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 cities and ivory palaces,[789] and fought like a hero against the foes of his country, but who had never known how to rule his own house. He had winked at the atrocities committed in his name by his Tyrian queen, had connived at her idolatrous innovations, and put no obstacle in the way of her persecutions. The people who might have forgotten or condoned all else never forgot the stoning and spoliation of Naboth and his sons, and his death was regarded as a retribution on this crime.
[767] 2 Chron. xviii. 2.
[768] 2 Kings iii. 7.
[769] 1 Kings xxii. 10 (Peshito).
[770] The LXX. has, "The Lord shall deliver into thy hands _even the king of Syria_." At first they all said, "_Adonai_ shall deliver it"; but afterwards, perhaps stung by the doubts of Jehoshaphat, or encouraged by the audacity of Zedekiah, they said, "_Jehovah_ shall deliver it."
[771] Deut. xxxiii. 17. "His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people altogether to the ends of the earth."
[772] The LXX., omitting "besides," implies Jehoshaphat's opinion that these were not true prophets of Jehovah. So, too, the Vulg., "Non est hic _propheta Domini quispiam_?"
[773] Compare Agamemnon's bitter complaint of Calchas.
[774] 1 Kings xxii. 9. LXX., εὐνοῦχον ἔνα. And this is probably the meaning of סָרִיס, not "officer," as in A.V.
[775] For he had seventy sons, besides daughters (2 Kings x. 7)
[776] The words implied that the king would fall, though the army would escape (1 Kings xxii. 17, בְּשָׁלוֹם). Comp. Numb. xxvii. 16, 17 "Let the Lord ... set a man over the congregation, ... who may lead them out and in; that the _congregation of the Lord be not as sheep which have no shepherd_."
[777] Theodoret explains it as anthropomorphism, and condescension to human modes of speech (προσωποπΐοι α τίς ἐστι διδάσκουσα τὴν θείαν συγχώρησιν).
[778] 1 Kings xxii. 21. It is "the," not "a" spirit, _i.e._, the unclean spirit of deception (τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς πλάνης, 1 John iv. 6). Comp. Zech. xiii. 2, "Also I will cause _the prophets and the unclean spirit_ to pass out of the land." St. Paul says in 2 Thess. ii. 11: "God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe the lie."
[779] The worst of insults (Job xvi. 10; Lam. iii. 30).
[780] The words (verse 28) "And he said, Hearken, O people, every one of you," are believed by Nöldeke, Klostermann, and others to be an interpolation from Micah i. 2, by some one who confused Micaiah with Micah. They are omitted in the LXX.
[781] We have no reason to accuse Ahab of any bad or selfish motives here. No doubt Micaiah's prophecy of his approaching death had made him anxious. If the LXX. reading, "but put thou on _my_ robes," were right, the case would be different.
[782] We see in this order a trace of the single combats which mark the Homeric battles.
[783] 2 Chron. xviii. 31: "And the Lord helped him, and God moved them from him."
[784] So Jarchi. Josephus calls him Aman.
[785] 1 Kings xxii. 34. "At a venture"; marg., "in his simplicity"; comp. 2 Sam. xv. 11.
[786] What the French call _le défaut de la cuirasse_ (Keil). Luther has, _zwischen den Panzer und Hengel_.
[787] Josephus, _Antt._, VIII. xv. 6.
[788] Köster thinks that there may be reference to the fact that the name "dog" was given to the unchaste.