§ 93. Ahab in Israel.

1. 1 Kings 20.-Ben-hadad II., king of Syria, warred against Ahab, but, agreeably to the announcement of a certain prophet, the 232 young men of the princes of the provinces put to flight both the drunken Syrian and his 32 carousing allies. The next year Ben-hadad returned, believing that Jehovah was a God of the hills, and not of the valleys also; he is defeated in the valley or plain of Jezreel, and taken prisoner. The weak king of Israel, in place of slaying him, calls him Brother; a prophet, who had caused himself to be smitten and wounded, pronounces Ahab's sentence: "Thy life shall go for his life."

2. 1 Kings 21-22: 40.-The Jezreelite, Naboth, in accordance with Num. 36: 7, refused to sell his vineyard to Ahab. Jezebel discovers a method of comforting the king, whom this refusal had made discontented and sullen. She instigates the elders of Jezreel to procure false witnesses against Naboth; the unfortunate man is accused of the crime of blaspheming God and the king, and is stoned, so that he dies. Elijah is commanded by the Lord to announce to Ahab that, as a retribution, the dogs should lick his blood in the place where they had licked the blood of Naboth, that his whole house should be utterly destroyed, like the house of Jeroboam, and that the dogs should eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel. Ahab repented; it was not deep sorrow and penitence of heart which he manifested; nevertheless, as he did humble himself before the Lord, it was announced that the ruin of his house should be deferred until the days of his son.-After these things, Ahab made an alliance with Jehoshaphat, the devout king of Judah, for the purpose of recovering Ramoth in Gilead, which the faithless Ben-hadad had not restored. Both kings allow themselves to be led astray by the 400 prophets of Ahab, through whom a lying spirit speaks, although the true prophet, Micaiah, admonishes them to abandon the enterprise. Ahab disguises himself on entering into the battle; he is wounded by a man who draws a bow at a venture, and dies at even; and when the chariot which his blood had stained, is washed in the pool of Samaria, the dogs lick up his blood.

§ 94. Jehoshaphat in Judah.-Ahaziah and Jehoram in Israel. -Elijah is taken up into Heaven.

1. 1 Kings 22: 41, &c. (2 Chron. 17-21.)—Jehoshaphat, a devout son of a devout father (king Asa), was abundantly blessed of the Lord, for he took away the high places and groves (the worship of nature), sent Levites and priests with the book of the Law throughout the kingdom, journeyed among the people himself for the purpose of inspecting their religious state, and established judges in all the cities. He endeavored to heal, as far as his influence extended, the "affliction of Joseph" (Amos 6 : 6), that is, the sore evils which originated in the division of the kingdom, and the hostile feelings entertained by Judah and Israel. But while he labored to unite the interests of the two kingdoms, he seems to have forgotten that no union can enjoy a blessing and be permanent, unless the Lord is also associated with it. Now, the curse of God lay upon the house of Ahab, and hence a union with it could result in nothing but evil to the devout king. He nearly lost his life in the expedition to Ramoth, for the enemy supposed him to be the king of Israel. He united with Ahaziah, Ahab's son and successor, in constructing ships designed to make a voyage to Tarshish, but the Lord destroyed all the works. The most serious misfortune, however, among all the fruits of this unwise union, was the marriage of his son Jehoram with Athaliah, Jezebel's daughter.

OBS.—The following table exhibits the relationship between the two royal families:

2. 2 Kings ch. 1.- Ahab was succeeded by his son Ahaziah, who inquired concerning his sickness, not of Jehovah, but of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, a city of the Philistines. Elijah meets the messengers of the king, and says to them: "Is it not

because there is not a God in Israel, that ye go to inquire of Baal-zebub the god of Ekron? Now therefore thus saith the Lord, Thou shalt not come down from that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die." The messengers do not know the man, but Ahaziah recognizes the hairy man who is girt with a girdle of leather about his loins. He commands him to be apprehended. Two captains with their companies of fifty men, who attempt to take the "man of God," as they themselves call him, are consumed by fire from heaven. Elijah voluntarily follows the third captain, who approaches him in deep humility, and he personally announces to the king that he shall surely die. Ahaziah is succeeded by his brother Jehoram.

OBS. 1.- Baal-zebub signifies "the fly-baal" or "god of flies;" he is the guardian deity who was supposed to afford protection from the swarms of flies which, in oriental countries, assume the character of a very serious evil. The Greeks also had their Zevs àñóμvios, viaypos. The later Jews transferred the name to Satan: Beelzebub, by a slight change, took the form of Belsebul (that is, dominus stercoris).

OBS. 2.-Elijah could consistently command fire to come down from heaven and consume those who dishonored and despised in him the prophet and servant of God. But when the disciples of Jesus, in a similar case (Luke 9: 54-56, and § 131. 3, OBS.), desired to imitate that example, the Lord restrained them, and said: "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of." Elijah here acted as the representative of the Law, which showed no indulgence, but the disciples of Christ were the representatives of the Gospel which proclaims the remission of sins. The old covenant necessarily alarmed and subdued the enemies of the kingdom of God by minatory language and punitive measures, while the new covenant designed to disarm and, if possible, to win them by forgiving love.

3. 2 Kings 2. — Elijah proceeded to Jericho, accompanied by Elisha, who anticipated the events which soon occurred, and refused to leave him. The prophet's mantle opens a passage across the bed of the Jordan. Elisha says to his departing master: "I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me. (The first-born son was entitled to a double portion of the paternal estate (Deut. 21:17).—Elisha alludes to this provision of the

Law, when he prays that, as the first-born spiritual son of Elijah,

he may inherit a double portion of his spirit.) A chariot of fire and horses of fire appear, and Elijah goes up by a whirlwind into heaven; Elisha calls to him, as he ascends: "My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof!" The sons of the prophets in Jericho extort from Elisha permission to send forth fifty men in search of Elijah, supposing him to have been removed by the Spirit of the Lord to another place on earth; the search is made in vain, as Elisha had predicted.

OBS.-Elijah was a second Moses; Moses founded the theocracy, Elijah renewed it, and both appear at the same time, on the mount of transfiguration, to Him who completed it (Matt. 17:3, and 145. OBS.). As an earnest preacher of repentance, Elijah was a type of John the Baptist (Luke 1: 17; Matt. 11 : 14).

§ 95. The labors of Elisha.

1. 2 Kings 2-6.—Elisha's prayer was heard. His master's mantle again divides the waters of Jordan. In Jericho he makes the waters of a bitter spring sweet, by casting salt into it. In the neighborhood of the idolatrous city of Bethel, 42 children mock him, and say: "Go up, thou bald-head;" their derisive allusion to Elijah's ascension to heaven is punished by two bears which tear them in pieces. Jehoram, the new king of Israel, did not altogether resist the influence of the prophet; nevertheless, he cleaved unto the sins of Jeroboam. He made an alliance with Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom against the revolted Moabites. For Jehoshaphat's sake, Elisha furnishes the kings with water in the barren region which they occupy. On the next morning, when the Moabites saw the reflected light of the rising sun as it shone upon the standing water, they supposed, in their delusion and madness, that the water was blood, and inferred that a rupture and a bloody contest had occurred in the camp of the allied kings. The false security to which this supposition led, occasioned their total defeat. Elisha appears, on many occasions, as a second Elijah. He relieves a prophet's widow from debt, by the miracle of the pot of oil; he informs the hospitable Shunammite that she shall receive a son, and, subsequently, restores

the deceased child to life. During a dearth in the land, he enables the sons of the prophets to eat the gourds of the colocynth by adding meal to the pottage, and with only twenty loaves of barley, he feeds a large number of people. He heals Naaman, the leper, Ben-hadad's general, and transfers his leprosy, as a punishment, to his own deceitful servant Gehazi. By another miracle he recovers for one of the sons of the prophets the borrowed axe-head which had fallen into the Jordan.

2. 2 Kings 6: 8-ch. 7. Elisha reveals to Jehoram the secret counsels of Ben-hadad II.; the latter sends an army to Dothan, for the purpose of seizing the prophet. Elisha encourages his alarmed servant, and says: "Fear not for they that be with us are more than they that be with them." The Lord answers his prayer, and opens the eyes of the young man, who now sees that the mountain is full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. The prophet's prayer smites his enemies with blindness; then he leads them himself to Samaria, heals, protects, feeds and dismisses them. Soon afterwards, Ben-hadad besieged Samaria, and the pressure of the famine in the city was so great, that a certain woman slew her own son and ate of the flesh. This circumstance so powerfully wrought upon the feelings of the king, that, yielding to their impulse, he took an oath that he would slay Elisha, whom he regarded as the original cause of the siege. But he immediately perceived the rashness of his resolution, and at once followed the messenger who had already departed for the purpose of seizing the prophet. The latter now informs the king that on the next day already the price of articles of food would be so low as to be unprecedented. The courtier, on whose hand the king was leaning, was incredulous, and said: "Behold, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, might this thing be?" The peophet answered: "Thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof. During the following night, the Syrians were alarmed by a noise of chariots, horses and a great host, and, supposing that a vast army of Egyptians and others had arrived for the purpose of relieving the city, they hastily fled, leaving all that they possessed behind. Four lepers bring the tidings to the city, that the camp of the enemy is deserted. The immense booty found in the abandoned tents caused