[31] Here is a very great error in our Hebrew copy in this place, 2 Chronicles 15:3-6, as applying what follows to times past, and not to times future; whence that text is quite misapplied by Sir Isaac Newton.
[32] This Abelmain, or, in Josephus"s copy, Abellane, that belonged to the land of Israel, and bordered on the country of Damascus, is supposed, both by Hudson and Spanheim, to be the same with Abel, or Ahila, whence came Abilene. This may be that city so denominated from Abel the righteous, there buried, concerning the shedding of whose blood within the compa.s.s of the land of Israel, I understand our Savior"s words about the fatal war and overthrow of Judea by t.i.tus and his Roman army; "That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the land, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zacharias son of Barnchins, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily, I say unto you, all these things shall come upon this generation," Matthew 23;35, 36; Luke 11:51.
[33] Josephus, in his present copies, says, that a little while rain upon the earth; whereas, in our other copies, it is after many days, 1 Kings 18:1. Several years are also intimated there, and in Josephus, sect. 2, as belonging to this drought and famine; nay, we have the express mention of the third year, which I suppose was reckoned from the recovery of the widow"s son, and the ceasing of this drought in Phmuiela [which, as Menander informs us here, lasted one whole year]; and both our Savior and St. James affirm, that this drought lasted in all three years and six months, as their copies of the Old Testament then informed them, Luke 4:25; James 5:17. Josephus here seems to mean, that this drought affected all the habitable earth, and presently all the earth, as our Savior says it was upon all the earth, Luke 4:25. They who restrain these expressions to the land of Judea alone, go without sufficient authority or examples.
[34] Mr. Spanheim takes notice here, that in the worship of Mithra [the G.o.d of the Persians] the priests cut themselves in the same manner as did these priests in their invocation of Baal [the G.o.d of the Phoenicians].
[35] For Izar we may here read [with Hudson and Cocceius] Isachar, i.e of the tribe of Isachar, for to that tribe did Jezreel belong; and presently at the beginning of sect. 8, as also ch. 15. sect. 4, we may read for Iar, with one MS. nearly, and the Scripture, Jezreel, for that was the city meant in the history of Naboth.
[36] "The Jews weep to this day," [says Jerome, here cited by Reland,]
"and roll themselves upon sackcloth, in ashes, barefoot, upon such occasions." To which Spanheim adds, "that after the same manner Bernice, when his life was in danger, stood at the tribunal of Florus barefoot."
Of the War, B. II. ch. 15. sect. 1. See the like of David, 2 Samuel 15:30; Antiq. B. VII. ch. 9. sect. 2.
[37] Mr. Reland notes here very truly, that the word naked does not always signify entirely naked, but sometimes without men"s usual armor, without heir usual robes or upper garments; as when Virgil bids the husbandman plough naked, and sow naked; when Josephus says [Antiq. B.
IV. ch. 3. sect. 2] that G.o.d had given the Jews the security of armor when they were naked; and when he here says that Ahab fell on the Syrians when they were naked and drunk; when [Antiq. B. XI. ch. 5. sect.
8] he says that Nehemiah commanded those Jews that were building the walls of Jerusalem to take care to have their armor on upon occasion, that the enemy might not fall upon them naked. I may add, that the case seems to be the same in the Scripture, when it says that Saul lay down naked among the prophets, 1 Samuel 19:24; when it says that Isaiah walked naked and barefoot, Isaiah 20:2, 3; and when it says that Peter, before he girt his fisher"s coat to him, was naked, John 21:7. What is said of David also gives light to this, who was reproached by Michal for "dancing before the ark, and uncovering himself in the eyes of his handmaids, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself,"
2 Samuel 6:14, 20; yet it is there expressly said [ver. 14] that "David was girded with a linen ephod," i.e. he had laid aside his robes of state, and put on the sacerdotal, Levitical, or sacred garments, proper for such a solemnity.
[38] Josephus"s number, two myriads and seven thousand, agrees here with that in our other copies, as those that were slain by the falling down of the walls of Aphek; but I suspected at first that this number in Josephus"s present copies could not be his original number, because he calls them "oligoi," a few, which could hardly be said of so many as twenty-seven thousand, and because of the improbability of the fall of a particular wall killing so many; yet when I consider Josephus"s next words, how the rest which were slain in the battle were "ten other myriads," that twenty-seven thousand are but a few in comparison of a hundred thousand, and that it was not "a wall," as in our English version, but "the walls" or "the entire walls" of the city that fell down, as in all the originals, I lay aside that suspicion, and firmly believe that Josephus himself hath, with the rest, given us the just number, twenty-seven thousand.
[39] This manner of supplication for men"s lives among the Syrians, with ropes or halters about their heads or necks, is, I suppose, no strange thing in later ages, even in our own country.
[40] It is here remarkable, that in Josephus"s copy this prophet, whose severe denunciation of a disobedient person"s slaughter by a lion had lately come to pa.s.s, was no other than Micaiah, the son of Imlah, who, as he now denounced G.o.d"s judgment on disobedient Ahab, seems directly to have been that very prophet whom the same Ahab, in 1 Kings 22:8, 18, complains of, "as one whom he hated, because he did not prophesy good concerning him, but evil," and who in that chapter openly repeats his denunciations against him; all which came to pa.s.s accordingly; nor is there any reason to doubt but this and the former were the very same prophet.
[41] What is most remarkable in this history, and in many histories on other occasions in the Old Testament, is this, that during the Jewish theocracy G.o.d acted entirely as the supreme King of Israel, and the supreme General of their armies, and always expected that the Israelites should be in such absolute subjection to him, their supreme and heavenly King, and General of their armies, as subjects and soldiers are to their earthly kings and generals, and that usually without knowing the particular reasons of their injunctions.
[42] These reasonings of Zedekiah the false prophet, in order to persuade Ahab not to believe Micaiah the true prophet, are plausible; but being omitted in our other copies, we cannot now tell whence Josephus had them, whether from his own temple copy, from some other original author, or from certain ancient notes. That some such plausible objection was now raised against Micaiah is very likely, otherwise Jehoshaphat, who used to disbelieve all such false prophets, could never have been induced to accompany Ahab in these desperate circ.u.mstances.
[43] This reading of Josephus, that Jehoshaphat put on not his own, but Ahab"s robes, in order to appear to be Ahab, while Ahab was without any robes at all, and hoped thereby to escape his own evil fate, and disprove Micaiah"s prophecy against him, is exceeding probable. It gives great light also to this whole history; and shows, that although Ahab hoped Jehoshaphat would be mistaken for him, and run the only risk of being slain in the battle, yet he was entirely disappointed, while still the escape of the good man Jehoshaphat, and the slaughter of the bad man Ahab, demonstrated the great distinction that Divine providence made betwixt them.
[44] We have here a very wise reflection of Josephus about Divine Providence, and what is derived from it, prophecy, and the inevitable certainty of its accomplishment; and that when wicked men think they take proper methods to elude what is denounced against them, and to escape the Divine judgments thereby threatened them, without repentance, they are ever by Providence infatuated to bring about their own destruction, and thereby withal to demonstrate the perfect veracity of that G.o.d whose predictions they in vain endeavored to elude.
BOOK 9 FOOTNOTES
[1] These judges const.i.tuted by Jehoshaphat were a kind of Jerusalem Sanhedrim, out of the priests, the Levites, and the princ.i.p.al of the people, both here and 2 Chronicles 19:8; much like the old Christian judicatures of the bishop, the presbyters, the deacons, and the people.
[2] Concerning this precious balsam, see the note on Atiq. B. VIII. ch.
6. sect. 6.
[3] What are here Pontus and Thrace, as the places whither Jehoshaphat"s fleet sailed, are in our other copies Ophir and Tarshish, and the place whence it sailed is in them Eziongeber, which lay on the Red Sea, whence it was impossible for any ships to sail to Pontus or Thrace; so that Josephus"s copy differed from our other copies, as is further plain from his own words, which render what we read, that "the ships were broken at Eziongeber, from their unwieldy greatness." But so far we may conclude, that Josephus thought one Ophir to be some where in the Mediterranean, and not in the South Sea, though perhaps there might be another Ophir in that South Sea also, and that fleets might then sail both from Phoenicia and from the Red Sea to fetch the gold of Ophir.
[4] This G.o.d of flies seems to have been so called, as was the like G.o.d among the Greeks, from his supposed power over flies, in driving them away from the flesh of their sacrifices, which otherwise would have been very troublesome to them.
[5] It is commonly esteemed a very cruel action of Elijah, when he called for fire from heaven, and consumed no fewer than two captains and a hundred soldiers, and this for no other crime than obeying the orders of their king, in attempting to seize him; and it is owned by our Savior, that it was an instance of greater severity than the spirit of the New Testament allows, Luke 9:54. But then we must consider that it is not unlikely that these captains and soldiers believed that they were sent to fetch the prophet, that he might be put to death for foretelling the death of the king, and this while they knew him to be the prophet of the true G.o.d, the supreme King of Israel, [for they were still under the theocracy,] which was no less than impiety, rebellion, and treason, in the highest degree: nor would the command of a subaltern, or inferior captain, contradicting the commands of the general, when the captain and the soldiers both knew it to be so, as I suppose, justify or excuse such gross rebellion and disobedience in soldiers at this day. Accordingly, when Saul commanded his guards to slay Ahimelech and the priests at n.o.b, they knew it to be an unlawful command, and would not obey it, 1 Samuel 22:17. From which cases both officers and soldiers may learn, that the commands of their leaders or kings cannot justify or excuse them in doing what is wicked in the sight of G.o.d, or in fighting in an unjust cause, when they know it so to be.
[6] This practice of cutting down, or plucking up by the roots, the fruit trees was forbidden, even in ordinary wars, by the law of Moses, Deuteronomy 20:19, 20, and only allowed by G.o.d in this particular case, when the Moabites were to be punished and cut off in an extraordinary manner for their wickedness See Jeremiah 48:11-13, and many the like prophecies against them. Nothing could therefore justify this practice but a particular commission from G.o.d by his prophet, as in the present case, which was ever a sufficient warrant for breaking any such ritual or ceremonial law whatsoever.
[7] That this woman who cried to Elisha, and who in our Bible is styled "the wife of one of the sons of the prophets," 2 Kings 4:1, was no other than the widow of Obadiah, the good steward of Ahab, is confirmed by the Chaldee paraphrast, and by the Rabbins and others. Nor is that unlikely which Josephus here adds, that these debts were contracted by her husband for the support of those "hundred of the Lord"s prophets, whom he maintained by fifty in a cave," in the days of Ahab and Jezebel, 1 Kings 18:4; which circ.u.mstance rendered it highly fit that the prophet Elisha should provide her a remedy, and enable her to redeem herself and her sons from the fear of that slavery which insolvent debtors were liable to by the law of Moses, Leviticus 25:39; Matthew 18:25; which he did accordingly, with G.o.d"s help, at the expense of a miracle.
[8] Dr. Hudson, with very good reason, suspects that there is no small defect in our present copies of Josephus, just before the beginning of this section, and that chiefly as to that distinct account which he had given us reason to expect in the first section, and to which he seems to refer, ch. 8. sect. 6. concerning the glorious miracles which Elisha wrought, which indeed in our Bibles are not a few, 2 Kings 6-9., but of which we have several omitted in Josephus"s present copies. One of those histories, omitted at present, was evidently in his Bible, I mean that of the curing of Nanman"s leprosy, 2 Kings 5.; for he plainly alludes to it, B. III. ch. 11. sect. 4, where he observes, that "there were lepers in many nations who yet have been in honor, and not only free from reproach and avoidance, but who have been great captains of armies, and been intrusted with high offices in the commonwealth, and have had the privilege of entering into holy places and temples." But what makes me most regret the want of that history in our present copies of Josephus is this, that we have here, as it is commonly understood, one of the greatest difficulties in all the Bible, that in 2 Kings 5:18, 19, where Naaman, after he had been miraculously cured by a prophet of the true G.o.d, and had thereupon promised [ver. 17] that "he would henceforth offer neither burnt-offering nor sacrifice unto other G.o.ds, but unto the Lord," adds, "In this thing the Lord pardon thy servant, that when my master goeth into the house of Rimnu to worship there, and he leaneth on my hands, and I bow myself in the house of Rimmort; when I bow down myself in the house of Rimmort, the Lord pardon thy servant in this thing. And Elisha said, Go in peace." This looks like a prophet"s permission for being partaker in idolatry itself, out of compliance with an idolatrous court.
[9] Upon occasion of this stratagem of Elisha, in Josephus, we may take notice, that although Josephus was one of the greatest lovers of truth in the world, yet in a just war he seems to have had no manner of scruple upon him by all such stratagems possible to deceive public enemies. See this Josephus"s account of Jeremiah"s imposition on the great men of the Jews in somewhat like case, Antiq. B. X. ch. 7. sect.
6; 2 Samuel 16:16, &c.
[10] This son of a murderer was Joram, the son of Ahab, which Ahab slew, or permitted his wife Jezebel to slay, the Lord"s prophets, and Naboth, 1 Kings 18:4; 21:19; and he is here called by this name, I suppose, because he had now also himself sent an officer to murder him; yet is Josephus"s account of Joram"s coming himself at last as repenting of his intended cruelty, much more probable than that in our copies, 2 Kings 6:33, which rather implies the contrary.
[11] This law of the Jews, for the exclusion of lepers out of the camp in the wilderness, and out of the cities in Judea, is a known one, Leviticus 13:46; Numbers 5:14.
[12] Since Elijah did not live to anoint Hazael king of Syria himself, as he was empowered to do, 1 Kings 19:15, it was most probably now done, in his name, by his servant and successor Elisha. Nor does it seem to me otherwise but that Benhadad immediately recovered of his disease, as the prophet foretold; and that Hazael, upon his being anointed to succeed him though he ought to have staid till he died by the course of nature, or some other way of Divine punishment, as did David for many years in the like case, was too impatient, and the very next day smothered or strangled him, in order to come directly to the succession.
[13] What Mr. Le Clerc pretends here, that it is more probable that Hazael and his son were worshipped by the Syrians and people of Damascus till the days of Josephus, than Benhadad and Hazael, because under Benhadad they had greatly suffered, and because it is almost incredible that both a king and that king"s murderer should be worshipped by the same Syrians, is of little force against those records, out of which Josephus drew this history, especially when it is likely that they thought Benhadad died of the distemper he labored under, and not by Hazael"s treachery. Besides, the reason that Josephus gives for this adoration, that these two kings had been great benefactors to the inhabitants of Damascus, and had built them temples, is too remote from the political suspicions of Le Clerc; nor ought such weak suspicions to be deemed of any force against authentic testimonies of antiquity.
[14] This epistle, in some copies of Josephus, is said to come to Jotare from Elijah, with this addition," for he was yet upon earth," which could not be true of Elijah, who, as all agree, was gone from the earth about four years before, and could only be true of Elisha; nor perhaps is there any more mystery here, than that the name of Elijah has very anciently crept into the text instead of Elisha, by the copiers, there being nothing in any copy of that epistle peculiar to Elijah.
[15] Spanheim here notes, that this putting off men"s garments, and strewing them under a king, was an Eastern custom, which he had elsewhere explained.
[16] Our copies say that this "driving of the chariots was like the driving of Jehu the son of Nimshi; for he driveth furiously," 2 Kings 9:20; whereas Josephus"s copy, as he understood it, was this, that, on the contrary, Jehu marched slowly, and in good order. Nor can it be denied, that since there was interval enough for king Joram to send out two hors.e.m.e.n, one after another, to Jehu, and at length to go out with king Ahaziah to meet him, and all this after he was come within sight of the watchman, and before he was come to Jezreel, the probability is greatly on the side of Josephus"s copy or interpretation.
[17] This character of Joash, the son of Jehoahaz, that "he was a good man, and in his disposition not at all like to his father," seems a direct contradiction to our ordinary copies, which say [2 Kings 13:11]
that "he did evil in the sight of the Lord; and that he departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin: he walked therein." Which copies are here the truest it is hard positively to determine. If Josephus"s be true, this Joash is the single instance of a good king over the ten tribes; if the other be true, we have not one such example. The account that follows, in all copies, of Elisha the prophet"s concern for him, and his concern for Elisha, greatly favors Josephus"s copies, and supposes this king to have been then a good man, and no idolater, with whom G.o.d"s prophets used not to be so familiar. Upon the whole, since it appears, even by Josephus"s own account, that Amaziah, the good king of Judah, while he was a good king, was forbidden to make use of the hundred thousand auxiliaries he had hired of this Joash, the king of Israel, as if he and they were then idolaters, 2 Chronicles 25:6-9, it is most likely that these different characters of Joash suited the different parts of his reign, and that, according to our common copies, he was at first a wicked king, and afterwards was reclaimed, and became a good one, according to Josephus.
[18] What I have above noted concerning Jehoash, seems to me to have been true also concerning his son Jeroboam II., viz. that although he began wickedly, as Josephus agrees with our other copies, and, as he adds, "was the cause of a vast number of misfortunes to the Israelites"
in those his first years, [the particulars of which are unhappily wanting both in Josephus and in all our copies,] so does it seem to me that he was afterwards reclaimed, and became a good king, and so was encouraged by the prophet Jonah, and had great successes afterward, when "G.o.d had saved the Israelites by the hand of Jeroboam, the son of Joash," 2 Kings 14:27; which encouragement by Jonah, and great successes, are equally observable in Josephus, and in the other copies.
[19] When Jonah is said in our Bibles to have gone to Tarshish, Jonah 1:3, Josephus understood it that he went to Tarsus in Cilicia, or to the Mediterranean Sea, upon which Tarsus lay; so that he does not appear to have read the text, 1 Kings 22:48, as our copies do, that ships of Tarshish could lie at Ezion-geber, upon the Red Sea. But as to Josephus"s a.s.sertion, that Jonah"s fish was carried by the strength of the current, upon a nean, it is by no means an improbable determination in Josephus.
[20] This ancient piece of religion, of supposing there was great sin where there was great misery, and of casting lots to discover great sinners, not only among the Israelites, but among these heathen mariners, seems a remarkable remains of the ancient tradition which prevailed of old over all mankind, that I Providence used to interpose visibly in all human affairs, and storm, as far as the Euxine Sea, it is no way impossible; and since the storm might have driven the ship, while Jonah was in it never to bring, or at least not long to continue, notorious judge, near to that Euxine Sea, and since in three more days, while but for notorious sins, which the most ancient Book of he was in the fish"s belly, that current might bring him to the Job shows to have been the state of mankind for about the a.s.syrian coast, and since withal that coast could bring him former three thousand years of the world, till the days of Job nearer to Nineveh than could any coast of the Mediterranian and Moses.
[21] This account of an earthquake at Jerusalem at the very same time when Uzziah usurped the priest"s office, and went into the sanctuary to burn incense, and of the consequences of the earthquake, is entirely wanting in our other copies, though it be exceeding like to a prophecy of Jeremiah, now in Zechariah 14:4, 5; in which prophecy mention is made of "fleeing from that earthquake, as they fled from this earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah;" so that there seems to have been some considerable resemblance between these historical and prophetical earthquakes.
[22] Dr. Wall, in his critical notes on 2 Kings 15:20, observes, "that when this Menahem is said to have exacted the money of Israel of all the mighty men of wealth, of each man fifty shekels of silver, to give Pul, the king of a.s.syria, a thousand talents, this is the first public money raised by any [Israelite] king by tax on the people; that they used before to raise it out of the treasures of the house of the Lord, or of their own house; that it was a poll-money on the rich men, [and them only,] to raise oe353,000, or, as others count a talent, oe400,000, at the rate of oe6 or oe7 per head; and that G.o.d commanded, by Ezekiel, ch. 45:8; 46:18, that no such thing should be done [at the Jews"
restoration], but the king should have land of his own."
[23] This pa.s.sage is taken out of the prophet Nahum, ch. 2:8-13, and is the princ.i.p.al, or rather the only, one that is given us almost verbatim, but a little abridged, in all Josephus"s known writings: by which quotation we learn what he himself always a.s.serts, viz. that he made use of the Hebrew original and not of the Greek version]; as also we learn, that his Hebrew copy considerably differed from ours. See all three texts particularly set down and compared together in the Essay on the Old Testament, page 187.
[24] This siege of Samaria, though not given a particular account of, either in our Hebrew or Greek Bibles, or in Josephus, was so very long, no less than three years, that it was no way improbable but that parents, and particularly mothers, might therein be reduced to eat their own children, as the law of Moses had threatened upon their disobedience, Leviticus 26;29; Deuteronomy 28:53-57; and as was accomplished in the other shorter sieges of both the capital cities, Jerusalem and Samaria; the former mentioned Jeremiah 19:9; Antiq. B. IX.
ch. 4. sect. 4, and the latter, 2 Kings 6:26-29.
BOOK 10 FOOTNOTES
[1] This t.i.tle of great king, both in our Bibles, 2 Kings 18:19; Isaiah 36:4, and here in Josephus, is the very same that Herodotus gives this Sennacherib, as Spanheim takes notice on this place.
[2] What Josephus says here, how Isaiah the prophet a.s.sured Hezekiah that "at this time he should not be besieged by the king of a.s.syria; that for the future he might be secure of being not at all disturbed by him; and that [afterward] the people might go on peaceably, and without fear, with their husbandry and other affairs," is more distinct in our other copies, both of the Kings and of Isaiah, and deserves very great consideration. The words are these: "This shall be a sign unto thee, Ye shall eat this year such as groweth of itself, and the second year that which springeth of the same; and in the third year sow ye, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruit thereof," 2 Kings 19:29; Isaiah 37:30; which seem to me plainly to design a Sabbatic year, a year of jubilee next after it, and the succeeding usual labors and fruits of them on the third and following years.