his sight there was none left but the tribe of Judah only. (19) Also Judah kept not the commandments of the LORD their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made. (20) And the LORD rejected all the seed of Israel, and afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of spoilers, until he had cast them out of his sight. (21) For he rent Israel from the house of David; and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king: and Jeroboam drave Israel from following the LORD, and made them sin a great sin. (22) For the

The tribe-i.e., the kingdom. (Comp. 1 Kings xi. 36.)

(19) Also Judah kept not . . .-Judah was no real or permanent exception to the sins and punishment of Israel; she imitated the apostasy of her sisterkingdom, and was visited with a similar penalty.

The statutes of Israel which they made.See Note on verse 8 supra, and comp. Micah vi. 16, "the statutes of Omri." According to chap. viii. 27 and xvi. 3, Ahaziah and Ahaz especially favoured the idolatry practised in the northern kingdom. The example of her more powerful neighbour exercised a fatally powerful spell upon Judah.

(20) And the Lord rejected all the seed of Israel. Thenius prefers the reading of the LXX. " and rejected the Lord (as in the last clause of verse 19), and the Lord,was angry with all the seed of Israel," &c. It thus becomes plain that the writer goes back to verse 18, after the parenthesis relating to Judah. 66 "Israel" is used in the narrow sense in those verses.

Into the hand of spoilerse.g., the Syrians (chap. x. 32;) and the Assyrians (chap. xv. 19, 29, xvii. 3. The writer probably remembered Judg. ii. 14.

(21) For he rent. . .-The verse assigns the fons et origo mali; it makes the secession of the Ten Tribes from the house of David the ultimate cause of their ruin. The "for," therefore, refers to what has just been said in verses 18-20.

He rent Israel. The Hebrew as it stands can only mean Israel rent. The want of an object after the transitive verb favours the suggestion of Thenius that the niphal should be restored: Israel rent himself away (comp. the Vulg., "scissus est"). (If Israel were the object, 'eth should be expressed.)

Drave.-Hebrew text, put far away (Amos ii. 3). Hebrew margin, misled (2 Chron. xxi. 11); the Targum and Syriac "caused to stray." The argument obviously is this-separation from Judah led to the calf worship, and that to idolatry pure and simple.

(22) The children of Israel walked Israel obstinately persisted in the sin of Jeroboam, in spite of all warning.

(23) By all his servants the prophets.-Comp. Hosea i. 6; ix. 16; Amos iii. 11, 12, v. 27; Isa. xxviii. 1-4.

So was Israel carried away.-That the land was not entirely depopulated appears from such passages as 2 Chron. xxx. 1, xxxiv. 9. But henceforth "the distinctive character of the nation was lost; such Hebrews as remained in their old land became mixed with their heathen neighbours. When Josiah destroyed the ancient

Samaria Re-peopled.

children of Israel walked in all the sins. of Jeroboam which he did; they departed not from them; (23) until the LORD removed Israel out of his sight, as he had said by all his servants the prophets. So was Israel carried away out of their own land to Assyria unto this day.

(24) And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel: and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof.

high places of the northern kingdom he slew their priests, whereas the priests of Judæan sanctuaries were provided for at Jerusalem. It is plain from this that he regarded the worship of the northern sanctuaries as purely heathenish (comp. 2 Kings xxiii. 20 with verse 5), and it was only in much later times that the mixed population of Samaria became possessed of the Pentateuch, and set up a worship on Mount Gerizim, in imitation of the ritual of the second Temple. We have no reason to think that the captive Ephraimites were more able to retain their distinctive character than their brethren who remained in Palestine. The problem of the lost tribes, which has so much attraction for some speculators, is a purely fanciful one. The people whom Hosea and Amos describe were not fitted to maintain themselves apart from the heathen among whom they dwelt. Scattered among strange nations, they accepted the service of strange gods (Deut. xxviii. 64), and, losing their distinctive religion, lost also their distinctive existence." (Robertson Smith.)

(24-33) RE-PEOPLING OF THE LAND WITH ALIENS, THEIR WORSHIP DESCRibed.

(24) The king of Assyria. - Sargon (Sargina), who actually records that in his first year (721 B.C.) he settled a body of conquered Babylonians in the land of Hatti or Syria. In another passage he speaks of locating certain Arab tribes, including those of Thamûd and Ephah, in the land of Beth-Omri; and in a third passage of his annals he says that he "removed the rest" of these Arab tribes, "and caused them to dwell in the city of Samerina" (Samaria). This notice belongs to Sargon's seventh year (715 B.C.). Kuthah and Sepharvaim were also towns in Babylonia. The former is called Kutiè in the cuneiform inscriptions. It had a temple of Nergal and Laz, the ruins of which have been discovered at Tell-Ibrahim, north-east of Babylon. Sepharvaim, in the cuneiform Sipar and Sippar, means "the two Sipars; " in allusion, probably, to the fact that the town was divided between the two deities, Samas (the sun), and Anunitum, and bore the names of Sippar sa Samas ("Sippara of the Sun”), and Sippar sa Anunitum ("Sippara of Anunit"). Rassam discovered ruins of Eparra, the great sun-temple, at Abu Habba, south-west of Bagdad, on the east bank of the Euphrates.

Ava (Heb., 'Avva) may be the same as Ivah (Heb. Iwwah) (chap. xviii. 34, xix. 13).

Hamath.-Sargon has recorded his reduction, in 720 B.C., of Itu-bi-'di (or Yau-bi-'di) king of Hamath, and also his settling of colonists in Hamathite territory.

(25) And so it was at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they feared not the LORD: therefore the LORD sent lions among them, which slew some of them. (26) Wherefore they spake to the king of Assyria, saying, The nations which thou hast removed, and placed in the cities of Samaria, know not the manner of the God of the land: therefore he hath sent lions among them, and, behold, they slay them, because a Zeph. 1. 5. they know not the manner of the God of the land. (27) Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, Carry thither one of the priests whom ye brought from thence; and let them go and dwell there, and let him teach them the manner of the God of the land. (28) Then one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and dwelt in Beth

It is, therefore, quite likely that he had, as usual, deported the conquered Hamathites, and, in fact, settled some of them in Samaria, as this verse relates.

Placed them.-Heb., made them dwell, the very phrase used by Sargon himself in describing these ar rangements (usesib). At a later period Esarhaddon reinforced these colonists (Ezra iv. 2).

(25) The Lord sent (the) lions.-In the interval between the Assyrian depopulation and the re-peopling of the land, the lions indigenous to the country had multiplied naturally enough. Their ravages were understood by the colonists as a token of the wrath of the local deity on account of their neglect of his worship. The sacred writer endorses this interpretation of the incident, probably remembering Lev. xxvi. 22. (Comp. Exod. xxiii. 29; Ezek. xiv. 15.)

Which slew.-The form of the verb implies a state of things which lasted some time. Literally, and they were killing among them.

(26) They spake. - Rather, men spake, i.e., the prefects of the province.

99.66

The manner of the God.-The word mishpat, "judgment," decision," here means "appointed wor ship," or "cultus." In the Koran the word dîn, judgment," is used in a similar way, as equivalent to religion," especially the religion of Islam.

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(27) Carry.-Cause to go.

Let them go and dwell.-To be corrected after the Syriac and Vulg.: let him go and dwell. Ye brought.-Ye carried away.

(28) And taught.-And was teaching, implying a permanent work.

In Bethel.-Because he was a priest of the calfworship.

Fear the Lord.-Not in the modern ethical but in the ancient ceremonial sense.

(29) Howbeit.-And. The colonists did not fear Jehovah in a monotheistic sense; they simply added his cultus to that of their ancestral deities.

The houses of the high places.-The temples or chapels which constituted the sanctuaries of the different cities in the Samaritan territory.

The Samaritans-i.e., the people of northern Israel. (Comp. Samaria in verse 24.)

and their Worship.

el, and taught them how they should fear the LORD.

(29) Howbeit every nation made gods of their own, and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities. wherein they dwelt. (30) And the men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal, and the men of Hamath made Ashima, (31) and the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burnt their children. in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim. (32) So they feared the LORD, and made unto themselves of the lowest of them priests of the high places, which sacrificed for them in the houses of the high places. (33) a They feared the LORD, and served their own gods, after the manner of the

Dwelt.-Were dwelling.

(30) Succoth-benoth. The Hebrew spelling of this name has probably suffered in transmission. The Babylonian goddess Zirbânit or Zarpanitum ("seedmaker") the consort of Merodach, appears to be meant.

Nergal. The name of the god represented by the colossal lions which guarded the doorways of Assyrian palaces. These colossi were called nirgali; and a syllabary informs us that Nergal was the god of Kutha.

Ashima.-Nothing is known of this idol. Schrader (in Riehm) pronounces against identification with the Phoenician Esmún. Lane's lexicon gives an Arabic word, 'usamatu, or 'al'-usamatu, "the lion," which may be cognate with Ashima.

(31) Nibhaz and Tartak are unknown, but the forms have an Assyrio-Babylonian cast. (Comp. Nimrod, Nergal with the former, and Ishtar, Namtar, Merodach, Shadrach, with the latter.) Before Nibhaz the LXX. have another name, Abaazar, or Eblazer (?'abal Assûr "the Son of Assur").

Adrammelech.-Comp. chap. xix. 37. Identified by Schrader with the Assyrian Adar-mâlik, “ Adar is prince" (? Adrum).

Anammelech-i.e., Anum-málik, "Anu is prince." Adar and Anu are well-known Assyrian gods.

(32) They feared.-They were fearing. (See Note on verse 25, 28, supra.)

Of the lowest of them.-Rather, of all orders, or promiscuously. (Comp. 1 Kings xii. 31.) This is another indication that it was Jeroboam's mode of worship which was now restored.

Which sacrificed.-Heb., and they used to do. The verb do is used in the sense of sacra facere, just like the Greek ποιεῖν, ἔρδειν, ρέζειν.

Priests of the high places. Rather, bāmāhpriests (omit the). Bamah-priests are opposed to the priests of Jehovah's Temple.

(33) They feared... gods.-Literally, Jehovah were they fearing, and their own gods were they serving. The verse recapitulates 28-32.

Whom they carried away from thence. Rather, whence they had been carried away. Literally, whence men carried them away. The meaning

Prosperity of Hezekiah.

Israel carried Captive.

him.

B.C.

cir. 721.

they must look to Him, rather than to any of the gods of Egypt, for help and healing. (Kuenen does not believe in the great antiquity of this relic. Yet the Egyptian and Babylonian remains which have come down to our time have lasted many centuries more than the interval between Moses and Hezekiah; and some of them were already ancient in the Mosaic age. Our own Doomsday Book is at least as old as the brasen serpent was when it was destroyed. There is really no tangible historical ground for this extreme unwillingness to admit the authenticity of anything attributed by tradition to the authorship and handiwork of Moses.)

And he called it.-Rather, and it was called. Literally, and one called it. The impersonal construction, like the German man nannte.

Nehushtan.-The popular name of the serpentidol. It is vocalised as a derivative from ně hōsheth, "brass," or 66 "" copper; but it may really be formed from na hash, "serpent," and denote "great serpent rather than "brass-god." (Comp. the term Leviathan, Job iii. 8.) Further, although the word is certainly not a compound of ne hōsheth, "copper," and tān (i.e., tannin), "serpent," this may have been the popular etymology of the word. (Comp. the proper name, Nehushta, chap. xxiv. 8.)

(5) He trusted. Israel.-In Jehovah, the God of Israel he trusted. Hezekiah is thus contrasted with idolatrous kings, such as those who trusted in the Nehushtan.

After him was none like him among all the kings of Judah.-This does not contradict what is said of Josiah (chap. xxiii. 25). Hezekiah was preeminent for his trust in Jehovah, Josiah for his strict adherence to the Mosaic Law.

Nor any that were before him.-Rather, nor among those that were before him.

(6) For he clave. And he held fast. Hezekiah's pious feeling.

But kept.-And he kept. Hezekiah's practice. The context shows that the "commandments" specially in the writer's mind were those against polytheism.

(7) And he prospered I went forth. Whithersoever he would go forth he would prosper. (The italicised and is needless here, as in verse 6.)

seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, that Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria, and besieged it. (10) And at the end of three years they took it: even in the sixth year of Hezekiah, that is the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken. (11) And the king of Assyria did carry away Israel unto Assyria, and put them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes: (12) because they obeyed not the voice of the LORD their God, but transgressed his covenant, and all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded, and would not hear them, nor do them.

Prospered.-Comp. 1 Kings ii. 3; Prov. xvii. 8. Going forth denotes any external undertaking or enterprise, especially going forth to war. (Comp. the phrase 'going out and coming in.")

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He rebelled against the king of Assyria—i.e., refused the tribute which Ahaz his father had paid. In this matter also it is implied that Hezekiah succeeded. The mention of Hezekiah's revolt here does not imply that it happened at the beginning of his reign, for verses 1-12 are a preliminary sketch of his entire history. The subject here glanced at is continued at large in verse 13 seq.

(8) He smote.-He it was who smote. The reduction of the Philistines was probably subsequent to the retreat of Sennacherib. (Comp. 2 Chron. xxxii. 22; Isa. xi. 14.)

Unto Gaza.-The southernmost part of the Philistine territory.

From the tower of the watchmen . . . city. -See Note on chap. xvii. 9. The entire land of Philistia was ravaged by the Judean forces.

(9-12) The account of the captivity of northern Israel is repeated here, because the editor faithfully reproduces what he found in the abstract of the Judæan history of the kings. (Comp. chap. xvii. 3-6, and the Notes.) We may also see a contrast between the utter overthrow of the stronger kingdom and the deliverance of its smaller and weaker neighbour, because Hezekiah trusted in Jehovah (verse 5).

(10) They took it-i.e., the Assyrians took it. This reading is preferable to that of the LXX., Syriac, and Vulg. (" he took it "), as it was Sargon, not Shalmaneser, who took the city. Schrader is too positive in calling this a certainly false pronunciation" of the Hebrew verb. (Comp. Note on chap. xvii. 5.) Chap. xvii. 6, to which he refers as "decisive" for the singular here also, says that "the king of Assyria" (not Shalmaneser) took Samaria.

(12) Because they obeyed not. . .-Thenius calls this remark, which properly belongs to the historical abstract from which the compiler drew the narrative of verses 1-12, "the theme" which suggested the reflections of chap. xvii. 7-23. They may have been suggested by passages of the Law and Prophets.

(13) Now in the fourteenth year of

B.C. cir. 710.

against Judah.

the gold from the doors of the temple of

Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria.

And all.-Omit and, with all the versions. "All that Moses commanded" is in apposition with "his covenant."

And would not do them.-Literally, and hearkened not, and did not.

(13-37) THE INVASION OF SENNACHERIB. (13) In the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah. The fall of Samaria is dated 722-721 B.C., both by the Bible and by the Assyrian inscriptions. That year was the sixth of Hezekiah, according to verse 10. His fourteenth year, therefore, would be 714-713 B.C. Sennacherib's own monuments, however, fix the date of the expedition against Judah and Egypt at 701 B.C. (See the careful discussion in Schrader's Keilinschriften, pp. 313-317.) This divergence is remarkable, and must not be explained away. It must be borne in mind that the Assyrian documents are strictly contemporary, whereas the Books of Kings were compiled long after the events they record, and have only reached us after innumerable transcriptions; while the former, so far as they are unbroken, are in exactly the same state now as when they first left the hands of the Assyrian scribes.

Sennacherib.-Called in his own annals Sin-ahiirib, or Sin-ahi-erba, i.e., "Sin (the moon-god) multiplied brothers." He was son and successor of Sargon, and reigned from 705-681 B.C. He invaded Judah in his third campaign.

All the fenced cities. . . took them.-See Sennacherib's own words, quoted in the Note on 2 Chron. xxxii. 1.

(14) Lachish.-Um-Lakis, in the south-west corner of Judah, close to the Philistine border, and near the high road from Judæa and Philistia to Egypt. The fortress was important to Sennacherib, as it commanded this route. In fact, Sennacherib's chief aim was Egypt, as appears from chap. xix. 24, and Herodotus (ii. 141), and it was necessary for him to secure his rear by first making himself master of the fortresses of Judah, which was in league with Egypt. (See Note on 2 Chron. xxxii. 9.)

I have offended.-Literally, I have sinned. The term "sin" is constantly used of "revolts " in the Assyrian inscriptions.

That which thou puttest on me.-In the way of tribute. A similar phrase occurs on the monuments. Three hundred talents of silver, and thirty talents of gold.-Sennacherib says: "Eight hundred talents of silver, and thirty of gold," estimating the

(17) And the king of Assyria sent Tartan and Rabsaris and Rab-shakeh from Lachish to king Hezekiah with a 3great host against Jerusalem. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. And when they were come up, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is in the highway of the fuller's field. (18) And when they had called to the king, there came out to them Eliakim the son of Hilkiah,

silver by the light Babylonian talent, which was to the heavy Palestinian talent in the ratio of eight to three. The sum mentioned is about a seventh less than that exacted by Pul from Menahem (chap. xv. 19). (15) The silver-i.e., the money.

(16) Cut off the gold from the doors.-Literally, trimmed, or stripped the doors (the word used in chap. xvi. 17 of the similar proceeding of Ahaz). The leaves of the doors of the sanctuary were overlaid with gold (1 Kings vi. 18, 32, 35). Hard necessity drove Hezekiah to strip off this gold, as well as that with which he had himself plated "the pillars," or rather the framework of the doors (literally, the supporters; others think that the door-posts only are meant by this term). (17) And the king of Assyria sent Apparently in careless violation of his word, as Josephus states.

Tartan. Rather, the commander-in-chief; called in Assyrian tur-ta-nu, a word of Sumerian origin, imitated in the Hebrew tartan here and in Isa. xx. 1.

Rabsaris and Rab-shakeh.-Two other official titles. The Rabsaris has not been identified on the

Assyrian monuments. The Hebrew word suggests "chief eunuch," or "courtier." (Comp. Jer. xxxix. 3.) Such an official would accompany the tartan as scribe. The term Rab-shakeh, as a Hebrew expression, signifies "chief cup-bearer; " but it is really only a Hebraised form of the Assyrian title rab-sak," chief officer," applied to superior military commanders or staff officers. În Isa. xxxvi. 2 only the Rabshakeh is mentioned; in 2 Chron. xxxiii. 9 the three foreign titles are naturally displaced by the general expression, “his servants.”

And they went up and came-i.e., the Assyrian army-corps under the tartan, &c.

And when they were come up, they came. -Literally, as before, And they went up and came. This is omitted in LXX., Syriac, Vulg., and Arabic, but the phrase refers this time specially to the three principals, who came within speaking distance of the walls.

The conduit . . field.-Isa. vii. 3. The upper pool (called Gihon in 1 Kings i. 33) on the "highway of the fuller's field," i.e., the Joppa road, on the west side of the city, is different from the upper pool in the Tyropoon, which is also called "the artificial pool" (Neh. iii. 16), and "the old pool" (Isa. xxii. 11). Below this latter was a pool, dug in Hezekiah's time. called in Isa. xxii. 9 "the lower pool," and in Neh. iiì. 15 “the pool of Siloah.”

(18) And when they had called to the king. -They demanded a parley with Hezekiah himself. The