and therefore, carrying on the compliment towards him as if he had really been that friend and protector, which he pretended to be as soon as he heard that he was returned to Damascus, he went thither to him, to pay him that respect and obeisance, which, after having owned him as his protector and sovereign, he did now, as his client and tributary, owe unto him. While he was at Damascus on this occasion, he saw there an idolatrous altar, of a form which he was much pleased with; whereupon, causing a pattern of it to be taken, he sent it to Urijah, the high-priest, at Jerusalem, to have another there made like unto it; and, on his return, having removed the altar of the Lord out of its place in the temple, ordered this new altar to be set up in its stead; and thenceforth giving himself wholly up to idolatry, instead of the God of Israel, he worshipped the gods of the Syrians, and the gods of the other nations round him, saying, that they helped their people, and that therefore he would worship them, that they might help him also. And accordingly, having filled Jerusalem and all Judea with their idols and their altars, he would suffer no other god, but them only, to be worshipped in the land; whereby, having excluded the only true God, the Lord his Creator, whom alone he ought to have adored, he caused his temple to be shut up, and utterly suppressed his worship throughout all his kingdom. And this he did with an air and profession of anger and defiance, for that he had not delivered him in his distress, when the Syrians and Israelites came against him, as if it were in his power to revenge himself upon the Almighty, and execute his wrath upon him that made him; to such an extravagant height of folly and madness had his impiety carried him beyond all that had reigned before him in Jerusalem: and in this he continued, till at length he perished in it, being cut off in the flower of his age, before he had outlived half his days. Tiglath-Pileser, on his return into Assyria, carried with him great numbers of the people, whom he had taken captive in the kingdom of Damascus, and in the h 2 Kings xvi, 10—16. i 2 Kings xvi. 2 Chron. xxviii, 22-25. g2 Kings xvi, 10. land of Israel. Those of Damascus he planted in Kir, and those of Israel in Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and on the river Gozan in the land of the Medes. Kir was a city in the hither part of Media; but Halah, Habor, Hara, and the river Gozan, were farther remote. And herein was accomplished the prophecy of the prophet Amos m against Israel, wherein he foretold, in the days of Uzziah, the grandfather of Ahaz, that God would cause them to go into captivity beyond Damascus, that is, unto places beyond where those of Damascus should be carried. St. Stephen," quoting this prophecy, renders it beyond Babylon. So the common editions of the Greek Testament have it, and it is certainly true; for what was beyond Kir was also beyond Babylon, for Kir was beyond Babylon: but Wicelius' edition hath Damascus in St. Stephen's speech also, and, no doubt, he had ancient copies which he followed herein. The planting of the colonies by Tiglath-Pileser, in those cities of the Medes plainly proves Media to have been then under the king of Assyria: for, otherwise, what had he to do to plant colonies in that country: and therefore Tiglath-Pileser and Arbaces were not two distinct kings, whereof one had Media, and the other Assyria, asp archbishop Usher supposeth, but must both be the same person expressed under these two distinct names. And Diodorus Siculus positively tells us, that Arbaces had Assyria, as well as Media, for his share in the partition of the former empire; and therefore there is no room for a Tiglath-Pileser, or a Ninus junior, distinct from him, to reign in Assyria during his time, but it must necessarily be one and the same person, that was signified by all these different names. Pekah, by this conquest which the Assyrians made upon him, being stript of so large a part of his kingdom, was hereby brought lower than he had afore brought king Ahaz. For he had now scarce any thing k 2 Kings xvi, 9. m Amos v, 26, 27. 1 1 Chron. v, 26. n Acts vii, 43. o See Dr. Mill's Greek Testament, Acts vii, 43. ? Annales Veteris Testamenti sub anno Mundi 3257. q Lib. 2. left, but the city of Samaria, and the territories of the tribe of Ephraim, and the half tribe of Manasseh only; which bringing him into contempt with his people, as well as raising their indignation against him (as is commonly the case of unfortunate princes) Hoshea, the son of Elah, rose up against him, and slew him, after he had reigned in Samaria twenty years; and hereby was fully accomplished that prophecy of Isaiahs concerning him, which is above related. After this the elders of the land seem to have taken the government into their hands; for Hoshea had not the kingdom till nine years after, that is, towards the end of the twelfth year of Ahaz. An. 629. In the fourteenth year of Ahaz died Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, after he had reigned nineteen years; and Salmaneser, his son, (who in "Tobit is called Enemesser, and in ▾ Hosea, Shalmon,) reigned in his stead. And, as soon as he was settled in the throne, he came into Syria and Palestine, and there subjected Samaria to his dominion, making Hoshea, the king thereof, to become his vassal, and pay tribute unto him. In this expedition, among other prey which he took and carried away with him, w was the golden calf, which Jeroboam had set up in Bethel, and had been there, ever since his time, worshipped by the ten tribes of Israel, that had revolted with him from the house of David. The other golden calf, which was at the same time set up by him in Dan, had been taken thence, about ten years before by Tiglath-Pileser, in the invasion which he then made upon Galilee, in which province that city stood. And therefore the apostate Israelites, being now deprived of the idols which they had so long worshipped, began again to return to the Lord their God, and to go up to Jerusalem there to worship before him; and Hoshea encouraged them herein. For whereas y the kings of Israel had hitherto maintained guards upon the frontiers to hinder all under their subjection from going up to Jerusalem to worship there, Hoshea took away those guards, and gave free liberty to all to worship the Lord their God according to his laws, in that place, which he had chosen; and therefore when Hezekiah invited all Israel, that is, all those of the ten revolted tribes, as well as the other two, to come up to his passover, Hoshea hindered them not, but permitted all that would to go up thereto. And when those of his subjects, who were at that festival, did, on their return, out of their zeal for the true worship of their God, a break in pieces the images, cut down the groves, demolish the high places, and absolutely destroyed all other monuments of idolatry throughout the whole kingdom of Samaria, as will be hereafter related, Hoshea forbade them not, but in all likelihood gave his consent to it, and concurred with them herein. For he being king, without his encouraging it, and giving his authority for it, it could not have been done. And therefore he hath, as to religion, the best character given him in Scripture of all that reigned before him over Israel from the division of the kingdom. For although he were not perfect in the true worship of God, and therefore it is said of him, that "he did evil in the sight of the Lord," yet it is subjoined, in the next words, "but not so as the kings of Israel which were before him." By which it appears, that his ways were less offensive to God, than were the ways of any of those that had reigned before him in that kingdom. However, still he was far from being perfectly righteous, which this alone sufficiently proves, that he treacherously slew his master to reign in his stead. C 16. Hezek. 1. Ahaz, in the sixteenth year of his reign, being smitten of God for his iniquities, died in the thirty-sixth year of his age, and was buried An. 727. Ahaz in the city of David, but not with a royal burial, in the sepulchres of the kings. For, from this honour he was excluded, because of his wicked reign, as were Jehoram and Joash before him, and Manasseh and Ammon after him, for the same reason; it being z 2 Chron. Xxx, 10, 18. b 2 Chron. xxvii, 2. a 2 Chron. xxxi, 1. c 2 Kings xvi, 20. 2 Chron. xxviii, 27. the usage of the Jews to lay this mark of infamy upon those that reigned wickedly over them. After Ahaz, reignedd Hezekiah his son, a very worthy and religious prince. He had, in the last year of his father's reign, been admitted a partner with him in the kingdom, while he was languishing (as it may be supposed) under the sickness of which he died. However, as long as his father lived he could make no alteration in that evil course of affairs, which he had put both church and state into. But, as soon as he was dead, and Hezekiah had the whole power in his hands, he immediately set himself with all his might to work a thorough reformation on both. Hezek. 2. The first thing which he did, was, to open An. 726. the house of God, which his father had impiously shut up, and restore the true worship therein; in order whereto he called the priests and Levites together, out of all parts of the land, to attend their duty in the temple, ordering them to remove his father's new altar, and to restore the altar of the Lord to its place again, and purge the temple of all other pollutions, with which it had been profaned, during the reign of his father. But it not being, till the end of the former year, that Ahaz died, the beginning of the first month of the ensuing year, (which is called Nisan, and corresponds partly with March, and partly with April, in our calendar,) was the soonest that they could be employed in this work; so that it not being completed till the sixteenth day of that month, the passover could not be kept that year in its regular time, which ought to have been begun on the fourteenth day of the said month of Nisan. However, the house of the Lord being now sanctified, and made fit for the service of God, Hezekiah went up thither on the seventeenth day of that month, with the rulers and great men of his kingdom, where, the people being gathered together, he offered sin-offerings for the kingdom, and the sanctuary, and for Judah, to make atonement to God for them, and for all Israel; and after that he offered peace-offerings, and in all other particulars restored the service of God in d 2 Kings xviii. 2 Chron. xxix. |