PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Expositor's Bible: The First Book of Kings
Farrar, F. W. (Frederic William) · 144,384 words · 209 reading sections
Chapter Xxvi.
In choosing Dan and Bethel as the seats for his new altars, the king was not actuated by purely arbitrary considerations. They were ancient and venerated shrines of pilgrimage and worship (Judg. xviii. 30, xx. 18, 26; 1 Sam. x. 3). He did not create any sacredness which was not already attached to them in the popular i…
855 wordsSECTION 122Chapter Xxvi.
And yet he sinned, and yet he made Israel to sin. It is true that he did not sin against the full extent of the light and knowledge vouchsafed to men in later days. The sin of which he was guilty was the sin of worldly policy. With professions of religion on his lips he pandered to the rude and sensuous instinct which …
700 wordsSECTION 123Footnotes:
This view of Dean Stanley is confirmed by another wise teacher, Professor F. D. Maurice. Jeroboam, he says, "did not trust the Living God. He thought, not that his kingdom stood upon a Divine _foundation_, but that it was to be upheld by certain Divine props and _sanctions_. The two doctrines seem closely akin. Many re…
662 wordsSECTION 124_Jeroboam, And The Man Of God._
[480] Josh. xxiv. 1; 1 Sam. x. 19; 2 Sam. v. 1-3; 1 Kings viii. 1-5, 62. [481] Vilmar. 1 KINGS xiii. 1-34. "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God."--1 JOHN iv. 1. "Οὐ γὰρ ἔδει τὸν τῆς θείας ἀκηκοότα φωνῆς ἀνθρωπίνῃ πιστέυσαι τἀνάντια λεγούσῃ."--THEODORET. We are told that…
825 wordsSECTION 125_Jeroboam, And The Man Of God._
Josephus adds many idle touches to this story. If in a tale which assumed its present form so long after the events imaginative details were introduced, the incident of the lion subserves the moral aim of the narrative (2 Kings xvii. 25; Jer. xxv. 30, xlix. 19; Wisdom xi. 15-17, etc.). The significance of the story for…
521 wordsSECTION 126Footnotes:
[482] Now Talura, six miles north of Nablus. [483] So, too, Jarchi. No doubt they were guided by the remark in 2 Chron. ix. 29, "the visions of Iddo the seer against Jeroboam." But it is not possible, for Iddo lived to a later date (2 Chron. xiii. 22). Ephrem Syrus and Tertullian suppose him to have been Shemaiah (com…
488 wordsSECTION 127_Doom Of The House Of Nebat._
1 KINGS xiv. 1-20.[493] "Whom the gods love die young." "Τὸ παιδίον ἀπέθανεν; ἀπεδόθη."--EPICTET. The other story about Jeroboam is full of pathos; and though here, too, there are obvious signs that, in its present form, it could hardly have come from a contemporary source, it doubtless records an historic tradition…
663 wordsSECTION 128_Doom Of The House Of Nebat._
"Ostendent terris hunc tantum fata neque ultra Esse sinent. Nimium vobis, Romana propago, Visa potens, superi, propria hæc si dona fuissent, Heu miserande puer, si qua fata aspera rumpas Tu Marcellus eris."[504] We know the remark of Tacitus as he contemplates the deaths of Germanicus, Caius, and Drusus, Piso Lici…
705 wordsSECTION 129Footnotes:
"The good die early, And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust Burn to the socket;" and by Ben Jonson:-- "It is not growing like a tree In bulk, doth make man better be: Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, To fall, a log at last, dry, bald, and sere: A lily of a day Is fairer far in May, Although …
552 wordsSECTION 130_Nadab; Baasha; Elah._
1 KINGS xv. 25-xvi. 10. "Wheresoever the carcase is, there will the vultures be gathered together."--MATT. xxiv. 28. Jeroboam slept with his fathers and went to his own place, leaving behind him his dreadful epitaph upon the sacred page. His son Nadab succeeded him. In his reign of twenty-two years the first king of…
916 wordsSECTION 131_The Earlier Kings Of Judah._
[507] Josh. xix. 44, xxi. 23; 1 Kings xv. 27, xvi. 15. [508] His father therefore could not have been Ahijah the prophet, who was an Ephraimite. He was the only ruler who came from slothful Issachar (Gen. xlix. 14, 15) except the unknown Tola (Judg. x. 1). [509] For any other records of Nadab the writer refers to "th…
1,062 wordsSECTION 132_The Earlier Kings Of Judah._
Rehoboam had many sons, and he "wisely" (2 Chron. xi. 23) gave them, by way of maintenance, the governorship of his fenced cities. That "he sought for them a multitude of wives" was perhaps a stroke of worldly policy, but an unwise and unworthy one. But their little courts and their little harems may have helped to kee…
799 wordsSECTION 133_The Earlier Kings Of Judah._
After this brief and perplexing, but apparently eventful reign, Abijah was succeeded by his son Asa, whose long reign of forty-one years was contemporary with the reigns of no less than seven kings of Israel--Nadab, Baasha, Elah, Zimri, Omri, Tibni, and Ahab. We are told that--aided perhaps by such prophets as Hanani …
970 wordsSECTION 134_The Earlier Kings Of Judah._
After a powerful and useful reign Asa was attacked with gout in his feet two years before his death. The chronicler reproaches him for seeking "not to Jehovah but to the physicians" in his "exceeding great disease." If this was a sin, it is one of which we are unable to estimate the sinfulness from this meagre notice. …
442 wordsSECTION 135Footnotes:
[515] According to the LXX. she was a daughter of Hanun, son of Naash, King of Ammon (2 Sam. x. 1). [516] Canon Rawlinson, _Kings of Israel and Judah_. [517] 1 Kings xiv. 21. "A boy and faint-hearted" (2 Chron. xiii. 7). The additions to the LXX. say that he was sixteen, and reigned twelve years. [518] In the LXX. a…
653 wordsSECTION 136Footnotes:
Jesse. | +----------+------------+ Eliab. David. | | | +------+--------+ Abihial. Solomon. Absalom. | | +--+ | | | Abihail = Rehoboam = Maachah. Tamar = Uriel. | | Abijah. Maachah. Thus on both sides, as a great-grandson and great-great-grandson, Abijah was descended from David. [538] The lamp (LXX., κατά…
557 wordsSECTION 137_Jehoshaphat._
1 KINGS xxii. 41-50. Before we leave the House of David we must speak of Jehoshaphat, the last king of Judah whose reign is narrated in the First Book of Kings. He was abler, more powerful, and more faithful to Jehovah than any of his predecessors, and was alone counted worthy in later ages to rank with Hezekiah and J…
1,009 wordsSECTION 138_Jehoshaphat._
At the time of the proposed alliance there seems to have been no protest--at any rate, none of which we read. Micaiah alone among the prophets uttered his stern warning when the expedition to Ramoth Gilead was actually on foot, and Jehu, son of Hanani, went out to rebuke Jehoshaphat at the close of that disastrous ente…
849 wordsSECTION 139_Jehoshaphat._
We see enough in the Book of Kings to show the greatness and goodness of Jehoshaphat, and later on we shall hear details of his military expeditions.[566] The chronicler, glorifying him still more, says that he sent princes and Levites and priests to teach the Book of the Law throughout all the cities of Judah; that he…
642 wordsSECTION 140Footnotes:
[561] Following the precedent set by Rehoboam, he established his six younger sons in castles and fenced cities. Athaliah must have found it difficult to exterminate their families if she attempted this. [562] The Nitzab or Præfect of Edom was allowed the barren title of king. [563] 2 Chron. xx. 37. His name faintly …
351 wordsSECTION 141B.C. 889-877.
1 KINGS xvi. 11-34. As far as we can understand from our meagre authorities--and we have no independent source of information--we infer that Elah, son of the powerful Baasha, was a self-indulgent weakling. The army of Israel was encamped against Gibbethon--originally a Levitical town of the Kohathites, in the territor…
714 wordsSECTION 142B.C. 889-877.
He stamped his impress deep upon his subjects. It must have been to him that the alliance with the Tyrians was due, which in his son's reign produced consequences so momentous. He "did worse we are told than all the kings that were before him."[579] Although he is only charged with walking in the way of Jeroboam, the i…
701 wordsSECTION 143B.C. 889-877.
When Omri chose it for his residence it belonged to a certain Shemer, who, according to Epiphanius, was a descendant of the ancient Perizzites or Girgashites. The king paid for this hill the large sum of two talents of silver,[585] and called it Shomeron. The name means "a watch tower," and was appropriate both from it…
360 wordsSECTION 144_King Ahab And Queen Jezebel._
[571] 2 Kings ix. 31. [572] R.V., "the _castle_ of the king's house." [573] Justin, _Hist._, i. 3; cf. Herod., i. 176, vii. 107; Liv., xxi. 14. Ewald elaborates out of his own consciousness an extraordinary romance about Zimri and the queen-mother. [574] Josephus (_Antt._, VIII. xii. 5) says that Tibni was assassina…
838 wordsSECTION 145_King Ahab And Queen Jezebel._
A king named after Baal, and who had named his daughter after Baal--a king whose descendants down to Maherbal and Hasdrubal and Hannibal bore the name of the Sun-god[594]--a king who had himself been at the head of the cult of Ashtoreth, the female deity who was worshipped with Baal--was not likely to rest content unti…
737 wordsSECTION 146_King Ahab And Queen Jezebel._
A consequence of this tolerance of polluted forms of worship seems to have shown itself in defiant contempt for sacred traditions. At any rate, it is in this connexion that we are told how Hiel of Bethel set at naught an ancient curse. After the fall of Jericho Joshua had pronounced a curse upon the site of the city. I…
814 wordsSECTION 147_King Ahab And Queen Jezebel._
The Borgian monster, Pope Alexander VI., who founded the Spanish Inquisition, is the lineal inheritor of the traditions of Jezebel. Had Ahab done no more than Solomon had done in Judah, the followers of the true faith in Israel would have been as deeply offended as those of the Southern Kingdom. They would have hated a…
303 wordsSECTION 148Footnotes:
[589] It is needless in each separate case to enter into the chronological minutiæ about which the historian is little solicitous. A table of the chronology so far as it can be ascertained is furnished, _infra_. [590] 1 Kings xx. 5; 2 Kings x. 7. [591] Hitzig thinks that Psalm xlv. was an epithalamium on this occasio…
571 wordsSECTION 149_Elijah._
1 KINGS xvii. 1-7. "And Elias the prophet stood up as fire, and his word was burning as a torch."--ECCLUS. xlviii. 1. "But that two-handed engine at the door Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more." _Lycidas._ Many chapters are now occupied with narratives of the deeds of two great prophets, Elijah and Eli…
697 wordsSECTION 150_Elijah._
"Gay religions, full of pomp and gold," which he misdoubted and despised, but in the barren hills and wild ravines and bleak uplands where only here and there roamed a shepherd with his flock. In such hallowed loneliness he had learnt to fear man little, because he feared God much, and to dwell familiarly on the stern…
723 wordsSECTION 151_Elijah._
The message of Elijah marked the beginning of a three, or three and a half years' famine. This historic drought is also mentioned by Menander of Tyre, who says that after a year, at the prayer of Ethbaal, the priest and king, there came abundant thunder showers. St. James represents the famine as well as its terminatio…
831 wordsSECTION 152_Elijah._
Before giving it, let us clear the ground. First of all, it is a question which can only be answered by serious criticism. Assertion can add nothing to it, and is not worth the breath with which it is uttered. The anathemas of obsolete and _a priori_ dogmatism against those who cannot take the statement as simple fact …
753 wordsSECTION 153_Elijah._
Further, we find it, not in a plain prose narrative, but in a narrative differing entirely from the prosaic setting in which it occurs--a narrative which rises in many parts to the height of poetic and imaginative splendour. There is nothing to show that it was not intended to be a touch of imaginative poetry and nothi…
710 wordsSECTION 154_Elijah._
Let this then suffice and render it needless to recur to similar discussions. If any think themselves bound to interpret this and all the other facts in these narratives in their most literal sense; if they hold that the mere mention of such things by unknown writers in unknown time--possibly centuries afterwards, when…
342 wordsSECTION 155Footnotes:
[606] Tobit i. 2. [607] Josephus, _Antt._, VIII. xiii. 2; Vat. (LXX.), Θεσβίτης ὁ ἐκ θεσβῶν. The Alex. LXX. omits Θεσβίτης. An immense amount has been written about Elijah. Among others, see Knobel, _Der Prophetismus_, ii. 73; Köster, _Der Thesbiter_; Stanley, ii., lect. xxx.; Maurice, _Prophets and Kings_, serm. viii…
507 wordsSECTION 156_Elijah At Sarepta._
1 KINGS xvii. 7, xviii. 19. "The rain is God's compassion."--MOHAMMED. The fierce drought continued, and "at the end of days"[625] even the thin trickling of the stream in the clefts of Cherith was dried up. In the language of Job it felt the glare and vanished.[626] No miracle was wrought to supply the Prophet with …
836 wordsSECTION 157_Elijah At Sarepta._
We are not to suppose that during his stay at Zarephath Elijah remained immured in his chamber. Safe and unsuspected, he might, at least by night, make his way to other places, and it is reasonable to believe that he then began to haunt the glades and heights of beautiful and deserted Carmel, which was at no great dist…
471 wordsSECTION 158_Elijah And Ahab._
[625] 1 Kings xvii. 7. Perhaps years (Lev. xxv. 29; 1 Sam. xxvii. 7). [626] Job vi. 17. [627] Menander, quoted by Josephus, _Antt._, VIII. xiii. 2. He says it lasted for a year. [628] LXX., "My sons"--perhaps with reference to "her house" in verse 15. [629] Perhaps the language of the Hebrew is not actually decisiv…
901 wordsSECTION 159_Elijah And Ahab._
The king and his vizier went in opposite directions, each of them unaccompanied, and Obadiah was on his way when he was startled by the sudden appearance of Elijah. He had not previously seen him, but recognising him by his shaggy locks, his robe of skin, and the awful sternness of his swarthy countenance, he was almos…
594 wordsSECTION 160Footnotes:
[632] Amos ix. 3: "And though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence." The phrase shows the security and seclusion of these caves and thickets, the haunt once of lions and bears, and still of leopards and hyænas. [633] The LXX. adds that he inflicted vengeance because Elijah …
297 wordsSECTION 161_Elijah On Mount Carmel._
1 KINGS xviii. 20-40. "O for a sculptor's hand, That thou might'st take thy stand, Thy wild hair floating in the eastern breeze!" KEBLE. It never occurred to Ahab to refuse the challenge, or to arrest the hated messenger. The hermit and the dervish are sacrosanct; they stand before kings and are not ashamed. Havin…
1,212 wordsSECTION 162_Elijah On Mount Carmel._
And so, "Among the faithless, faithful only he; Among innumerable false, unmoved, Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified," Elijah fearlessly stood alone, while all the world confronted him with frowning menace. The coward sympathies of the neutrals who face both ways may have been with him, but the multitude of such Laod…
809 wordsSECTION 163_Elijah On Mount Carmel._
Then they tried still more potent incantations. They began to circle round the altar they had made in one of their solemn dances to the shrill strains of pipe and flute. The rhythmic movements ended in giddy whirls and orgiastic leapings which were a common feature of sensuous heathen worship; dances in which, like mod…
674 wordsSECTION 164_Elijah On Mount Carmel._
"Jehovah, God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel, Let it be known this day that Thou art God in Israel, And that I am Thy servant, And that I have done all these things at Thy word. Hear me, Jehovah, hear me. That this people may know that Thou, Jehovah, art God, And that Thou hast turned their heart back again.…
741 wordsSECTION 165_Elijah On Mount Carmel._
But though the deed of vengeance stands recorded, and recorded with no censure, in the sacred history, we must--without condemning Elijah, and without measuring his days by the meting-rod of Christian mercy--still unhesitatingly hold fast the sound principle of early and as yet uncontaminated Christianity, and say, as …
383 wordsSECTION 166Footnotes:
[638] Isa. xxxiii. 9, xxxv. 2; Micah vii. 14. Its beauty and fruitfulness are alluded to in Jer. xlvi. 18, l. 19; Amos i. 2, ix. 3; Nahum i. 4; Cant. vii. 5. [639] Sir George Grove, to whose excellent article in Smith's _Dict. of Bible_ (i. 279) I am indebted, quotes Martineau (i. 317), Porter's _Handbook_, Van de Vel…
672 wordsSECTION 167_The Rain._
[653] Priests, both pagan and mediæval, have been adepts at deception. At the Reformation the mechanism of winking Madonnas, etc., was exposed to the people. At Pompeii may still be seen the secret staircase behind the altar, and the pipes let into the head of Isis from behind, through which the priests spoke her prete…
700 wordsSECTION 168_The Rain._
And now, indeed, Elijah knew that his triumph was completed. He bade his servant fly with winged speed to Ahab, and tell him to make ready his chariot at once, lest the burst of the coming rain should flood the river and the road, and prevent him from getting over the rough ground which lay between him and his palace a…
681 wordsSECTION 169_Elijah'S Flight._
A much nearer parallel, and that a very remarkable one, may be quoted.[666] It records--and the fact itself, explain it how men will, seems to be unquestionable--how a storm of rain came to answer the prayer of a good leader of the Evangelical Revival--Grimshaw, rector of Haworth. Distressed at the horrible immoralitie…
691 wordsSECTION 170_Elijah'S Flight._
Swift flight was easy to that hardy frame and that trained endurance, even after the fearful day on Carmel and the wild race of fifteen miles from Carmel to Jezreel. It was still night, and cool, and the haunts and byways of the land were known to the solitary and hunted wanderer. "He feared, and he rose, and he went f…
1,013 wordsSECTION 171_Elijah'S Flight._
"_Now, O Lord, take away my life!_" The prayer, however natural, however excusable, is never right. It is a sign of insufficient faith, of human imperfection; but it is breathed by different persons in a spirit so different that in some it almost rises to nobleness, as in others it sinks quite beneath contempt. Script…
976 wordsSECTION 172_Elijah'S Flight._
Tender natures as well as strong natures are liable to this inrush of hopelessness; and if it sometimes kills them by its violence, this is only a part of God's training of them into perfection. "So unaffected, so composed a mind, So firm, yet soft, so strong, yet so refined, Heaven, as its purest gold, by tortures …
622 wordsSECTION 173_Elijah'S Despair._
[667] LXX., 1 Kings xix. 2. [668] The touch "which belongeth to Judah" shows that the Elijah-narrative emanated from some prophet in the northern schools. In later days it was much visited by pilgrims from the Northern Kingdom (Amos v. 5, viii. 14). [669] Matt. xxvi. 36. [670] 1 Kings xix. 4, 5, אֵחָת רֹתֶם; Vulg., …
726 wordsSECTION 174_Elijah'S Despair._
3. Again, Elijah was suffering from mental reaction. The bow had been bent too long, and was somewhat strained; the tense string needed to have been relaxed before. It is a common experience that some great duty or mastering emotion uplifts us for a time above ourselves, makes us even forget the body and its needs. We …
814 wordsSECTION 175_Elijah'S Despair._
5. But there was even a deeper sorrow than these which made Elijah long for death. It was the sense of utter and seemingly irretrievable failure. It happens often to the worldling as well as to the saint. Many a man, weary of life's inexorable emptiness, has exclaimed in different ways:-- "Know that whatever thou hast…
912 wordsSECTION 176_How God Deals With Despondency._
"He walked with dreams and darkness, and he found A doom that ever poised itself to fall, An ever-moaning battle in the mist, Death in all life, and lying in all love, The meanest having power upon the highest, And the high purpose broken by the worm." "Yes; the smelter of Israel had now to go down himself into t…
864 wordsSECTION 177_How God Deals With Despondency._
After his wanderings Elijah reached Mount Sinai, and came to "the cave," and took shelter there. The use of the article shows that a particular cave is meant, and there can be little reason to discredit the almost immemorial tradition that it is the hollow still pointed out to hundreds of pilgrims as the scene of the t…
810 wordsSECTION 178Footnotes:
6. God dealt with this mood as He has done in all ages, as He had done before to Jacob, as He did afterwards to David and to Hezekiah, and to Isaiah and Jeremiah; and as the Son of God did to the antitype of Elijah--the great forerunner--when his faith failed him. He let the conviction steal into his mind that the ways…
298 wordsSECTION 179_The Theophany And Its Significance._
1 KINGS xix. 9-15. "Who heardest the rebuke of the Lord in Sinai, and in Horeb the judgment of vengeance."--ECCLUS. xlviii. 7. Throughout the Scriptures infinite care is taken to preclude every notion that the Most High God can be represented in visible form. He manifested Himself at Sinai to the children of Israel,…
751 wordsSECTION 180_The Theophany And Its Significance._
"The Lord was not in the earthquake." And after the earthquake a fire. Jehovah overwhelmed the Prophet's senses with the dread magnificence of one of those lurid thunderstorms of which the terrors are never so tremendous as in such mountain scenes, where travellers tell us that the burning air seems transfused into sh…
661 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
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Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.