The Expositor's Bible: The First Book of Kings

466

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

467

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

468

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

469

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

470

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

471

2 Sam. iv. 7.

472

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

473

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

474

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

475

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

476

Tobit i. 5.

477

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

478

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

479

Vilmar.

480

Now Talura, six miles north of Nablus.

481

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

482

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

483

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

484

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

485

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

486

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

487

Gal. i. 8.

488

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

489

Comp. Jer. xxii. 18.

490

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

491

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

492

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

493

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

494

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

495

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

496

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

497

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

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

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

498

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

499

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

500

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

501

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

502

Verg., Æn., vi. 870.

503

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

504

Wisdom iv. 8-14.

505

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

506

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

507

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

508

2 Chron. xvi. 7-10.

509

2 Chron. xx. 34.

510

Comp. Hosea vii. 3-7.

511

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

512

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

513

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

514

Canon Rawlinson, Kings of Israel and Judah.

515

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

516

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

517

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

518

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

519

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

520

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

521

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

522

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

523

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

524

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

525

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

526

1 Kings x. 17.

527

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

528

תָּא (Ezek. xl. 7).

529

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

530

Jewish Church, ii. 385.

531

Renan.

532

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

533

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

534

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

535

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

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

536

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

537

Chron. xiii. 22.

538

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

539

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

540

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

541

1 Kings xv. 15.

542

Ewald, iv. 49.

543

Comp. the Madame Mère in the French court.

544

The LXX. (Vat.) calls her Ana.

545

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

546

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

547

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

548

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

549

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

550

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

551

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

552

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

553

See Numb. xxxiv. 11; Josh. xiii. 27.

554

Josh. xxi. 17; 2 Kings xxiii. 8.

555

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

556

Renan, Hist. du Peuple Israel, ii. 248. Comp. Rephaiah.

557

2 Chron. xv. 1-15.

558

2 Chron. xvi. 9, 10.

559

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

560

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

561

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

562

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

563

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

564

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

565

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

566

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

567

2 Chron. xxi. 2, 3.

568

There is a little exaggeration here.

569

2 Kings ix. 31.

570

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

571

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

572

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

573

Athaliah is called "the daughter of Omri."

574

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

575

1 Kings xx. 34.

576

2 Kings iii. 4.

577

1 Kings xvi. 25.

578

Micah vi. 16.

579

Isa. xxviii. 1-4.

580

Stanley, Lectures, ii. 242.

581

1 Kings xx. 1; 2 Kings vi. 24.

582

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

583

About £800 of our money.

584

LXX., Σκοπία; שָׁמַר, "to watch."

585

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

586

נְבוּרָתֹו (1 Kings xvi. 27).

587

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

588

1 Kings xx. 5; 2 Kings x. 7.

589

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

590

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

591

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

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

592

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

593

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