PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Expositor's Bible: The Second Book of Kings
Farrar, F. W. (Frederic William) · 148,035 words · 223 reading sections
"Speed-Plunder-Haste-Spoil."
This event, therefore, as Caspari says, stands at the turning-point of Old Testament History. It marks the beginning of that second period of the History of the Chosen People in which their hopes were granted as a counterpoise to their anguish and their humiliation. "It stood, therefore, at the point where a prospect o…
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[442] 2 Chron. xxviii. 19. [443] It may mean "God is good" (Tabeel). [444] For further explanations I must refer to my paper on Rabbinic Exegesis (_Expositor_, First Series, v. 373). [445] 2 Chron. xxviii. 7. [446] Of Oded nothing else is known. [447] Some, however, interpret the name "A remnant repents" (LXX., ὁ …
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"First, Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears; Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud, Their children's cries unheard that pass'd through fire To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite Worshipp'd in Rabba and her watery plain, In Argob and in Basan, to the stream Of …
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Tiglath-Pileser meant to make Ahaz feel his yoke. He summoned him to do homage at Damascus, and there Ahaz once more displayed his cosmopolitan æstheticism at the expense of every pure tradition of the religion of his fathers. His visit to Damascus was no doubt compulsory. His worldly policy, which looked so expedient…
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When Ahaz returned, he was so much pleased with his new plaything that he at once acted as priest at his own new altar. Without the least opposition from the priests--who had so sternly resisted Uzziah--he offered burnt-offerings and meat-offerings and drink-offerings, and sprinkled the blood of peace-offerings on his …
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[455] See 2 Kings xxiii. 11, which shows that this was not an innovation of Manasseh's. They were common in Persia. See Q. Curtius, iii. 3. [456] 2 Kings xvii. 31; Ezek. xvi. 21, xxiii. 37, xxxiii. 6; Deut. xii. 31; Jer. xix. 5. See 2 Chron. xxviii. 3; for "his son," בְּנוֹ, it uses בָּנָיו "his sons," but perhaps gen…
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[471] 1 Kings viii. 64; 2 Chron. iv. 1. In this and similar instances commentators, biassed by _a priori_ considerations, have imagined that Ahaz did not in person offer sacrifices. But this is what the text says, and it was the custom of kings to regard themselves as invested with Divine attributes. Ahaz may have had …
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745. Accession of Tiglath-Pileser. 746. Death of Uzziah. Accession of Jotham. First vision of Isaiah (Isa. vi.). 735. Accession of Ahaz. Syro-Ephraimitish war. 734-732. Siege and capture of Damascus, and ravage of Northern Israel by Tiglath-Pileser. Visit of Ahaz to Damascus. 727. Accession of Shalmaneser IV. 72…
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The historian tells us that Hezekiah "removed the _bamoth_"--the chapels on the high places, with their ephods and teraphim--whether dedicated to the worship of Jehovah or profaned by alien idolatry. That he did, or attempted, something of this kind seems certain; for the Rabshakeh, if we regard his speech as historica…
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"And he called it _Nehushtan_." If this rendering--in which our A.V. and R.V. follow the LXX. and the Vulgate--be correct, Hezekiah justified the iconoclasm by a brilliant play of words.[490] The Hebrew words for "a serpent" (_nachash_) and for brass (_nechosheth_) are closely akin to each other; and the king showed hi…
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It is clear that in this line of conduct the king was following the exhortations of Isaiah. It showed no small firmness of character that he was able to choose a decided course amid the chaos of contending counsels. Nothing but a most heroic courage could have enabled him, at any period of his reign, to defy that dark …
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III. The third party, if it could even be called a party, was that of Isaiah and a few of the faithful, aided no doubt by the influence of the prophecies of Micah. Their attitude to both the other parties was antagonistic. i. As regards the Assyrian, they did not attempt to minimise the danger. They represented the pe…
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Indolent braggart--that was the only designation which she deserved! Intrigue and braggadocio--smoke and lukewarm water,--this was all which could be expected from _her_![506] Such teaching was eminently distasteful to the worldly politicians, who regarded faith in Jehovah's intervention as no better than ridiculous f…
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King Hezekiah, apparently not a man of much personal force, though of sincere piety, was naturally distracted by the counsels of these three parties: and who can judge him severely if, beset with such terrific dangers, he occasionally wavered, now to one side, now to the other? On the whole, it is clear that he was wis…
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[495] Psalm xlvi. 1-11. [496] 2 Chron. xxviii. 18. [497] 2 Kings xviii. 8: comp. xvii. 9. Josephus says that he failed to take Gath (_Antt._, IX. xiii. 3). [498] A.V., "treasurer" (_soken_; lit., "deputy" or "associate": Isa. xxii. 15). He was "over the household." The Egyptian alliance had for Judah, as Renan point…
332 wordsSECTION 136Chapter Xxvi
_HEZEKIAH'S SICKNESS, AND THE EMBASSY FROM BABYLON_ 2 KINGS xx. 1-19 "Thou hast loved me out of the pit of nothingness."--ISA. xxxviii. 17 (A.V., margin). "See the shadow of the dial In the lot of every one Marks the passing of the trial, Proves the presence of the Sun." E. B. BROWNING. In the chaos of uncert…
699 wordsSECTION 137Chapter Xxvi
"I said, In the noontide of my days I shall go into the gates of Sheol. I am deprived of the residue of my years. I said, I shall not see Yah, Yah, in the land of the living, I shall behold no man more, when I am among them that cease to be. Mine habitation is removed, and is carried away from me like a shepherd'…
756 wordsSECTION 138Chapter Xxvi
We here naturally follow the narrative of Isaiah himself, as more authoritative than that of the historian of the Kings as to details in which they differ.[519] Not only is it quite in accordance with all that we know of history that slight variations should occur in the traditions of long-past times, but the text of t…
683 wordsSECTION 139Chapter Xxvi
"I shall go as in solemn procession[524] all my years because of the bitterness of my soul. O Lord, by these things men live, And wholly therein is the life of my spirit. Behold, it was for my peace that I had great bitterness; But Thou hast loved my soul from the pit of nothingness: For Thou hast cast all my sin…
1,075 wordsSECTION 140Chapter Xxvi
The king's pride was humbled to the dust. In the spirit of Job--"The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord"[533]--he resigned himself without a murmur to the will of Heaven, and exclaimed that all which God did must be well done. At least God granted him a respite. Peace and truth wou…
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[512] One of the first to point out the _necessary_ rearrangement of the events of Hezekiah's reign was Dr. Hincks, in his paper on "A Rectification of Chronology which the newly discovered Apis-stêlês render necessary" (_Journ. of Sacred Lit._, October 1858). See my article on Hezekiah, Smith, _Dict. of the Bible_, 2n…
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[533] Job i. 21. [534] Manasseh seems to mean "one who forgets." See Gen. xli. 51. It was the name of the husband of Judith (Judith viii. 2), and is found in Ezra x. 30, 33. 2 KINGS xviii. 13--xix. 37. Ἀλλ' ὁ σοφώτατος βασιλεὺς οὐχ ὅπλα ταῖς ἐκείνων βλασφημίαις, ἀλλὰ προσευχὴν καὶ δάκρυα καὶ σάκκον ἀντέταξεν.--THEO…
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In the two suppressions of revolt at Ashdod, Sargon or his Turtan must have come perilously near Jerusalem, and perhaps he may have inflicted sufficient damage to admit of the boast that he had "conquered" Judæa. If so, his military vanity made him guilty of an exaggeration. Far more serious to Sargon was the revolt o…
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Yet all this glory faded into darkness, and all this colossal pride crumbled into dust. Sennacherib not only died, like his father, by murder, but by the murderous hands of his own sons, and after the shattering of all his immense pretensions--a defeated and dishonoured man. One of his invasions of Judæa occupies a la…
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It was in the midst of this terrible crisis that Hezekiah had sent to Sennacherib at Lachish his offer of submission, saying, "I have offended; return from me; that which thou puttest upon me I will bear."[555] The spoiling of the palace and Temple was rendered necessary to raise the vast mulct which the Assyrian King …
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[535] One legend of his birth resembles the finding of Moses in the bulrushes. [536] Schrader, _K. A. T._, pp. 272-274; _Records of the Past_, vii. 28. [537] Smith, _Eponym Canon_, p. 130. [538] See Prof. Smith, _Isaiah_, p. 198. [539] _Records of the Past_, vii. 40. Sargon's words are, "The people of Philistia, Ju…
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[558] See 2 Chron. xi. 9, xxv. 27; Jer. xxxiv. 7. The allusion to this city in Micah (i. 13) is obscure: "O thou inhabitant of Lachish [swift steed], bind the chariot to the swift steed: she is the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion: for the transgressions of Israel were found in thee." This seems to imply that s…
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The king did not in person obey the summons; but he, too, sent out his three chief officers. They were Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, who, as the chamberlain (_al-hab-baîth_), was a great prince (_nagîd_); Shebna, who had been degraded, perhaps at the instance of Isaiah, from the higher post, and was now secretary (_soph…
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Yet the Assyrian's words had struck home into the hearts of his greatest hearers, and therefore how much more into those of the ignorant multitudes! Eliakim and Shebna and Joah came to Hezekiah with their clothes rent, and told him the words of the Rabshakeh. And when the king heard it, when he found that even his subm…
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"I will put My hook in thy nose, and My bridle in thy lips.[587] And I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest." He had thought to conquer Egypt:[588] instead of that he should be driven back in confusion to Assyria. It was but a plainer enunciation of the truths which Isaiah had again and again intimated …
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The glorious deliverance in which the faith and courage of the King of Judah had had their share naturally increased the prosperity and prestige of Hezekiah, and lifted the authority of Isaiah to an unprecedented height. Hezekiah probably did not long survive the uplifting of this dark cloud, but during the remainder o…
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No event produced a deeper impression on the minds of the Jews, though that impression was soon afterwards, for a time, obliterated. Naturally, it elevated the authority of Isaiah into unquestioned pre-eminence during the reign of Hezekiah. It has left its echo, not only in his own triumphant pæans, but also in the For…
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[560] Isa. xxxiii. 8. [561] Isa. xx. 1. [562] Jer. xxxix. 3. The meaning of the name is not certain. _Sarîs_, in Hebrew, is "eunuch"; but the word is not known in Assyrian records, and we should expect _Rabsarîsîm_, as in Dan. i. 3. [563] Rabsak perhaps means _chief officer_ or vizier, and is Hebraised into Rabshake…
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[588] 2 Kings xix. 33. "The river of Egypt" (_Nachal-ha-Mizraim_) is the Wady-el-Arish. [589] Isa. x. 33, 34, xi. 1, xiv. 8; Stanley, _Lectures_, ii. 410. [590] אוֹת. A sign "is a thing, an event, or an action intended as a pledge of the Divine certainty of another. Sometimes it is a miracle (Gen. iv. 15, Heb.), or a…
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[611] Isa. vi. 11-13. [612] Isa. v. 26-30. [613] Isa. vii. 18. [614] Isa. viii., xxviii. 1-15, x. 28-34. [615] Isa. xiv. 29-32, xxix., xxx. [616] Isa. i. 19, 20. [617] Isa. x. 33, xxix. 5-8, xxx. 20-26, 30-33. [618] Isa. xxxviii. 6. See for this paragraph an admirable chapter in Prof. Smith's _Isaiah_, pp. 368-3…
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If Jehovah would but be contented with gifts, men would gladly offer Him thousands of rams and tens of thousands of rivers of oil. But the prophets taught that He was above all mean bribes, and that such offerings never could be anything to One whose were all the beasts of the forests and the cattle upon a thousand hil…
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Moreover--so the heathen party might suggest--had not Isaiah's prophecies been falsified by the result? Had he not distinctly promised and pledged his credit to two things? and had not both turned out to be unworthy of reliance? i. Surely he had prophesied the utter downfall of the Assyrians. And it was true that afte…
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1. The first step of the king, and probably the one which the people welcomed most, was the restoration of the chapelries under the trees and on the hills, which, more strenuously than any of his predecessors, Hezekiah had at least attempted to put down. For this step Manasseh might have pleaded the sanction of ages to…
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When we read of the actual invasion of the Temple-precincts in this as in preceding and subsequent reigns, we cannot but ask, Were these atrocities committed with the sanction or with the connivance of the priests? We are not told. Yet how can it have been otherwise? If the high priest Azariah could muster eighty pries…
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And no miracles were wrought to save the martyrs. Elijah and Elisha had been surrounded with a blaze of miracles, but in Judah no prophet arose who could so wield the power of Heaven. At this point the narrative of the historian about Manasseh ends. If he shared the current opinion of his day, which connected individu…
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The religious reformation of Manasseh attested the sincerity of his amendment. He flung out the Asherah from the Temple, put away the strange gods, destroyed the altars, burnt sacrifices to God, and used all his power to restore the worship of Jehovah. He did not, however, destroy the high places. For this story the Ch…
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[624] One legend says that Hephzibah was a daughter of Isaiah. Not so Josephus (_Antt._, X. iii. 1). [625] See Gen. xli. 51. His name may have referred to the new union between the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. Comp. 2 Chron. xxx. 6, xxxi. 1. [626] Chron. xxxiv. 1-3. [627] See Zeph. i. 8. Comp. 2 Chron. xxiv. 17; …
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[646] Such pardon from a king of Assyria was rare, but not unparalleled. Pharaoh Necho I. was taken in chains to Nineveh, and afterwards set free (Schrader, _K. A. T._, p. 371). [647] See 2 Chron. xxvii. 3. The "fish gate" was, perhaps, a weak point (Zeph. i. 10). [648] 2 Chron. xxxiii. 19. Heb., _dibhrî Chozai_; A.V…
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2 KINGS xxi. 19-26 The brief reign of Amon is only a sort of unimportant and miserable annex to that of his father. As he was twenty-two years old when he began to reign, he must have witnessed the repentance and reforming zeal of his father, if, in spite of all difficulties, we assume that narrative to be historical.…
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[657] The name Amon is unusual. Some identify it with the name of the Egyptian sun-god (Nah. iii. 8). If so, we see yet another element of Manasseh's syncretism, and (as some fancy) an attempt to open relations with Psammetichus of Egypt. But perhaps the name may be Hebrew for "Architect" (1 Kings xxii. 26; Neh. vii. 5…
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"The lion is come up from his thicket, and the destroyer of the nations is on his way; he is gone forth from his place to make thy land desolate; and thy cities shall be laid waste, without an inhabitant. Behold, he cometh as clouds, and his chariots shall be as the whirlwind." Besiegers come from a far country, and gi…
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II. This rush of wild nomads averted for a time the fate of Nineveh. The Medes, an Aryan people, had settled south of the Caspian, B.C. 790; and in the same century one of these tribes--the Persians--had settled south-east of Elam the northern coast of the Persian Gulf. Cyaxares founded the Median Empire, and attacked…
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It is to Habakkuk, in prophecies written very shortly after the death of Josiah, that we must look for the impression of terror caused by the Chaldees. Nabopolassar,[690] sent by the successor of Assurbanipal to quell a Chaldæan revolt, seized the viceroyalty of Babylon, and joined Cyaxares in the overthrow of Nineveh…
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[681] Sayce, _Ethnology of the Bible; Records of the Past_, ix. 40; Schrader, _K. A. T._, 159. Some identify Gog with Gyges, King of Lydia, who was killed in battle _against_ the Scythians, but whose name stood for a geographical symbol of Asia Minor, sometimes called Lud. It is said that in 665 Gyges (Gugu) sent two S…
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2 KINGS xxii. 8-20, xxiii. 1-25 "And the works of Josias were upright before his Lord with a heart full of godliness."--1 ESDRAS i. 23. "From Zion shall go forth the Law, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem."--ISA. ii. 3. It is from the Prophets--Zephaniah, Jeremiah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Ezekiel--that we catch alm…
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Thereupon the king summoned to the Temple a great assembly of priests, prophets, and all the people, and, standing by the pillar (or "on the platform")[698] in the entrance of the inner court, read "all the words of the Book of the Covenant which had been found in the House of the Lord" in their ears, and joined with t…
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It is very difficult, with the milder notions which we have learnt from the spirit of the Gospel, to look with approval on the recrudescence of the Elijah-spirit displayed by the last proceeding. But many centuries were to elapse, even under the Gospel Dispensation, before men learnt the sacred principle of the early C…
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How entirely the improvement of outward worship failed to improve men's hearts the prophet testifies.[717] "The sin of Judah," he says, "is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is graven upon the tablets of their hearts, and upon the horns of their altars, and their Asherim by the green trees…
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At last he even prophesies the entire future annulment of the solemn covenant made on the basis of Deuteronomy, and says that Jehovah will make a new covenant with His people, not according to the covenant which He made with their fathers.[726] And in his final estimate of King Josiah after his death, he does not so mu…
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[692] 2 Kings xxiii. 4. We have here the first mention of "the second priest" (if, with Grätz, we read _Cohen mishneh_, as in 2 Kings xxv. 18; Jer. lii. 24). In later days he was called "the Sagan." At this time he probably acted as "Captain of the Temple" (Grätz, ii. 319). [693] Comp. 2 Kings xii. 15, where we find t…
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In the reign of _Jehoiachin_, x. 17-23, xiii. In the reign of _Zedekiah_, xxii.-xxiv., xxvii.-xxix. 1-11 (?), lii. In the _Exile_, xxxix.-xliv. [713] See Cheyne, _Jeremiah_, p. 56, _id._ 6. [714] Canon Cheyne shows that even Mohammed could not persuade the Qurashites wholly to give up their black stone at the Kaaba…
329 wordsSECTION 177Note To Chapter Xxxi.
"Jehovah is our Lawgiver."--ISA. xxxiii. 22. What was the Book of the Law which Hilkiah found in the Temple? The great majority of eminent modern critics have now come to the conclusion that it was the kernel of the Book of Deuteronomy. Nor is this in any sense a mere modern notion. It occurs as far back as St. Jerom…
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The Book of Deuteronomy consists mainly of an historical introduction, probably added later (i. 1-5); Moses' _first_ discourse (i. 6-iv. 40); Moses' _second_ discourse (iv. 44-xxvi.); a section marked specially by blessings and curses (xxvii.-xxix.); a _third_ discourse of Moses (xxix. 2-xxx. 20); his farewell (xxxi. 1…
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The Chronicler here adds a very remarkable incident.[735] Necho, like Joash of Israel in former days, did not care to fight with the poor little King of Judah--or at any rate did not wish to do so at present, when he was on his way to the greater encounter. He therefore sent an embassy to Josiah, saying, "What have I t…
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Heedless of the message he had received, strong in mistaken hopes, Josiah opposed his poor, weak forces to the powerful host of renovated Egypt. The result was instantaneous ruin.[745] Judah was defeated and scattered without a blow,--Necho came, saw, conquered. Josiah, according to the present record of the Chronicles…
654 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
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Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.