The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Chronicles — Section 168

of Pome suppoeed nspeot of her passion or hath given u■ re■t. In three successive dominion, very likely in the voluptuous or verses the blessings of peace 110d quiet, aud sensual direction (see the nevertheless very no ,toar and r""t, are recorded ( Isa.. xxvi, 1 ; dcmbtful Septuagint and Vulgate, eh. xv. 16; Zech. ii. 5). and Vnlgate, Judg. iii. 7), Conder, in Ver. 8.-The '' ten yeo.rs' quiet" (ver. 1) • He.ndbook to the Bible,' p. 187, 2nd edit., begins to see its end. Targeta (oh. ix. 16); speab of " Bae.1-peor (Numb. xxv. 8) as &pears (eh. xi. 12); for both, see 1 Chron. xii. identified by St. Jerome with the classioal 24. Out of Benjamin, . . . shields and , . . Frie.pus ; " and adds " the Asherah (ren- bows. The minuter coincidenOCB of the his- dered • grove ' in our version) was also tory are very observo.ble o.nd very interesting; apparently a similar emblem" (2 Kings for see 1 Chron. viii. 40 ; xii. 2 ; aud much xxiii. 7). The analogy of the sacred tree of earlier, Gen. xlix. 27; Judg. xx. 16, 17, the Ass~rrians eculptured on the monuments Vera. 9-15.-Theremo.ining seven verses of Nineveh (' Ninernh and Persepolis,' of this chapter are occupied with the account p. 299, Fergusson), which was probably a straight trunk or stock garlanded at certain of the invasion of Zerah the Ethiopian, and times with ribbons and flowers, has been the suooessful defence and reprise.ls of ABa.. opportunely pointed to (see also Professor Ver. 9.-Zerah the Ethiopia.n; Hebrew, Dr. Murphy's 'Handbook: Chronicles,' •~~Cl ny, the "Ethiopian," Greek and p. 115). Septuagint rendering for " Cushite." In its Ver. 4.-A.nd commanded Judah to aeek vaguest dimensions Ethiopia, or Cush, desig- the Lord God of their fathers. What en nated Africa south of Egypt, but more con- indication lies couched in this word '' com- cisely it meant the lands we now call Nubia, manded" (confirmatory of the spirit of what Sennaa.r, Kordofo.n, and part of Abyssinia.. is said aboYe, in our previous verse-note) of And these, roughly speaking, were bounded the moral efforts of Asa, and that the efforts north, south, east, and west respectively by on which he may have largely relied for Egypt e.nd Syene, Abyssinia, Red Sea, e.nd " taking away the high places" were moral Libyan Desert. When, however, Ethiopia efforts, rather than those of physice.l force. proper is spoken of, the name probably desig- Yer. 5.-The images; Hebrew, c•~~".1- nates the kingdom of Meroe (Seba, Gen. x. 7; The image,; spoken of here are, of course, not 1 Chron. i. 9); and the Assyrian inscriptions t.he same with those (noted upon already) of make the Cushite name of the deified Nimrod ver. 3. The present khiiinmiinim are men- one with Meroe), which was so closely asso- tioned seven times beside, viz. Lev. xxvi. ciated at di1ferent times with Egypt, that 30; eh. xx.x.iv. 4, 7; Isa. xvii. 8; xxvii. 9; sometimes an Egypt king swayed it (as e.g. Ezek:. vi 4, 6. Gesenius says Khiimmiin is some eighteen hundred yea.re before Shi- an epithet of Be.al as bearing rule over the shak, Sesostris fourth king of the twelfth sun (~~' "heat," or "the sun"), in the dynasty), and sometimes vice versa (as e.g. oft-found componnd expression, 7~,:i Sll~ ; the three Ethiopian kings of the twenty-fifth he thinks the plural (c•i~,:i), invariably dynasty-Shabak (Sabakhou), Sethos (Sebe- found in the Old Testament, is short for chos), and Tarkos (Tirhakah), whose reign- ing dates as between Ethiopia and Egypt c•mn c.I,p;., He does not agree with the are not yet certified). The name thWi con- ~w.ti~n' of Haenaker (' M.iscell. PhCBn.,' fined covers an irregular eil'cular bulk of p. 50), "sun-image" by aid of the word Sc;,~ country between •• the modem Khartoum, understood, images said to have been of a where the AstapUB joins the true Nile, and pyre.mid form, and placed in the most sacred the inftux of the Astaboras, into their united positions of Baal-temples. This, however, stream." From the language of Diodorua is the rendering adopted by not a few (i 23), harmonized conjecturally with Strabo modern commentators (so eh. xxxiv. 4). (xviii. 821), the region may be counted as Gesenius would render "the Sun-Baal," or 375 miles in circumference a.nd 125 miles "the Snn-Lord," i.e. statues of the sun, repre- in the diameter of the erratic circle, its ex- senting e. deity to whom (see 'Phmn. treme south point being variously stated, Inscript.') votive stones were inscribed. In distant from Syene, 873 miles (Pliny, vi. his 'Thesaurus' (p. 489) Gesenius instances 29. § 33); or, according to Me.nnert's book the PhCBnician inscriptions, es showing that (' Geogr. ,:L Alt.,' x. 183), 600 miles by the our cllbnmiinim denoted statues of both Baal, essertion of Artemidorus, or 625 by that of the sun-god, and .Astarte, the moon-goddess. Eratosthenes. Thence the " Cushite" ex- Ver. 6.-Re bnilt fenoed cities in J'udah. tend.id probably to the Euphrates and the Though it is not eaid so here, it is very Tigris, and through Arabia, Babylonia, e.nd probable that ABe. did again the work of Persia. Some, however, think that the l!l.ehoboam (eh. xi. 5--12) which Shishak Cnahite now intended was the Ethiopian of had done so much to undo ( eh. xii 4, 5, 8). Arabia, who had settlement near Gerar (Dr. V,,r. 7.-We have ■ought him, and hi JamiesoD, in ' Comm.') as a nomadio hordt>. oa. xtv. 1-15.J THE SECOND BOOK OF THE ClIRONICLEB. lfl9