text of the holy Scriptures, there is mention made of any word coming from the mouth of God, he is there mentioned by the name Jehovah, which determines it to be the true God; and this is the only place, in the whole Hebrew Bible, where, in the use of this phrase, it is expressed otherwise, that is, by the name Elohim, and not by the name Jehovah; which change in the phrase, in this place, is a sufficient proof to me, that there must be here a change in the signification also, and that the word, which is here said to come from the mouth of Elohim, is not the same with the word which is, every where else, in the use of this phrase in Scripture, said to come from the mouth of Jehovah, but that Elohim must, in this place, signify the false gods of the Egyptians; and that from their false oracles only Necho had this word which he sent to Josiah. For what had he to do with any word from the true God, who knew him not, nor ever worshipped him? Or how could any such revelation come to him, who knew not any of his prophets, or ever consulted them? And therefore, most certainly, the word which is here said to come Mippi Elohim, i. e. from the mouth of Elohim, must be understood only of Necho's Elohim, that is, of those false Egyptian gods, whose oracles he consulted, before he undertook this expedition, as it was then usual with heathen princes, on such occasions, to consult the false deluding oracles of the gods they worshipped. And had it been here Mippi Jehovah, i. e. from the mouth of Jehovah, instead of Mippi Elohim, considering who sent the message, it would not have much mended the matter; for Josiah would have had no reason to believe it from such a messenger. When Sennacherib came up against Judah, he sent Hezekiah word, that the Lord (Jehovah in the Hebrew) said unto him; Go up against this land, and destroy it. But it was not reckoned a fault in Hezekiah, that he believed him not, neither could it be reckoned a fault in Josiah in doing the same. For, it is certain, that Sennacherib, in so pretending, lied to king Hezekiah; and, why might not Josiah then have as good reason to conclude that Ne12 Kings xviii, 25. Isa. xxxvi, 10.

1

cho, in the like pretence, might have lied also unto him? for God used not to send his word to his servants by such messengers. But Necho's pretence was not so large as Sennacherib's; for Sennacherib pretended to be sent by Jehovah, the certain name of the true God, but Necho pretended to be sent only by Elohim, which may be interpreted of his false Egyptian gods, as well as of the true God. And it seems clear he could mean none other than the former by that word in this text; and therefore Josiah could not be liable to any blame, in not hearkening to any words which came from them.

After the death of Josiah,m the people of the land took Jehoahaz, his son, who was also called Shallum, and made him king in his stead. He was much unlike his father, for he did that which was evil in the sight: of the Lord, and therefore he was soon tumbled down from his throne into a prison, where he ended his days with misery and disgrace in a strange land.

For Pharaoh-Necho," having had the good success, in this expedition, to beat the Babylonians at the Euphrates; and having thereon taken Carchemish, a great city in those parts, and secured it to himself with a good garrison, after three months returned again towards Egypt, and hearing, in his way, that Jehoahaz had taken upon him to be king of Judah, without his consent, he sent for him to Riblah in Syria, and on his arrival, caused him to be put in chains, and sent him prisoner into Egypt, where he died; and then proceeding on in his way, came to Jerusalem, where he made Jehoiakim, another of the sons of Josiah, king, instead of his brother, and put the land to an annual tribute of an a hundred talents of silver, and a talent of gold; and after that returned with great triumph into his own kingdom.

Herodotus, making mention of this expedition of

m 2 Kings xxiii, 31. 2 Chron. xxxvi, 1. n Josephus Antiq. lib. 10, c. 6.

o 2 Kings xxiii, 33. 2 Chron. xxxvi, 3, 4.

p This Jehoiakim was elder brother to Jeoahaz; for the latter was but twenty three years old when the other was twenty-five. 2 Kings xxiii, 31, 36, and yet the people, on the death of Josiah, chose Jehoahaz to succeed him.

q The whole annual tribute, as here taxed, came to 52,2001. of our money.

Necho's, and also of the battle which he fought at Megiddo (or Magdolum, as he calleth it,)" saith, that, after the victory there obtained by him, he took the great city Cadytis, which city he afterwards describes to be a mountainous city in Palestine, of the bigness of Sardis in Lydia, the chief city of all Lesser Asia in those times; by which description, this city, Cadytis, could be none other than Jerusalem; for that is situated in the mountains of Palestine, and there was then no other city in those parts which could be equalled to Sardis but that only and it is certain, from Scripture, that, after this battle, Necho did take Jerusalem, for he was there when he made Jehoiakim king. There is, I confess, no mention of this name, either in the Scriptures, or in Josephus; but that it was however called so, in the time of Herodotus, by the Syrians and Arabians, doth appear from this, that it is called by them, and all the eastern nations, by no other name but one of the same original, and the same signification, even to this day; for Jerusalem is a name now altogether as strange among them, as Cadytis is to us. They all call it by the name of Al-kuds, which signifies the same that Cadytis doth, that is, The Holy for, from the time that Solomon built the temple at Jerusalem, and it was thereby made to all Israel the common place of their religious worship, this epithet of The Holy was commonly given unto it; and therefore we find it thenceforth called, in the sacred writings of the Old Testament," Air Hakkodesh, i. e. the City of Holiness, or the Holy City, and so also in several places in the New Testament. And this same title they give it in their coins, for the inscription of their shekels (many of which are still extant) was y Jerusalem, Kedushahi, i. e. Jerusalem The Holy; and this coin going current among the neighbouring nations, especially after the Babylonish cap

r Herodotus lib. 22.

s 2 Chron. xxxvi, 3.

t Golii Notæ ad Alfraganum, p. 137. Sandy's Travels b. 3, p. 155. Baudrandi Geographia, sub voce Hierosolyma.

u Neh. xi, 1, & 18. Isa. xlviii, 2 & c. lii, 1. Dan. ix, 24.

x Matt. iv, 5, & xxvii, 53. Rev. xxi, 2.

y See Lightfoot's Works, vol. i, p. 497, & vol. ii, p. 303, and Walton's Apparatus before the Polyglot Bible, p. 36, 37.

tivity had made a dispersion of that people over all the East, it carried this name with it among them; and they from hence called this city both by names, Jerusalem Kedushah, and at length, for shortness sake, Kedushah only, and the Syrians (who in their dialect usually turned the Hebrew sh into th) Kedutha. And the Syriac, in the time of Herodotus, being the only language that was then spoken in Palestine (the Hebrew having been no more used there, or any where else, as a vulgar language, after the Babylonish captivity,) he found it, when he travelled through that country, to be called there in the Syriac dialect Kedutha, from whence, by giving it a Greek termination, he made it, in the Greek language, Kaduris, or Cadytis, in his history, which he wrote about the time that Nehemiah ended his twelve years government at Jerusalem. And, for the same reason that it was called Kedushah, or Kedutha, in Syria and Palestine, the Arabs, in their language, called it Bait Almokdes, i. e. the Holy Buildings, or the Holy City, and often, with another adjective of the same root, and the same signification, Bait Alkuds, and at length simply Alkuds, i. e. the Holy, by which name only a it is now called by the Turks, Arabs, and all other nations of the Mahometan religion in those parts. And that it may not look strange to prove an ancient name by the modern name which is now given that place, it is necessary I acquaint the reader, that the Arabs being the ancientest nation in the world (who have never been by any conquest dispossessed, or driven out of their country, but have there always remained in a continued descent from the first planters of it even to this day,) and being also as little given to make changes in their manners and usages, as they are as to their country, they have still retained those names of places which were at first given them, and on their getting the empire of the East, restored them again to many of them, after they had been for several ages extinct, by the intermediate changes that had happened in them. And thus the z Golii Notæ ad Alfraganum, p. 137.

a Sandy's Travels, b. 3, p. 155. Baudrandi Geog. sub voce Hierosolyma. b Bocharti Phaleg. part 1, lib. 4. c. 24. Golü Notæ ad Alfraganum, p. 152, 153, &c.

d

ancient metropolis of Egypt, which, from Mizraim, the son of Ham, the first planter of that country after the flood, was called Mesri, and afterwards for many ages had the name of Memphis, was, on the Arabs making themselves masters of Egypt again, called Mesri, and hath retained that name ever since, though, by the building of Cairo on the other side of the Nile over against it (for Mesri stands on the west side of that river,) that ancient and once noble city is now brought in a manner to desolation. And for the same reason the city of Tyrus, which was anciently called Zor or Zur (from whence the whole country of Syria had its name,) hath, since it fell into the hands of the Arabs, on the erecting of the empire in the East, been again called Sor, and is at this day known by no other name in those parts. And by the same means the city of Palmyra hath again recovered the old name of Tadmor, by which it was called in the time of Solomon, and is now known in the East by no other name: and abundance of other like instances might be given in the East to this purpose, and the like may be found nearer home. For it is well known that the Welsh, in their language, do still call all the cities in England by the old British names, by which they were called thirteen hundred years ago, before the Saxons dispossessed them of this country; and should they recover it again, and here get the dominion over it as formerly, no doubt they would again restore to all places here the same British names, by which they still call them.

Jehoiakim, on his taking on him the kingdom, fol

Jehoiak. 1.

lowed the example of his brotherf in doing An. 609. that which was evil; for he went on in his steps to relax all the good order and discipline of his father, as the other had done, and the ple (who never went heartily into that good king's reformation,) gladly laying hold hereof, did let themselves loose to the full bent of their own depraved

peo

c So it is called in the original Hebrew text of the Old Testament, wherever there is mention of this city therein.

d Golii Notæ ad Alfraganum, p. 130, 131. Baudrandi Geog. sub voce Tyrus. Thevenot's Travels, b. 2, c. 60, p. 220.

e 1 Kings ix, 18 2 Chron. viii, 4.

f 2 Kings xxiii, 37. 2 Chron. xxxvi, 5.