Nor wBs he content with fortifying the leser, probably in the yur n.o. 748. At tlmt OBpitAI. He Riso" built cities in the moun- tim'3 be pays to the Assyrians n heavy tribute, tRins of JudBh, and in the forests he built consisting of eighteen talents of gold, three castles e.nd towers.'' TiglRth-pileser had hundred talents of silver, two hundred me.de war on his fatl,er (' Eponym Canon • talents of copper, and twenty talonts of pp. 117, 118). He felt that any day his ow~ spices. Subsequently, about the yeBr n.c. turn might <'Orne. 734, he is found in revolt. His nllionce Ver. 36.-Now the rest of the acts of J'o- with Pehh, here implied, is directly stated tham, and all that he did. The principal by Isaiah (vii. 2). Begun in Jotham's ovent of Jotham's reign was his war with reign, it continued, and <'&me to B head, in Ammon. The writer of Chronicles Mys, the reign of Ahnz (see oh. xvi. 5 and [sa. "He fought also with the king of the Am- vii. 1-9; viii 6). And Pekah the son of monites, and prevailed against them. And Remaliah. Pekah and Rezin intended to the children of Ammon gave him the same establish on the Jewish throne a certain year an hundred talents of silver, and ten Ben-TabeBl (Isa. vii, 6), a creature of their thousand measures of wheat, and ten thou- own, with whose aid they thought to offer sand of barley. So much did the oLildren an effectual resistance to Assyria. of Ammon pay unto him, both the second Ver. 88. -And J'otham slept with his year, aud the third" (2 Chron. xxvii. 5). fathers, and was buried with his fathers in Josephns (' Ant. Jud.,' ix. 11. § 2) gives the oity of David his father: and Ahaz his nearly the ssme account, but regards the son reigned in his stead. It may be sus- payment as an annual tribute, intended to pected that the full name of this king was be permanent. Are they not written in Jeho-ahaz. Ahaz, "possession," is a name the book of the ohronicles of the kings of never assigned to any other Israelite, and J'udah! it is one not likely to have been given by a Ver. 87.-In those days the Lord began to religious father like Jotham. In the As- 1end against J'udaa Rezin the Xing of Syria. syriAn inscriptions· the Jewish king con- Rezin's name occurs in the .Assyrian in- temporary with Rezin and Pekah ia called earipiions early in the reign of Tiglath-pi- "Yahn-khazi."
HOMILETICS. Vers.1-7.-.The leper-king a pattern and a warning. I. IN ms EARLIER YEA.RB A.zAB.IA.B WAS A PATTERN KING. He "did that which wa.s right in the sight of the Lord" (ver. 3); he "sought God" (2 Chron. x.xvi. 5); he consorted with "Zechariah, who ha.d. understanding in the visions of God;" and the result was that "God made him to prosper." "God helped him against the Philistines and the Arabians and the Mehunim" (2 Chron. x:xvi. 7), and he "was marvellously helped" (2 Ch ron. x.xvi. 15). So far, he is a pattern to us, the model of a good king, of one who is at once religiously minded and full of practical zeal and energy, who serves God without ceasing to serve man, "not slothful in busine~s, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord" (Rom. :xii. 11), But there is a reverse to the picture. II. 1N HIS LATER YE~ AzARLUI WAS A WARNING TO KINGS AND GREAT JIIEN GENERALLY. A.zariab, like his father (eh. xiv. 10), became "lifted up" (2 Chron. xxvi. 16). He was not content with his kingly power and greatness, his secular dignity and majesty; he would be first everywhere, and invaded the priestly office (2 Chron. xxvi. 16-19). 1t had pleased God, in the theocratic polity which he had set up, to draw the sharpest possible line between the sacerdotal order and the rest of the community. None were allowed to sacrifice, or to burn incense, or even to enter into the sanctuary, but "the priests the sons of Aaron "-the lineal descendants of the first and greatest of the high priests. Kings had their functions-great and high and (in a certain sense) sacred functions-to rule, to judge, to determine on peace or war; to lea.d. armies, if it so pleased them; to direct the whole policy. of the_ nation. But on? thing they might not do, and that was to assume the duties which had been assigned to the priests and Levites, who bad been appointed God's special ministers, to minister to him in the congregation. 'l'he exclusive right of the priests to their functions had been vindicated in a most terrible and awful way, when, soon after the institution of the Levitical pritsthood, its honours were coveted by great men who did not belong to the privileged body. Korab, Dathan, and Abiram, with their company, were swallowed np, and "went down quick into hell," because they claimed to be as "holy" as the rrieets (Numb. xvi. 3), and to offer incense before the door of the tabernacle of the con- 011. xv. 1-38.J THE SECOND BOOK OF THE KINGS. 303