The Expositor's Bible: The First Book of Kings

594

Ethbaal is called King of Sidon (1 Kings xvi. 31), and was also King of Tyre (Menander ap. Josephus, Antt., VIII. xiii. 1).

595

1 Kings xvi. 23; 2 Kings iii. 2, x. 27.

596

Asherim seem to be upright wooden stocks of trees in honour of the Nature-goddess Asheroth. The Temple of Baal at Tyre had no image, only two Matstseboth, one of gold given by Hiram, one of "emerald" (Dius and Menander ap. Josephus, Antt., VIII. v. 3; c. Ap., I. 18; Herod., ii. 66).

597

Döllinger, Judenth. u. Heidenthum (E. T.), i. 425-29.

598

2 Sam. x. 5; Judg. iii. 28.

599

2 Chron. xxviii. 15.

600

Comp. Josh. vi. 26; 2 Sam. x. 5.

601

Rev. ii. 20.

602

1 Kings xxi. 25, 26.

603

Henry Smith, The Trumpet of the Lord sounding to Judgment.

604

Tobit i. 2.

605

Josephus, Antt., VIII. xiii. 2; Vat. (LXX.), Θεσβίτης ὁ ἐκ θεσβῶν. The Alex. LXX. omits Θεσβίτης. An immense amount has been written about Elijah. Among others, see Knobel, Der Prophetismus, ii. 73; Köster, Der Thesbiter; Stanley, ii., lect. xxx.; Maurice, Prophets and Kings, serm. viii.; F. W. Robertson, ii., serm. vi.; Milligan, Elijah (Men of the Bible).

606

See 1 Chron. ii. 55.

607

See Cheyne, The Hallowing of Criticism, p. 9.

608

Zech. xiii. 4.

609

The word also means "sea-mist" (Cheyne, p. 15).

610

Lev. xxvi. 19; Psalm cxxxiv. 1; Heb. x. 11.

611

So too Ecclus. xlviii. 2, "He brought a sore famine upon them, and by his zeal he diminished their number"; but the writer adds, "By the word of the Lord he shut up the heavens." Deut. xxviii. 12; Amos iv. 7.

612

2 Sam. xxi. 1.

613

2 Sam. xxiv. 13. "Three," not "seven," is probably here the true reading.

614

Not "by," as in the A.V. Cherith means "cut off" (1 Kings xvii. 3). "The Lord hid him" (Jer. xxxvi. 26). "In famine he shall redeem thee from death… At famine and destruction thou shalt laugh" (Job v. 20-22).

615

Robinson.

616

Benjamin of Tudela.

617

Marinus Sanutus (1321).

618

The ravens were unclean birds (Deut. xiv. 14), and this naturally startled and offended the Rabbis.

619

Prov. xxx. 17.

620

Orbo was a small town near the Jordan and Bethshan.

621

On the other side, Bunsen (Bibelwerk, v. 2, 540) speaks too strongly when he says that "nothing but boundless ignorance, or, where historical criticism has not died out, an hierarchical dilettanti reaction, foolhardy hypocrisy, and weak-hearted fanaticism would wish to demand the faith of a Christian community in the historic truths of these miracles as if they had actually taken place." He regards the whole narrative as a "popular epic – the fruit of an inspiration, which he, as it were some superhuman being, awakened in his disciples."

622

I append the remarks of Professor Milligan, a theologian of unimpeachable orthodoxy. "The miracle," he says, "is so remarkable, so much out of keeping with most of the other miracles of Scripture, that even pious and devout minds may well be perplexed by it, and we can feel no surprise at the attempts made to explain it. Such attempts are not inconsistent with the most devout reverence for the word of God. They are rather, not unfrequently, the result of a just persuasion that the Eastern mind did not express itself in forms similar to those of the West" (Elijah, p. 22). He proceeds to protest against the harsh condemnation of those who thus only try to interpret the real ideas present in the mind of the writer. He regards it as perhaps a highly poetic and figurative representation of the truth that the God of Nature was with Elijah. "The value of the Prophet's experience is neither heightened by a literal, nor diminished by a figurative, interpretation of what passed" (p. 24).

623

1 Kings xvii. 7. Perhaps years (Lev. xxv. 29; 1 Sam. xxvii. 7).

624

Job vi. 17.

625

Menander, quoted by Josephus, Antt., VIII. xiii. 2. He says it lasted for a year.

626

LXX., "My sons" – perhaps with reference to "her house" in verse 15.

627

Perhaps the language of the Hebrew is not actually decisive. Josephus says, τὴν ψυχὴν ἀφεῖναι καὶ δόξαι νεκρόν. In any case his recovery was due to Elijah's prayer.

628

The phrase "man of God" is characteristic of the Book of Kings, in which it occurs fifty-three times. It became a normal description of Elijah and Elisha. "What have I to do with thee?" Comp. 2 Sam. xvi. 10; Luke v. 8. It was a common superstition that death always followed the appearance of superhuman beings.

629

Compare the similar revivals of life wrought by Elisha (2 Kings iv. 34), and by St. Paul (Acts xx. 10).

630

Amos ix. 3: "And though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence." The phrase shows the security and seclusion of these caves and thickets, the haunt once of lions and bears, and still of leopards and hyænas.

631

The LXX. adds that he inflicted vengeance because Elijah was not found: "Καὶ ἐνέπρησε τὴν βασιλείαν καὶ τὰς χωρὰς αὐτῆς ὅτι οὐχ εὔρηκέ σε" (1 Kings xviii. 10).

632

Obadiah seems to have believed in miraculous transference of the Prophet from place to place. Comp. Ezek. iii. 12-14 (where "the spirit" may be rendered "a spirit," or "a wind"), viii. 3; 2 Kings ii. 16; Acts viii. 39; and the Ebionite Gospel of St. Matthew. "My mother, the Holy Ghost, took me by a hair of the head, and carried me to Mount Tabor" (Orig. in Joann., ii., § 6; and Jer. in Mic. vii. 6). So in Bel and the Dragon 33-36 (Abarbanel, Comm. in Habakkuk) the prophet Habakkuk is said to have been taken invisibly to supply food to Daniel in the den of lions. "Then the angel of the Lord took him by the crown and bare him by the hair of his head, and through the vehemency of his spirit" (Midr. Robshik Rabba, "in the might of the Holy Ghost") "set him in Babylon."

633

1 Kings xviii. 15, LXX., "The Lord God of Israel" has now become to him more prominently "the Lord God of Hosts."

634

The phrase had already been applied to Achan (Josh. vii. 25).

635

I.e., were maintained at Jezebel's expense. The subsequent narration is silent as to the presence of the prophets of the Asherah, and Wellhausen thinks that the words here are an interpolation.

636

Isa. xxxiii. 9, xxxv. 2; Micah vii. 14. Its beauty and fruitfulness are alluded to in Jer. xlvi. 18, l. 19; Amos i. 2, ix. 3; Nahum i. 4; Cant. vii. 5.

637

Sir George Grove, to whose excellent article in Smith's Dict. of Bible (i. 279) I am indebted, quotes Martineau (i. 317), Porter's Handbook, Van de Velde, etc. See, too, Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, pp. 353-56.

638

On these Lapides judaici, see my Life of Christ, i. 129. Illustrations are given in the illustrated edition.

639

Jambl., Vit. Pythag., iii.; Suet., Vesp., 5; Tac., Hist., ii. 78; Reland, Palest., pp. 327-30.

640

Megiddo lies in the plain below, and this scene of conflict between good and the powers of evil was an anticipated Armageddon.

641

Isa. xlix. 2; Cheyne, p. 16.

642

LXX., 1 Kings xviii. 21, ἕως πότε ὑμεῖς χωλανεῖτε ἐπ' ἀμφοτέραις ταῖς ἰγνύαις. Vulg., usquequo claudicatis in duas partes? Cheyne renders it: "How long will ye go lame upon tottering knees?" In Psalm cxix. 113, סֵעֲפִים are "the double-minded." In Ezek. xxxi. 6, סְעַפּוֹת, "diverging branches." In Isa. ii. 21, סְעִפֵי, "clefts of rocks" (Bähr).

643

Herodian (Hist., v. 3) describes the dance of Heliogabalus round the altar of the Emesene Sun-god, and Apuleius describes at length the fanatic leapings and gashings of the execrable Galli– the eunuch-mendicant priests of the Syrian goddess. From these sources and from allusions in Seneca, Lucian, Statius, Arnobius, etc., Movers (Phöniz., i. 682) derives his description (quoted by Keil, ad loc., E.T., p. 281): "A discordant howling opens the scene. Now they fly wildly through one another, with the head sunk down to the ground, but turning round in circles, so that the loose flowing hair drags through the mire. Thereupon they first bite themselves on the arm, and at last cut themselves with two-edged swords, which they are wont to carry. Then begins a new scene. One of them who surpasses all the rest in frenzy, begins to prophesy with sighs and groans, openly accuses himself of past sins, which he now wishes to punish by the mortifying of the flesh, takes the knotted whip which the Galli are wont to bear, lashes his back, cuts himself with swords, till the blood trickles down from his mangled body."

644

Verse 27. Others render it "meditating" (De Wette Thenius) or "peevish" (Bähr). Comp. Hom., Il., i. 423; Od., i. 22, etc.

645

This instance of "grim sarcastic humour" is almost unique in Scripture. It was made more mordant by the paronomasia כִּי־שִׂיחַ וְכִי־שִׂיג לֹּו (2 Sam. i. 22).

646

Plutarch (De Superstit., p. 170) says: "The priests of Bellona offered their own blood, which was deemed powerful to move their gods." Comp. Herod., ii. 61; Lucian, De Dea Syra, 50; Apul., Metam., viii. 28.

647

עַד לַעֲלוֹת הַמִּנחָה, "till towards (Numb. xxviii. 4) the offering of the Minchah." LXX., θυσία; Vulg., sacrificium and holocaustum. In verse 39 it is omitted in the LXX. "There is a great concurrence of evidence that the evening sacrifice of the first Temple was not a holocaust, but a cereal oblation" (Robertson Smith, p. 143, quoting 1 Kings xviii. 34; 2 Kings xvi. 15; Ezek. ix. 4, Heb).

648

Heb., וַיִתְנַבְּאוּ; LXX., διέτρεχον; Vulg., transiliebant. Literally, they acted like frantic prophets (1 Sam. xviii. 10; Jer. xxix. 26).

649

LXX., θαλάσσαν, or "sea" – the name given to Solomon's molten laver; but the description, "as great as would contain two seahs of seed," is curious, for a seah was only the third of an ephah.

650

Blunt (Undesigned Coincidences, II. xxxii.) thinks that as the drought had been so intense the water must have been sea-water. But Josephus says it was drawn ἀπὸ τῆς κρήνης (Antt., VIII. xiii. 5); and the well still exists.

651

Priests, both pagan and mediæval, have been adepts at deception. At the Reformation the mechanism of winking Madonnas, etc., was exposed to the people. At Pompeii may still be seen the secret staircase behind the altar, and the pipes let into the head of Isis from behind, through which the priests spoke her pretended oracles. St. Chrysostom (Orat. in. Petr. et Eliam, which is of uncertain genuineness) tells us that he had himself seen (θεάτης αὐτὸς γενομένος) altars with concealed hollows in the middle, into which the unsuspected operator crept, and blew up a fire which the people were assured was self-kindled (see Keil, p. 282). One legend says that on this occasion a man was suffocated, who had been concealed by the Baal priests inside their altar.

652

1 Kings xviii. 36.

653

Comp. Lev. ix. 24. Analogous stories existed among pagans (Hom., Il., ii. 305; Od., ii. 143; Verg., Ecl., viii. 105). Pliny says that annals recorded the eliciting of lightning by prayers and incantations (H. N., ii. 54; Winer, Realwörterb. 371).

654

It is after Elijah's time, and probably from his influence, that from this time proper names compounded with Jehovah become almost the rule – as in Ahaziah, Jehoram, Jehu, Jehoahaz, Joash, Pekahiah, etc.

655

1 Kings xix. 1, בְּחָרֶב; LXX., ἐν ῥομφάιᾳ.

656

Renan, Vie de Jésus, 100.

657

Matt. xii. 19, 20; Isa. xlii. 2, 3; Ezek. xxxiv. 16.

658

LXX., ὅτι φωνὴ τῶν ποδῶν τοῦ ὑετοῦ. Perhaps, with reference to this reading, Josephus afterwards describes "the little cloud" as "no bigger than a human footstep" (οὐ πλέον ἴχνους ἀνθρωπίνου).

659

LXX., τῷ παιδαρίῳ αὐτοῦ.

660

LXX., 1 Kings xviii. 45, Καὶ ἔκλαιε καὶ ἐπορεύετο Ἀχαὰβ ἕως Ιεζράελ.

661

Menander of Ephesus (Josephus, Antt., VIII. xiii. 2).

662

Eisenlohr, Das Volk Israel, p. 162.

663

He refers to Gibbon, iv. 232.

664

See Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brönte.

665

LXX., 1 Kings xix. 2.

666

The touch "which belongeth to Judah" shows that the Elijah-narrative emanated from some prophet in the northern schools. In later days it was much visited by pilgrims from the Northern Kingdom (Amos v. 5, viii. 14).

667

Matt. xxvi. 36.

668

1 Kings xix. 4, 5, רֹתֶם אֵחָת; Vulg., subter unam juniperum. The plant is the Genista monosperma, with papilionaceous flowers. Not "juniper," as in Luther (Wachholder) and the A.V. LXX., ῥαθμὲν φύτον. See Robinson, Researches, i. 203, 205. It gave its name to the station Rithmah (Numb. xxxiii. 18) and the Wadies Retemît and Retâmah.

669

Comp. Moses (Numb. xi. 15), Jonah (Jonah iv. 3).

670

Pope's epitaph on Mrs. Elizabeth Corbet, in St. Margaret's Westminster.

671

Jer. xx. 1-18.

672

Psalm cii. 6, 8.

673

Psalm xxxviii. 11, 12.

674

Jer. v. 31, xxix. 9.

675

John xvi. 32.

676

Krummacher.

677

The coals (reshaphim) for the cake (LXX., ἔγκρυφίας ὀλυρίτης; Vulg., subcinericius panis) were the dry twigs of the broom plant, still sold for that purpose in the markets of Cairo. Comp. Psalm cxx. 4; "coals of juniper."

678

1 Kings xix. 5. מַלְאָךְ means "a messenger," and in verse 2 is used of the messenger of Jezebel.

679

Exod. xxxiii. 22.

680

Bible Educator, iii. 135.

681

The use of the plural, and the absence of any objections to an uncentralised worship, are proofs of the northern origin of the Elijah-episode.

682

LXX., αὔριον; Josephus, Antt., VIII. xiii. 7; Comp. Exod. xxxiv. 2. It is hardly likely that the stupendous vision would follow instantly and without a moment's preparation.

683

Deut. iv. 12, 15, (comp. v. 4, 22, 23). Of Moses, on the other hand, it is said, "the similitude of the Lord shall he behold" (Numb. xii. 8; Exod. xxxiii. 11; Deut. xxxiv. 10).

684

מָקוֹם, τόπος, "place," was a sort of recognised euphemism for God in Rabbinic and Alexandrian exegesis. Thus, in Exod. xxiv. 10, for "they saw the God of Israel," the LXX. have εἷδον τὸν τόπον οὗ εἱστήκει ὁ θεός. Philo says, "God Himself is called Place" (De Somn., i. 525). Rabbi Isaac says, "God is not in Makom, but Makom is in God." See my Bampton Lectures on Hist. of Interpretation, p. 120; Early Days of Christianity, i. 261.

685

Psalm civ. 4; Heb. i. 7. This intermediacy of angels is prominently alluded to in Acts vii. 53; Gal. iii. 19; Heb. ii. 2, 3; Deut. xxxiii. 2; Psalm lxviii. 17.

686

The anthropomorphism which the Targumists disliked vanishes in the Chaldee: "And before Him was a host of angels of the wind rending the mountains, and breaking the rocks, before the Lord but the Shechinah was not in the hosts of the angels of the wind, and after the hosts of the angels of the wind was the host of the angel of the earthquake, etc."

687

Job xxxviii. 1, xl. 6.

688

Ezek. i. 4.

689

Jer. xxiii. 19, 20, xxv. 32, xxx. 23.

690

Psalms xviii. 10, civ. 3, 5.

691

Nahum i. 3, 5.

692

Psalm xviii. 7, lxxvii. 18, xcvii. 4; Judg. v. 4; 2 Sam. xxii. 8.

693

Hab. iii. 3-16.

694

1 Kings xix. 12; LXX., φωνὴ αὔρας λεπτῆς; Vulg., Sibilus auræ tenuis; Chaldee, "a voice of angels singing in silence."

695

Jehu was the grandson of Nimshi, and was the son of Jehoshaphat (2 Kings ix. 2).

696

Isa. xi. 4, xlix. 2; comp. Jer. i. 10, xviii. 7.

697

Comp. Rom. xii. 5. Kissing images was a sign of idolatry then as it is now. The foot of the statue of St. Peter in Rome is worn away with kisses. Hosea xiii. 2 tells us of the custom of kissing the calves. Comp. Psalm ii. 12. Cicero tells us that the lovely brazen statue of Hercules at Agrigentum had the mouth and chin partly worn away by the kisses of the devout (in Verr., iv. 43).

698

Herder, who was a devout poet, and therefore a true imaginative interpreter of devout poetry, says: "The vision was to show the fiery zeal of the Prophet that would amend everything by the storm, the mild process of God, and proclaim His longsuffering tender nature as previously the voice did to Moses: hence the scene was so beautifully changed." Long before him the wise Theodoret had said: Διὰ δὲ τούτων ἔδειξεν ὅτι μακροθυμία καὶ φιλανθρωπία μόνη φίλη Θεῷ. Irenæus, still earlier (c. Hær., iv. 27), saw in the vision an emblem of the difference between the law and the gospel; and Grotius, following him, says, "Evangelii figuratio, quod non venit cum vento, terræ motu, et fulminibus ut lex," Exod. xix. 16 (see Keil, ad loc., whose illustrations are often valuable when his exegesis is false and obsolete).

699

Psalm xviii. 7-9; comp. 2 Sam. xxii. 8-11.

700

Isa. xiii. 13.

701

Isa. xxix. 6; comp. Ecclus. xxxix. 28.

702

W. S. Landor.

703

1 Kings iv. 12. It was in the north part of the Jordan valley.

704

1 Kings xix. 19.

705

The Hebrew can hardly bear the meaning that he was finishing the twelfth furrow in his field, ploughed by his single yoke of oxen.

706

For these particulars, and the following translations, see Dr. Ginsburg in Records of the Past, xi. 163; and Dr. Neubauer, id., New Series, ii. 194; The Moabite Stone, Second Edition (Reeves & Turner), 1871; Dr. Schlottmann, Die Sieggessaüle Mesas, 1870; Nöldeke, Die Inschrift der König Mesa, 1870; Stade, i. 534; Kittel, ii. 198, etc.

707

Chemosh-Gad perhaps came to the throne in the fourth year of Omri, about b. c. 926, and reigned till the close of Ahaziah's reign (b. c. 896).

708

Comp. 1 Sam. vii. 12.

709

For it is indirectly mentioned that "his father" had taken cities from Omri.

710

LXX., Exod. iii. 16.

711

Comp. Josh. ix. 18; Judg. xi. 11.

712

1 Kings xx. 10. Elohim here, doubtless, means the false gods of Benhadad. Vat. LXX., ὁ θεός; but Chaldee, "the terrors."

713

"Fanfaronnade, qui veut dire; je réduirai cette bicoque en poussière; j'ai avee moi plus de monde qu'il ne faudra pour l'emporter tout entière" (Reuss). Comp. Herod., viii. 226, where Dieneces answers the braggart vaunt of the Medes.

714

Reuss renders it, "Ceignant n'est pas encore gaignant." The proverb resembles in different aspects the precept of Solon, τέρμα ὁρᾶν βιότοιο, and "Praise a fair day at night"; and the Italian, "Capo ha cosa fatta"; and the Latin, "Ne triumphum canas ante victoriam"; and the French, "Il ne faut pas vendre le peau de l'ours avant de l'avoir tué."

715

A.V., "pavilions"; but the word (sukkoth) implies that they were temporary booths rather than tents. They resembled the birchwood pavilions made for the Turkish pachas in campaigns (Keil).

716

A.V., "Set yourselves in array." LXX., οἰκοδομήσατε χάρακα; Vulg., circumdate civitatem.

717

Now in the British Museum.

718

1 Kings xx. 14 (נַעָרִים).

719

Jarchi —more Rabbinico– says that these were the seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal.

720

1 Kings xx. 20, LXX., καὶ ἐδευτέρωσεν ἒκαστος τὸν παῤ αὐτοῦ.

721

Or, "pell-mell." The Hebrew in 1 Kings xx. 20 is, עַל־סוּס וּפָרָשִׁים, "on a horse with (some) horsemen." Klostermann would supply הוּא. Jonathan takes וּפָרָשִׁים as a dual – "and two riders with him"; LXX., ἐφ' ἵππων ἱππέων; Vulg., in equo cum equitibus suis; Luther, "sammt Rossen und Reitern."

722

See 2 Sam. xi. 1. The custom of all countries in the ancient world was to devote the summer months only to campaigns. There were few or no standing armies, and the citizen-conscripts had to look after their farms, or the nation would have starved. The Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians introduced a gradual revolution in these respects.

723

1 Kings xx. 24. LXX., σατράπας.

724

R.V., "and were victualled," not, as in A.V., "and were all present." Alex. LXX., διοικήθησαν; Vulg., acceptis cibariis.

725

Why two? No explanation is given. It has been conjectured that Judah had sent a separate contingent to help them in their distress.

726

Some have supposed that an earthquake occurred, and Canon Rawlinson mentions (Speaker's Commentary) that the earthquake of Lisbon is said to have destroyed sixty thousand persons in five minutes.

727

חֶדֶר בְּחֶדֶר. Comp. for similar phrases, (Heb.) Lev. xxv. 53; Deut. xv. 20; 1 Kings xxii. 25; 2 Chron. xxviii. 26. Klostermann, with one of his amazing conjectures, reads "by the spring Harod in Harod"! LXX., εἰς τὸν οἶκον τοῦ κοιτῶνος, εἰς τὸ ταμεῖον; Vulg., in cubiculum quod erat intra cubiculum. Josephus makes it a cellar (εἰς ὑπόγαιον οἶκον ἐκρύβη), "like the modern serdaubs in which the inhabitants of many Eastern cities live in the summer" (Rawlinson).

728

The accidental sigh of the engineer was sufficient to prevent the colossal Egyptian statue of a Pharaoh from being moved to its destination. Even Rome shared the immemorial superstition.