40. § 2. Abijam and Asa in the Kingdom of Judah. Nadab, Baasha, Elah, Zimri, Omri, and ...
§ 2. Abijam and Asa in the Kingdom of Judah. Nadab, Baasha, Elah, Zimri, Omri, and Ahab in the Kingdom of Israel
Rehoboam was succeeded on the throne by his son Abijah or Abijam, who was contemporary with Jeroboam, who reigned, however, only three years. His history is very briefly given in the books of Kings, but more fully in Chronicles. In 1 Kings 15:2, his mother is said to have been a daughter of Absalom. According to the chronology, she cannot possibly have been his daughter in the true sense; but it was not unusual to pass by the obscure parents, and speak of the grandsons and granddaughters as sons and daughters of their grand-parents, or even of their great-grand-parents. Absalom left no son, but only a daughter, Tamar, 2 Samuel 18:18, 2 Samuel 14:27. Maachah must have been her daughter. This is expressly corroborated by Chronicles. In 2 Chronicles 11:20, according to the same mode of speech employed in the books of the Kings, the mother of Abijah is called “Maachah, the daughter of Absalom.” On the other hand, in 2 Chronicles 13:2 she is more accurately described as “Michaiah, the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah.” This Uriel had married the daughter of Absalom. Abijah, like Rehoboam, was not wholly devoted to the Lord. Yet, from 1 Kings 15:3, where we read, “And his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God,” we infer that he was not utterly godless; probably he had not polluted himself with the worship of idols, but was lukewarm in promoting the fear of God and in ejecting idolatry. The same thing also appears from the severity with which he rejected the illegal worship introduced by Jeroboam, which presupposes that he had at least in some measure a good conscience; and again, from 1 Kings 15:15, according to which he made valuable presents to the temple, to compensate for that which had been stolen by the king of Egypt. Under Abijah war broke out openly against Israel. In 1 Kings 15:6, it is merely stated, “There was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of his life.” The words “between Rehoboam and Jeroboam “have made unnecessary difficulty here. Rehoboam is named instead of Abijah, because the war waged by the son was merely a continuation of that which had been begun by the father, for whom it was carried on, as it were.
Abijah was succeeded by his better son Asa, who had begun his reign by the destruction of all idolatry. In the commencement of his reign, his grandmother Maachah, who had inherited the bad spirit of her father Absalom, had considerable influence, which is explained by the circumstance that Asa must have been still very young when his father died. But when she made use of her power for the strengthening of idolatry, it was taken from her by Asa, and an image which she had dedicated to the Phenician goddess Astarte was publicly destroyed.
Open warfare afterwards broke out with the kingdom of Israel. In 2 Chronicles 15:9, 2 Chronicles 16:1, we read that there was no war until the thirty-fifth year of the reign of Asa; but in the thirty-sixth, Baasha undertook a campaign against Judah. Here the difficulty arises, that, according to 1 Kings 16:8, Baasha died in the thirty-sixth year of Asa. There are only two alternatives. Either the date in Chronicles must be critically corrupt, or the terminus a quo of the thirty-six years is not the beginning of the reign of Asa, but the separation of the kingdom; so that Asa, like Rehoboam, is not to be regarded as an individual, but as the representative of the kingdom of Judah, in the thirty-sixth year of the line represented by Asa. According to the latter view, the thirty-sixth year coincides with the fifteenth of Asa, and the war against Israel must have begun in the same year in which the war with the Cushites came to an end. This latter becomes probable by assuming an original union of the two wars, which may be demonstrated. According to 2 Chronicles 15:9, many Israelites went over to the kingdom of Judah in consequence of the victory over the Cushites. But, according to 2 Chronicles 16:1 and 1 Kings 15:17, this very circumstance gave rise to the war with Israel. Baasha resented these emigrations. He feared that, unless he could succeed in putting a complete stop to all intercourse with the kingdom of Judah, his subjects would all eventually return to the king of Judah, who seemed to be specially favoured by God. He therefore determined to fortify the city of Ramah, which was two hours’ journey from Jerusalem, situated on an elevation, and commanding the way to Judah, and thus to cut off the passage. If this work were successfully accomplished, it was probably his intention to invade the kingdom of Judah. With this object in view, he had concluded an alliance with Benhadad, king of the Damascene Syrian kingdom, which had arisen in Solomon’s time, comp. 1 Kings 15:19; and from 2 Chronicles 16:7 we learn that Benhadad’s troops were actually advancing. Asa thought he could only escape the danger by endeavouring to bring over the king of Syria to his side. With this object he sent him the treasure of the temple, which had been newly replaced by himself and his father. The plan succeeded. The king of Syria invaded Israel instead of Judah, and took several towns situated in the neighbourhood of the Sea of Gennesareth. Baasha was obliged to abandon the fortification of Ramah, and to hasten to the protection of the northern parts of his kingdom. But on this occasion Asa sinned from want of faith, and his sin was held up to him by the prophet Hanani, just as King Ahaz was afterwards reproved by Isaiah for seeking help from the king of Assyria against Israel and Syria. The king was not absolutely forbidden to make any alliance. Here, however, the question was not so much of an alliance as of subjection, which, though it might be temporarily advantageous, would be most prejudicial as a permanent thing. Asa would have seen this if he had not been blinded by fear; and this fear was the less excusable, because he had shortly before so definitely experienced God’s power and will to help, in far greater danger, on the attack of the Cushites. If he had looked at the matter with an unprejudiced eye, he could not have regarded the Syrians as the instrument appointed by God for his salvation. Unless looked at in this way, all use of human means is sinful, because it proceeds from want of faith. Not to use those natural means which are permitted is to tempt God; to use those which are not permitted is to blaspheme Him, since it shows a want of confidence in His will and power to help. That the king was really deeply moved by the censure of the prophet, he made evident by his conduct towards him. He threw him into prison. He is also accused of injustice towards others then in the nation, probably towards such as ventured to express disapproval of his conduct towards the prophet. Towards the close of his life the king was afflicted by a disease in his feet. The fact that he is reproved for having sought the help of physicians, and not of God, does not apply to the use of physicians in general, but to their use apart from God. These weaknesses of the otherwise pious Asa are only noticed in the books of Chronicles, and are not mentioned at all in the books of the Kings, which little accords with the partial predilection for the kingdom of Judah and its kings attributed to the Chronicles by rationalistic criticism. The king was interred in a grave which he himself had caused to be excavated, and a great number of fragrant things were burnt to do him honour. The view upheld by many—for example, by Michaelis in the note on 2 Chronicles 16:14, and in the treatise De combustione et humatione mortuorum ap. Hebr., in the first part of his Syntagma Commentt. p. 225 ff.—that the body of the king itself was burnt, is quite opposed to the sense of the passage in Chronicles which we have quoted, as Geier has amply proved, De Luctu Hebroeorum, chap. 6. Asa lived to see that with the rise of the house of Omri matters assumed a more peaceful aspect between the kingdom of the ten tribes and the kingdom of Judah. On the whole, the long reign of Asa must be regarded as an actual advance towards a better state of things. But in his son Jehoshaphat the principles by which he had been guided assumed a purer and more definite form.
We now pass over from the kingdom of Judah to the kingdom of Israel. When Jeroboam died, in the second year of Asa, he was succeeded on the throne by his equally godless son Nadab. Under him the divine judgment, with which the house of Jeroboam had been threatened, passed speedily into fulfilment. In the third year of Asa, Nadab with a large army besieged the city Gibbethon, which is mentioned in Joshua 19:44 as belonging to the inheritance of the tribe of Dan. The city was at that time in the power of the Philistines, and the object of Nadab’s expedition was to take it from them again. During the siege, Baasha formed a conspiracy against him and slew him. Having thus gained the throne, he murdered the whole family of Jeroboam. Thus sin was punished by sin, which was again to be punished by other sin; for we are afterwards expressly told by the author of the books of the Kings that Baasha was not justified by the fact that what he did was in accordance with the divine decree. In the history of the kingdom of Israel we may learn how it fares with a kingdom which has no share in the favour of God, and how this is the heaviest scourge which can be laid upon a nation. The kingdom was founded by apostasy from the Davidic dynasty, which had been chosen by God, and this circumstance rested upon it as a continual curse. The right of kings belonged to Ephraim by human appointment, and consequently it could not violate the feelings of any when dissatisfaction with the royal race was followed by human deposition. Here there was no check to ambitious passion. Whoever found himself in possession of the same means as his predecessor, thought himself therefore justified in pursuing the same course of action. Thus dynasty succeeded dynasty, king after king was murdered. In the bloody battles thus occasioned, the nation became more and more unruly: sometimes there were interregna, and occasionally complete anarchy. By these internal wars external power was more and more broken. No regent could stop this source of evil; he would have had to give up his existence. Baasha showed himself just as godless as Jeroboam. For this reason the prophet Jehu was sent to him to announce the complete destruction of his house. The Lord upbraids him with his ingratitude; for though He had raised him from the dust and made him a prince, he had yet heaped sin upon sin. The thought is this: If God had treated him as he deserved, He would at once have allowed him to reap the reward of his revolt against his king, and of his selfish barbarity towards the king’s family. But because He forbore to do this,—because He allowed him to assume the sovereignty,—he was under the greater obligation to be led by the leniency of God to repentance for that which was past, and not by continued sin to perpetuate the remembrance of the former, and to call down punishment for it on his house. In 1 Kings 16:7 we find the fact that he slew the house of Jeroboam, his son and the other members, represented as a concomitant cause of the sentence of destruction on the house of Baasha pronounced through Jehu. At the same time this throws light on the revolt of Jeroboam. It is clear that it was not in the least justified by the circumstance that the separation of the two kingdoms was decreed by God. It throws light also on the acts of the subsequent murder of the king. Existing authorities will always be sacred in the eyes of him who fears God. If their power have been won by evil means, and be applied to sinful purposes, he will quietly wait until God destroy them. To this end God employs the ungodly as His instruments, and then again destroys them by the ungodly. This is the prevailing view of Scripture. The Assyrians and Chaldeans, for example, appear in the prophets as the scourge of God, as His servants, His instruments, by which He punishes the sins of His people and of others. Nevertheless they in their turn are abandoned to destruction on account of that which they have done against the covenant-nation and against others. This view of Scripture opens up a grand insight into the disposition of divine providence and the exercise of the divine government of the world. Baasha’s son Elah began to reign in the twenty-sixth year of Asa, but already in the second year he lost his throne in the very same way in which it had been won by his father. (The statement in 1 Kings 16:8, that he reigned for two years, is proximate.) The siege of Gibbethon was probably raised on account of the murder of Nadab. The new king Baasha was more importantly occupied in strengthening his government internally. His son renewed the siege, but while his army lay before the city, he was slain at a banquet by Zimri, one of his generals, who then slew all his family. Zimri, however, was not allowed to reign for so long a period as Jeroboam and Baasha. The army were not satisfied with his accession to the throne. They made Omri, their general, king, and at their head he marched towards the royal residence Tirzah. When Zimri saw that the besieged city could not hold out, he burnt himself with the royal palace—a second Sardanapalus. Zimri’s death did not yet secure to Omri the peaceful possession of the throne. A part of the nation joined Tibni, the opposition king. For several years Tibni reigned as well as Omri, but with less power, for Omri had the army on his side. After the death of Tibni—it is uncertain whether this took place in a natural way or not—Omri finally attained to sole sovereignty in the thirty-first year of Asa, according to 1 Kings 16:23. The struggle with Tibni had lasted for four years, from the twenty-seventh to the thirty-first year of Asa. Altogether the reign of Omri lasted not quite twelve years, from the twenty-seventh year of Asa to the thirty-eighth. In the first six years he had his residence at Tirzah, like the former kings. Afterwards he founded the city of Samaria, and built a citadel there. Samaria, situated on a mountain which forms a prominence in a fruitful plain, remained the royal residence to the end of the kingdom, for two hundred years. But Bethel continued to be the religious capital of the kingdom, though not in the same sense as Jerusalem for Judah. The kingdom of Israel had a multitude of places for offering up sacrifice. Omri sought peace without, that he might be able to establish his house firmly within. He kept on friendly terms with the kingdom of Judah, and the other members of his house remained true to his policy in this respect. He had to buy peace with Damascene Syria by some sacrifices. He gave up a few towns to the Syrians, and allowed them the right of making streets in Samaria, 1 Kings 20:34, i.e. to have a quarter of their own in it, where they might freely exercise their religion and have their own jurisdiction. But while it cannot be denied that Omri was wise in his policy, his religious influence was throughout destructive. He surpassed his predecessors in ungodliness, but was himself surpassed by his son Ahab, whose reign is very remarkable on account of the activity of Elijah, which belonged to this period. Formerly the worship of the Lord, though under images, had been the legal religion: idolatry proper was only practised by a few individuals, and that not in conscious opposition to the service of the Lord, but in syncretic blindness along with it (comp. what we have already said on this subject in the history of Solomon). Even the most depraved kings had not persecuted the prophets of the true God, however openly they had been opposed by them. Under Ahab the evil reached its highest pitch. The king himself was a servant of the Phenician gods, of Baal and Ashtaroth, personifications of the masculine and the feminine principles in nature, of its begetting and birth-giving power; comp. Münter, The Religion of the Carthaginians, pp. 6 and 62, and Movers, Phenicians, i. p. 188 ff., according to whom Baal was the begetting, sustaining, and destroying power in nature, and at the same time the god of the sun, while Ashtaroth was the goddess of the moon. The prophets, who could not keep silence respecting this abomination, suffered bloody persecution. The people for the most part united the worship of images with idolatry, if they did not quite give themselves up to the latter. But even at that time apostasy, which is at all times so loath to unveil itself completely, did not come forward in distinct opposition to the service of the Lord and to the Mosaic law. On the contrary, the servants of Baal, with Ahab at their head, maintained the identity of Baal and Jehovah; and the persecution was not directed against the servants of Jehovah in general, but only against those among them who bore powerful witness against the union of the irreconcilable, loudly maintaining that Jehovah identified with Baal was no longer Jehovah. The proposition, which Elijah from his standpoint expresses thus: whether Jehovah be God or Baal? was understood by the servants of Baal from their standpoint thus: whether Jehovah-Baal be God, or Jehovah in His exclusiveness? That this is the correct view is most clearly shown from 1 Kings 18:21 : “How long halt ye between two opinions?” (properly, super duabus opinionibus)—how long do ye hesitate undecided between two opinions? “If the Lord be God, follow Him: but if Baal, then follow him.” This plainly presupposes that in the view of the nation the heterogeneous religious elements had flowed together into one. This syncretism would indeed appear incomprehensible, if we did not recognise the influence which inclination exercises upon judgment, and call to mind the analogies offered by our own time, which is also zealously endeavouring to amalgamate the God of Scripture and the God of the spirit of the age, notwithstanding their infinite diversity,—even doing honour to the term “Mediation-Theology,” so weak in itself. The worship of Baal and Astarte is the most horrible known to all antiquity: human sacrifices were everywhere common to it, comp. Münter, p. 17 ff.; the unchastity practised in the temples of Astarte in her honour is notorious to all antiquity, comp. Münter, p. 79 ff., Movers, The Religion of the Phenicians, p. 689 ff. The fearful moral effects of this religion generally are described by Münter in a special section, p. 150 ff. Syncretism was in many respects worse than open opposition. He who identified Jehovah and Baal had the former only in name. Moreover, the servants of Baal-Jehovah still continued to rely upon the promises of Jehovah and His covenant, and to presume upon their external service, and therefore upon their sin itself, and were consequently strengthened in their false security. The union of the king with Jezebel, a daughter of the Phenician king Ethbaal, gave occasion for this change for the worse. Her energetic wickedness won absolute influence over Ahab’s effeminate weakness. Here we find a remarkable conformity between sacred and profane history. According to a fragment from the Syrian year-books in Josephus, viii. chap. 7, translated into Greek by Menander, Ithobalos was king of Tyre during the reign of Ahab. We find this by a comparison of the years there given with those in Scripture from Solomon to Ahab. The name Ithobalos signifies, with Baal, one connected with Baal. By this comparison, Ithobalos was born in the second year of the separation of the kingdom, and was therefore fifty-six years of age when Ahab came to the throne, and might therefore very well have been his father-in-law. Compare the copious calculation in Joh. Dav. Michaelis in the remarks on the books of the Kings. The fact that Ethbaal, or, with the Greek termination, Ithobalos, is spoken of in the books of the Kings as king of the Sidonians, while in Menander he appears as the king of Tyre, forms only an apparent difference. Sidon was the oldest, and had previously been the most powerful city of the Phenicians, to which the others were in a certain sense subordinate, and hence the name of the Sidonians was transferred to the Phenicians generally, and even clung to them long after Tyre had taken the place of Sidon; comp. Gesenius on Isaiah 23:4, Isaiah 23:12. At that time Sidon, as well as the other cities of Phenicia, stood in a certain relation of dependence towards Tyre, so that Ethbaal was also king of the Sidonians in the narrower sense. This appears from another fragment of Menander to be noticed afterwards, in which it is related that Sidon and the other Phenician cities, tired of the Tyrian oppression, combined with Shalmaneser against them. It is remarkable also that by Menander’s account, Ithobalos, formerly high priest, had made his way to the throne by regicide. In Jezebel we find the same union of zeal for idolatry with the spirit of murder, which we can suppose must have characterized the former high priest. Moreover, her fanaticism and her spirit of persecution exactly correspond with the character of the Phenician-Carthaginian religion, of which their union forms the characteristic feature, in distinction from most other religions of antiquity; comp. Münter, p. 157 ff., and with regard to the dependence of the Israelitish worship of Baal on the Phenicians, comp. Movers, The Phenicians, i. p. 178 ff. Ahab built a chief temple of Baal in Samaria, with a large pillar giving a representation of it, and several smaller pillars. We find no mention of a temple of Astarte. A sacred grove,
We must consider also that the position of the prophets in the kingdom of Israel was essentially different from their position in the kingdom of Judah, and was far more difficult. Their relation to the priests was completely hostile. Because the prophethood had no support and foundation in a hierarchy venerable for its antiquity, and hallowed by divine signs and wonders, it was necessary that it should be far more powerfully supported from above, and far more palpably legitimized. With respect to the origin, culture, and earlier fortunes of Elijah, history is silent. It first brings him before us charged with an important mission to Ahab, which presupposes that he had already held the prophetic office for a considerable time. From 1 Kings 17:1, where he is said to have been of the inhabitants of Gilead, some have concluded that Elijah was not a born Israelite, but rather a proselyte from heathendom, who had settled in the country beyond the Jordan, perhaps with his immediate ancestors. But this conclusion is too hasty. In the passage adduced, Elijah is called the Tishbite of the inhabitants of Gilead. He was from Tishbah in Gilead, where, however, he possessed no civil rights, but dwelt as one who had no home. His forefathers had emigrated thither from another part of the Israelitish territory. This assumption is less remote than that of his heathen origin, of which there is no indication whatever. That God will not be mocked with impunity, Ahab first learned in a way involving comparatively little personal suffering. We have already seen that Joshua laid a curse on the rebuilding of Jericho. There can be no doubt that this was universally known; and until this time no one had ventured to think of rebuilding the city, fearing lest he should bring down the curse upon himself. Ahab may have treated this fear as childish superstition. Undoubtedly it was at his command that Hiel undertook the work, which promised great advantage from the position of the place. The prophecy was literally fulfilled: all the sons of Hiel died before the work was concluded. But this made no impression on Ahab, who may have ascribed it to accident. It was necessary, therefore, that a judgment should come upon him which should touch him more sharply,—one which could not be attributed to accident, since it followed immediately upon the prediction of Elijah. Elijah appeared suddenly before the king. His address is only given in part. Doubtless he either now preceded the announcement of punishment by a severe exhortation to repentance, as the prophets were always accustomed to do, or else he had previously done so. The punishment was to consist in a great drought, followed by a famine. Formerly the divine judgments had touched the kings alone, now king and nation were to be punished alike. The threat is an individualizing of Deuteronomy 11:16-17 : “Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them; and then the Lord’s wrath be kindled against you, and He shut up the heaven, that there be no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit.” The prophet does not say how long the punishment is to last. This would have weakened the influence of the threat. It is probable that the king paid little regard to the discourse of the prophet, whom he looked upon as a fanatic; hence he allowed him to depart without injury. The question now was, how to deliver the prophet from the power of Ahab. If that which was predicted should come to pass, Ahab, in accordance with his idolatrous superstition, could only think that the prophet had brought about the public calamity by a magic power exercised over his God, such as his priests pretended to be able to exercise. This was necessarily connected with the idea that by the same magic power, by incantation and spells, he could also cause it to cease, and Ahab would naturally make every exertion to oblige him to do this. And in event of the prophet refusing,—and he could not do otherwise even if he wished, since he had only foretold the plague at the command of God, and had not produced it, although it happened in consequence of his prayer, according to James 5:17,—his life, so valuable for the kingdom of God, would be exposed to the greatest danger. For this reason Elijah repaired to the most inaccessible hiding-place which the land offered him, to the brook Cherith, not otherwise known, supposed by some to be identical with the
When, in accordance with the divine decree, the drought was to come to an end, Elijah received the command to repair to Ahab. According to 1 Kings 18:1, this happened after the lapse of a long time, in the third year. Here the terminus a quo is the sojourn of Elijah at Sarepta; and if we also reckon the year which he spent at the brook Cherith, according to 1 Kings 17:7, or even a longer or a shorter space of time, since the expression made use of in this passage is not quite definite, we get a period of three to four years for the whole duration of the drought, quite in harmony with the account in Luke 4:25, James 5:17, that at the time of Ahab it rained not on the earth for the space of three years and six months. A notice of the event has been preserved even in heathen history. In Josephus, viii. 13. 2, Menander says: “Under him (Ithobalos) there was no rain from October in one year to October in the following year; but at his prayer there was frequent lightning.” The only essential difference here is, that the time of the famine lasted only for a year. But it is not therefore necessary to assume a mistake in the Tynan accounts, for it is possible that there may still have been occasional rain in Phenicia when complete drought had already overtaken Israel, since Phenicia lay nearer to the Mediterranean Sea, from which Palestine gets nearly all its rain; comp. 1 Kings 18:43. The other variation—the statement that the rain came at the entreaty of the former idolatrous priest Ithobalos—may readily be recognised as a distortion due to jealousy. We have abundant proof of the fabrications and patriotic fancies of the Tyrians, even in the few fragments which have come down to us from them. For example, it is somewhat analogous when they represent Solomon as having engaged in a contest respecting the solution of riddles with Hiram, by whom, with the help of another wise Tyrian, he was conquered, and to whom he was obliged to pay an immense sum. Just as they there invested their own king with the honour belonging to Solomon, so here they give him the honour which was due to Elijah. It is remarkable, however, that even in this account the drought appears as an extraordinary event, and the rain as a consequence of the hearing of prayer. On his way to the king, Elijah meets Obadiah, a pious officer, who was travelling through a part of the country, by the king’s order, for the purpose of inquiring whether food were not to be had somewhere, while the king had taken the opposite direction with the same object in view. In the bloody persecutions of Jezebel, this man had concealed and supported 100 prophets, principally disciples and servants of the prophets, bat by no means only such, who received important revelations respecting the future—a thing which happened to comparatively few. These 100 prophets again call our attention to the difference between the Judaic and Israelitish prophethood. In Judah, where the activity of the prophets was merely supplementary, we never find the prophethood in such masses. In consequence of this, the false prophethood also appears far more powerful in the kingdom of Israel than in the kingdom of Judah. The vehement character of the defence of the religion of Jehovah called forth also a vehement character of opposition towards it. The hundreds of prophets of the true God are opposed by hundreds of prophets of calves, comp. 1 Kings 22, and at the time when the spirit of the world completely stripped off its veil, and openly professed the religion of the world, by hundreds of prophets of Baal and Astarte, who cannot be confounded with the priests of these deities, but whose existence rather presupposes that of the true prophethood. In Judah we find everywhere priests of Baal alone. Obadiah had already incurred the hatred of the queen and the suspicion of the king by his protection of the prophets. Hence, when Elijah commissions him to inform Ahab of his presence, he first begs to be spared this errand, lest the Spirit of the Lord should again suddenly carry him away, in which case the whole wrath of Ahab, on account of his deceived hopes, would be directed against him, and he would naturally be suspected of having a secret understanding with Elijah, with the intention of making sport of the king. It seems that there had already been similar cases of a sudden disappearance in the history of Elijah, otherwise it would be impossible to understand this fear on the part of Obadiah; comp. 2 Kings 2:16. Elijah sets him at rest by an assurance confirmed with an oath, and he executes the commission. On receiving news of the reappearance of Elijah, Ahab immediately hastens to meet him. At first he tries to impress him by a severe address, but soon perceives that nothing is to be gained in this way; for Elijah with reckless candour casts back on him the reproach of having been the originator of the misfortune that had come upon Israel,—an accusation which Ahab had made against Elijah on the presupposition that he had caused the drought by the magic exercise of his power over God. Elijah offers to prove the truth of his assertion that Ahab’s idolatry was the cause of the whole misfortune, in a visible way, and for this purpose desires that the king shall collect the (450) prophets of Baal and the (400) prophets of Astarte on Mount Carmel. The latter were fed from the table of Jezebel, the daughter of the high priest of Astarte. Although the king accepted the proposition of Elijah, and commanded all the prophets to assemble on Mount Carmel, it appears that the latter, guessing what was impending, were able to evade the royal decree by the assistance of the queen. At all events the prophets of Baal only are mentioned in what follows.
Mount Carmel is a large and wide plateau, with fresh springs, hanging over the sea in the form of a promontory, covered with fragrant herbs on the summit, and offering an extensive sea-view. Where its base touches the sea, the brook Kishon falls into the famous Bay of Acre or Ptolemy, which flows from Mount Tabor through the mineral district of Esdraelon. The situation of the place, which made it even in later times one of the principal seats of the heathen worship of nature (comp. Movers, p. 670), was calculated to strengthen the impression of the act which Elijah was determined to undertake. On the appointed day, a great multitude of people, together with the priests of Baal, assembled on Mount Carmel. To the people Elijah first directed his address; for his object was to work upon them rather than upon the weak king, on whom he could scarcely expect to make any lasting impression, on account of the influence which the ungodly Jezebel had over him. The prophet addresses the people in these words: “How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow Him: but if Baal, then follow him.” In this way he upbraids the people for their foolishness in striving to reconcile the irreconcilable. The religion of Jehovah was exclusive in its character; it must therefore either be entirely rejected, or the true God must be worshipped solely and exclusively. The people felt the force of the alternative: of Jehovah-Baal there was nothing to be said,—either Jehovah or Baal. But they did not know for whom to decide. It was time, therefore, that the great question, which was constantly reappearing in other forms, should be decided in a palpable way,—whether the Lord was God, or Baal, the god whom the world had invented in the interest of its own inclinations. We invariably find such a decision wherever, under the old covenant, the true God came into conflict with idols. It was the case in Egypt; in the time of the Assyrian invasion; in Babylonia, when the true God seemed to have lost His cause against the idols, by the destruction of His people. Under the Old Testament, in accordance with its whole character, it happened in a more visible and palpable way. Even under the New Testament it constantly recurs, but in a more refined and spiritual form. There we read: He wieldeth His power in secret. The priests of Baal could not do otherwise than accept the proposal of Elijah, with whom we take it for granted they were acquainted. The people had received it with enthusiasm: its fairness was the more evident, since Elijah as an individual was opposed to so great a mass. A refusal would have had the same consequences as inability to fulfil the stipulated condition. They doubtless supposed that Elijah would be just as little able to do what was prescribed as they, and thus the matter would remain undecided. No doubt also there were many among them who, being deceived and fanatics, expected that Baal would do what was demanded. When midday was already past, and it was not apparent that they had been heard, according to 1 Kings 18:26 they leaped upon the altar. This is an ironical description of the dances customary in the worship of Baal, which were of an enthusiastic kind, as the whole delineation shows (especially 1 Kings 18:29). Then, being mocked by Elijah with holy irony, they cut themselves with knives and lancets, as was customary in all enthusiastic worships, by the testimony of the ancients. In this way the orgiastic feasts of Cybele and of the Syrian goddess were celebrated, when, amid the beating of drums and the playing of flutes, and the moving in wild dances, they scourged each other till the blood came, and even, in the excess of their madness, laid violent hands on themselves before the eyes of the people, and unmanned themselves; comp. Creuzer, ii. p. 61 ff., and especially Movers, p. 681 ff. In the description of the whirling bands of Cenadi, principally after Apuleius, we there read: “A discordant howling opened the scene. Then they flew wildly about, the head sunk down towards the earth, so that the loosened hair dragged through the dirt. They begin by biting their arms, and finally cut themselves with the two-edged swords that they are accustomed to wear. Then follows a new scene. One of them, surpassing all the rest in madness, begins to prophesy, amid sighs and groans; he publicly accuses himself of the sins that he has committed, and will now punish them by chastisement of the flesh: he takes the knotty scourge, beats his back cruelly, and cuts himself with swords till the blood drops down from the mutilated body.” At last, when all was in vain, Elijah began his preparations, at the time when it was customary to offer the evening sacrifice in the temple at Jerusalem. There had been an altar to the true God on Mount Carmel, and here pious Israelites had been in the habit of sacrificing, after the institution of calf-worship. In erecting this or other altars, they had not sinned. If their minds were only directed towards the sanctuary in Jerusalem, the sin of violating the Mosaic law respecting the unity of the sanctuary belonged not to them, but only to the rulers of the people who had placed them in this difficulty. But Ahab had destroyed this altar, together with all those which were exclusively dedicated to Jehovah. Elijah in his haste repaired it. 1 Kings 18:34 is remarkable: “And he took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, unto whom the word of the Lord came, saying, Israel shall be thy name.” This was a virtual declaration on the part of Elijah that he did not acknowledge the rightfulness of the actually existing religious separation of the two kingdoms, but looked upon it as a result of sin, and regarded all the tribes together as still forming one covenant-nation. On this occasion the author points out the injustice of the ten tribes in appropriating to themselves alone the name of Israel, since this name, having been given by God to the ancestor of all the tribes, belonged equally to all. The form of decision chosen by Elijah has reference to Leviticus 9, where Aaron after his consecration offers up sacrifice, first for himself, then for the people. The glory of the Lord appears, 1 Kings 18:24 : “And there came a fire out from before the Lord, and consumed upon the altar the burnt-offering and the fat: which when all the people saw, they shouted, and fell on their faces.” The circumstances were now the same, only still more urgent. There the first solemn sanction of the worship of Jehovah; here the renewal of it, in opposition to the worship of Baal. In what God had done on the former occasion, therefore, Elijah justly saw a promise of what He would now do. In dressing the sacrifice, Elijah closely followed the injunctions which had been given in Leviticus with respect to the offering up of bulls. His object in surrounding the whole altar with water was to avoid all suspicion of deception. The idolatrous priests had attained to great excellence in these arts. They were able to kindle the wood by fire which they concealed in the hollows of the altars. Although the number of attentive observers was too great to allow such a deception to be practised in this case, yet they would probably have been shameless enough to accuse Elijah of it, if it had not been absolutely impossible for them to attribute a fire which consumed such a quantity of water to natural causes. The prayer of Elijah, “Hear me, O Lord, hear me; that this people may know that Thou art the Lord God, and that Thou hast turned their heart back again,” shows the point of view from which we must regard not only the miracle that immediately follows, but also everything miraculous in the life of Elijah and Elisha. The avowal of this aim excludes all opposition against the truth of the events narrated, except that which proceeds from the standpoint of a complete denial of revelation. The miracle, the consumption of the sacrifice by a flash of lightning from a clear atmosphere, attained its object. The people fell down worshipping, with the confession, “The Lord, He is the God; the Lord, He is the God.” The priests of Baal were then seized by the people, at the command of Elijah, taken down to the brook Kishon, and there slain. This proceeding must be judged by Deuteronomy 13:15-16, Deuteronomy 17:5, where it is made a sacred duty on the part of the people to punish the seducers with death. We have already shown that these injunctions bear a special Old Testament character. With regard to the priests of Baal, there were indeed special aggravating circumstances which might have called upon the civil government to carry out the punishment of death even under the New Testament, as, for example, the heads of the Anabaptists in Münster were justly punished with death. The priests of Baal had not been content with a religious freedom already quite irreconcilable with the Old Testament economy: at their instigation Jezebel had slain the servants of the true God; by her instrumentality the blood of the prophets had been poured out in streams. It was their intention to exterminate them even to the last man; comp. 1 Kings 18:4, 1 Kings 18:13, 1 Kings 18:22, 1 Kings 19:10, 1 Kings 19:14; 2 Kings 9:7 Kings 9:7. It has been asked whether Elijah did not on this occasion overstep the limits of his office, and encroach on the office of the government, to whom alone the sword has been entrusted by God. But this doubt is removed, by the remark that the prophet had received an extraordinary divine commission for the fulfilment of that which the disloyal king had not fulfilled, but countenanced by his silence. The fear that a similar special commission might be assumed by every fanatic has no foundation whatever. Such a one must first of all legitimize himself by an unquestionable divine wonder. The more boldly Elijah had opposed the king when the honour of God was at stake, the more humbly he behaved towards him when this had been vindicated. The whole occurrence had lasted from morning till evening. In eager expectation of the event, neither king nor people had eaten anything. Elijah invites the king to go up the mountain again, and there in all confidence to eat and drink; for since the cause of the curse was destroyed, this too would soon have an end. Already in the prophetic spirit he heard great clouds of rain disburden themselves. While the king contentedly follows his proposal, the prophet goes to a very different occupation. In an attitude of humble supplication he casts himself down on Carmel before the Lord, entreating Him to fulfil His promise and to accomplish His work. And when he sees the faintest beginning of fulfilment, when a small cloud arises from the Mediterranean Sea, he sends to the king and tells him to make preparation for his departure, lest he should be overtaken by the rain,—a mark of attention which, together with what follows, ought to have taught Ahab to love the servant of the Lord, whom he had previously only learned to fear. Elijah was so strengthened by the power of love, that, notwithstanding the immense exertions he had already undergone, he was able to keep pace with the horses of the king, and accompanied him to his residence. Just as he had assumed superiority over the king as the servant of God, so by this action he testified his deep submission as his subject, and thus sought to strengthen the impression made on the heart of the king, and to arm him against the powerful temptations of his wife, who made his weakness subservient to ungodliness. Such self-abasement presupposed the most profound humility; so distinct a separation between the personal unworthiness of the king and the dignity bestowed on him by God called for a wisdom such as the Spirit of God alone could impart.
Just as the previous history shows us the prophet in his divine power, so the following reveals him in his human weakness. God subjected him to a severe temptation, lest he should be lifted up on account of the great divine revelations and powers which had been given to him, and at the same time to guard against any carnal admixture in the pure divine zeal; but He also comforted him when he was on the point of giving way, and raised him up after he had made him deeply conscious of his own weakness. What we here see in the leadings of Elijah constantly recurs in the way which God takes with all His distinguished servants and instruments: we find it, for example, in the life-history of a Paul and a Luther. The whole narrative has the deepest internal character of truth. The higher the divine power, the more necessary and therefore the deeper are always the humiliations on account of the depravity of human nature. The king tells Jezebel of all that has happened. As soon as he returned to her vicinity, he was unable to divest himself of her accustomed yoke. The queen fell into an impotent rage. On account of the people, and probably also from fear of the king, she dared not venture at once to sacrifice Elijah to her revenge. We learn that the event had made a powerful impression, from the fact that from this time without intermission the prophets again exercise free activity in the kingdom of Israel, and that Ahab does not venture to punish the prophet Micah, by whom he believes himself deeply offended, except by imprisonment; and again from the circumstance that from this time idolatry totally disappears from the kingdom of Israel, while the worship of calves, with which the Israelitish prophets Hosea and Amos have so much to do, again steps distinctly into the foreground. But the rage of the queen is so great that she cannot refrain from at least giving expression to the threat which she is still too weak to carry out: she sends word to Elijah that he must die on the morrow. The determination of so near a time is probably due to her passion. But nevertheless Elijah has reason to fear the worst, since the queen, even if she dared not act openly, had still so many secret means at her command. Hence he was warned by the passionate imprudence of the queen, and fled
Elijah now set out from Sinai, and journeyed to the place where Elisha, a rich farmer, probably already known to him, resided. He met him on the field ploughing with one of his team of oxen, while the remaining eleven were led by his servants before him; or, according to another interpretation, when he had just ploughed his twelve acres of land, and was working on the twelfth and last. But the former interpretation is to be preferred. This circumstance is made prominent, because the lower calling was a type and prefiguration of the higher. The twelve yoke of oxen represent the twelve tribes. Elisha is not to be prophet for the ten tribes alone, but for all Israel. His activity in a part is to pass over to the whole. For five and fifty years he was to work on this stony spiritual field. Elijah threw his mantle upon him, the distinctive dress of the prophet, and Elisha at once understood the significance of this symbolical act. Resolved to follow him, he only asks permission to say farewell to his parents. Elijah answers, “Go back again: for what have I done to thee?” equivalent to, Remember that the call comes not from me, but from the Lord, and that thou incurrest grave responsibility in delaying to follow Him. There is a reference to this event in the words of our Lord: “No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” Elisha therefore followed him, when he had first sacrificed the yoke of oxen with which he himself had been ploughing, and had made his neighbours a feast of the animals that remained, cooking them with the woodwork of the plough and the yoke. This was intended to signify that he renounced his former calling for ever. The narrative of the war of Israel with Ben-hadad, king of Damascene Syria, shows that the former miraculous manifestation had not been quite without fruit. We find the prophets of the true God again in full public activity at Samaria. The king obeys their commands, and does not venture to do them any injury, although they proclaim the divine word in all severity, and announce his impending overthrow. It shows us how the Lord can vindicate His honour against all those who despise His name; how He gives the victory to the nation that is called after His name, lest the heathen, inferring His weakness from that of His people, should triumph over Him; and, at the same time, how He does not leave unpunished the transgressions of those who ought to be His servants. The name of the hostile king, the son of Hadad, the idol of Damascus, is less a proper name than a royal title; this explains its frequent occurrence. Ben-hadad had entered the kingdom of Israel with all his forces, and had advanced unchecked to Samaria, to which he laid siege. The boundaries of the Damascene kingdom had been greatly extended by him. He had succeeded in conquering all the surrounding smaller states; and their thirty-two kings, who were now his dependents, accompanied him with their people. By the bad reign of Ahab the power of the kingdom of Israel had been very much deteriorated. Ahab therefore thought he could only find safety in submission. Ben-hadad sent messengers to him with the words, “Thy silver and thy gold is mine; thy wives also and thy children, even thy goodliest, are mine.” Ahab understood this as if he demanded nothing more from him than from the other kings who were subject to him, viz. the recognition of his supremacy, so that in future he would hold in fee from Ben-hadad what he had formerly possessed independently. Ben-hadad had certainly so worded the message as to allow this interpretation, intending afterwards to keep the king to his word. Ahab was deceived, and consented; and now Ben-hadad came forward with his real meaning. He demanded the actual surrender of Ahab, with his possessions and those of his subjects, with wife and child, that he might carry them away, as the Assyrians and Babylonians afterwards did. Ahab was the more embarrassed owing to his former imprudent concession; for if he now took it back, he would appear in a certain sense faithless to his word, and Ahab would thus acquire a sort of advantage, over him. In this perplexity he turned to the elders or states of the people, who had fled from the whole country into the besieged capital. At their advice, he told Ben-hadad that he would fulfil the proposed conditions only according to his interpretation, and not in the sense given to them in the second message. Ben-hadad was greatly enraged by what he considered the impotent defiance of Ahab, and sent him word that, since he would not have peace under these conditions, he, with his immense army, would leave not a grain of dust in Samaria. Ahab answered, “Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off;” equivalent to, “It is impossible to sell the skin of a lion before it is caught.” The king, who was feasting with his subordinates when he received this answer, at once gave command to prepare for an assault. Now when extremity had reached its greatest height, the help of the Lord, if vouchsafed, must necessarily have a powerful effect on the people, if not on Ahab. A prophet of the Lord appeared before Ahab, and in His name foretold victory over the immense army of the Syrians, adding as a reason, “And thou shalt know that I am the Lord.” The king is commanded not to await the assault of the enemy, but to make a sally. The servants of the princes of the provinces were to go first. The heads of the city had fled to Samaria. These were accustomed to choose out for their servants, as a kind of body-guard, the largest, strongest, and bravest men. Ahab himself was to command the troops. Necessity had called forth a glimmering of faith; for if he had regarded the matter with merely human understanding, without any confidence in the Lord, he would not have ventured to expose himself to danger at the head of so small an army. The divine promise passed into fulfilment. The Syrians were totally defeated. The human causes which, under the guidance of God, helped towards the accomplishment of this end were, the confidence of Ben-hadad, which despised all precaution; his drunkenness, and that of his leaders; and, above all, as we see from what follows, the cowardice of the tributary kings, each of whom was anxious to spare his own people, and therefore fled whenever the small band of the Israelites turned in his direction. In the following year, however, the Syrians, to do away with this disgrace, undertook another expedition against Israel. The Syrians themselves did not presume to doubt that their defeat was due to the efficacy of the God of Israel. But, in accordance with their heathen ideas of divine things, they inferred nothing more from this than that the God of Israel had supremacy over their idols in mountainous districts, for this was the character of the whole country in which He was worshipped, and Samaria, its capital, was situated on a mountain; but the plains, they thought, were the proper territory of their deities, since Damascus lay on a plain. Expositors have collected a number of passages from heathen authors in which similar ideas are to be found. They resolved, therefore, only to engage in battle on the plain. Thus foundation was once more given for a divine determination. Moreover, on account of the reasons already given, the army was not commanded by the subordinate kings as before, but by royal generals. “The children of Israel,” we read, “pitched before them like two little flocks of kids.” Probably the Israelites had taken up their position on two adjoining heights; hence they are compared with two small flocks of kids pasturing on the slopes of the mountains. Ahab was encouraged by the announcement of the prophet that the Lord would give him the victory, as a proof that He was the true, absolute, omnipotent God. The Syrians indeed suffered a great defeat. The remnant fled to Aphek, now Fik, between Tiberias and Damascus. Probably one part of them took up their position, while another, covered by their guns, took refuge under the walls of this city. But suddenly the wall fell down—not by an actual miracle; Thenius suspects that it was undermined—and buried a number of the Syrians. Those who escaped with their life were scattered. But the Syrians were not all slain, as many have supposed; we see this clearly from 1 Kings 20:30. In mortal terror, Ben-hadad fled from one hiding-place in the city to another. In all humility his servants repaired to Ahab to beg for his life. Ahab was moved by impure motives to grant their request at once. It flattered his vanity to be so imploringly besought by his former arrogant opponent, and to be able to show magnanimity; in recognising the inviolability of the person of another king, he believed he was doing honour to his own royal dignity. All reasons to the contrary prevailed nothing against this determination. He did not stop to consider that clemency towards the faithless and cruel enemy of his nation was the greatest severity; and what is still more, he paid no regard to the command of God which he had received through the same prophet who had promised him the victory, as we learn from what follows. Peace was concluded, on condition that the king of Syria would deliver up the cities which had been taken from the kingdom of Israel by his father, and allow the citizens of the kingdom of Israel a quarter of their own in his capital Damascus, in which they might live under their own laws,—a privilege which the Syrians had formerly enjoyed in Samaria. A prophet received the commission to punish the king on account of his disobedience and his ingratitude. Following the example of Nathan in 2 Samuel 12, he tries to draw from the king a confession of his own guilt, and allows him to pronounce judgment on himself. He got another prophet to wound him, and came before the king disguised with blood and ashes. He told the king a feigned story. In battle against the Syrians a warrior had given a prisoner into his charge, under a threat of severe punishment if he should escape by his fault. This had happened, and the warrior had wounded him. The king declares that he deserved the fate which had befallen him, which was just what the prophet wished. He now made himself known to him, and announced that, because he had spared the king, destruction would overtake him and his people.
Then follows the narrative of Ahab’s robbery of the vineyard, in which, his character betrays itself most openly. It is a remarkable proof of the shallowness of the Pelagian judgment, that in rationalistic times every possible attempt was made to excuse this king. Michaelis, for example, maintains that he was a very good man, but, as is generally the case with those whose heart is too good, made a bad king. Thenius, too, argues in the same way. As if weakness, such as we find in a remarkable degree in Ahab, were not just as much the result of guilty unbelief as carnal and positive vice; as if the form in which the depravity found expression were not due to mere difference of temperament, and other causes without the sphere of responsibility. The king was in his summer residence at Jezreel. He wished to enlarge his garden by the addition of the adjoining vineyard of Naboth, and believed that Naboth would accede to his proposal the more readily, since he himself, as we learn in the course of the narrative, had his actual residence not at Jezreel, but in another city, 1 Kings 21:8,—probably in Samaria, for Elijah prophesies to Ahab that in the same place where dogs had licked the blood of Naboth they would lick his blood also. But the latter happened in Samaria. Naboth refused to give up his field to the king,—not from stubbornness, as many have supposed, but from a religious motive. The Israelites were forbidden in the law to sell their inheritance, in order to keep alive the remembrance that they held their land as a loan from God; comp. Leviticus 25:23, Numbers 36:8. Only in case of the most extreme poverty was it allowed, and even then only until the year of jubilee. The whole history becomes intelligible solely by means of this key. Naboth might have made a very advantageous bargain; but he thought it would be a religious crime to consent to it. This presupposes that the Mosaic law had very deep roots in Israel. Ahab, accustomed to have all his wishes gratified, was greatly enraged by the answer of Naboth. It was not so much his kindly disposition as his weakness which would not allow him to employ force. When the ungodly Jezebel offered to undertake the responsibility, he gave her his seal, with absolute power to use every means; and from his knowledge of her character he could have no difficulty in conjecturing of what nature these means would be. His only reason for not taking anything more to do with the matter was, that he might be able to satisfy his conscience, which was at any rate not quite so hardened as hers, with the empty excuse that he had not expected her to act in this way. Jezebel sought to attain her object by the most indirect means. The letter of the law, which Naboth had in his favour, stands in opposition to her despotic mind like a wall of brass, which cannot be broken through, but must be circumvented. Her whole conduct is regulated by the purpose of gaining her end within the limits of the Mosaic law, even by means of the law. Under the authority of the king, she wrote to the chief men in Samaria. She accused Naboth of the crime of high treason, which was at the same time a crime against God, because the king was honoured as bearing the image of God. The accusation is based specially on Exodus 22:28 : “Thou shalt not revile the gods, nor curse the ruler of thy people;” equivalent to, “Thou shalt not curse thy prince;” for every crime against a visible representative of God in His kingdom is a crime against God. When it serves her detestable ends, the ungodly Jezebel speaks good theocratic language. She carries her hypocrisy so far as to command the appointment of a fast-day, as was the custom when the whole country or any single place had been polluted by great crime. Then, after the fast had roused the nation to the greatest horror of the crime, an assembly was to be called, in which Naboth was to be set on high and accused by two witnesses, in accordance with the prescription of the Mosaic law respecting condemnation, comp. Numbers 35:30, Deuteronomy 17:6-7; but these witnesses had been corrupted by Jezebel. When we find them termed bad men in the writing of Jezebel herself, we must unhesitatingly attribute this designation to the author. Instead of “two men, sons of Belial,” there probably stood “two men, such a one, and such a one;” for otherwise we should have to assume that Jezebel openly betrayed her infamy, and that the whole magistracy, notwithstanding the clearest, so to speak, official conviction of Naboth’s innocence, condemned him to death out of disgraceful complaisance,—both hypotheses equally improbable. The plan succeeded. Naboth was stoned, together with all his family, as we infer from 2 Kings 9:26. The punishment to be inflicted on him who blasphemed the king was not determined by law. But if it were established that to curse the king was equivalent to cursing God, the ordinances in Deuteronomy 13:11 and Deuteronomy 17:5 appeared applicable, according to which those who gave themselves up to idolatry were to be punished with death, and that by stoning. Ahab learned that Naboth was dead, and, taking good care not to inquire into the circumstances, he joyfully took possession of the vineyard. The property of those who were condemned on account of idolatry, under which the crime of Naboth had been classed, fell to the crown. But his joy in the new possession was very much embittered when suddenly Elijah entered the vineyard,—a representative of his slumbering conscience,—sent by the Lord, and greeted him with the double accusation of murder and of robbery. The terror with which his appearance inspired the king is revealed in the cry of anguish, “Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?” in which the term “mine enemy” betrays the hypocrite, who seeks to justify himself, and to attribute the censure and threat of the prophet to personal enmity, though against his conscience, as his anguish shows. It is not this, the prophet answers, but the sin which has bound thee in its fetters, that is the cause of my unwelcome coming. The prophet then foretells not only his violent death, which he had already announced on his entrance, but also the complete extermination of his family and the fearful end of Jezebel. Ahab shows all the signs of a repentance which was indeed sincere for the moment, as the consequent softening of the punishment shows, but, as we learn from his subsequent history, was not thorough. The prophet now declares that the Lord will not accomplish the total destruction of his family until the days of his son. That which had been decreed with respect to himself, and which had been foretold by another prophet even before this time, remained unaltered. In the third year after the former battle with the Syrians, Ahab entered into an alliance with Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, for the purpose of making war on them. Occasion was given by their violation of the conditions of peace. Ramoth, a free Levitical city in the tribe of Gad, had not been delivered up by the Syrians. A number of the prophets with one voice foretold success to Ahab. All these were prophets who approved of calf-worship. Idolatry proper had almost entirely disappeared from the kingdom of Israel since that great catastrophe. No prophet of Baal here appears. The prophecies of the followers of the false worship are suspicious to Jehoshaphat. He inquires if there be no prophet who adheres to the worship of the true God as prescribed in the law. Elijah had gone back again to his concealment in the wilderness. The king therefore names Micaiah, the son of Imlah, but at the same time declares his hatred towards him, because he prophesies no good but only evil concerning him. Many have suspected that Micaiah is the same who had received the king with unwelcome tidings after the last war with the Syrians. At all events, the king must already have learned to know him from this side on some definite occasion; for we must infer from his command to lead him back to prison, 1 Kings 22:26, that he was then in prison. It is generally regarded as a piece of childish absurdity on the part of the king to be angry with Micaiah because he prophesies only evil, and of the messenger to beg him to prophesy good. But the matter has a deeper foundation in the heathen ideas of prophecy with which Ahab was infected. We have already seen that he ascribed to the prophets a magic power over the Deity, and hence regarded Elijah as the author of the drought which he had foretold. His anger had its root in this error. Jehoshaphat tries to express his fear to Ahab, and Micaiah is brought. In the meantime the prophets of the calves did their best, by words, gesticulations, and symbolical acts, to convince the two kings of the truth of their announcement and the divine character of their mission, and thus to do away with the evil impression of the prophecy of Micaiah, which might possibly bear a different character. A certain Zedekiah especially distinguished himself. He made himself horns of iron, and said, “Thus saith the Lord, With these shalt thou push the Syrians until thou have consumed them.” We here see plainly how the prophets of the calves concealed their ungodliness under the semblance of piety. The symbolical act is plainly an embodiment of the image in Deuteronomy 33:17, where we read of Joseph, “His horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people,” etc. This brilliant promise, specially referring to the posterity of Joseph, was the foundation on which the false prophets took up their position, while they overlooked only the one circumstance, that the promise was conditional, and that the condition was not present. Everywhere we find this marked distinction between false and true prophecy, that the former announced salvation without repentance, gospel without law, and thus destroyed the ethical character of the religion of Jehovah. When Micaiah arrives, he finds the calf- prophets all assembled in corpore before the two kings, and still in full occupation. The ironical answer with which he first met the question of Jehoshaphat respecting the issue of the war was in keeping with the ridiculous spectacle. The meaning which his expression and countenance led the king to infer, although the words themselves foretold success, he soon reveals in the dry words: “I saw all Israel scattered upon the hills, as sheep that have not a shepherd,” 1 Kings 22:17. The prophet in a vision sees the Israelites under the image of a flock robbed of their shepherd, which represents the death of the king. The foundation is formed by Numbers 27:16-17, where Moses beseeches the Lord “that the congregation of the Lord be not as sheep that have no shepherd.” Here, because Israel was no longer Israel, there came to pass what Moses had designated as incompatible with the existence of the covenant-nation. For this he censures the false prophets in another vision. The mistaking of the symbolical clothing has here given rise to much misunderstanding. In ancient times it was the common idea that Satan was meant by the spirit who offered to deceive Ahab by putting false prophecies into the mouths of the prophets of the calves. But this idea is untenable, on account of the article in