ISRAEL, FROM B.C. 931 TO B.C. 895

ISRAEL, FROM B.C. 931 TO B.C. 895
AHAB AND JEZEBEL
Ahab, the son of Omri, mounted the throne of Israel in the year 931 B.C., being the thirty-eighth year of Asa, king of Judah. This king was, throughout his reign of twenty-two years, entirely under the influence of his idolatrous and unprincipled wife, Jezebel, a daughter of Ethbaal, or Ithobalus, king of Tyre. Hitherto the irregularities connected with the service before the golden calves, as symbols of Jehovah, had formed the chief offence of Israel. But now Ahab and Jezebel united their authority to introduce the gods of other nations. The king built a temple in Samaria, erected an image, and consecrated a grove to Baal, the god of the Sidonians. Jezebel, earnest in promoting the worship of her own god, maintained a multitude of priests and prophets of Baal. In a few years idolatry became the predominant religion of the land; and Jehovah, and the golden calves as representations of him, were viewed with no more reverence than Baal and his image. It now appeared as if the knowledge of the true God was forever lost to the Israelites; but Elijah the prophet boldly stood up, and opposed himself to the authority of the king, and succeeded in retaining many of his countrymen in the worship of Jehovah. The greater the power was which supported idolatry, so much the more striking were the prophecies and miracles which directed the attention of the Israelites to Jehovah, and brought disgrace upon the idols, and confusion on their worshippers. The history of this great and memorable struggle gives to the narrative of Ahab's reign an unusual prominence and extent in the Hebrew annals; and although a writer studious of brevity might at the first view be disposed to omit, as episodical, much of the history of Elijah the Tishbite,[317] a little reflection will render it manifest that the prominence given to the history of this illustrious champion for the truth, was a designed and necessary result from the fact that the history of the Hebrew nation is the history of a church; and that although the history of this great controversy might be omitted or overlooked by those who erroneously regard the history of the Hebrews merely as a political history, in the other point of view it becomes of the most vital importance.
[317] He is introduced as “Elijah the Tishbite, of the inhabitants of Gilead.” It is probable therefore that the designation of “Tishbite” is from some town in Gilead, which can not now be clearly ascertained.
ELIJAH ANNOUNCES DROUGHT
The first appearance of Elijah is with great abruptness to announce a drought, and consequent famine, for the punishment of the idolatry into which the nation had fallen; and that this calamity should only be removed at his own intercession. He apprehended that the iniquities of the land would bring down upon it destruction from God; and he therefore prayed for this lesser visitation, which might possibly bring the king and people to repentance.
ELIJAH HIDDEN AND NOURISHED
After such a denunciation, it was necessary that the prophet should withdraw himself from the presence and solicitations of the king, when the drought should commence, which it did, probably about the sixth year of Ahab. Accordingly, obeying the directions of the divine oracle, he withdrew to his native district beyond Jordan, and hid himself in a cave by tiny brook Cherith; where the providence of God secured his support by putting it into the hearts of the Arabs encamped in the neighborhood, to send him bread and meat every morning and evening; and the brook furnished him with drink, until “the end of the year,” or beginning of spring, when it was dried up from the continued drought.
OBADIAH
It was probably under the irritation produced by the first pressure of the calamity, that Jezebel induced the king to issue orders for the destruction of all the prophets of Jehovah. Many of them perished: but a good and devout man, even in the Palace of Ahab--Obadiah, the steward of his household--managed to save a hundred of the number by sheltering them in caverns, where he provided for their maintenance until, probably, an opportunity was found for their escape into the kingdom of Judah.
WIDOW'S PROVISION
When the brook of Cherith was dried up, the prophet was then directed the by Divine Voice to proceed westward to Sarepta, a town of Sidon, under the dominion of Jezebel's father; where he lodged with a poor widow, and was miraculously supported with her and her family for a considerable time, according to his own prediction--“that her single barrel of meal should not waste, nor her single cruse of oil fail, until that day when Jehovah should send rain upon the earth.” While he remained at this place, the prophet, by his prayers to God, restored to life the son of the widow with whom he lodged. Here he stayed until the end of three years from the commencement of the drought, when he was commanded to go and show himself to Ahab. That king had meanwhile caused the most diligent search to be made for him in every quarter, doubtless with the view of inducing him to offer up those intercessions through which alone the present grievous calamity could terminate. But at this time, having probably relinquished this search as hopeless, the attention of the king was directed to the discovery of any retraining supplies of water which might still exist in the land. He had, for the purposes of this exploration, divided the country between himself and Obadiah; and both proceeded personally to visit all the brooks and fountains of the land. Obadiah was journeying on this mission, when Elijah, who was returning from Sarepta, met him, and commissioned him to announce his arrival to Ahab. The king, when he saw the prophet, reproached him as the cause of the national calamities--“Art thou he that troubleth Israel?” But the prophet boldly retorted the charge upon himself and his father's house, because they had forsaken Jehovah and followed Baal. He then secured the attention of the king by intimating an intention of interceding for rain; and required him to call a general assembly of all the people at Mount Carmel, and also to bring all the prophets or priests of Baal,[318] and of the groves.
Baal was the supreme male divinity of the Phoenician and Canaanitish nations. The plural, Baalim, to frequently found in the Old Testament. The word in Hebrew means Master, Owner, Possessor. The worship of this idol was practiced from [318] a very remote antiquity among the Moabites and Midianites, and through the influence of these nations the Israelites were seduced to the worship of this god, which became extensively prevalent in the times of the kings--Ed
ELIJAH CHALLENGES BAAL
There, in the audience of that vast assembly, Elijah reproached the people with the destruction of the prophets of Jehovah, of whom, he alleged, that he alone remained, while the prophets of Baal alone were four hundred and fifty, fed at the table of Jezebel; and then he called them to account for their divided worship--“How long halt ye between two opinions? If Jehovah be the God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” The people intimated their uncertainty by their silence to this appeal; on which the prophet, fully conscious of his unlimited commission, proposed a solemn sacrifice to each, and “the God that answereth by fire (to consume his sacrifice) let him be the God.” As this was a fair trial of Baal's supposed power in his own element, the most zealous of his worshippers could make no objection to it, and the proposal was approved by all the people. Accordingly, when Baal answered not the earnest and ultimately maddened invocations of his prophets--but Jehovah instantly answered the prayer of Elijah, by sending fire (as on former occasions) to consume the victim on the altar, although it had previously been inundated with water by the direction of the prophet--then the people, yielding to one mighty impulse of conviction, fell upon their faces, and cried, “Jehovah, he is the God! Jehovah, he is the God!”--thus also expressing that Baal was not the God, and rejecting him. To ratify this abjuration of Baal, Elijah commanded them to destroy his priests; and this, in the enthusiasm of their re-kindled zeal for Jehovah, they immediately did, at the brook Kishon, which had been the scene of Barak's victory over the Canaanites.
RAIN COMES
Immediately after this sublime national act of acknowledgment of Jehovah and rejection of Baal, the prophet went up to the top of Carmel, and prayed fervently for rain seven times; the promise of which (speedily followed by fulfillment) at last appeared in the form of “a little cloud like a man's hand,” rising out of the Mediterranean sea--a phenomenon which, in warm maritime climates, is not the unusual harbinger of rain.
This remarkable transaction may be ascribed to the tenth year of Ahab's reign.
ELIJAH FLEES
Elijah was now compelled to fly for his life, to avoid the threatened vengeance of Jezebel for the destruction of her prophets. He fled southward, and when he had travelled nearly 100 miles, from Samaria to Beersheba, he left his servant and went alone a day's journey into the wilderness. There he sat, for rest and shelter, under the scanty shade which a broom-tree offered, the mighty spirit by which he had hitherto been sustained, gave way, and he prayed for death to end his troubles. “It is enough:” he cried, “now, O Jehovah, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers!” To strengthen his now sinking faith, and reward his sufferings in the cause of the God of Israel, whose honor he had so zealously vindicated, the prophet was encouraged by an angel to undertake a long journey to “the mount of God,” Horeb, where the Divine presence had been manifested to Moses, the founder of the law; and of which a further manifestation was now probably promised to this Great champion and restorer of the same law. On this mysterious occasion the angel touched him twice, to rouse him from his sleep, and twice made him eat of food which he found prepared for him. In the strength which that food gave, the prophet journeyed (doubtless by a circuitous route) forty days, until he came, it is supposed, to the cave where Moses was stationed, when he saw the glory of Jehovah in “the cleft of the rock.”
GOD COMMISSIONS ELIJAH
There he heard the voice of Jehovah calling to him, “What doest thou here, Elijah?” The prophet, evidently recognizing that voice, said, “I have been very zealous for Jehovah, the God of Hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thy altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword, and I only am left; and they seek my life to take it away.” Then the voice commanded him to go forth, for Jehovah was about to pass by. The first harbinger of the Divine presence was a great and strong wind, which rent the mountain and brake the rock in pieces; but Jehovah was not in that wind. Then followed an earthquake; but Jehovah was not in the earthquake. This was succeeded by a fire; but Jehovah was not in the fire. After this, came “a still, small Voice;” and when the prophet heard it, he knew the Voice of God, and, reverently hiding his face in his mantle, he stood forth in the entrance of the cave. The Voice repeated the former question, “What doest thou here, Elijah?” to which the same answer as before was returned. The Voice, in reply, gently rebuked the prophet for his crimination of the whole people of Israel, and his discouraging representation of himself as the only prophet left. “I have yet left to me seven thousand men, in Israel, who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” He was further instructed to return by a different route, by the way of Damascus ; and, by the way to anoint or appoint Elisha to be his own successor, and (either by himself or Elisha), Hazael to be king of Damascene-Syria, and Jehu to be king of Israel--as the chosen ministers of Divine vengeance upon the house and people of Ahab.
ELISHA COMMISSIONED
Of the three, Elisha was the only one to whom Elijah himself made known this appointment. Elisha was the son of Shaphat, an opulent man of Abel-maholah, in the half-tribe of Manasseh, west of the Jordan. The prophet found him plowing with twelve yoke of oxen, when, by a significant action, still well understood in the East, that of throwing his own mantle upon him, he conveyed the intimation of his prophetic call. That call was understood and obeyed by Elisha; and after having, with the prophet's permission, taken leave of his parents, he hastened to follow Elijah, to whom he ever after remained attached.
AHAB ATTACKED
It is singular that the first formal alliance between the kingdoms of Israel and Judah took place during the reigns of two princes of such opposite characters as Ahab in Israel, and Jehoshaphat in Judah. But it was so: and in forming it, and in cementing it by the marriage of his eldest son Jehoram to Athaliah the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, he doubtless acted from very ill-considered policy, and laid in a great store of disasters for himself and his house. It is unfortunate that we are unacquainted with the motives which led to this most unhappy connection. A close and intimate union between the two kingdoms could not but be, to itself, a political good; and the error of Jehoshaphat probably lay in this fact by itself, without taking due account of that evil character of Ahab and his house, and that alienation of his people from God, which were calculated to neutralize, and actually did far more than neutralize, the natural advantages of such alliance. The marriage took place in the fifteenth year of Ahab's, and the thirteenth of Jehoshaphat's reign. Not long after this, Ahab had cause to be alarmed at the designs of Ben-hadad, the king of Damascene-Syria, which kingdom had been gathering such strength, while that of the Hebrews had been weakened by divisions and by misconduct, that ever the subjugation of Israel did not seem to Ben-hadad an enterprise to which his ambition might not aspire. To this end he made immense preparations: he claimed the united aid of all his tributary princes, thirty-two in number, and ultimately appeared with all his forces before Samaria, to which he laid siege. He first summoned Ahab to deliver up all his most precious things; and, compelled by dire necessity, the king of Israel consented. But Ben-hadad was only induced by this readiness of yielding, to enhance his terms, and sent further demands, which were so very hard and insulting, that the spirit of Ahab was at last roused, and, supported by the advice of his council, he determined to act on the defensive. Soon after a prophet came with the promise of victory over the vast host of the Syrians, by means of a mere handful of spirited young men who were particularly indicated.
BEN-HADAD FLEES
The confidence of the Syrians was so great that they led a careless and jovial life, thinking of little but of indulgence in wine and good cheer, of which the king himself set the example. In the midst of these feasts, a body of two hundred and thirty-two men was seen to leave the city, and advance toward the camp. Ben-hadad, when he heard of it, quietly ordered them to be taken alive, whether they came for peace or for war. But suddenly these men fell upon the advanced sentinels, and upon all who were near them; and the cries and confusion of so many persons, taken as it were by surprise, were instrumental in creating a general panic among the vast Syrian host. Drawn himself by the irresistible movement, Ben-hadad fled on horseback, with all his army; and the troops of Israel (7,000 in number), which attended the motions and watched the effect of the sally of the brave two hundred and thirty-two, closely pursued the flying Syrians, and rendered the victory complete.
BEN-HADAD ATTACKS AGAIN
The prophet who foretold this victory now apprized Ahab that Ben-hadad would renew his attempt the ensuing year. This took place accordingly. The Syrians came in equal force as before, and, as they thought, with wiser counsels. The kingdom of Damascene-Syria was mostly a plain; whereas the kingdom of Israel, and the site of Samaria, in particular, was mountainous. Rightly attributing their defeat to the God (or, as they chose in their idolatrous ignorance, to say the gods) of Israel, they reasoned that he was a god of the hills, and therefore among the hills more powerful than their gods, who were gods of the valleys and the plains. Instead, therefore of going among the hills as before, they would now fight in the plains, where they could not doubt of success. This reasoning, however absurd it now seems to us and did then seem (such were their privileges) to all enlightened Israelites, was in strict and philosophical accordance with the first principles of idolatry and the general system of national and local deities. But such a view being taken by them it became necessary to Jehovah to vindicate his own honor and assert his omnipotence by their overthrow. For this reason he delivered this vast host that covered the land into the hands of the comparatively small and feeble host of Israel. The Syrians were cut in pieces; 100,000 of their number were left dead upon the field of battle, and the rest were entirely dispersed. Ben-hadad, with a large number of the fugitives, sought refuge in Aphek; but by the sudden fall of the wall of that fortified town, 27,000 of his men were crushed to death, and the place was rendered defenseless. Nothing was now left to him but to yield himself up to Ahab. That monarch, weak and criminal by turns, received the Syrian king into his friendship, and formed an impious alliance with him, regardless not only of the law, but of the honor of God, who had given him the victory, and had delivered for punishment into his hands this blasphemer and enemy of his Great Name. For this he was in the name of Jehovah, severely rebuked and threatened by one of “the sons of the prophets,” by the way-side; in consequence he withdrew to his palace “heavy and displeased.”
Terrace Cultivation

NABOTH'S VINEYARD
The history of Ahab affords one more, and the last, interview between him and Elijah. This was about nine years after the band solemnity at Mount Carmel, and the nineteenth of Ahab's reign. At that time the king took a fancy to enlarge his own garden by taking into it an adjoining vineyard which formed part of the patrimonial estate of a person named Naboth. He made him the fair offer of its value in money, or to give him some other piece of land of equal value. But Naboth, considering it a religious duty to preserve “the inheritance of his fathers,” declined on any terms to alienate it. The reason was good, and ought to have satisfied the king. But he received the refusal like a spoiled child; he lay down upon his bed, and turned away his face to the wall, and refused to take his food. When his wife heard this she came to him, and having learned the cause of his grief, she said indignantly, “Dost thou not now govern the kingdom of Israel; Arise, eat food, and let thine heart be cheerful; the vineyard of Naboth, the Jezreelite, I will give to thee.” Accordingly, she procured Naboth to be put to death under the form of law. At a public feast he was accused by suborned witnesses of blasphemy, for which he was stoned to death, and his estates confiscated to the king. Jezebel then went to Ahab, apprized him of what had happened, and told him to go down and take possession of the vineyard. It is clear that if he did not suggest, he approved of the crime, and proceeded with joy to reap the fruits of it. But in the vineyard of Naboth, the unexpected and unwelcome sight of Elijah the prophet met his view. Struck by his own conscience, he cried, “Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?” To which Elijah replied, “I have found thee, because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the eyes of Jehovah.” He then proceeded to denounce the doom of utter extermination upon himself and his house for his manifold iniquities; and then, with reference to the immediate offence, he said, “Hast thou slain and also taken possession? Thus saith Jehovah, In whatsoever place the dogs licked up the blood of Naboth, shall dogs lick up thy blood, even thine. And concerning Jezebel, Jehovah hath also spoken, saying, The dogs shall eat Jezebel under the wall of Jezreel. Him who dieth of Ahab in the city shall the dogs eat; and him that dieth in the fields shall the fowls of the air, eat.” We are immediately reminded, however, that this terrible doom, although now denounced, as following this crowning deed of guilt, was really a consequence of this and all the other iniquities of Ahab's reign; for it is added, “Now there had been none like to Ahab, who, stirred up by Jezebel his wife, sold himself to work wickedness in the eyes of Jehovah. And he committed great abominations by going after vile idols, according to all that the Amorites did, whom Jehovah cast out before the Israelites.”
AHAB REPENTS
When Ahab heard the heavy doom pronounced against him by the prophet, “he rent his clothes (in token of extreme grief), and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went mournfully.” This conduct found some acceptance with God, who said to Elijah, Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me? Because he humbleth himself before me? I will not bring the evil in his days, but in his son's days will I bring this evil upon his house.” From the judicial sentence specially applicable to the case of Naboth, there was, however, no dispensation; as it behooved the Divine king to demonstrate that he still possessed and exercised the authority of supreme civil governor, and that the kings were responsible to him and punishable by him. This was signally shown in the sequel.
MICAIAH THE PROPHET
Israel was now at peace with Syria, but it had not recovered possession of all the places which had at different times been lost to that power. Of these, Ramoth Gilead, beyond Jordan, was one which, from its proximity and importance, Ahab was particularly anxious to regain possession. He therefore resolved to expel the Syrian garrison from that place; and as he was aware that the attempt would be opposed by the whole power of the Syrian kingdom, he claimed the assistance of Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, which that prince, with the facility of disposition which formed the chief defect of his excellent character; very readily granted. Nevertheless, when the preparations were completed, Jehoshaphat, unsatisfied by the assurances of success which Ahab's own “prophets” had given, desired that some other prophet of Jehovah should be consulted. This request was more distasteful to Ahab than he liked to avow. “There is yet one man,” he said, “Micaiah,[319] the son of Imlah, but him I hate, because he prophesieth not good concerning me, but evil.” He was, however, sent for; and although the messenger had strongly inculcated upon him the necessity of making his counsel conformable to the wishes of the king; and the predictions of his own prophets, the undaunted Micaiah boldly foretold the fatal result of the expedition. At this the king was so much enraged, that he ordered him to be kept in confinement, and fed with the bread and the water of affliction until he returned in peace. “If thou return at all in peace,” rejoined the faithful prophet, “then Jehovah hath not spoken by me.”
[319] Josephus and other ancient Jews understood that this Micaiah was the same prophet who had rebuked Ahab for his alliance with Ben-hadad.
SYRIA ATTACKS
Ben-hadad, the king of Syria, repaid the misplaced kindness of Ahab by the most bitter enmity against his person; and he gave strict orders to his troops that their principal object should be his destruction. Ahab seems to have had some private information of this; for he went, himself, disguised to the battle, and treacherously persuaded Jehoshaphat to appear in all the ensigns of his high rank.[320] In consequence of this the king of Judah was nearly slain, being surrounded by the Syrians, who pressed toward the point in which one royally arrayed appeared. But they discovered their mistake in time, and turned their attention in another direction. Ahab, with all his contrivance, could not avoid his doom. A Syrian archer[321] sent forth from his bow an arrow at random. Guided by the unseen Power which had numbered the days of Ahab, that arrow found the disguised king, penetrated between the joints of his strong armor, and gave him his death-wound. He directed his charioteer to drive him out of the battle; but perceiving that a general action was coming on, he remained, and was held up in his chariot until the evening, animating his friends by his voice and presence. After the fall of night had terminated the combat, the king died, and the army was directed to disperse. The body of Ahab was taken to Samaria, to be deposited in the family sepulcher; and to mark the literal fulfillment of Elijah's prophecy, the historian acquaints us that his chariot was washed, and his armor rinsed in the pool of Samaria, where the dogs licked up the blood that he had lost. Thus signally, in the mysterious dispensations of Divine providence, were reconciled the seemingly discordant declarations of the two prophets, one of whom had foretold his death at Ramoth Gilead, and the other that dogs should claim his blood in Samaria.
[320] Josephus supported by the Septuagint, says he wore the royal robes of Ahab.
[321] Josephus says this was Naaman, who will soon come again before us.
AHAB'S PALACE
The history of Ahab is almost exclusively occupied with the record of his guilt, and we are referred for information concerning his other public acts to a chronicle which no longer exists. But it transpires that he built several cities in Israel, and also a palace, which, from the quantities of ivory with which it was ornamented, was distinguished as “the ivory palace.”
AHAZIAH REIGNS
Ahab's death took place in the year 909 B.C., after a reign of twenty-two years. He was succeeded in his throne and in his sin by his son Ahaziah. The chief event of his short reign was the revolt of the Moabites, who, since their subjection by David, had continued to supply Israel with a rich tribute of flocks and fleeces.[322] Ahaziah himself having received serious injuries by a fall through a lattice in an upper chamber of his palace, sent messengers into the land of the Philistines, to consult Baal-zebub, the fly-god of Ekron, whether he should recover. But they were met on the way by the prophet Elijah, who sent them back to the king with a denunciation of death, for his impiety in forsaking the God of Israel and resorting to strange gods. The messengers knew not the prophet; but when they described him to the king as a man clad with a hairy garment, and with a leathern girdle about his loins, he recognized Elijah, and sent an officer with fifty men to apprehend him. But the prophet, whom they found sitting upon a hill, called down fire from heaven, which consumed this party, and also a second; but he went voluntarily with the third, the officer in command of which humbled himself before him, and besought him. The prophet confirmed to the king himself his former denunciation of speedy death; and, accordingly, Ahaziah died, after a short reign of two years, leaving no son to succeed him. This king maintained the alliance which his father lead established with King Jehoshaphat, and even persuaded that monarch to admit him to share in his contemplated maritime expedition to the regions of Ophir, of which there will be occasion to speak in the next chapter.
[322] The annual tribute rendered by the Moabites had been 100,000 lambs and 100,000 wethers (castrated male sheep) with their wool.
JEHORAM'S REIGN
Ahaziah was succeeded by his brother Jehoram. This king, like his predecessors, “did evil in the sight of Jehovah,” yet not to the same extent of enormity as they; for although the loose and irregular service of the golden calves was maintained y him, he overthrew the images of Baal, and discouraged the grosser idolatries which his father and brother had introduced.
ELISHA HAS ELIJAH'S SPIRIT
The first and most urgent care of the new king was to reduce to obedience the Moabites, who, as just mentioned, lead revolted on the death of Ahab. As the king of Judah had himself been troubled by the Moabites, he readily undertook to take a very prominent part in this enterprise, to which he also brought the support of his own tributary, the king of Edom. The plan of the campaign was, that the allied army should invade the land of Moab in its least defensible quarter, by going round by “the wilderness of Edom,” southward of the Dead sea; which also offered the advantage that the forces of the king of Israel could be successively joined by those of the kings of Judah and Edom on the march. This circuitous march occupied led seven days; and toward the end of it the army and the horses suffered greatly from thirst, probably occasioned by the failure of the wells and brooks, from which an adequate supply of water had been expected. Much loss had already been incurred through this unexpected drought, and nothing less than utter ruin seemed to impend over the allies when they lay on the borders of Moab, within view of the enemy, which had advanced to meet them. In this emergency the very proper course occurred to Jehoshaphat of consulting a prophet of Jehovah. On inquiry it was discovered that Elisha, “who had poured water on the hands of Elijah”--a proverbial expression from the most conspicuous act of service in a personal attendant--was the only prophet to be found in that neighborhood. Full of the faith of his illustrious master, this faithful disciple of Elijah had beheld the Jordan divide before that prophet, and had been with him when, up-borne by the whirlwind, he was taken gloriously away from the earth, in the chariot and horses which glowed like fire, and who had substituted himself in his mission to work marvels and reprove kings in the name of Jehovah. Already had the “spirit and power of Elias,” which abode in him, been manifested to all Israel by the omens he had wrought. The waters of the Jordan had divided before him, the second time, when smote by the fallen mantle of Elijah--the bad waters of Jericho had become permanently wholesome at his word--and to evince the power of his curse, bears from the woods had destroyed forty-two young men belonging to idolatrous Bethel, who, joining unbelief to insult, had bade him, in terms of mockery and derision--“Go up, thou bald head! Go up, thou bald head!”--ascend after his master.
ELISHA PROPHECIES VICTORY
The prophet, thus already distinguished, was sought in his retreat by the three kings. His greeting of Jehoram was severe, “What have . to do with thee? Get thee to the prophets of thy father and to the prophets of thy mother.” Nevertheless, but avowedly on the sole account of the good Jehoshaphat, he interested himself for the salvation of the army, which was in such imminent danger: and, having consulted the Lord, he promised that on the morrow there should be such an abundance of water, that the bed of the torrent, near which the army was encamped, should not be able to contain it; and, more than this, he also indicated that this should be but the prelude of a signal victory over and complete ruin of the enemy.
All things happened as he had said. In the morning, at the time of offering sacrifice, the waters descended in such full-flood from the heights of Edom, that the camp would have been submerged, had not the army, by the direction of the prophet, previously dug large ditches to receive the redundant waters. All this was unknown to the Moabites, who, when they arose in the morning, and, on looking toward the camp of the allies, beheld the lurid rays of the rising sun reflected from the waters, which now covered the arid sands of yesterday, doubted not that it was blood which they saw, and formed the not by any means improbable conclusion that the armies of Israel and Judah had quarreled with and destroyed each other. They therefore rushed without the least care or order to the pillage of the camp; but so far from finding it deserted, they were surrounded and cut in pieces by the armed and now invigorated allies. The remnant of the army was pursued into the interior of the country by the conquerors, whose course was blackened by the fire and crimsoned by the sword. Ultimately they invested the metropolitan city of Kir-haraseth,[323] in which the king, Mesha, had taken refuge. One part of the walls had already been destroyed, and the king, seeing he could no longer defend the place, attempted to break through the besieging host at the head of seven hundred swordsmen. But failing in this desperate effort, he sought to propitiate his cruel gods by offering up the frightful sacrifice of his eldest son, the heir of his throne, in the breach. Seized with horror at this spectacle, the conquering kings abandoned the siege, withdrew from the country, and returned to their own states. In taking this step they did not consider, or, perhaps, not care, that they gave to the horrible act of the Moabite the very effect which he desired, and enabled him to delude himself with the persuasion that his sacrifice had been successful, and well-pleasing to the powers of Heaven.
[323] The same place which is otherwise called Rabbath-Moab, and, classically, Areopolis.
ELISHA'S LIFESTYLE
In the remaining history of Jehoram's reign, the prophet Elisha occupies nearly as conspicuous a place as Elijah did in that of Ahab. The wonders wrought by his hands were numerous; but they were less signal, and less attended with public and important results--less designed to effect public objects, than those of his master. Indeed his national acts were less considerable than those of Elijah; and although he possessed great influence, and was undoubtedly the foremost man of his age, he wanted those energies of character, and that consuming zeal which his predecessor manifested; or, perhaps more correctly, the exigencies of the times were not such as to call for the exercise of such endowments as had been possessed by Elijah. But although those of his successor were different in their kind, we know not that, with regard to the differing time, they were less useful or eminent. In this, and in a thousand other historical examples--more especially in the history of the Hebrews--we see men raised up for, and proportioned to, the times in which they live, and the occasions which call for them. The most eminent of the prophets, since Moses, was given to the most corrupt time; in which only a man of his indomitable, ardent, and almost fierce spirit, could have been equal to the fiery and almost single-handed struggle for God against principalities and powers. Elisha fell in milder times, and was correspondingly of a milder character, although he was not found unequal to any of the more trying circumstances which arose during the period of his prophetic administration. Indeed his conduct on such occasions was such as to suggest that it was only the milder spirit of the time on which he fell, precluding occasion for their exercise, that prevented the manifestation in him of that grander class of endowments which his predecessor displayed. As it was, Elisha, instead of being like his master, driven by persecution from the haunts of men to the deserts and the mountains, and reduced to a state of dependence on the special providence of God, for the bread he ate, and the water he drank--enjoyed a sufficiency of all things, and lived in honor and esteem among his countrymen; and even among the purple and fine linen of king's courts, the rough mantle of the prophet was regarded with respect.
In such a history as the present it is only necessary to report those of his acts which were connected with, or bore upon, the public history of the nation; yet his more private acts may be also briefly indicated for the sake of the illustration which they afford of the spirit and manners of the time.
OIL PAYS BAIL
The first of his operations which we read of, after that which connected him with the deliverance of Israel and the defeat of the Moabites, was an act of benevolence toward the widow of one of those “sons of the prophets” who had now come under his supervision. He had died without having the means of satisfying a debt he lead incurred,[324] in consequence of which the creditor was disposed to indemnify himself by making bondsmen of her two sons; but on her complaint to Elisha, he multiplied a small quantity of oil which she possessed, until the price it brought more than sufficed to pay the implacable creditor.
[324] The Jews think the person was Obadiah, and that his debt was contracted on account of the expense of maintaining the hundred prophets whom he concealed in caverns.
DEAD CHILD REVIVED
The occasions of the prophet frequently led him to visit the city of Shunem, which being observed by a benevolent woman, she suggested to her husband that they should prepare a small separate apartment,[325] and furnish it with a bed, a table, a seat, and a lamp; and that this should be reserved for his use when he visited Shunem. This was accordingly done, and the prophet accepted the hospitalities of these good Shunammites. Elisha was very sensible of their kind attention, and wished to repay it by some substantial benefit. He sent for the woman, and offered to speak to the king or to the captain of the host on her behalf. This she declined; and the prophet felt at a loss what to do for them, until it was suggested by his servant Gehazi that the woman had long been childless, on which Elisha again sent for her, and as she stood respectfully at the door, he conveyed to her the astonishing intimation that, nine months thence, her arms should embrace a son. Accordingly, the child was born, and had grown up, when one day he received a stroke of the sun on his head, and died very soon. The mother laid him on the prophet's bed, and actuated by an undefinable, but intelligible impulse, sought and obtained the permission of her husband to go to Elisha, who was known to be then at Carmel. Accordingly an ass was saddled, on which, driven by a servant on foot,[326] she sped to that place. Elisha saw her afar off, and said to Gehazi, “Behold, yonder is the Shunammite! Run now, I pray thee, and say to her--Is it well with thee? well with thy husband? well with the child?” The bereaved mother answered, “Well,” but pressed on toward the man of God. On approaching him she alighted from her beast, and threw herself at his feet, on which she laid hold. The officious Gehazi drew nigh to thrust her away, but Elisha checked him--“Let her alone; for her soul is troubled within her: although Jehovah hath hidden from me the cause, and hath not told me of it.” When, in a few broken exclamations, she had made known the cause of her grief, the prophet gave his staff to Gehazi, with instructions to go and lay it on the face of the child. But the mother refused to leave the prophet, and he was induced to rise and return with her. They met Gehazi on his way back, who told them, “The child is not awaked!” They hasted on, and the prophet shut himself up with the child. It was not long before he directed the mother to be called, and presented to her the living boy.
[325] Called in our version “a little chamber in the wall.” It denotes doubtless what the Arabs still call by the same name (Oleah), which is a small building, generally at some distance from the house, like a summer-house in our gardens.
[326] It is still the usual practice in the East for a man on foot to lead or drive the ass on which a woman rides.
POISONED STEW
Another time, when there was a dearth in the land, Elisha was at the school of the prophets at Gilgal; and at the proper time, gave the order to the servants, “Set on the great pot, and seeth pottage for the sons of the prophets.” When this was dressed, it was found that a wild and bitter gourd had been gathered and shred into the pot by mistake. “O man of God! there is death in the pot!” cried the sons of the prophets, when they began to eat. But Elisha directed a handful of meal to be cast into the pot, and it was found that all the poisonous qualities of the pottage had disappeared.
NAAMAN CLEANSED
In the kingdom of Damascene-Syria, the chief captain of the host, high in the favor and confidence of the king, was a person called Naaman, who had the misfortune of being a leper. This, which would have been a disqualification for all employment and society in Israel, could not but be a great annoyance and distress to a public man in Syria. When therefore a little Hebrew girl, who in a former war had been taken captive, and was now a slave in the household of this personage, was heard to say, “Would to God my lord were with the prophet, that is in Samaria, for he would recover him of his leprosy!” she was eagerly questioned on the matter, and the result was that the king of Syria sent Naaman, with a splendid retinue, and camels laden with presents[327] to Samaria, with a sufficiently laconic letter to the King Jehoram. “When this letter cometh to thee, thou must recover from his leprosy Naaman, my servant. Behold, I have sent him with it.” The king of Israel was utterly confounded when he read this, epistle. He rent his clothes, and cried, “Am I a god, to kill and to make alive, that this man sendeth to me to recover a man of his leprosy? Consider, I pray you, and see how he seeketh an occasion of quarrelling with me.” Intelligence of this affair, and of the king's vexation, was brought to Elisha, who desired that the Syrian stranger might be sent to him. Accordingly Naaman came with his chariot and horses and imposing retinue, and stood before the door of Elisha's house. The prophet did not retake his appearance; but sent out a message directing him to go and bathe seven times in the river Jordan. The self-esteem of the distinguished leper was much hurt at this treatment. He expected that Elisha would have paid him personal attention and respect, and would have healed him by an appeal to his God, Jehovah, and by the stroking of his hand. He therefore turned and went away in a rage, exclaiming, “Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them and be clean?” His attendants, however, succeeded in soothing him, and persuaded him to follow the prophet's directions; and when he rose, perfectly cleansed, from the Jordan, his feelings turned to conviction and gratitude; he returned to Samaria, and presented himself to the prophet, declaring his belief that Jehovah was the true and only God, and that henceforth he would offer burnt-offerings and sacrifices to no other. He would also have pressed upon his acceptance a valuable present, but this was firmly declined by Elisha; and when his covetous servant Gehazi, compromised the honor of God and of his own master, by following the Syrian, to ask a gift in the name of the prophet, the leprosy from which Naaman had been cleansed was declared by the prophet to be the abiding portion of him and of his race.
[327] The presents included ten talents of silver, equal to fifteen thousand dollars, six thousand shekels of gold, equal to sixty thousand dollars, and ten dresses of honor.
These and other miracles wrought by this prophet, fixed upon him personally the regard and veneration of the people; and while there is reason to think that the state of manners and of religion was not altogether so bad as it had been under Ahab, the practices and ideas of their corrupt system of religion was now too closely interwoven with their habits of life and mind to be easily shaken off. They rested on their intermediate system. Habit had reconciled even their consciences to it; and in general, to fall back upon it, after, having strayed into foreign idolatries, was in their sight a complete and perfect reformation. And as to the race of Ahab, that was hastening with rapid strides to its doom. The famine which about this time desolated the land, and the new war with the Syrians, which was carried on under the very walls of the capital, was met by the king without any fixed faith, or any determinate rule of conduct; sometimes he attributed his calamities to Elisha, and vowed his destruction; and at others he resorted to that same prophet as to his only friend and deliverer.
SYRIAN ARMY BLINDED
In this war the Syrians had laid an ambuscade, in which the king would undoubtedly have perished had not Elisha ensured his safety by discovering the plan of the enemy to him. This happened more than once; and the Syrian king at first suspected treachery in his own camp; but being assured that it was owing to Elisha, “who could tell the king of Israel the words he spoke in his bed-chamber,” he was much irritated, and, with singular infatuation, dispatched a column of his best troops to invest the town of Dothan, where the prophet then abode, in such a manner that his escape seemed impossible to his own terrified servant. “Fear not,” said Elisha, “for they that are with us are more than they that are with them;” and then, praying that his eyes might be opened to the view of “things invisible to mortal sight,” he beheld the mountain full of chariots and horses, glowing like fire, round about the prophet. At his request, the Syrian troop was then smitten with blindness, and in that condition he went among them, and conducted them to the very gates of the hostile metropolis, Samaria, where their eyes were opened, and he dismissed them in peace, after inducing Jehoram to give them refreshment, instead of slaying them, as was his own wish. This generous conduct seems to have had such good effect that the Syrian hordes for the present abandoned their enterprise, and returned to their own country.
SEVEN YEARS OF FAMINE
After this came on a severe famine, of seven years' continuance, and the evils of it were aggravated by war, for the Syrian king deemed this season of weakness and exhaustion too favorable for his designs to be neglected. He marched directly to Samaria, and formally invested that strong place, which, seemingly, he hoped less to gain by force of arms than by so blockading it as ultimately to starve it into a surrender; which work, he knew, was already more than half accomplished to his hands. The siege was protracted until the inhabitants were driven to the most horrible shifts to prolong their miserable existence. We are told that an ass's head was sold for eighty silver shekels, equal to thirty dollars of our money, and the fourth part of a cab[328] of vetches for five shekels, equal to three dollars of our money. In this case the extremity of the famine is shown not merely by the cost of the articles, but by the fact that the flesh of an ass, for which such an enormous price was now paid, was forbidden by the law,[329] and could not be touched by a Hebrew under ordinary circumstances.
[328] The fourth part of a cab was less than a pint of our measure.
[329] No animal food was allowed but that of animals which ruminate and divide the hoof. The ass does neither; and was therefore for food more unclean than even the hog, which does divide the hoof although it does not ruminate.
ELISHA REBUKES UNBELIEF
One day as the king was passing along the ramparts, two women importunately demanded justice at his hands. They had between them slain, boiled, and eaten the son of one of them, with the understanding that the son of the other was next to be sacrificed to satisfy their wants. But the mother of the living son relented, and refused to yield him to so horrible a fate. This was the injustice of which the mother of the slaughtered child complained, and for which she clamored for redress. When the king heard this shocking case, he rent his clothes, which gave the people present occasion to observe that his inner dress was the sackcloth of a mourner. He might have remembered that such calamities had been threatened, ages back, by Moses, as the suitable punishment of such iniquities as those into which Israel had actually fallen (Deuteronomy 28:52-57). His indignation, however, turned against Elisha (who had, perhaps, encouraged him to hold out by promises of deliverance), and he swore that he should lose his head that day, and instantly dispatched an officer to execute an intention so worthy of the son of Jezebel. But the messenger was no sooner gone than he relented, and went hastily after him, to revoke the order, and to excuse himself to Elisha. This moment of right feeling was the moment in which deliverance was announced. “Thus saith Jehovah,” said the prophet, when the king stood in his presence, “to-morrow about this time shall a seah[330] of fine flour be sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria.” This appeared so utterly incredible to the courtier “on whose arm the king leaned,” that he said, “Behold, were Jehovah to open windows in heaven, then this thing might be.” To which the prophet severely retorted, “Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof.”
[330] Somewhat more than a peck.
FAMINE ENDS
In fact, during the following night, Jehovah caused the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots and horses, which led them to conclude that Jehoram had contrived to obtain assistance from the king of Egypt and other neighboring princes; and this infused into them such a panic terror, that they precipitately raised the siege; in the belief that they were pursued by a puissant army come to the relief of Israel, they abandoned the camp with all their baggage and provisions. Toward the morning, some lepers, who, as such, abode without the town, made up their minds to go to the camp of the Syrians seeking food; for they concluded that it was better to risk death by the Syrian sword than to die of famine where they were. On reaching the camp they found it deserted; and after satisfying their present wants, and appropriating to their own use some good things from the spoil, they proceeded to bear their glad tidings to the city. The king was slow to believe them, and suspected the whole to be a stratagem of the Syrians. Men were therefore mounted on two of the five only horses now remaining, and sent to make observations. The report with which they returned was quite conformable to that of the lepers. The people then left the city, and hastened to pillage the camp of the Syrians, in which provisions were found in such abundance that a market was established at the gate of Samaria,[331] where as the prophet had predicted, a seah of wheat was sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for the same. The officer who refused to believe this prediction was placed by the king to preserve order at the gate; but so great was the press of the famishing multitude to obtain corn, that he was thrown down and trodden to death. Thus was accomplished the other prediction, that he should see the truth of the first prophecy without enjoying its benefits.
[331] It is still not unusual in the East for the wholesale market for country produce and cattle to be held (for a short time in the early morning) at the gates of towns. Manufactured goods are sold and fruits retailed in the bazaars within the towns.
WOMEN GETS PROPERTY
We know not precisely how long after this the seven years of famine terminated. Of these years the hospitable Shunammite had been warned by Elisha, and had withdrawn to a neighboring country; on which the state assumed the possession of her lands. After the famine was over, she returned, and came before the king to petition for the restoration of the property. At that time the servant of Elisha was engaged in giving the king an account of the various miracles wrought by his master, and when the woman appeared, he was relating how her son had been restored to life. The relater then said, “My lord, this is the woman, and this is her son whom Elisha restored to life.” The king was struck by this coincidence, and proceeded to question her on the subject, and ended with directing that not only should the lands be restored to her, but the value of their produce during the years of her absence. This was a very becoming act, and, like several other recorded acts of Jehoram, worthy of commendation; but it is not by particular acts, however laudable, that the sins of a criminal life can be covered: and the fulfillment of the doom pronounced upon the house of Ahab was now near at hand.
Jehoram was desirous of pursuing his recent advantage over the still to the extent of taking from them the city of Ramoth in Gilead, which still remained in their possession. Fortified by an alliance with his nephew Ahaziah, king of Judah, he therefore declared war against Hazael, whom a revolution, predicted by Elisha, had placed upon the throne of Damascene-Syria, in the room of Ben-hadad. Ramoth was invested by the two kings; and before that place, where Ahab had received his death-wound, Jehoram was also wounded by an arrow--not mortally, but so seriously that he withdrew to Jezreel to be healed, leaving the conduct of the siege to Jehu, the son of Nimshi. The king of Judah also returned to Jerusalem, but afterward proceeded to Jezreel to visit his wounded relative.
JEHU SLAYS AHAB'S HOUSE
At this juncture Elisha sent one of the sons of the prophet to execute the commission, long since entrusted to Elijah, of anointing Jehu as king of Israel. He arrived at the time when the chief officers of the army besieging Ramoth were together. He called out Jehu, and anointed him in an inner chamber, delivering at the same time the announcement of his call to the throne of Israel, and to be Jehovah's avenger upon the house of Ahab. No sooner had he done this than he opened the door and fled. Jehu returned to his companions, as if nothing had happened. But they had noticed the prophetic garb of the person who had called him out, and it being the fashion of those days to speak contemptuously of the prophetic calling they asked, “On what business came this mad fellow to thee?” Jehu affected some reluctance to tell them; but this made them the more urgent; and when he made the fact known to them, it was so agreeable to their own wishes, that they instantly tendered him their homage, and proclaimed him king by sound of trumpet, and with cries of “Jehu is king!” At his desire, measures were taken to prevent this intelligence from spreading for the present; in consequence of which, King Jehoram and King Ahaziah remained at Jezreel, quite unsuspicious of what had occurred. But one day the watchman announced the distant approach of a large party; and the king of Israel sent, successively, two messengers to ascertain whether it came with peaceable designs or not. But as they did not return, and the watchman having in the meantime ascertained, from his manner of driving his chariot, that the principal person was Jehu, the two kings went forth themselves to meet him. They met in the fatal field of Naboth. “Is it peace, Jehu?” the king inquired of the general; who answered, “What peace as long as the idolatries of thy mother Jezebel and her sorceries are so many?” On hearing which, Jehoram cried to the king of Judah, “There is treachery, O Ahaziah!” and turned his chariot to escape. But Jehu drew his bow with all his force, and the arrow which he discharged smote the king between the shoulders, and went through his heart. Jehu directed the body to be taken from the chariot and left on that ground, reminding Bidkar, his captain, to whom he gave this order, that they were together in attendance upon Ahab in that very place, when the prophet Elijah appeared and denounced that doom upon his house, and the bloody requital in that spot, which was now being accomplished.
AHAZIAH DIES
Ahaziah also attempted to escape; but Jehu directed some of his followers to pursue and smite him in his chariot. They did so, and wounded him: but he continued his flight till he reached Megiddo, were he died of his wounds. His body was removed to Jerusalem for sepulture.[332]
[332] This is the account given in the Book of Kings (2 Kings 9:27-29); but another account (2 Chronicles 22:9) says he hid himself in Samaria, where he was discovered and put to death. From this difference it may seem that some circumstances are omitted, by which the two accounts might be reconciled. But as we do not know with certainty how to reconcile them, we have given one of the accounts only in the text, and have preferred that in Kings, solely because it is that which Josephus has followed.
JEZEBEL DIES
Jehu entered Jezreel. The news of what had happened preceded him: and Jezebel tired her head and painted her eyes, and looked out of a window; and this she did, we should imagine, not with any view of trying the power of her allurements upon Jehu--for she was by this time an aged woman--but for state, and to manifest to the last the pride and royalty of her spirit. As Jehu drew nigh, she called to him, “Had Zimri peace, who slew his master?” But this was the day of vengeance and of punishment, and not of relentings; and Jehu looked up and cried, “Who is on my side, who?” On which two or three eunuchs of the harem looked out to him. “Throw her down!” was the unflinching command of Jehu. So they threw her down, and some of her blood was sprinkled upon the wall, and upon the horses that trod upon her. After this, Jehu went into the palace, and ate and drank; and he then said, “Go, look after this accursed woman, and bury her; for she was a king's daughter.” But it was then found that all the body, except the scull, the feet, and the palms of her hands, had been devoured by such ravenous dogs as those by which eastern cities are still infested. “This,” said Jehu, “is the word of Jehovah, which he spake by the mouth of Elijah the Tishbite, saying, In the district of Jezreel shall dogs eat the flesh of Jezebel; and the carcass of Jezebel shall be as dung upon the face of the field in the district of Jezreel; so that they shall not say, This is Jezebel.”
SEVENTY SONS KILLED
Ahab had left not fewer than seventy sons, and these were all in Samaria,[333] which was not only the metropolis but one of the strongest places in the kingdom; and Jehu, reflecting, probably, on what happened after the death of Zimri--when two kings reigned, one like himself, a military leader upheld by the arm, whom a portion of the nation refused to acknowledge, and adhered to another--apprehended that something similar might again occur. He therefore wrote to the chief persons of Samaria, and to those who had the charge of Ahab's children, to sound their intentions. He told them that they were in a well-fortified city, with troops, chariots, and arms; and that, being thus circumstanced, they had better set up one of Ahab's sons for king, and fight for him, letting the crown be the prize of the conqueror. And this, really, was the only course which men faithful and attached to the dynasty of Omri could have taken. This the chief persons and guardians of the princes in Samaria were not--or not to the extent of risking the consequences of civil war, and of opposition to Jehu. In fact, they were intimidated by his promptitude in action, and at the manner in which the two kings and Jezebel bad been disposed of; and there was something calculated to damp their spirits (if they had any) in a message which showed that Jehu was prepared for the most resolute course they could take. They replied, “We are thy servants, and will do all that thou shalt bid us; we will not make any man king: do thou what is good in thine eyes.” Jehu's reply was prompt and horribly decisive: “If ye be for me, and will hearken to my voice, take off the heads of your master's sons, and come to me to Jezreel by this time to-morrow.” When this letter arrived, the seventy princes were instantly decapitated, and their heads sent in baskets to Jezreel. When Jehu heard of their arrival, he, according to a barbarous eastern custom not yet extinct, directed them to be piled up in two heaps at the entrance of the city-gate until the morning. In the morning he went out to the assembled people, and with the evident design of pointing out the extent to which the house of Ahab wanted any hearty adherents, even among those who might be supposed most attached to its interests, he said, “Ye are righteous. Behold, I conspired against my master, and slew him: but who hath slain all these? Now know, that nothing of the word of Jehovah, which he spoke concerning the house of Ahab, shall fall to the ground; for Jehovah will do what he spoke by his servant Elijah.”
[333] From the expression that they were “with the great men of the city, who brought them up,” we infer that, as is still usual in some eastern countries, the king relieved himself from the charge of their maintenance, by consigning one young prince to this great person, and another to another, to be maintained and educated as became their station. This charge is to be received as an honor and distinction, and is sometimes of ultimate benefit; but on account of the great expense and inconvenience, it is often received with dissatisfaction, and many would decline it if they dared.
Jehu delayed not to go to Samaria, and in his way encountered some of the brothers of Ahaziah, the king of Judah, who, ignorant of the late occurrences, were on their way to visit the sons of Ahab. Regarding their connection by blood and friendship with the house of Ahab, Jehu considered them included in his commission to exterminate that house root and branch. He therefore commanded them to be arrested and slain. Their number was forty-two.
JONADAB JOINS JEHU
In his further progress, Jehu met with Jonadab, the son of Rechab, a pastoral religionist held in high esteem by the people, and whose influence with them was very great. Jehu, with his usual tact, at once felt the advantage which the countenance of this person might be to his cause. He therefore accosted him: “Is thy heart as right with my heart, as my heart is with thine?” Jonadab answered, “It is”--“If it be,” said Jehu, “give to me thy hand.” And he gave him his hand, and Jehu took him up into his chariot, saying, “Come and see my zeal for Jehovah!” They thus entered Samaria together, where Jehu completed the destruction of the house of Ahab by cutting off all its remaining members.
BAAL WORSHIP DESTROYED
In Samaria Ahab had erected a celebrated temple to the idol Baal. On entering the town Jehu declared an intention to aggrandize the worship of that god, and render to him higher honors than he had yet received in Israel. He was therefore determined to celebrate a great feast in honor of Baal, to which he convoked[334] all the priests, prophets, and votaries of that idol. The concourse was so great that the temple was filled from one end to another; and while they were in the midst of their idolatrous worship, Jehu sent in a body of armed men who put them all to the sword. The idols, and the implements and ornaments of idol worship, were then overthrown, broken, or reduced to ashes; and the temple itself was demolished and turned into a common jakes. But the worship of Baal was far from being confined to Samaria, and Jehu sought for it in all quarters of the land, and rooted it out wherever it was found. His conduct in this matter was so well pleasing to God, that the throne of Israel was, by a special promise, assured to his posterity unto the fourth generation.
[334] To call together.
Defile. in Idumea (Mount Seir), in the road from Palestine to Egypt