commentators fhould have observed and corrected, as it is equally incongruous with their interpretation as mine. The removal of which error, will at the fame time, furnish me with other PROOFS, that, the KINGS of SYRIA and of ISRAEL, could NOT be THE KINGS here meant, INDEPENDENT, even of the DEMONSTRATION, above deduced. For where, I muft afk, WAS THE LAND, which the houfe of Judah ABHORRED, which was to be forfaken of BOTH HER KINGS? Rezin and Pekah, were not JOINT kings, THEY did not reign in coм MON MON OVER 'ANY ONE DISTRICT; nor did they then reign over DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE SAME COUNTRY. Should any one contend, THEY DID, because, the king of Syria, had fometimes made inroads into the land of Ifrael, and even fome. times fubdued, and for a fhort time, retained fome of it's towns and ter ritories ;-yet, we find, from the "That Jehoah, the fon of Jehoahaz, took again out of the hands of Benhadad, "the fon of Hazael, the cities which "he had taken out of the hand of 3 Jehoakaz, his father, by war:three "three times did Joafh beat him, " and he recovered the cities of " Ifrael." That Pekah likewife was, at the time of the delivery of the prophecy, in full poffeffion of the land of Ifrael, is evident from hence; that, fubfequent to that time, when Ahaz had entered into a league with Tiglath Pileser, king of AssyRIA, " he took from the KING of "ISRAEL, all thofe towns and terri"tories, fubject to Ifrael, which lay "most contiguous to the land of For, we are "been the conquefts of the king "of that country. told, 2 Kings, xv. 29. "of Pekah, king of "In the days Ifrael, came "Tiglath ་་ I Tiglath Pilefer, king of Affyria, "and took Ijon, and Abel-bethmaachah, and Icnoah, and Kedesh, "and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, and all the land of Naphtali, "and carried them captive to Affy"ria." Hence, then it follows, that the KINGS of SYRIA and of ISRAEL, COULD NOT BE THE KINGS, meant in the latter claufe of the verse, INDEPENDENT of THE ARGUMENT, by which, I have be EVEN fore DEMONSTRATED IT. But, even if we were to grant, that Rezin and Pekah were both of of them kings of different districts in the land of Ifracl, yet, how could this be called a land, which the men of Judah at that time ABHORRED? This fuppofition, confounds all chronology. For, notwithflanding all the wars and contentions, between the kings of Judah and of Ifrael, Judah could not be faid, to hate Ifrael, and their land. It was not, 'till after Efarhaddon's transportation of the Ifraelites, which remained after the former conquest by Salmanafer, into other countries, and his tranfplanting the Cuthites, &c. into Samaria;—that the implacable animofity began, between the Jews and the Samaritans, and continued fo violent |