PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Expositor's Bible: The Second Book of Kings
Farrar, F. W. (Frederic William) · 148,035 words · 223 reading sections
B.C. 608
If such were the fears of the timid and the pessimistic, still deeper was the disheartenment of the faithful. Josiah had been the most obedient, the most religious, of all the kings of Judah from childhood upwards. Where, then, were Jehovah's old loving-kindnesses which He sware unto David in His truth? Had God forgott…
368 wordsSECTION 182Footnotes:
[728] He was forced to desist by a fearful mortality among the labourers. [729] _Circ._ B.C. 611-605. Herod., ii. 158, 159, iv. 42. Psamatik, the father of Necho, was perhaps a Lybian. He established his sway over all Egypt displacing the Assyrians. [730] _Antt._, X. v. 1. [731] Herod., ii. 158. His father Psamatik …
412 wordsSECTION 183B.C. 608
2 KINGS xxiii. 31-33 "I went by, and, lo! he was gone: I sought him, but his place could nowhere be found."--PSALM xxxvii. 36. It was under the disastrous circumstances which attended his father's death at Megiddo that Jehoahaz began to reign. There is some confusion about the four sons of Josiah, whom the Chronicle…
882 wordsSECTION 184Footnotes:
"Weep ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him: but weep ye sore for him that is gone away: for he shall return no more, nor see his native country. For thus saith Jehovah concerning Shallum, the son of Josiah, King of Judah, which reigned instead of Josiah his father, which went forth out of this place: 'He shall not r…
436 wordsSECTION 185B.C. 608-597
2 KINGS xxiii. 36-xxiv. 7 "But those things that are recorded of him, and of his uncleanness and impiety, are written in the Chronicles of the Kings."--1 ESDRAS i. 42. "When Jehoiakim succeeded to the throne, he said, 'My predecessors knew not how to provoke God.'"--_Sanhedrin_, f. 103, 2. "There is no strange ha…
666 wordsSECTION 186B.C. 608-597
The thought of the Jewish king's selfish expensiveness may have crossed the mind of Habakkuk, though the taunt is addressed directly to the Chaldæans, and especially to Nebuchadrezzar, who was at that time revelling in the beautifying of Babylon, and especially of his own royal palace. On the other hand, the rebuke, or…
792 wordsSECTION 187B.C. 608-597
Meanwhile, we must follow for a time the outward fortunes of the king and of the world. Necho, after his successful advance, had retired to Egypt, and Jehoiakim continued to be for three years his obsequious servant. An event of tremendous importance for the world changed the entire fortunes of Egypt and of Judah. Nin…
717 wordsSECTION 188B.C. 608-597
For three years this frivolous egotist who occupied the throne of Judah remained faithful to his covenant with the King of Babylon, but at the end of that time he rebelled. In this rebellion he was again deluded by the glamour of Egypt, and reliance on the empty promise of "horses and much people." Ezekiel openly disap…
706 wordsSECTION 189B.C. 608-597
As he listened, he was filled not only with fury, but with contempt. Such a message might well have caused him and his worst counsellors to rend their clothes; but instead of this they adopted a tone of defiance. By the time that Jehudi had read three or four columns, Jehoiakim snatched the scribe's knife which hung at…
737 wordsSECTION 190Footnotes:
[766] Not Jehoiakim, but Jehoiachin, as the sequel shows. [767] Ezek. xix. 5-9. The allusions to Jehoiakim by Jeremiah are numerous, and all unfavourable (xxii. 13-19, xxvi. 20-23, xxxvi. 20-31, etc.) [768] Josephus (_Antt._, X. v. 2) is very severe on this king. He says that "he was unjust in disposition, an evil-do…
663 wordsSECTION 191B.C. 597
2 KINGS xxiv. 8-16 "There are times when ancient truths become modern falsehoods, when the signs of God's dispensations are made so clear by the course of natural events as to supersede the revelations of even their most sacred past."--STANLEY, _Lectures_, ii. 521. Jehoiachin--"Jehovah maketh steadfast"--who is al…
654 wordsSECTION 192B.C. 597
"He went up and down among the lions, he became a young lion, and learned to catch the prey. And he knew their palaces, and laid waste their cities; and the land was desolate, and the fulness thereof, by the noise of his roaring. Then the nations set against him on every side from the provinces, and spread their net ov…
574 wordsSECTION 193Footnotes:
[801] Jer. xxvi. 22. [802] 2 Chron. xxxvi. 9. [803] Jer. xx. 2. There seem to have been special "stocks" and "collars" in the Temple, reserved, by order of the priest Jehoiada, for those whom the priests regarded as unruly prophets (Jer. xxix. 26). [804] Jer. xxii. 24-30. The captivity of the queen-mother struck men…
344 wordsSECTION 194B.C. 597-586
2 KINGS xxiv. 18-xxv. 7 "Quand ce grand Dieu a choisi quelqu'un pour être l'instrument de ses desseins rien n'arrête le cours, où il enchaine, où il aveugle, où il dompte tout ce qui est capable de résistance." BOSSUET, _Oraison funèbre de Henriette Marie_. When Jehoiachin was carried captive to Babylon, never to …
745 wordsSECTION 195B.C. 597-586
Only thus can we account for the strange apostasies--"the abominations of the heathen"--with which he permitted the Temple to be polluted; and for the ill-treatment which he allowed to be inflicted on Jeremiah and other prophets, to whom in his heart he felt inclined to listen. What these abominations were we read wit…
784 wordsSECTION 196B.C. 597-586
The warning was rendered unavailing by the conduct of Hananiah. He prophesied that within two full years God would break the yoke of the King of Babylon; and that the captive Jeconiah, and the nobles, and the vessels of the House of the Lord would be brought back. Jeremiah, by way of an acted parable, had worn round hi…
679 wordsSECTION 197B.C. 597-586
Sad close for a dynasty which had now lasted for nearly five centuries! As for Pharaoh, he too was an eagle, as Nebuchadrezzar was--a great eagle with great wings and many feathers, but not so great. The trailing vine of Judah bent her roots towards him, but it should wither in the furrows when the east wind touched i…
763 wordsSECTION 198Footnotes:
[813] Comp. Jer. xxiii. 6: Jehovah-Tsidkenu. [814] Ezek. xvii. 12-14. [815] Ezek. xvii. 1-6. [816] Jer. xxxiv. 8-11. [817] Jer. xxxiv. 19. Comp. Gen. xv. 17. [818] This is strikingly shown by his piteous remark to them in Jer. xxxviii. 5. [819] He first sent two of Jeremiah's friends, Elasah and Gemariah, the son…
482 wordsSECTION 199_Jeremiah And His Prophecies_
JER. i. 1-v. 31 "Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes--they were souls that stood alone, While the men they agonised for hurled the contumelious stone; Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine, By one man's plain truth to manhood…
651 wordsSECTION 200_Jeremiah And His Prophecies_
The king heard his petition, and he was removed to a better prison in the court of the watch, where he received his daily piece of bread out of the bakers' street until all the bread in the city was spent. For now utter famine came upon the wretched Jews, to add to the horrors and accidents of the siege. If we would k…
1,029 wordsSECTION 201_Jeremiah And His Prophecies_
It seems to have been at this time that, in spite of his grim vaticination of immediate retribution, Jeremiah showed his serene confidence in the ultimate future by accepting the proposal of his cousin Hanameel to buy some of the paternal fields at Anathoth, though at that very moment they were in the hands of the Chal…
460 wordsSECTION 202B.C. 586
[852] Homer, _Iliad_, i. 106-109. [853] But it must not be forgotten that Jer. xxxi. 1-34 is so hopeful that it has been called "the Gospel before Christ." [854] Jer. vi. 14, viii. 11; Ezek. xiii. 10. [855] W. R. Smith, "Prophets" (_Enc. Brit._). [856] Jer. xxxvii, 11-15. [857] Jer xxxviii. 5. The Jewish aristocra…
664 wordsSECTION 203B.C. 586
"Thine eyes shall behold the eyes of the King of Babylon, and he shall speak with thee mouth to mouth, and thou shalt go to Babylon." Whereas Ezekiel had said (xii. 13),-- "I will bring him to Babylon, the land of the Chaldæans; yet shall he not see it, though he shall die there." Henceforth Zedekiah was forgotten, …
715 wordsSECTION 204B.C. 586
Among the remnant of the people was Jeremiah. Nebuzaradan had received from his king the strictest injunctions to treat him honourably; for he had heard from the deserters that he had always opposed the rebellion, and had prophesied the issue of the siege. He was indeed sent in manacles to Ramah;[890] but there Nebucha…
394 wordsSECTION 205Footnotes:
[867] Jos., _Antt._, X. viii. 2; 2 Chron. xxxii. 5, xxxiii. 14. First and last, the siege seems to have lasted one year, five months, and twenty-seven days. [868] Zech. viii. 19. [869] The inscriptions of Nebuchadrezzar which have been as yet deciphered speak of his sumptuous buildings and of his worship of the gods …
631 wordsSECTION 206B.C. 586
2 KINGS xxv. 22-30 "Vedi che son un che piango."--DANTE, _Inferno_. "No, rather steel thy melting heart To act the martyr's sternest part, To watch with firm, unshrinking eye Thy darling visions as they die, Till all bright hopes and hues of day Have faded into twilight grey." KEBLE. In deciding that he would …
675 wordsSECTION 207B.C. 586
Jerusalem--dismantled, defenceless, burnt--was no longer habitable. It was all but deserted, so that jackals and hyænas prowled even over the mountain of the Lord's House. All attempt to refortify it would have been regarded as rebellion, and such a mere "lodge in a garden of cucumbers" would have been useless to repre…
778 wordsSECTION 208B.C. 586
For two days there was an unbroken silence, and the peasants at Mizpah remained unaware of the dreadful tragedy. On the third day a sad procession was seen wending its way up the heights. There were scattered Jews in Shiloh and Samaria who still remembered Zion; and eighty pilgrims, weeping as they went, came with shav…
663 wordsSECTION 209B.C. 586
All the arguments seemed against this course; and he could see very clearly that it would be against all the wishes of the down-trodden fugitives who longed for Egypt, "where we shall see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor have hunger of bread." Yet Jeremiah could only give them the message which he believ…
672 wordsSECTION 210B.C. 586
So on the colony of fugitives the curtain of revelation rushes down in storm. The prophet went on the troubled path which, if tradition be true, led him at last to martyrdom. He is said to have been stoned by his infuriated fellow-exiles. But his name lived in the memory of his people. It was he (they believed) who had…
349 wordsSECTION 211Footnotes:
[894] So Grätz and Cheyne. [895] Jer. xxxi. 15-17. [896] Jer. xxvi. 24. [897] Jer. xl. 12. [898] Some identify it with _Shaphat_, a mile from Jerusalem. [899] They are called _sarî_ ("princes"). [900] There is no Elishama in the royal genealogy, except a son of David. Ishmael may have been the son or grandson of …
476 wordsSECTION 212Epilogue
"On Jordan's banks the Arab's camels stray, On Zion's hills the False One's votaries pray, The Baal-adorer bows on Sinai's steep; Yet there--e'en there--O God, Thy thunders sleep." BYRON. "God, Thou art Love: I build my faith on that." BROWNING. Before concluding I should like to add a few words (1) on what some…
682 wordsSECTION 213Epilogue
The conviction is borne upon our soul with overwhelming power, as we read the pages of Amos, of Isaiah, and of Jeremiah, that, in spite of all their rage and tumult, and apparently irresistible dominance, God still sitteth above the water-floods, and God remaineth a King for ever. Side by side with this spectacle of t…
889 wordsSECTION 214Epilogue
"God's in His heaven, All's right with the world." And like a Greek chorus amid the agonies of destiny stand the prophets, those clearest and greatest of moral teachers. They, in spite of their holiness and faithfulness, are not exempt from the calamities of life. Amos was insulted and expelled by the high priest of …
664 wordsSECTION 215Epilogue
But the History of Prophecy also in this epoch is marked by events of world-wide importance. In the days of Isaiah we see the change of Israel from a nation into a church of the faithful, for which alone he has any permanent hope. In him, too, we hear the first distinct utterances of the final form in which should be f…
393 wordsSECTION 216B.C.
[916] T. Hodgkin, _Friends' Quarterly_, September 1893, p. 401. [917] Jer. xxix. 25-27. _THE KINGS OF ASSYRIA, AND SOME OF THEIR INSCRIPTIONS._ Dates from the _Eponym Canon_ and the Assyrian Monuments; Schrader, _Cuneiform Inscriptions, and the Old Testament_, E. Tr., 1888, pp. 167-187. 860.--Shalmaneser II. 854.…
290 wordsSECTION 217Tiglath-Pileser Ii. (Circ. B.C. 739)
Tiglath-Pileser II. 950 Assur-dan II. 930 Rimmon-Nirari II. 911 Tiglath-Uras II. 889 Assur-natzu-pal 883 Shalmaneser II. 858 Assur-dain-pal (a rebel) 825 Samsi-Rimmon II. 823 Rimmon-Nirari III. 810 Shalmaneser III. 781 Assur-dan III. 771 Assur-Nirari 753 Tiglath-Pileser III. (Pul) 745 Shalmaneser IV. (an u…
284 wordsSECTION 218Iv
Our chief knowledge of SARGON is from the great inscription in the Palace of Khorsabad. It is translated by Prof. Dr. Jules Oppert, _Records of the Past_, ix. 1-21. The king's inscription at Bavian, north-east of Mosul, is in the same volume, pp. 21-28, translated by Dr. T. G. Pinches. See, too, _id._, vii. 21-56, xi. …
471 wordsSECTION 219V
The Taylor Cylinder, so called from its former possessor, is a hexagonal clay prism found at Nineveh in 1830, and now in the British Museum (translated by Mr. H. F. Talbot, _Records of the Past_, i. 33-53). The first two campaigns of Sennacherib are related as on the Bellino Cylinder. The Taylor Cylinder narrates camp…
322 wordsSECTION 220Vii
An inscription of ESAR-HADDON, found at Kouyunjik, now in the British Museum, mentions his receipt of the intelligence of his father's murder by his unnatural brothers, while he was commanding his fathers army on the northern confines. "From my heart I made a vow. My liver was inflamed with rage. Immediately I wrote l…
268 wordsSECTION 221_Inscription In The Tunnel Of Siloam_
[918] Up to the time of Tiglath-Pileser II., the Eponym Year (which is not here given) marks the second complete year of each king's reign. [919] This Shalmaneser died about B.C. 825, after a reign of thirty-five years (Sayce in _Records of the Past_, v. 27-42; Oppert, _Hist. des Empires de Chaldée et d'Assyrie_; Ména…
721 wordsSECTION 222B.C.
The question might seem absurd, but for its solution I must refer to my paper on the subject in the _Expositor_ for October 1893. The _sole_ authorities for a calf at Dan are 1 Kings xii. 28-30; 2 Kings x. 29. If in the former passage we alter _one letter_, and read האפד (the "ephod") for האחד (the "one")--as Klosterm…
266 wordsSECTION 223*** End Of The Project Gutenberg Ebook The Expositor'S Bible: The Second Book Of Kings ***
Jehoram ben-Jehoshaphat 851-843 Ahaziah ben-Jehoram 843-842 Athaliah 842-836 Joash ben-Ahaziah 836-796 Amaziah 796-783 Amaziah-Uzziah 783-737 Jotham 737-735 Ahaz 735-715 Hezekiah 715-686 Manasseh 686-641 Amon 641-639 Josiah 639-608 Jehoahaz 608 Jehoiakim 608-597 Jehoiachin 597 Zedekiah 597-586 [920] Man…
277 wordsSource & rights
Public domain in the USA; original historical text digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.