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., κατάλειμμα; in xi. 36, θέσις) is the sign of home (1 Kings xi. 36; 2 Kings viii. 19. Comp. Psalm xviii. 28, cxxxii. 17). There was, as the chronicler boldly expressed it, "a covenant of salt" between God and the House of David (2 Chron. xiii. 5; comp. Numb. xviii. 19).
[539] Chron. xiii. 22.
[540] Zemaraim was in Benjamin near Bethel (Josh. xviii. 22), apparently Kirbet _el-Szomer_ in the Jordan valley, four miles north of Jericho.
[541] 2 Chron. xiii. 3-19. So that the golden calf and its chapel and its priests must, if the account be true, have fallen into his power. But it does not seem to have made the least difference. It is certain that "the calf" remained undisturbed till the days of the Assyrian invasion.
[542] How atrocious these "abominations were" may be seen from the Pentateuch (Lev. xviii. 3-25, xx. 1-23; Deut. xviii. 6-12).
[543] 1 Kings xv. 15.
[544] Ewald, iv. 49.
[545] Comp. the _Madame Mère_ in the French court.
[546] The LXX. (Vat.) calls her Ana.
[547] That it was not perfectly successful we see from 1 Kings xxii. 46.
[548] The word is an ἅπαξ λεγόμενον. It is only applied to this grotesque and obscene figure (1 Kings xv. 13; 2 Chron. xv. 16).
[549] 2 Kings xi. 16, xxiii. 4, 6, 12; 2 Chron. xxix. 16, xxx. 14. Vulg., _in Sacris Priapi_. Jerome (_ad Hos._, i. 4) calls Maachah's "horror" a _Simulacrum Priapi_ (see Selden, _De Dis Syris Syntagma_, ii. 5).
[550] 2 Chron. xvi. 8. Zarkh, perhaps Osorkhon I. (O-_serek_-on, "Ammon's darling"), was the feebler successor of Shesonk, Maspero, p. 362; Ewald, iii. 470. Shishak's army also consisted of Sushim and Lubim (2 Chron. xii. 3).
[551] The defeat had important consequences. Egypt did not again attack Palestine till three centuries later, under Pharaoh Nechoh (B.C. 609). The defeat weakened the Bubastite dynasty (Rawlinson, p. 36), though it continued to reign for two centuries. The "invasion" may have been a mere raid. The Pharaohs always seem to have degenerated from the founders of their dynasty, both in personal beauty and intellectual force.
[552] Josh. xviii. 25, now Er-Ram. No great importance can be attached to the dates, which are often self-contradictory.
[553] Ben-Hadad, "son of Hadad," the Sun-god (Macrob., _Saturn_, i. 24). Tabrimmon, "Rimmon is good." According to Sayce (_Hibbert Lectures_, p. 42), Rimmon--an Accadian name, which became, in Semitic, Rammânu, "the exalted"--was identified by the Syrians with the Sun-god Hadad, whom Shahmanaser called _Dada_. In Assyrian _Dadu_ ("dear child") is akin to David and to Dido.
[554] Ijon is probably Merj Ayion, "the meadow of the House of Maachah"; called also, Abel-maim, "the meadow of the waters"; "a city and a mother in Israel" (2 Sam. xx. 19); now Abil in the Ard-el-Huleh.
[555] See Numb. xxxiv. 11; Josh. xiii. 27.
[556] Josh. xxi. 17; 2 Kings xxiii. 8.
[557] LXX., ἡ σκοπία. Jer. xli. 5-9. Into this well Ishmael flung the corpses of the murdered adherents of Gedaliah.
[558] Renan, _Hist. du Peuple Israel_, ii. 248. Comp. Rephaiah.
[559] 2 Chron. xv. 1-15.
[560] 2 Chron. xvi. 9, 10.