■ to the princes of Jezreel, the old men," partly on account of the name Jezreel, and partly on account of the combination of tnpTH with nc\ If we compare ver. 5, it is evident that tflgtn cannot be the adjective to T nfr, but denotes the elders of the city, so that the preposition b* has dropped out before ETOpm. iwjnr n*> the princes or principal men of Jezreel, might certainly be the chief court-officials of the royal house of Ahab, since Ahab frequently resided in Jezreel. But against this supposition there is not only the circumstance that we cannot discover any reason why the court-officials living in Samaria should be called princes of Jezreel, but also ver. 5, where, instead of the princes of Jezreel, the governor of the city and the governor of the castle are mentioned. Consequently there is an error of the text in bwnr, which ought to read 1* Tyn, though it is older than the ancient versions, since the Chaldee has the reading b«jnr, and no doubt the Alexandrian translator read the same, as the Septuagint has sometimes tt}? 7ro\ea>9, like the Vulgate, and sometimes Sa^apeia^ both unquestionably from mere conjecture. The "princes of the city" are, according to ver 5, the prefect of the palace and. the captain of the city; the &%*, « elders," the magistrates of Samaria; and 3WTK DTOk, the fosterfathers 'and tutors appointed by Ahab for his sons and grandsons. 3*™ is governed freely by ETC?*". In ver. 2 the words from D3JRW to?M? form an explanatory circumstantial clause: " since the sons of your lord are with you, and with you the war-chariots and horses, and a fortified city and arms," i.e. since you Lave everything in your hands,— the royal princes and also the power to make one of them king. It is perfectly evident from the words, " the sons of your lord," i.e. of king Joram, that the seventy sons of Ahab included grandsons also. This challenge of Jehu was only a ruse, by which he hoped to discover the feelings of the leading men of the capital of the kingdom, because he could not venture, without being well assured of them, to proceed to Samaria to exterminate the remaining members of the royal family of Ahab who were living there.?V ^D??, to fight concerning, i.e. for a person, as in Judg. ix. 17. — Vers. 4, 5. This ruse had the desired result. The recipients of the letter were in great fear, and said, Two kings could not stand before him, how shall we? and sent messengers to announce their submission, and to say that they were willing to carry out his commands, and had no desire to appoint a king. — Vers. 6, 7. Jehu then wrote them a second letter, to say that if they would hearken to his voice, they were to send to him on the morrow at this time, to Jezreel, the heads of the sons of their lord; which they willingly did, slaying the seventy men, and sending him their heads in baskets. *^&n "IK \a HMK, " the heads of the men of the sons of your lord," i.e. of the male descendants of Ahab, in which S^N may be explained from the fact that Da^tppa has the meaning " royal princes" (see the similar case in Judg. xix. 22). In order to bring out still more clearly the magnitude of Jehu's demand, the number of the victims required is repeated in the circumstantial clause, " and there were seventy men of the king's sons with (nx) the great men of the city, who had brought them up." — Vers. 8, 9. When the heads were brought, Jehu had them piled up in two heaps before the city-gate, and spoke the next morning to the assembled people in front of them: " Ye are righteous. Behold I have conspired against my lord, and have slain him, but who has slain all these V Jehu did not tell the people that the king's sons had been slain by his command, but spake as if this had been done without his interfering by a higher decree, that he might thereby justify his conspiracy in the eyes of the people, and make them believe what he says still further in ver. 10:" See then that of the word of the Lord nothing falls to the ground (i.e. remains unfulfilled) which Jehovah has spoken concerning the house of Ahab; and Jehovah has done what He spake through His servant Elijah." — Ver. 11. The effect of these words was, that the people looked qujetly on when he proceeded to slay all the rest of the house of Ahab, i.e. all the more distant relatives in Jezreel, and " all his great men," i.e. the superior officers of the fallen dynasty, and " all his acquaintances," i.e. friends and adherents, and " all his priests," probably court priests, such as the heathen kings had; not secular counsellors or nearest servants (Thenius), a meaning which E^lP never has, not even in 2 Sam. viii. 18 and 1 Kings iv. 5.

Vers. 12-17. Extermination of the Brothers of Ahaziah of Judah and of the other Members of Aiiab's Dynasty. — Vers. 1 2 sqq. Jehu then set out to Samaria; and on the way, at th<> binding-house of the shepherds, he met with the brethren of Ahaziah, who were about to visit their royal relations, and when he learned who they were, had them all seized, viz. forty-two men, and put to death at the cistern of the binding-house. N3>1 SIJJ2, " he came and went," appears pleonastic; the words are not to be transposed, however, as Bottcher and Thenius propose after the Syriac, but?&*} is added, because Jehu did not go at once to Samaria, but did what follows on the way. By transposing the words, the slaying of the relations of Ahaziah would be transferred to Samaria, in contradiction to vers. 15 sqq. — The words from rW H%3 Nin onwards, and from WHJ1 to n?'T "HPP, are two circumstantial clauses, in which the subject WW is added in the second clause for the sake of greater clearness: " when he was at the binding-house of the shepherds on the road, and Jehu (there) met with the brethren of Ahaziah, he said...." DT1? Ipr^Z (BacOaKde, LXX.) is explained by Piashi, after the Chaldee RJJH ntP*}3 TO, as signifying locus convcntus pastorum, the meeting-place of the shepherds; and Gesenius adopts the same view. But the rest of the earlier translators for the most part adopt the rendering, locus ligationis pastorum, from Ipy, to bind, and think of a house ubi pastorcs ligabant oves quando eas tondebant. In any case it was a house, or perhaps more correctly a place, where the shepherds were in the habit of meeting, and that on the road from Jezreel to Samaria; according to Eusebius in the Onom. s.v. BcuOcucdd, a place fifteen Boman miles from Legio (Lcjun, Mcgicldo), in the great plain of Jezreel: a statement which may be correct with the exception of the small number of miles, but which does not apply to the present village of Beit Kacl to the east of Jenin (ftob. Pal. iii. p. 157), with which, according to Thenius, it exactly coincides. ^tnK HH^, for which we have 'ns *n« \:n, Ahaziah's brothers' sons, in 2 Chron. xxii. 8, were not the actual brothers of Ahaziah, since they had been carried off by the Arabians and put to death before he ascended the throne (2 Chron. xxi. 17), but partly step-brothers, i.e. sons of Joram by his concubines, and partly Ahaziah's nephews and cousins. BWp, ad salutandum, i.e. to inquire how they were, or to visit the sons of the king (Joram) and of the queen-mother, i.e. Jezebel, therefore Joram's brothers. In ver. 1 they are both included among the " sons " of Ahab. — Vers. 1 5 sqq. As Jehu proceeded on his way, he met with Jehonadab the son of Eechab, and having saluted him, inquired, * Is thy heart true as my heart towards thy heart? " and on his replying B^J, " it is (honourable or true)," he bade him come up into the chariot, saying K*), " if it is (so), give me thy hand;" whereupon he said still further, " Come with me and see my zeal for Jehovah," and then drove with him to Samaria, and there exterminated all that remained of Ahab's family. Jehonadab the son of Rcchab was the tribe-father of the Eechabites (Jer. xxxv. 6). The rule which the latter laid down for his sons and descendants for all time, was to lead a simple nomad life, namely, to dwell in tents, follow no agricultural pursuits, and abstain from wine; which rule they observed so sacredly, that the prophet Jeremiah held them up as models before his own contemporaries, who broke the law of God in the most shameless manner, and was able to announce to the Eechabites that they would be exempted from the Chaldaean judgment for their faithful observance of their father's precept (Jer. xxxv.). Eechab, from whom the descendants of Jehonadab derived their tribe-name, was the son of Hammath, and belonged to the tribe of the Kenites (1 Chron. ii. 55), to which Hobab the father-in-law of Moses also belonged (Num. x. 29); so that the Eechabites were probably descendants of Hobab, since the Kenites the sons of Hobab had gone with the Israelites from the Arabian desert to Canaan, and had there carried on their nomad life (Judg. i. 16, iv. 11; 1 Sam. xv. 6; see Witsii Misccll. ss. ii. p. 223 sqq.). This Jehonadab was therefore a man distinguished for the strictness of his life, and Jehu appears to have received him in this friendly manner on account of the great distinction in which he was held, not only in his own tribe, but also in Israel generally, that he might exalt himself in the eyes of the people through bis friendship.1 — In ^IJTTIX &nt " is with regard to thy heart honourable or upright?" HK is used to subordinate the noun to the clause, in the sense of quoad (see Ewald, § 277, a). D^*^n~73 ^nxp » " a^ that remained to Ahab," i.e. all the remaining members of Ahab's house.

Vers. 18-27. Extermination of the Prophets and Priests of Baal and of the Baal- worship. — Vers. 18 sqq. Under tbe pretence of wishing to serve Baal even more than Ahab had done, Jehu appointed a great sacrificial festival for this idol, and had all the worshippers of Baal throughout all the land summoned to attend it; he then placed eighty of his guards around the temple of Baal in which they were assembled, and after the sacrifice was offered, had the priests and worshippers of Baal cut down by them with the sword. Objectively considered, the slaying of the worshippers of Baal was in accordance with the law, and, according to the theocratical principle, was perfectly right; but the subjective motives which impelled Jehu, apart from the artifice, were thoroughly selfish, as Seb. Schmidt has correctly observed. For since the priests and prophets of Baal throughout the Israelitish kingdom were bound up with the dynasty of Ahab, with all their interests and with their whole existence, they might be very dangerous to Jehu, if on any political grounds he should happen not to promote their objects, whereas by their extermination he might hope to draw to his side the whole of the very numerous supporters of the Jehovah-worship, which had formerly been legally established in Israel, and thereby establish his throne more firmly. The very fact that Jehu allowed the calf-worship to continue, is a proof that he simply used religion as the means of securing his own ends (ver. 29). nnyj; iKHp (ver. 20), " sanctify a festal assembly," i.e. proclaim in the land a festal assembly for Baal (compare Isa. i. 1 3; and for rnv# = nnvir, see at Lev. xxiii. 36). ^1P% and they proclaimed, sc. the festal meeting. — Ver. 21. The temple of Baal was filled ns? n&f

1 According to C. a Lapide, Jehu took him up into his chariot " that he might establish his authority with the Samaritans, and secure a name for integrity by having Jehonadab as his ally, a man whom all held to be both an upright and holy man, that in this way he might the more easily carry out the slaughter of the Baalites, which he was planning, without any one daring to resist him."

u from one edge (end) to the other." ns in this sense is not to be derived from hn^ a corner (Cler., Ges.), but signifies mouth, or the upper rim of a vessel. Metaphora sumta a vasibus humore aliquo plcnis: Vatabl. — Ver. 22. nriri7Bn"pV 1BW is the keeper of the wardrobe (Arab, prcrfectus vestium), for the air. \ey. nnnpo signifies vestiarium (Ges. Thes. p. 764). The reference is not to the wardrobe of the king's palace, out of which Jehu had every one who took part in the feast supplied with a festal dress or new caftan (Deres., Then., etc.), but the wardrobe of the temple of Baal, since the priests of Baal had their own sacred dresses like the priests of almost all religions (as Silius has expressly shown in his Ital. iii. 24-27, of the priests of the Gadetanic Hercules). These dresses were only worn at the time of worship, and were kept in a wardrobe in the temple. — Vers. 23, 24. Jehu then came with Jehonadab to the temple, and commanded the worshippers of Baal to be carefully examined, that there might not be one of the worshippers of Jehovah with (among) them. When the priests of Baal were preparing to offer sacrifice, Jehu had eighty men of his guards stationed before the temple, and laid this injunction upon them: " Whoever lets one of the men escape whom I bring into your hands (we must read a}n\ instead of h?b?), his life shall answer for his (the escaped man's) life, ^a: nnn iefeM, as in 1 Kings xx. 39. — Ver. 25. iri?33: when he (the sacrificing priest, not Jehu) had finished the burnt-offering (the singular suffix) may also be taken as indefinite, when one had finished, vid. Ewald, § 294, b), Jehu commanded the runners and aides-de-camp: Come and smite them (the worshippers of Baal), without one coming out (escaping); whereupon they smote them with the edge of the sword, i.e. slew them unsparingly, ttw^: and the runners and aides-de-camp threw (those who had been slain) away, and went into the citadel of the temple of BaaL byaiTJVa tjj cannot be the city of the temple of Baal, i.e. that part of the city in which the temple of Baal stood, for the runners were already in the court of the temple of Baal; but it is no doubt the temple-citadel, the true temple-house ("W from "ny, locus circumseptus) — templum Baalis magnifice exstructum instar arcis alicujus (Seb. Schm.). — Ver. 26. They then fetched the columns (nbifiD) out of the temple and burned them (the suffix in FWifc*. refers to the plural riharo taken as an abstract noun, as in ch. iii. 3; cf. Ewald, § 3 1 7, a). They then broke in pieces the ^?3n rQSB, column of Baal, i.e. the real image of Baal, probably a conical stone dedicated to Baal, whereas the rDSD, which were burned, were wooden columns as irapehpoi or ai>fj,{3(DfjLOL of Baal (see Movers, Phoniz. i. p. 674). — Ver. 27. Lastly, they destroyed the temple itself and made it rfiannop, privies, for which the Masoretes have substituted the euphemistic nifcWD, sinks, as a mark of the greatest insult, many examples of which are to be met with among Oriental tribes (yid. Ezra vi. 11, Dan. ii. 5, and Hasvernick in loc). — Thus Jehu exterminated Baal from IsraeL This remark in ver. 28 forms the introduction to the history of Jehu's reign, with which the last epoch in the history of the ten tribes begins.

In the 161 years which this epoch embraces, from B.C. 883 to 722, the fate of the kingdom of Israel was accomplished. The first hundred years, which comprised the reigns of Jehu and his descendants, Jehoahaz, Jehoash, and Jeroboam EL, were the last day of grace for the rebellious ten tribes, at the expiration of which the judgment began to burst upon them. As the anointing of Jehu by Elisha was performed by the command of God, so also was the religious reform, which Jehu vigorously commenced with the extermination of the Baal-worship, a fruit of the labours of the prophets Elijah and Elisha within the sinful kingdom; but this reform stood still half-way, since J^hu merely restored the idolatrous Jehovah-worship introduced by Jeroboam, and neither he himself nor his successors desisted from that sin. In order, therefore, if possible, to complete the work begun by His prophets of converting Israel to its God, the Lord now began to visit the rebellious tribes with severe chastisements, giving them up into the power of the Syrians, who under Hazael not only conquered the whole of the land to the east of the Jordan, but almost annihilated the military force of the Israelites (ch. x. 32, 33, xiii. 3, 7). This chastisement did not remain without fruit. Jehoahaz prayed to the Lord, and the Lord had compassion upon the oppressed for the sake of His covenant with the patriarchs, and sent them deliverers in Joash, who recovered the conquered land from the Syrians after the death of Hazael, and in Jeroboam, who even restored the ancient boundaries of the kingdom (ch. xiii. 4, 5, and 23 sqq., xiv. 25, 26). But with this renewal of external strength, luxuriance and debauchery, partiality in judgment and oppression of the poor began to prevail, as we may see from the prophecies of Ilosea and Amos (Amos v. 1 0 sqq., vi. 1—6; Hos. vi. 7 sqq.); and in addition to the Jehovah- worship, which was performed in an idolatrous manner (Hos. viii. 13, ix. 4, 5), the worship of Baal was carried on most vigorously (Hos. ii. 13, 15, x. 1, 2), so that the people made pilgrimages to Bethel, Gilgal, and even to Beersheba in the south of the kingdom of Judah (Hos. iv. 15; Amos iv. 4, v. 5, viii. 14), and on account of the worship thus zealously performed, relied in carnal security upon the protection of God, and scoffed at the judgments of the Lord which were threatened by the prophets (Amos v. 14, 18). This internal corruption increased with the death of Jeroboam, till all civil order was dissolved. Anarchy, conflicts for the possession of the throne, and repeated regicides, broke up the kingdom and made it ripe for the judgment of destruction, which was gradually accomplished by the Assyrians, whom one party in the reign of Menahem had called to their help, under Pul, Tiglathpileser, and Shalmanasar. — The kingdom of Judah, on the other hand, was purified from the destructive consequences of the alliance with the dynasty of Ahab through the overthrow by the high priest Jehoiada of the godless Athaliah, who had murdered the royal children after the death of Ahaziah and seized upon the government, and, with the renewal of the covenant and the extermination of the worship of Baal under the young king whom Jehoiada had trained, was brought back to the theocratic path; and notwithstanding the fact that in the closing years of Joash and Amaziah idolatry found admission again, was preserved in that path, in which it increased in strength and stability, so that not only were the wounds quickly healed which the war with Israel, occasioned by Amaziah's pride, had inflicted upon it through the conquest and plunder of Jerusalem (ch. xiv. 8 sqq.), but during the sixty-eight years comprised in the reigns of Uzziah and Jotham, the people rose to a state of great prosperity and wealth through the pursuit of agriculture and trade, and a thoughtful development of the resources of the land, and the kingdom acquired great external power through the humiliation of the Philistines and the subjugation of the Edomites once more (2 Chron. xxvi.). At the same time, neither of these kings was able entirely to suppress the illegal worship of the high places, although the temple-worship was regularly sustained according to the law; and with the increase of wealth and power, not only did luxuriance and pride set in, but also idolatry and an inclination to heathen ways (Isa. ii. 5-8 and 16 sqq., v. 18 sqq.); so that even in the reigns of Uzziah and Jotham Isaiah predicted the day of the Lord's judgment, which was to fall upon everything lofty and proud (Isa. ii.-iv.). This prophecy began to be fulfilled, so far as its first beginnings were concerned, even in the time of Ahaz. Under this weak and idolatrous ruler idolatry gained the upper hand, and the worship of Jehovah was suppressed; and this open apostasy from the Lord was followed by immediate punishment. The allied kings of Israel and Syria forced their way victoriously into Judah, and even stood before the gates of Jerusalem, with the intention of destroying the kingdom of Judah, when Ahaz, despising the help of the Lord, which was offered him by the prophet Isaiah, purchased the assistance of Tiglath-pileser the king of Assyria with silver and gold, and was thereby delivered from his foes. But this made him dependent upon the Assyrians, who would have conquered the kingdom of Judah and destroyed it, as they had already destroyed the kingdom of Israel, had not the Lord hearkened to the prayer of the pious king and miraculously routed the powerful army of Sennacherib before the walls of Jerusalem.

Vers-. 28, 29. Jehu exterminated the worship of Baal from Israel; but the sins of Jeroboam, the golden calves at Bethel and Dan, that is to say, the idolatrous worship of Jehovah, he allowed to remain. * The golden calves, etc.: " this is a supplementary and explanatory apposition to " the sins of Jeroboam." — Vers. 30, 31. Jehu is promised the possession of the throne to the fourth generation of his sons for having exterminated the godless royal house of Ahab (vid. ch. xv. 12). The divine sentence, " because thou hast acted well to do right in mine eyes, (because thou) hast done as it was in my heart to the house of Ahab/' refers to the deed as such, and not to the subjective motives by which Jehu had been actuated. For it is obvious that it had not sprung from pure zeal for the honour of the Lord, from the limitation added in ver. 31:" but Jehu did not take heed to walk in the law of Jehovah with all his heart, and did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam." — Vers. 32, 33. Therefore (this link of connection follows from the actual fact, though it is not distinctly mentioned in the text) Hazael had now to inflict chastisement upon faithless Israel. In Jehu's days Jehovah began " to cut off in Israel," i.e. to rend away certain portions from the kingdom. " Hazael smote them (the Israelites) on the whole of the border of Israel," i.e. of the kingdom, " from Jordan to the sun-rising {i.e. on the eastern side of the Jordan), the whole of the land of Gilead (H?"'5? n^ is dependent upon H2P, which must be supplied from D2*), namely, the territory of the tribes of Gad, Reuben, and Half-Manasseli, from Aroer on the brook Arnon (now Araayr, a ruin on the northern border of the Mojeb (Arnon) valley; see at Num. xxxii. 34), the southern border of the Israelitish land to the east of the Jordan (Deut. ii. 36, iii. 12), both Gilead and Bashan," the two countries into which Gilead in the broader sense was divided (see at Deut. iii. 8-1 7). — These conquests took place during the twenty-eight years' reign of Jehu, since Hazael began to reign before Jehu, viz. while Joram was king, and had already fought successfully against the Israelites at Ramoth in Joram's reign (ch. viii. 28, 29), but not in the later part of Jehu's reign, as Thenius supposes. — Vers. 34-36. Conclusion of the history of Jehu's reign. The length of his reign is not given till the end in this instance (ver. 36), contrary to the usual custom in our books, because his ascent of the throne is not expressly mentioned in what precedes; but the general character of his reign is given in immediate connection with the account of his anointing and of the extermination of Ahab's dynasty.