of Rll the early kings of Syria; and, though be suffered one great defeat at the bnnds of the .As~yrian king, Shalmaneser II., yet he issued from the struggle unsubdued and left his dominions intact to his son and successor Benbadad III. ' In Elisha, on the other hand, we have- ' I. THE WISE, CLEAR-SIGHTED, SINGLE-MINDED HONEST ADVISER. Elisha has no cunning, no art, no special cleverness. But he ca.:i read character; be can see through Hazael's designs. ,vhether king, or noble, or common person applies to him for advice, he ~ses th~ same simplicity, counsels each as seems to him for the best, and seeks to gam nothmg for himself by the advice which be gives them. His plainness o~ends Naaman (eh. v. 12); his firmness enrages Jehoram (eh. vi. 31); his penetration disconcerts Razael (eh. viii. 11); but he cares nothing how men may receive his words. It is a Divine message that he delivers, and deliver the messa.cre he must and will, in simple plain language, whether men will hear or whether they ;ill forbeo.r. II. THE MAN OF PEACE. Elisha's character is eminently peaceful and conciliatory. ~~- weeps at the thought ?f those horrors which war causes almost of necessity (eh. vm. 11). One~ only do his counsels lead on to an engagement (eh. iii. 16-24); mostly he ~ontnves that pe:ils shall be averted without the shedding of blood (eh. vi. 18-22; vu. 6-15). He will not allow the prisoners that he has made to be put to death, or in any way ill tl'eatcd ( eh. vi. 22, 23). He seeks to check Hazael's murderous propensities by a look which he cannot misunderstand (eh. viii. 11). III. THE PROPHET AKD TEACHER. The office of the prophet was to rebuke sin, as Elisha did (eh. iii. 13, 14), to sustain faith, to train up fresh prophets, to teach the faithful (eh. iv. 23), to announce God's will to king and people, and to execute commissions with which God specially entrusted him. Elisha never failed in the performance of any of these duties. Cast upon a. dark time, when a debasing super- stition, imported from a. foreign country, had full possession of the court an<l had laid a strong hold upon the country, he faithfully upheld Jehovah and .Jehovah's laws before backsliding kings and "a disobedient and gainsaying people." 'l'o Elisha principally it was owing that true religion still maintained itself in the land against the persecutions of Jezebel and her sons, and that, when the dynasty of Omri came to an end, there was still a. faithful remnant left, which h11d not bowed the knee to Baal, but had clung to Jehovah under all manner of difficulties. If Elisha left no gre.at prophet to succeed him, it was probably because great men a.re not made to order, a.nJ God's providence did not see fit to continue the succession of first-rate prophetical teacher11, which had been raised up to meet the extreme danger of the intro- duction and maintenance of a false state religion by apostate kings. When two such character11 are brought into contact, the natural result is mutual repnlsion. Hazael is ashamed that Elisha should read him so well; and Elisha weeps when he thinks of the woes that Hazael will inflict upon Israel. Outward respect is maintained; but the two must have felt, when they parted, that they were adversaries for life, bent on opposite courses, with opposed principles, aims, motives; not only the servants of different gods, but antagonistic in their whole conception of life and its objects, sure to clash if ever they should meet again, and, even if they should not meet, sure to be ever working for different ends, and engaged in thwarting one the other.
Vere. 16-27.-The power of bad women fur ein1. All the evil wrought, all the i.rreligion, all the licentiousness and depravity, and almost all the misery suffered during the reigns of Ahab, Abaziab, and Jehoram in Israel, and of Jeboram and A..ha.zia.h in Judah, were caused by the machinations and influence of two wicked women-Jezebel and her daughter Athalia.b. Jezebel, a proud imperious woman, born in the purple, a "king's daughter," and extraordinarily strong-minded and unscrupulous, obtained a complete ascendancy over the weak and unstable Ahab, o.nd must be viewed as the instigator of all bis wicked actions. With Ahab's connivance, she "slew the prophets of the Lord," persecuted the faithful, set- up the worship of Baal and .ABhtoretb in Samaria, introduced into Israel the unchaste rites of the Dea Syra and of Adonis, threa.1ened the life of Elijah and drove him into banishment, contrived the judicial murder of Na.both, and imparted to Ahab's reign that character of licentioWlness and bloody cruelty which gives it its sad pre-eminence above all others In the blaek wit of Israel's monarchs. Nor did Jezebel's evil influence stop here. She Oil, VIII, 1-29.] THE SECOND BOOK OF THE KINGS. 175