PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Expositor's Bible: The First Book of Kings
Farrar, F. W. (Frederic William) · 144,384 words · 209 reading sections
_The Theophany And Its Significance._
Three missions still awaited him. First, he is to supersede the old dynasty of Benhadad, King of Syria, founded by Solomon's enemy, and to anoint Hazael to be king over Syria. Next, he is to abolish the dynasty of Omri, and to anoint Jehu, the son of Nimshi, to be king over Israel.[697] Thirdly--and there was deep s…
686 wordsSECTION 182_The Theophany And Its Significance._
It is usually interpreted as a reproof to the spirit which led Elijah to regard the tempestuous manifestations of wrath and vengeance as the normal methods of the interposition of God. He was fresh from the stern challenge of Carmel; his hands were yet red with the blood of those four hundred and fifty priests. It was …
725 wordsSECTION 183_The Theophany And Its Significance._
"Truth, pressed to earth shall rise again, The eternal years of God are hers; But error, wounded, writhes in pain And dies among her worshippers"? The truth prevails and the error dies under the slow light of knowledge and by the long results of time. Nor is it any answer to this view of the revelation to Elijah o…
677 wordsSECTION 184Footnotes:
"Thus regarded," says Professor Van Oort, "the picture of Elijah at Mount Horeb is full of consolation to all lovers of the truth. Sometimes they cry, All is lost! and are ready to despair. But God answers, Never lose heart. Storms in which God is not, in which the power of darkness seems to sweep unbridled and unconqu…
732 wordsSECTION 185_The Call Of Elisha._
[701] Psalm xviii. 7-9; comp. 2 Sam. xxii. 8-11. [702] Isa. xiii. 13. [703] Isa. xxix. 6; comp. Ecclus. xxxix. 28. [704] W. S. Landor. 1 KINGS xix. 19-21. "The one remains, the many change and pass; Heaven's light alone remains, earth's shadows flee." SHELLEY. Whether Elijah saw or saw not all that God had mean…
766 wordsSECTION 186_The Call Of Elisha._
Elisha did not hesitate long. The mysterious Prophet of Carmel--he whose voice was believed to have shut up the heavens, he who had confounded king and priest and people at Carmel--had spoken no word. He had only flung over Elisha the garment of hair, and then stridden back to the road, and gone on his way without once…
713 wordsSECTION 187_Ahab And Benhadad._
[705] 1 Kings iv. 12. It was in the north part of the Jordan valley. [706] 1 Kings xix. 19. [707] The Hebrew can hardly bear the meaning that he was finishing the twelfth furrow in his field, ploughed by his single yoke of oxen. 1 KINGS xx. 1-30. In the Septuagint and in Josephus the events narrated in the twentiet…
675 wordsSECTION 188_Ahab And Benhadad._
He goes on to tell how he built Bael Meon and Kirjathaim; captured Ataroth, and killed all its warriors, and devoted its spoil to Chemosh. "And Chemosh said to me, Go take Nebo against Israel." He took it, slew seven thousand men, devoted the women and maidens to Ashtar-Chemosh, and offered Jehovah's vessels to Chemosh…
753 wordsSECTION 189_Ahab And Benhadad._
Encouraged by this abject demeanour into yet more outrageous insolence, Benhadad sent back his ambassadors with the further menace that he would himself send his messengers next day into Samaria, who should search and rifle not only the palace of Ahab, but the houses of all his servants, from which they should take awa…
757 wordsSECTION 190_Ahab And Benhadad._
"Hast thou seen all this great multitude? Lo! I will deliver it into thine hand to-day: And thou shalt know that I am the Lord." "By whom?" was the astonished and half-despairing question of the king; and the strange answer was:-- "By the young servants[720] of the provincial governors." It was to be made clear th…
677 wordsSECTION 191Footnotes:
What effect was produced on the national mind and on the social religion by this immense deliverance we are not told. Never, certainly, had any nation deeper cause for gratitude to its religious teachers, who alone had not despaired of the commonwealth when everything seemed lost. We would fain know where was Elijah at…
658 wordsSECTION 192_Ahab'S Infatuation._
1 KINGS xx. 31-43. "Quem vult Deus perire dementat prius." The courtiers of Benhadad found it easy to flatter his pride by furnishing reasons to account for such an alarming overthrow. They had attacked the Israelites on their hills, and the gods of Israel were hill-gods. Next time they would take Israel at a disadva…
772 wordsSECTION 193_Ahab'S Infatuation._
So with intense eagerness the ambassadors, in their sackcloth and their halters, awaited the Bath Kol. It came far more favourably than they had dared to hope. Surprised, and perhaps half-touched with pity for so immense a reverse of misfortune, "Is he yet alive?" exclaimed the careless king: "he is my brother!" The S…
770 wordsSECTION 194_Ahab'S Infatuation._
There was one aspect in which Ahab's conduct assumed an aspect more supremely culpable. To whom had he owed the courage and inspiration which had rescued him from ruin, and led to the triumphs which had delivered him and his people from the depths of despair? Not in the least to himself, or to Jezebel, or to Baal's pri…
752 wordsSECTION 195Footnotes:
Anger and indignation filled the heart of the king; he went to his house "heavy and displeased." The phrase, twice applied to him and never used of another, shows that he was liable to characteristic moods of overwhelming sullenness, the result of an uneasy conscience, and of a rage which was compelled to remain impote…
644 wordsSECTION 196_Naboth'S Vineyard._
1 KINGS xxi. 1-29. "The triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the godless is but for a moment."--JOB xx. 5. "If weakness may excuse, What murderer, what traitor, parricide, Incestuous, sacrilegious, but may plead it? All wickedness is weakness." _Samson Agonistes._ The chief glory of the institution…
710 wordsSECTION 197_Naboth'S Vineyard._
But the greatest and truest prophets rose superior to the influences which tended to debase the vulgar herd of their followers, in days when prophecy grew into an institution and the world became content to side with a church which gave it no trouble and mainly spoke in its own tones. True prophecy cannot be made a mat…
651 wordsSECTION 198_Naboth'S Vineyard._
Did he admire the mannish spirit of the Syrian princess, or did he secretly shrink from it? At any rate he let Jezebel take her own course. With intrepid insolence she at once wrote a letter in Ahab's name from Samaria, and sent it sealed with his signet to the elders of Jezreel.[755] She ordered them to proclaim a fas…
745 wordsSECTION 199_Naboth'S Vineyard._
It is the duty of prophets to stand before kings and not be ashamed. So had Abraham stood before Nimrod, and Moses before Pharaoh, and Samuel before Saul, and Nathan before David, and Iddo before Jeroboam. So was Isaiah to stand hereafter before Ahaz, and Jeremiah before Jehoiachin, and John the Baptist before Herod, a…
663 wordsSECTION 200Footnotes:
But as for Elijah himself, he once more vanished into the solitude of his own life, and we do not hear of him again till four years later, when he sent to Ahaziah, the son of Ahab, the message of his doom. [743] Zech. xiii. 4. [744] On this defection and imposture of prophets, see Jer. xxiii. 21-40. Isa. xxx. 9, 10; …
447 wordsSECTION 201_Alone Against The World._
[763] 2 Kings ix. 36. LXX., ἐν τῷ προτειχίσματι. The חֵל of an Eastern city is the desert space outside the walls where the "pariah dogs prowl on the mounds." [764] אַט, LXX., κλαίων; Josephus, Chaldee, and Peshito, "shoeless." [765] 1 Kings xxi. 27. καὶ περιεβάλετο σάκκον ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ᾗ ἐπάταξε Ναβουθαί. [766] Psalm…
757 wordsSECTION 202_Alone Against The World._
Ahab could not refuse, and apparently the professional prophets of the schools had been pretty well cajoled or drilled into accordance with his wishes. A great and solemn assembly was summoned. The kings had clothed themselves in their royal robes striped with laticlaves of Tyrian purple,[769] and sat on thrones in an …
654 wordsSECTION 203_Alone Against The World._
It was a weak confession that he was aware of one man who was indisputably a true prophet of Jehovah, but whom he had purposely excluded from this gathering because he knew that his was an undaunted spirit which would not consent to shout with the many in favour of the king. Indeed, it seems probable that he was, at th…
655 wordsSECTION 204_Alone Against The World._
Micaiah justified himself by a daringly anthropomorphic apologue which startles us, but would not at all have startled those who regarded everything as coming from the immediate action of God, and who could ask, "Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?"[777] The prophets were self-deceived, but th…
653 wordsSECTION 205Footnotes:
They carried the king's body back to Samaria, and they buried it. They washed the blood-stained chariot in the pool outside the city, and there the dogs licked the king's blood, and the harlot-votaries of Asherah bathed in the blood-dyed waters, as Elijah had prophesied.[788] So ended the reign of a king who built cit…
658 wordsSECTION 206_Conclusion._
[789] Amos iii. 15; Psalm xlv. 8; Hom., _Od._, iv. 72. It will have been seen that there are two main heroes of the First Book of Kings--Solomon and Elijah. How vast is the gulf which separates those two ideals! In Solomon we see man in all the adventitious splendour which he can derive from magnificent surroundings a…
645 wordsSECTION 207Footnote:
[790] It is supposed that Mohammed alludes to Elijah in the Qur'an, _Sura_ xxi. 85: "And Ishmael, and Idris, and _Dhu'l Kifl_ ("he of the portion")--all these were of the patient; and we made them enter into our mercy; verily they were among the righteous" (Palmer's Qur'an, ii. 53). NOTE ON THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE FIRS…
303 wordsSECTION 208B.C.
Battle of Karkar, in which Ahab and Benhadad were defeated 854 Jehu pays tribute to Shalmanezer II. 842 Menahem tributary to Assyria 738 Fall of Samaria 722 Sennacherib's Invasion 701 These dates do not accord with those which we should derive from the Book of Kings in the ordinary system of chronology, which see…
570 wordsSECTION 209*** End Of The Project Gutenberg Ebook The Expositor'S Bible: The First Book Of Kings ***
[791] See W. Robertson Smith, _Journ. of Philology_, x. 20. [792] See Reuss, _Hist. d'Israel_, i. 101-103. Transcriber's Notes: Obvious punctuation and spelling errors have been fixed throughout. Inconsistent hyphenation left as in the original text. Page 27: The reign of Josiah was listed as A.D. 621, this was ac…
286 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
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Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.