the priest& of the Lor4, time- o.nd no.tion• follows, ver. 18, "relied upon the Lord God honoured; (4) for the mere mo.nufe.cture of of their fathers." e new-fimgled priesthood, end that after the Vcr.17.-Blain; Hebrew, c•77~. Even if model of nation■ foreign e.nd heathen: (5) we accept for e. moment the immense num• for the faot that, when these were me.de they here W!itten here and ~lsewhere e.s authentio, that me.de them, and the gods for ~horn a considerable deduction may be made from they were made, were e.11 three •• like to " our difficulty by virtue of the faot that this one another-no true people, no true priests, woi:d need not mean to describe the aotually end no godll e.t e.ll ! A young bnllock e.nd slain, It ,occurs about ninety-one times, aeven rama. The oonsooration sacrifice for Of these, m our Authorized Version it is the whole line of priests was "one young found rendered, including marginal options, bnllock and two rams without blemish" e.s many as fifteen times " wounded " or by (Exod. :xxix. I, 15, 19; Lev. viii. 2). Of even e. less severe meaning. However, <',0uree, Jeroboam felt his own position in whether "slain" or "wounded o.nd slain" the rne.tte~ 110 weak, tbe.t each false, illegiti- !he alle~d. nu°;lbers of our present text ar;,, mRte ca_ndidate for the priestly service must m our op101on, moredibly enormous, bnng hl8 se.crifice, and that a larger one by five rams tha.n the divinely ordered one of Ver. 19.-Bet:tiel, Abijah was, perhaps, Moses. the rather permitted to take this rity as the Y ers. 10, 11.-The professions BUlDmarized head-quarters of Jeroboam's irreligious wor- in these two ve?SeB were confessedly formally ship. J'eshanah. A place not known else-- b-ue of the king and priests e.nd nation, where in Scripture by this no.me which although Abijah and kingdom certainly did by _derivation means " old." G.,;ve (Dr. not carry a clean conscience in them (Matt. Smith's • Bible Dictionary,' i. p. 1035) xv. 8; Mark :xii. 33; 1 Sam. :xv. 22; Isa. quotes Josephus (' Ant.,' xiv. 15. § 12) e.s i. 11, 16, 19). They were, moreover, beyond speaking of a place so named, the scene of a doubt really true of multitudes of indi- o. bo.ttle between Herod and Antigonus's mdu.als in the kingdom of Judah and Ben- general, Pappus, but Josephus does not jamin. And these were "the salt of the " assign its site. Ephre.in; or, o.ccording to kingdom (Matt. v. 13). They burnt . . . Chethiv, Epron. Grove (Dr. Smith's 'Bible sweet incense (so our eh. ii. 4; Exod. :xxx. Dict_ionary ,' i .. p. ~69) says that conjecture 7; Rev. viii. 3, 4). The pure table , , , the h~ ident1~ed 1t with the Ephraim of 2 Sam. XJ.n. 23, with the Oplirah of Josh. xviii. 23 OBI1dlestiok. Although ten of each of these were made, only one was need, or only one and with the Ephraim of John xi. 54 '. e.t the time (see our note on eh. iv. 8, com- possibly the modem El-Taiyibeh (Dr. RO: pared with eh. x:x:i:x. 18 ; 1 Kings vii 48). binson, i 44), about five miles from Bethel. We have not foraa.ken him . . . ye have Ver. 20.-The Lord struck him, and he forsaken him. If all tlie difference that died. The writer of Chronicles here, for these words have it in them to express brevity's sake, and not to recur to his name could have been put t.o the credit of Abijah, again, reco~ds the death of Jeroboam, which, what tremendous strength would have now however, did not happen till after Abijah's belonged to his position and to his heart I death, in the second year of Asa's reign Ver. 12.-The concluding utterances of (1 Kings xiv. 20: xv. 25). That the Lord Abijah certainly did nut fell below what had struck him, may glance at the fearful an- preceded or the occasion in itself; and the nouncement conveyed to him through his echoes of them, while they died on the ea.r, wife by Ahijah (1 Kings xiv. 6-16). must have lived, indeed, and stirred life in Ver. 21.-Wu:ed mighty, For this our the heam of many (Josh. v. 14; Numb. x. Authorized Version reads, " waxed fat e.nd 9; x:x:xi 6; our ver. 14, and eh. v. 12, 13). wanton" (Hebrew, p-1r.11;,:), e.nd grew too Ver:,. 13-16.-These verses purport to like his father Rehoboam e.nd his grand• tell how Jeroboam, with all his vastly pre- father Solomon, forgetting the "Le.w" (Deut. ponderating numbers (ver. 3), left nothing xvii. 17). undone to secure the victory, and resorted Ver. 22.-The story of the Prophet Iddo. even to the ambushment described ; how, on If this be the same work e.s that mentioned the other hand, Abijah e.nd his people in eh. xii. 15 (see our note there), it is, at honoured. God by their cry and confident e.ny rate, not called by the same title, but 1hont, and were delivered because they by the name well known for memoirs, of trusled in him (I Sam. xvil. 45-47), and as Midraah.
HOMILETICS. Vere. 1-22.-.A f'oyal and manly manifesto in tM rigl1ts of godly truth, The narrative of Abijah's short reign of _three years is distin.~ished by one clear account, at any rate, of the we.rs that had arisen and were prevailing between the two parts 0£ tltt. :ttr1. 1-~2.) 'rH:Jil S:1£00:Nb :BOO:K. or '11H:Jil CitRONICLES. 155