The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Kings — Section 425

jecture. It ls, perhaps, most !,robable that na~seh, but of which generation after (as Josephus eays, • Ant. Ju .,' x. 6. § 2) genemtion continued to be guilty." 'rbe he was incited to take thie course by the special sins were (1) idolatry, accompanied Egyptiaus, who wi,re still under the role by licentious rites; ('..!) child-mnr<ier, or of the bruve and enterprising N echoh, and sacrifice to Molooh; (3) sodomy (eh. xx.iii. who may have hoped to wipe out by fresh 7); and (4) the use of enchantments and victories the disnstor experienced at Car- the practice of magical arts ( eh. xxi. 6). ohemish. '!'here is, perhaps, an allusion to Ver. 4.-And also for the innocent blood Jehoiakim's expectation of Egyptian suc- that he shed (comp. eh. xxi. IG, and tho cours in the statement of ver. 7, that "the comment ad lac.). Like the other "sins of Kina of Egypt came not again any more Manasseh," the shedding of innocent blood out ~f hie land." continued, both in the Moloch offerings Ver. 2.-And the Lord sent against him (Jer. vii. 31) and in the persecution of the bands of the Chaldeea. That Nebuchad- righteous (Jer. vii. 6, 9, etc.). Urijah was nezzar did not promptly march against actually put to death by Jehoiakim (Jer. Jehoie.kim to suppress his rebellion, but xxvi. 23): Jeremiah narrowly escaped. contented himself with sending ego.inst Jl'or he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood ; him a few "bands" (•J1,i) of Chaldeans, which the Lord would not pardon. Blood and exciting the neighbouring Syrians, "cries to God from the ground" on which Ammonites, e.nd Moo.bites to invade e.nd it falls (Gen. iv. 11), and is "required" ravage his territory, 011n scarcely be other- at the hands of the bloo<lehedder (Gen. wise accouuted for than by supposing that ix. 5) unfailingly. Especially is the blood he was detained in Middle Asia by wars of saints slain for their religion avenged or rebellions nearer home. It may have and exacted by the Most High (see Rev. vi. been a knowled11:e of these embarrassments 10: xi. 18: xvi. 6; xix. 2, etc.). that induced Jehoiakim to lend e.n ee.r to Ver. 5.-Now the rest of the aota of the persuasions of N echoh. And bands of the J ehoiaki.m, and nil that he did, are they Syrians, and bands of the Moe.bites, and not written in the book of the ohroniclea bands of the children of Ammon ( comp. of the kings of J'uda.h l Among the acts Ezek. xix. 8, "Then the nations set e.gaiust of Jehoiakim recorded elsewhere in the him on every side from the provinces, and Old Testament, the most remarkable are spread their net over him : he was taken in the following: (1) Hie execution of Urijah their pit"), and sent them against Judah the son of Shemaiah (Jer. xni. 23); (2) to destroy it--i'.e. to begin that waste and his destruction of the first collection of the ruin which should terminate ultimately in early prophecies made by Jeremiah, in a the complete destruction and obliteration of fit of anger at hearing its contents (Jer. the Jndroan kingdom-aooording to the xxxvi. 20-23); (3) his order that Jere- word of the Lord, which he spake by his miah C1nd Baruch should be arrested (Jer. servants the prophets. As Isaiah, Micah, xxxvi. 26); (4) his capture by some of the Habakkuk, Jeremiah, Zcphaniah, nnd Hnl- "nations" which Nebucbadnezz,u ha.rl dnh (see eh. xxii. 16-20). stirred up against him, e.nd delivery into Ver. 3.-Snrely at the commandment of the the bands of that monarch (Ezek. xix. 9), Lord oame this upon Judah; literally, only probably e.t Jerusalem. How N cbnchad- at the mouth of the Lord did tliis come upon nezze.r treated him is uncertain. Josephus Judah; i.e. there was no other cause for it says (' Ant. Jud.,' x. 6. § 3) that ho put but the simple "mouth" or "word" of the him to death, and cast him out unburied Lord. The LXX., who translate ..-~,i.; beyond the walls of the city. Ent from the Oup.bs Kuplou ~v ,.-I -r~v 'Io~oav, seem to have biblical notices we can only g11ther that he l1ad 9~ instead of 'f, in their copies. To clie,l prematurely after a reign of no morti remove them out of his sight ( comp. ob. than eleven years (B.C. 608 tn B.C. 507), and xxiii. 27: and seo nlso the corumcnt on was unlamented, •• buried with the burial of eh. xvii. 18) for the sins of Manasseh, an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the according to all that he did. The rueouing gates of Jerusalem" (Jer. xxii. IS, I:i). is not that the nation was punished fo1· the Conjecture hns filled np the bfouks of thid personal sins e.nd ci-imee of the wicked history in several ways, the must purely Manasseh forty or fifty years previously, ime.ginntive being, perhaps, that of E,rnld, but that the class of sius introduoed by who says (' History of Israel,' vol. iv. p. Me.no.sseh, being persisted in by the peoplo, 262), " When the Clrnldean armies pre- brought the eteru judgments of God upon sented themselves nt tl,e gates of the them. As W. G. Sumner well observes, capital, Jehoiakim seems to Imm bern "'rhe sins of Manasseh h11d become a betrayed into the same error WI his brulher dceianation 0 for a cortain olnss of offonces, (Jehoe.haz), eleven years belorc. Ho gavu and a particular form of publio and s()!)ial ear to f, crafty invitation of the enemy to depmrity, which wo.s int1·0,luced by Mu.- repair r,,r negotiation, to th,·ir ramp, wher.i_  THE SECOND noorr OF THE KINGS. tCH. XXIV'. 1-20.