evidently regards the event as ruiraculo11e: Dariae Hystaspie, when he began his re- "The Lord /iad made the boat of the Syrians treat from Bcythia (Herod., iv. 135), left hie to bcnr a noise," eto. Nothing can be more camp et.anding, and the camp fires lighted, wenk nnd irrelevant than to remark, with and the asses tethered (see ver. 10), that Diihr," There are instances, even nowadnys, the Bcythie.ns, seeing the tents and hearing that people in certo.in mountainous regions the noise of the nnimals, might be fully rego.rd a rushing and roaring sound, such aa persuaded that bis troops were still in the is sometimes heard there, ns a. sign of coming same place. Asses were the chief baggage- war." The Syrians thought they heard the animals in many ancient armies. And fled actual arrival of a vu.at army. And they for their life. Thinking that, if they waited so.id one to another, Lo, the King of Israel till dawn, the Israelite allies, Hittites a.or! bath hired against 1lB the kings of the Hit- Egyptians, would exterminate them. tites. This supposition has been thought Ver. 8.-And when these lepers came t~ "strange," almost inexplicable. "No such the uttermost pa.rt of the camp. The nar- nation as the Hittites any longer existed," rative, begun in ver. 3, is here taken up says Mr. Sumner(' The Books of the Kings,' from the point where it was broken off in vol. ii. p. 72, Eng. trans.J. But the As- ver. 5, and the phrase there used is repeated, syrian records of the ninth and eighth cen- to mark the connection. They went into turies B.O. make it evident, not only that the one tent, and did eat and drink. The first Hittites still existed at that date, but that necessity was to satisfy the cravings of their they were among the most powerful enemies appetite, as they were well-nigh starving. of the Ninevite kinge, being located in Then their covetousness was excited by the Northern Syria, about Co.rchemish (Jere.bus) riches exposed to view in the tent. And and the adjacent country. It is also ap- carried thence silver, and gold, and raiment. parent that they did not form a centralized Orientale.rmiesce.rried with them vast quan- monarchy, but were governed by a number tities of the precious metals, in the shape of of chiefs, or "kinge," twelve of whom are gold and silver vases, goblets, dishes, as well mentioned in one place (G. Smith,' Eponym as in collars, chains, furniture, and trappings. Canon,' p. 112). It was no very improbable Herodotus says (ix. 80) that, when the cump supposition on the part of the Syrians that of M"ardonius at Platma fell into the bands Jeboram had called in the aid of the Hit- of the Greeks, there were found in it" many tite confederacy, and that they had marched tents richly adorned with furniture of gold an army to his assistance. And the kings of and silver, many couches covered with plates the Egyptians. "The plural, kings of the of the same, and many golden bowls, goblets, Egyptians," says Keil, "is not to be pressed. and other drinking-vessels. On the car- It is probably occasioned only by the pa- riages were bags containing gold and silver rallel expression, 'kings of the Hittites.' " kettles; and the bodies of the slain fur- But Egyptian history shows us that about nished bracelets and cha.ins, and scimitars this date Egypt was becoming disintegrated, with golden ornaments-not to mention em- and that two or three distinct dynasties w.. re broidered apparel, of which no one made _sometimes ruling at the same time, in differ- any account.'' The camp of the Syrians ent parts of the country-one at Bubastis, would scarcely have been so richly pro- another at 1'hebes, a third at Tanis, occa- vided; but still it contained, no doubt, a sionally a fourth at Memphis (see "An- !urge amount of very valuable plunder. And cient Egypt," in' The Story of the Nations,' went and hid it. The lepers bud no right p. 311). The writer thus shows I\ know- to the pick of the spoil. It belonged to the ledge of the internal condition of Egypt nation, and it was probnbly tho king's right which we should not have expected. To to apportion it. The lepers had to c'Jnceo.l come npon na ; i.e. to fall upon us from the whBt they appropriated, lest it should be north and from the south at the same time. to.ken from them. And oa.me again, and en- In their panic, the Syrians did not stop to tered into another tent, and oarried thenoe weigh probabilities, or to think bow unlikely also, and went and hid it. Plundering it was that such a simultaneous atto.ck could thus proL,ibly, not two tents only, but have been arranged between powers so re- several. At last, either covetousness w,is mote one from the other. sntiated or conscience awoke. Ver. 7.-Wherefore they nrose and fled Ver. 9.-Then they sru.d one to another, ln the twilight. At the very time when We do not well. It was e. tardy recoguitiou the lepers were drawing off from the gate of what their duty required of them. As of So.maria. to fall away to them (see ,·er. Grotius snys, "Oflicium civium est ea indi 0
5). And left their tents, and their horsn, care, quro ad salutem publicam pertinent." and their asses, even the camp as it was. Their fellow-countrymen in the city of Sn- Partly, perbnpe, in mere panic; partly to marin were perishing of hunger, mothers induce a belief on the part of the enemy eo.tiug their cbi\Jren, aud th,i like, while Ulo.t they had not quitted their camp. So they employed hour after hour in collecting 150 TB:E SECOND BOOK OF THE KINGS. [OB. VII, 1-20.