cording to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD cast out before the children of Israel. a (25) And it came to pass in the fifth year of king Rehoboam, that Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem: (26) and he took away the treasures ch. 10. 17. of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king's house; he even took away all : and he took away all the shields of gold which Solomon had made. (27) And king Rehoboam made in their stead brasen shields, and com- Heb., runners. mitted them unto the hands of the chief of the guard, which kept the door of the king's house. (28) And it was so, when the king went into the house of the LORD, that the guard bare them, not incompatible with advance in knowledge and material civilisation, history tells us but too plainly. To find them sanctioned under cover of religious ritual marks, however, a lower depth still. (25) Shishak.-His invasion is narrated at greater length in the record of Chronicles (2 Chron. xii. 2-12), which contains a description of his army, and a notice of the preservation of Jerusalem from destruction, though not from surrender, on the repentance of the people at the call of Shemaiah. It records also the taking of "fenced cities," having noticed previously the fortifications of many such "cities of defence "by Rehoboam (2 Chron. xi. 5-10). This record is remarkably confirmed by the celebrated inscription at Karnak (see Dict. of the Bible: "SHISHAK") enumerating the conquests of Sheshenk (Shishak), in which names of cities, partly in Judah, partly in Israel, are traced. The latter are Levitical or Canaanitish cities; and it has been conjectured that, much as the Pharaoh of Solomon's day took Gezer and gave it to Israel (see chap. ix. 16), so the Egyptian army, coming as allies of Jeroboam, took, or helped him to take, those cities which were hostile or disloyal to him. It is not unlikely that the whole invasion was instigated by Jeroboam, in that desire to crush the kingdom of Judah which afterwards suggested his war with Abijam. (See 2 Chron. xiii.) (26) He even took away all.-There is a touch of pathos in the description of the utter spoil of the treasures in which Solomon and Israel had gloried, and which now served only to buy off the victorious Egyptians. There is no notice of any sack of Jerusalem, nor, as in later cases, of any desecration of the Temple, or even of the plunder of its decorations. The record seems to imply surrender of the city and its treasures. The idea sometimes advanced, that, like the capture of Rome by the Gauls, the invasion of Shishak destroyed all ancient monuments and archives, has therefore no historical support from this passage; and with it many conclusions derived from it as to the dates of our Scriptural records must pass away. (27) In their stead.-The notice of this substitution is not only a curious point of accurate detail, but perhaps intended as a symbolic representation of the change which had passed upon Judah, by which only the semblance of its old glory remained, and its "fine gold had become brass." Death of Rehoboam. and brought them back into the guard chamber. (29) Now the rest of the acts of Rehoboam, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah ? (30) And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all their days. (31) And Rehoboam slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David. And his mother's name was Naamah an Ammonitess. And Abijam his son reigned in his stead. CHAPTER XV.-(1) Now in the eighteenth year of king Jeroboam the son of Nebat reigned Abijam over Judah. (2) Three years reigned he in Jerusalem. (28) When the king went.-Hence we see that Rehoboam still worshipped in the house of the Lord. If his idolatry were like that of his father, it would not have prevented this; but in 2 Chron. xii. 6-8, 12 it is implied that after the invasion he “humbled himself," and returned to the Lord. (29) The chronicles of the kings of Judah. -In 2 Chron. xii. 15 the acts of Rehoboam are said to be "written in the book of Shemaiah the prophet, and of Iddo the seer concerning genealogies." (30) There was war...-Of such war we have no record, since the day when Shemaiah forbade Rehoboam's invasion of the new kingdom; nor is there even mention of any action of Israel in aid of the Egyptian attack, although it is likely enough that such action was taken. The meaning may simply be that there was continued enmity, breaking off all peaceful relations; but in the scantiness of the record we can have no certainty that actual war did not take place, though it has found no place in the history. XV. The brief annals still continue, although with some details as to the important reign of Asa. It is evident that the attempt on the part of Israel to subjugate Judah continues, still (see 2 Chron. xiv. 9-15) aided by invasion from Egypt; it is checked by Abijah's victory (2 Chron. xiii. 3-20), but not baffled, till, by a desperate policy, the foreign power of Syria is invoked, and a serious blow inflicted on Israel. (1) Abijam.-The form of the name given in 2 Chron. xiii.," Abijah," is probably correct, as having a more distinct significance. The variation here, if not (as some think) a mere false reading, may have been made for the sake of distinction from the son of Jeroboam. (2) Maachah, the daughter of Abishalom.The Abishalom of this passage, called, in 2 Chron. xi. 20, Absalom, is in all probability the rebel son of David, whose mother (2 Sam. iii. 3) was also named Maachah. In 2 Chron. xi. 21, 22, it seems that of all the wives (“eighteen wives and threescore concubines") whom Rehoboam, following the evil traditions of his father, took, she was the favourite, and that even in his lifetime Rehoboam exalted Abijam "to be ruler among his brethren." In 2 Chron. xiii. 2 she is called Michaiah, a 2 Chron. 11. 22 B.C. 958. b 2 Sam. 11. 4, & Asa Reigns. kings of Judah? And there was war between Abijam and Jeroboam. (8) And Abijam slept with his fathers; and they buried him in the city of David: and Asa his son reigned in his stead. "And his mother's name was Maachah, the daughter of Abishalom. (3) And he walked in all the sins of his father, which he had done before him: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as the heart of David his 1 or, candle. father. (4) Nevertheless for David's sake did the LORD his God give him a 1lamp in Jerusalem, to set up his son after him, and to establish Jerusalem: (5) because David did that which was right in the eyes of the LORD, and turned not aside from any thing that he commanded him all the days of his life, 'save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite. (6) And there was war between Reho-2 That is, grand that his fathers had made. (13) And also boam and Jeroboam all the days of his life. e 2 Chron. 13. 3. d 2 Chron. 14. 1. mother's. and said to be the daughter of "Uriel of Gibeah." This shows that, as indeed chronological considerations would suggest, she must have been the granddaughter of Absalom. She is mentioned below (verse 13) as prominent in the evil propensity to idolatry. (3) Walked in all the sins of his father.This adoption of the idolatries of Rehoboam did not prevent Abijam (see 2 Chron. xiii. 4—12) from representing himself as the champion of the Temple and the priesthood against the rival worship of Jeroboam, and dedicating treasures-perhaps the spoils of his victory -in the house of the Lord. From the qualified phrase "his heart was not perfect before God," however, it may be inferred that, like Solomon and Rehoboam, he professed to worship Jehovah only as the supreme God of his Pantheon; and it is a curious irony of circumstance that he should be recorded as inveighing against the degradation of His worship in Israel, while he himself countenanced or connived at the worse sin of the worship of rival gods in Judah. (4) Give him a lamp in Jerusalem.-There is here a brief allusion to the victory recorded in the Chronicles, which obviously was the turning-point in the struggle, saving the "lamp" of the house of David from extinction, and "establishing" Jerusalem in security. "For David's sake” is, of course, for the fulfil ment of the promise to David (2 Sam. vii. 12-16). In virtue of the continuity of human history, the Divine law always ordains that, in respect of consequences, the good deeds as well as the sins of fathers are visited on their children." 66 (5) Save only in the matter of Uriah.— In this passage alone do we find this qualification of the praise of David. In the Vatican MS. and other MSS. of the LXX. it is omitted. Possibly it is a marginal note which has crept into the text, or a comment of the compiler of the book on the language of the annals from which he drew. (6) And there was war.-In this verse (omitted in the Vatican MS. of the LXX.) the repetition of the notice of Rehoboam, in spite of some artificial explanations, seems inexplicable. Probably there is error in the text. (9) And in the twentieth year of Jeroboam king of Israel reigned Asa over Judah. (10) And forty and one years reigned he in Jerusalem. And his 2 mother's name was Maachah, the daughter of Abishalom. (11) And Asa did that which was right in the eyes of the LORD, as did David his father. (12) And he took away the sodomites out of the land, and removed all the idols Maachah his mother, even her he removed from being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove; and Asa 3 destroyed her idol, and burnt it by the brook Kidron. (14) But the high places (10) His mother's name was Maachah. Maachah was (see verse 2) the wife of Rehoboam, and, therefore, grandmother of Asa. She appears, however, still to have retained the place of "queen-mother," to the exclusion of the real mother of the king. (11) Asa did that which was right.-This reign -happily, a long one-was a turning-point in the history of Judah. Freed from immediate pressure by the victory of Abijah over Jeroboam, Asa resolved-perhaps under the guidance of the prophets Azariah and Hanani (2 Chron. xv. 1, xvi. 7)-to renew the true strength of his kingdom by restoring the worship and trusting in the blessings of the true God, extirpating by repeated efforts the false worships introduced by Rehoboam and continued by Abijah, and solemnly renewing the covenant with the Lord, in the name of the people, and of the strangers from Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon, who joined them. Of all this the text here gives but brief notice: the record in the Chronicles (2 Chron. xiv., xv.) contains a detailed account. the same record we find that he fortified his cities and strengthened his army, and that he was able to repel with great slaughter a formidable invasion from Egypt, under "Zerah the Ethiopian," in his fifteenth year. 66 From (13) An idol in a grove.-The original word for idol"-peculiar to this passage and its parallel (2 Chron. xv. 16)-appears to signify a "horrible abomination" of some monstrous kind; and instead of "in a grove," we should read "for an asherah," the wooden emblem of the Canaanitish deity (on which see chap. xiv. 22). There seems little doubt that some obscene emblem is meant, of the kind so often connected with worship of the productive powers of nature in ancient religions, substituted as a still greater abomination for the ordinary asherah. Clearly the act of Maachah was one of so flagrant a kind, that Asa took the unusual step, on which the historian here lays great stress, of degrading her in her old age from her high dignity, besides hewing down her idol, and burning it publicly under the walls of Jerusalem. (14) But the high places were not removed.— The record of the Chronicles-contrasting 2 Chron. xiv. 5 with xv. 17—indicates with tolerable plainness an were not removed: nevertheless Asa's (16) And there was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days. (17) And Baasha king of Israel went up against Judah, and built Ramah, that he might not suffer any to go out or come in to Asa king of Judah. a 2 Chron. 16. 2. (18) Then Asa took all the silver and 2 Heb., go up. the gold that were left in the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king's house, and delivered attempt at this reform on Asa's part, which was not carried out successfully. In spite of all experience of the corruptions inevitably resulting from them, the craving for local and visible sanctuaries, natural at all times, and especially in generations which had been degraded by gross idolatry, proved too strong for even earnest reformers. The historian, writing under the light of later experience, dwells on this imperfection of religious reform again and again. (15) Which his father had dedicated.-These seem to be the spoils of his own victory over the Egyptian army and Abijah's victory over Jeroboam. They replenished for a time the treasury, swept bare in the reign of Rehoboam by the host of Shishak. (16) There was war. -According to verse 33, Baasha reigned from the third to the twenty-seventh year of Asa. The phrase, here repeated from chaps. xiv. 30, xv. 67, appears simply to mean that the old hostile relations remained, combined with, perhaps, some border war; for it is expressly said in 2 Chron. xiv. 16, that Asa's first ten years were peaceful, and the open war with Israel did not break out till after the victory over Zerah, in his fifteenth year. (17) Built Ramah.-Ramah, or properly, the Ramah-the word signifying only "elevation "-is mentioned in Josh. xviii. 25 as a city of Benjamin, situated (see Jos. Ant. viii. 12, 3) about five miles north of Jerusalem. It is mentioned in Judges iv. 5, xix. 13; Isa. x. 29; Jer. xl. 1, and is identified with the village known as Er-Ram at the present day. This fortification of Ramah close to the hostile capital like the fortification of Decelea, near Athens, in the Peloponnesian war-was a standing menace to Judah. Baasha, who was a military chief, seems to have been warned by the ill-success of former attempts to invade and subjugate Judah, and to have used this easier means of keeping the enemy in check, and provoking a conflict-if à conflict there was to be-on his own ground. The text, however, implies a further design to blockade the road between the kingdoms, perhaps explained by the statement, in 2 Chron. xv. 9, 10, of the falling away of many from Israel to Asa, now in the height of his prosperity. The new fortress was, no doubt, supported by all the military force of Israel, which Asa, in spite of his increased strength, dared not attack. (18) Sent them to Ben-hadad.-This shows that Syria, recovering its independence at the fall of Solo and Baasha. them into the hand of his servants: and king Asa sent them to "Ben-hadad, the son of Tabrimon, the son of Hezion, king of Syria, that dwelt at Damascus, saying, (19) There is a league between me and thee, and between my father and thy father: behold, I have sent unto thee a present of silver and gold; come and break thy league with Baasha king of Israel, that he may depart from me. (20) So Ben-hadad hearkened unto king Asa, and sent the captains of the hosts which he had against the cities of Israel, and smote Ijon, and Dan, and Abel-beth-maachah, and all Cinneroth, with all the land of Naphtali. (21) And it came to pass, when Baasha heard there mon's empire, was already attaining the formidable power, which so soon threatened to destroy Israel altogether. The Ben-hadad of the text is the grandson of Hezion, who must be the Rezon of chap. xi. 23. Already, as we gather from the next verse, there had been leagues between Syria and Judah in the preceding reign. Now it is clear that Baasha had attempted to supersede these by a closer league-possibly, like Pekah in later times (2 Kings xvi. 5, 6), desiring to strengthen and secure himself against invasion by the subjugation of Judah. Asa naturally resolved to bribe Ben-hadad by presents to prefer the old tie to the new; but he went beyond this, and proposed a combined attack on Israel, for the first time calling in a heathen power against his "brethren, the children of Israel." It was an expedient which, though it succeeded for its immediate purpose, yet both as a desperate policy and an unfaithfulness to the brotherhood, which, in spite of separation and corruption, still bound the two kingdoms in the covenant of God with Abraham, deserved and received prophetic rebuke. (See 2 Chron. xvi. 7-9.) Just so Isaiah, in the days of Ahaz and Hezekiah, denounced the vain trust in confederacies with the neighbouring nations and alliance with Egypt (Isa. xxx. 1—17). (20) Smote.-The portion smitten now, as hereafter in the Assyrian invasion (2 Kings xv. 29), is the mountain country near the source of the Jordan, which lay most exposed to the great approach to Israel from the north by "the entering in of Hamath," through the wide valley between Lebanon and Ante-Lebanon, called by the Greeks Cale-Syria. Ijon is only mentioned in these two passages as belonging to the territory of Naphtali. It is supposed to have stood not far from Dan, close to the nearer, but fuller, source of the Jordan, in a position of great natural beauty and some strength, identified with the modern Tel-Dibbin. Abel-beth-Maachah (see 2 Sam. xx. 14, 15) ("the meadow of the house of Maachah "), or (2 Chron. xvi. 4) Abel-maim ("the meadow upon the waters"), lay probably in the marshy ground north of the water of Merom. Cinneroth or Chinneroth, is the name afterwards corrupted into Gennesareth, signifying evidently a region in the neighbourhood of the lake. (21) Dwelt in Tirzah-that is, returned to his own capital in the first instance, of course, retiring to meet of, that he left off building of Ramah, and dwelt in Tirzah. (22) Then king Asa made a proclamation throughout all Judah; none was 1exempted: and they took away the stones of Ramah, and the timber thereof, wherewith Baasha had builded; and king Asa built with them Geba of Benjamin, and Mizpah. (23) The rest of all the acts of Asa, and all his might, and all that he did, and the cities which he built, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? Nevertheless in the time of his old age he was diseased in his feet. (24) And Asa slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David his father and "Jehoshaphat his son reigned in his stead. : 1 Heb., free. Baasha kills Nadab. (27) And Baasha the son of Ahijah, of the house of Issachar, conspired against him; and Baasha smote him at Gibbethon, which belonged to the Philistines; for Nadab and all Israel laid siege to Gibbethon. (28) Even in the third year of Asa king of Judah did Baasha slay him, and reigned in his stead. (29) And it came to pass, when he reigned, that he smote all the house of Jeroboam; he left not to Jeroboam any that breathed, a Matts called until he had destroyed him, according unto 'the saying of the LORD, which he spake by his servant Ahijah the Shilonite: (30) because of the sins of Jeroboam which he sinned, and which he made Israel sin, by his provocation wherewith he provoked the LORD God of Israel to anger. Josaphat. 2 Heb., reigned. (25) And Nadab the son of Jeroboam *began to reign over Israel in the second year of Asa king of Judah, and reigned ch. 14. 10. over Israel two years. (26) And he did evil in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the way of his father, and in his sin wherewith he made Israel to sin. the new enemy in the north, and then obliged to give up his attempt against Asa. From chap. xx. 34, it seems as if, till the time of Ahab, Syria retained its conquests and a certain supremacy over Israel. Baasha may have had to buy peace by undertaking to leave unmolested Judah, which might be considered a tributary of Syria. (22) Throughout all Judah.-Asa was not content to destroy or occupy the hostile fortress, but pushed his own fortifications further on. Geba, named in Josh. xxi. 17 as a city of the priests, in the territory of Benjamin, the scene of Jonathan's victory over a Philistine garrison in the days of Samuel (1 Sam. xiii. 3)-identified with the modern Jeba-lies on the edge of a valley some distance to the north. It is noted in 2 Kings xxiii. 8 as still the northern outpost of the kingdom of Judah. The Mizpah here referred to-for there were many places so called-a city of Benjamin (Josh. xviii. 26), famous in the earlier history (see 1 Sam. vii. 5-13, x. 17-25), seems to have been situated at the place afterwards called Scopim ("the watchtower"), on "the broad ridge which forms the continuation of the Mount of Olives to the north and east, from which the traveller gains his first view" of Jerusalem (Dict. of the Bible: MIZPAH). (23) All his might. This phrase, not used of Rehoboam or Abijah, is significant, indicating the increased power of Judah under Asa. (31) Now the rest of the acts of Nadab, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? (32) And there was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days. (33) In the third year of Asa king of Judah began Baasha the son of Ahijah the Lord, but to the physicians" (2 Chron. xvi. 7—12); and from the same records it appears that in his last days Asa ventured to defy the prophetic authority by the imprisonment of Hanani the seer. Prosperity, it is implied, had somewhat deteriorated his character, though he still continued faithful to the worship of God. Certainly, Jehoshaphat on his accession still found much to do for the religious condition of his people. (26) Did evil in the sight of the Lord. This constantly-recurring phrase signifies (as, indeed, the context here shows) perseverance in the idolatrous system introduced by Jeroboam. (27) Baasha, sprung from an obscure tribe, hardly at any time distinguished in the history, and himself, as it would seem (chap. xvi. 2), of low origin in it, is the first of the many military chiefs who by violence or assassination seized upon the throne of Israel. The constant succession of ephemeral dynasties stands in striking contrast with the unchanged royalty of the house of David, resting on the promise of God. Gibbethon-a Levitical town in the territory of Dan (Josh. xix. 44, xxi. 23), probably, like other places in that region, still held by the Philistines till their subjugation by David. The text here implies a revolt of the Philistines against the enfeebled power of Israel, and the occupation of Gibbethon, commanding a pass from the plain of Sharon to the interior. The siege must have been fruitless, at least of any permanent result; for twenty-six years after we find Gibbethon still in the hands of the enemy. (See chap. xvi. 15.) (29) According unto the saying of the Lord. -See chap. xiv. 10-14. There seems no reason to suppose that Baasha had any formal mission of vengeance, or that his conspiracy and assassination were due to any motive but his own ambition. The contrary, to reign over all Israel in Tirzah, a ch. 15. 29. b ch. 14. 11. CHAPTER XVI.-(1) Then the word of the LORD came to Jehu the son of Hanani against Baasha, saying, (2) Forasmuch as I exalted thee out of the dust, and made thee prince over my peo- c 2 Chron. 16. 1. ple Israel; and thou hast walked in the way of Jeroboam, and hast made my people Israel to sin, to provoke me to anger with their sins; (3) behold, I will take away the posterity of Baasha, and the posterity of his house; and will make thy house like "the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat. (4) Him that dieth of Baasha in the city shall the dogs eat; and him that dieth of his in the fields shall the fowls of the air eat. over. B.C. cir. 930. Elah succeeds Baasha. of his hands, in being like the house of Jeroboam; and because he killed him. (8) In the twenty and sixth year of Asa king of Judah began Elah the son of Baasha to reign over Israel in Tirzah, two years. (9) And his servant Zimri, captain of half his chariots, conspired against him, as he was in Tirzah, drinking himself drunk in the house of Arza steward of his house in Tirzah. (10) And Zimri went in and smote him, and killed him, in the twenty and seventh year of Asa king of Judah, and reigned in his stead. (11) And it came to pass, when he began to reign, as soon as he sat on his throne, that he slew all the house of Baasha: he left him not one that pisseth against a wall, neither of his kinsfolks, nor of his friends. (12) Thus did Zimri destroy all the house of Baasha, according to the word of the LORD, (5) Now the rest of the acts of Baasha, H., which was which he spake against Baasha 3by Jehu and what he did, and his might, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? (6) So Baasha slept with his fathers, and was buried in Tirzah: and Elah his son reigned in his stead. And also by the hand of the prophet Jehu the son of Hanani came the word of the LORD against Baasha, and against his house, even for all the evil that he did in the sight of the LORD, in the prophet, (13) for all the sins of Baasha, and the sins of Elah his son, by which they sinned, and by which they made Israel to sin, in provoking the LORD God of Israel to anger with their his vanities. 2 Or, both his kins- (14) Now the rest of the acts of Elah, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? (15) In the twenty and seventh year of provoking him to anger with the work 3b, by the hand Asa king of Judah did Zimri reign seven of. indeed, may be inferred from the declaration of chap. xvi. 7, that the judgment on Baasha was in part "because he killed" Nadab and his house. Sin which works out God's purpose is not the less truly sin. Of Baasha we know nothing, except his attempt on the independence of Judah, and its failure (verses 16-22). XVI. The brief record continues of the troubled times of civil war and foreign danger in Israel, to which, perhaps, the tranquillity of Judah under Asa was partly due. (1) Jehu the son of Hanani probably of Hanani the seer of Judah in the reign of Asa (2 Chron. xv. 7). Jehu must have been now young, for we find him rebuking Jehoshaphat after the death of Ahab, and writing the annals of Jehoshaphat's reign (2 Chron. xix. 2, xx. 34). (2) Forasmuch as I exalted thee .-The prophecy-closely resembling that of Ahijah against Jeroboam-clearly shows that Baasha had a probation, which he neglected; and it seems to be implied in verse 7 that his guilt was enhanced by perseverance in the very sins for which, by his hand, so terrible a vengeance had been inflicted. (7) And also.-This second reference to the prophecy of Jehu seems to be a note of the historian-perhaps added chiefly for the sake of the last clause, which shows that Baasha's act, though foretold, was not thereby justified. (9) Drinking himself drunk.-There seems an emphasis of half-contemptuous condemnation in the description of Elah's debauchery, evidently public, and in the house of a mere officer of his household, while war was raging at Gibbethon. On the other hand, Zimri--noted emphatically as "his servant "-was apparently the high officer left in special charge of the palace and the king's person, while the mass of the army was in the field. Hence his name passed into a proverb for unusual treachery. (See 2 Kings ix. 31.) (13) Vanities that is, idols (as in Deut. xxxii. 21; 1 Sam. xii. 21; Ps. xxxi. 6; Isa. xli. 29; Jer. viii. 19; &c.): not only the idols of Dan and Bethel, but the worse abominations which grew up under cover of these. In the Old Testament generally the contempt for idolatry and false worship as a gross folly, wasting faith on unrealities, is at least as strong as the condemnation of them, as outraging God's law, and connected with sensual or bloody rites. (See, for example, the utter scorn of Isa. xliv. 9-20; Ps. cxv. 4-8.) |