[489]If this was a genuine relic, it must have been nearly eight hundred years old. It is never mentioned elsewhere.[490]נְחֻשׁתָּן, "a brazen thing." The king certainly showed a horror of sacerdotal imposture and religious materialism. Yet Renan argues, from Isa. x. 11, xxvii. 9, xxx. 9, 22, that he must have had a certain amount of tolerance. SeeHist. du Peuple d'Israel, iii. 30.[491]2 Kings xviii. 4.Vayyikrais like the English indefinite plural. The impersonal rendering (as in other passages) is adopted in the Targum of Jonathan, the Peshito, etc., and by Luther, Bunsen, Ewald, and most moderns.[492]This relic is still shown in the Church of St. Ambrose at Milan. It used to be the popular notion that it would hiss at the end of the world. The history of the Milan "relic" is that a Milanese envoy to the court of the Emperor John Zimisces at Constantinople chose it from the imperial treasures, being assured that it was made of the same metal that Hezekiah had broken up (Sigonius,Hist. Regn. Ital., vii.). It is probably a symbol used by some ophite sect. See Dean Plumptre,Dict. of Bibl.,s.v."Serpent."[493]2 Kings xvi. 8; Driver,Isaiah, 68.[494]The diverting of the water-courses enabled him to bring the water into the city by a subterranean tunnel. The Saracens took a similar precaution (Gul. Tyr., viii. 7). SeeAppendix II., where the inscription is given; and compare 2 Chron. xxxii. 30. Apparently it carried the water of Gihon to the south-east gate, where were the king's gardens. Ecclus. xlviii. 17: "Ezekias fortified his city, and brought in water into the midst thereof: he digged the hard rock with iron, and made wells for water." For "water" the MSS. read "Gog," a corruption probably for ἀγωγὸν, "a conduit" (Geiger) or "Gihon" (Fritzsche).[495]Psalm xlvi. 1-11.[496]2 Chron. xxviii. 18.[497]2 Kings xviii. 8: comp. xvii. 9. Josephus says that he failed to take Gath (Antt., IX. xiii. 3).[498]A.V., "treasurer" (soken; lit., "deputy" or "associate": Isa. xxii. 15). He was "over the household." The Egyptian alliance had for Judah, as Renan points out, some of the fascination that a Russian alliance has often had for troubled spirits in France (Hist. du Peuple d'Israel, iii. 12).[499]Renan says that he may have been a Sebennyite, and his name Sebent.[500]Isa. xxii. 17, 18: "Behold, the Lord shall sling and sling, and pack and pack, and toss and toss thee away like a ball into a distant land; and there thou shalt die" (Stanley). The versions vary considerably.[501]Isa. xxxvii. 2. There can be little doubt that there were nottwoShebnas.[502]Mic. i. 10-16. See the writer'sMinor Prophets("Men of the Bible" Series), pp. 130-133, for an explanation of this enigmatic prophecy.[503]Jer. xxvi. 8-24. He tells us that the prophecy was delivered in the reign of Hezekiah. See myMinor Prophets, pp. 123-140.[504]Isa. x. 28-32. It would involve a cross-country route over several deep ravines—e.g., the Wady Suweinit, near Michmash. In 1 Sam. xiv. 2, Thenius, for "Migron," reads "the Precipice." Some take Aiath for Ai, three miles south of Bethel. Renan says (Hist. du Peuple d'Israel, iii.): "Nom d'Anathoth, arrangé symboliquement."[505]Isa. x. 14. The metaphor of a bird's nest occurs more than once in the boastful Assyrian records.[506]Isa. xxx. 1-7. Rahab means "fierceness," "insolence." For the various uses of the word, see Job xxvi. 12; Isa. li. 9, 10, 15; Psalm lxxxix. 9, 10, lxxxvii. 4, 5.[507]See Dr. S. Cox (Expositor, i. 98-104) on Isa. xxviii. 7-13.[508]Acts xvii. 18.[509]Isa. xxviii. 7-22.[510]Professor Smith,Isaiah, i. 12.[511]Bagehot,Physics and Politics, p. 73; Smith,Isaiah, 109.[512]One of the first to point out thenecessaryrearrangement of the events of Hezekiah's reign was Dr. Hincks, in his paper on "A Rectification of Chronology which the newly discovered Apis-stêlês render necessary" (Journ. of Sacred Lit., October 1858). See my article on Hezekiah, Smith,Dict. of the Bible, 2nd ed., ii. 1251.[513]Heb.,sh'chîn; LXX., ἕλκος; Vulg.,ulcus.[514]The Rabbis even make his sickness the punishment for his having neglected to secure an heir. He pleads that he foresaw the wickedness of his son. Isaiah tells him not to try to forestall God (Berachoth, f. 10, 1).[515]Isa. xxxviii. 10-20.[516]Comp. 1 Kings xxi. 4 (Ahab).[517]2 Kings xx. 4. TheQ'rîor "read" text is, as here rendered,chatsee(comp. 1 Kings vii. 8), and is followed by the LXX. (ἐν τῇ αὐλῇ τῇ μέσῃ), by the Vulgate (mediam partem atrii), and by the A.V. The R.V., which adopts the Kethîb or written text,ha'îr, renders it "the middle part of the city." If this be the true reading, it would mean that Isaiah had gone some distance from the palace, and was now perhaps in the Valley between the Upper and the Lower City. But it seems not improbable that (1) "the steps of Ahaz" would be in the royal court, and (2) the answer of God, like the mercy of Christ to the suffering, may have come promptly as an echo to the appealing cry.[518]The LXX. calls "the stairs" ἀναβαθμοὺς τοῦ οἴκου τοῦ πατρός σου, and so, too, Josephus (Antt., X. ii. 1). The Targum calls them "an hour-stone." Symmachus has, στρέψω τὴν σκίαν τῶν γραμμῶν ἥ κατέβη ἐν ὡρολογίῳ Ἀχάζ.[519]It should, however, be observed that on the question of priority critics are divided. Grotius, Vitringa, Paulus, Drechsler, etc., thought that the account in the Book of Isaiah is the original; De Wette, Maurer, Koster, Winer, Driver, etc., regard that account as a later abbreviation, perhaps from a common source.[520]See Professor Lumby,ad loc.[521]There is an exactly similar sun-dial not far from Delhi.[522]Journ. of Asiatic Soc., xv. 286-293.[523]Figs have a recognised use for imposthumes. See Dioscorides and Pliny quoted in Celsius,Hierobot., ii. 373. In the passage ofBerachothquoted above, Hezekiah in his sickness asks Isaiah to give him his daughter in marriage, that he may have an heir. Isaiah replies that the decree of his death is irrevocable. The king bids Isaiah depart, and says (quoting Job xiii. 15) that a man must not despair, even if a sword is laid on his neck.[524]Comp. Psalm xlii. 4.[525]Isa. xxxviii. 10-20.[526]The Babylonian form of his name is Marduk-habal-iddi-na—i.e., "Merodach gave a son." He is the Mardokempados of thePtolemaic Canon, and the second fragment of his reign (six months) is mentioned by Polyhistor (ap.Euseb.). Josephus calls him Baladan (Antt., X. ii. 2). He was originally the prince of the ChaldæanBit Yakîm. Sargon calls him "Merodach-Baladan, the foe, the perverse, who, contrary to the will of the great gods, ruled as king at Babylon." He displaced him for a time by "Belibus, the son of a wise man, whom one had reared like a little dog" (as we might say "like a tame cat") "in my palace" (Schrader, ii. 32). In the Assyrian records he is often called (by mistake?) "the son of Yakim." For the adventures of the Babylonian hero, see Schrader,K. A. T., 213 ff., 224 ff., 227, and in Riehm,Handwörterbuch, ii. 982.[527]Isa. xiv. 4, xiii. 19.[528]Gen. x. 10, 11, xi. 1-9.[529]Jos.,Antt., X. ii. 2: Σύμμαχόν τε αὐτὸν εἶναι παρεκάλει καὶ φίλον.[530]2 Kings xx. 13. LXX., ἐχάρη.[531]See Dan. i. 6.[532]2 Chron. xxxiii. 11.[533]Job i. 21.[534]Manasseh seems to mean "one who forgets." See Gen. xli. 51. It was the name of the husband of Judith (Judith viii. 2), and is found in Ezra x. 30, 33.[535]One legend of his birth resembles the finding of Moses in the bulrushes.[536]Schrader,K. A. T., pp. 272-274;Records of the Past, vii. 28.[537]Smith,Eponym Canon, p. 130.[538]See Prof. Smith,Isaiah, p. 198.[539]Records of the Past, vii. 40. Sargon's words are, "The people of Philistia, Judah, Edom, and Moab were speaking treason. The people and their evil chiefs, to fight against me, untoPharaoh, the King of Egypt, a monarch who could not save them, their presents carried, and besought his alliance" (G. Smith,Assyrian Discoveries, 290).[540]On the monuments calledTurtanu, "Holder of power." See Schrader in Riehm,s.v.[541]Raphia, or Ropeh, is on the borders of the desert. Asia beat Africa in every encounter—at Raphia, at Altaqu, at Carchemish. The impression of the seal of Shabak, attached to his capitulations with Sargon, was found at Nineveh by Sir A. H. Layard, and is now in the British Museum. Shabak died in 712. His son Shabatoh succeeded him in Egypt, and his nephew(?) Tirhakah in Ethiopia. Sabaco's name assumes many forms (LXX., Σηγώρ; Herod., ii. 137; Σαβακώς; Vulg.,Sua). The Egyptians called him Shaba(ka).[542]Isa. xx. 1-6.[543]Lenormant,Les Premières Civilisations, ii. 203;Records of the Past, vii. 41-46.[544]Isa. xxi. 6, A.V., "Watch in the watch-tower." Hitzig, Cheyne, "They spread the carpets." Much in this short oracle (xxi. 1-10) is obscure. Isaiah seems, in denouncing the fate of Babylon, to mourn for the ruin of the smaller states of which it was the prelude (G. Smith,Soc. of Bibl. Arch., ii. 320 Kleinert,Stud. u. Krit., 1877 W. R. Smith inEnc. Brit.,s.v."Isaiah").[545]Isa. xxi. 10—i.e., "My people threshed and trodden"; LXX., ὁ καταλελειμμένος καὶ οἱ ὀδυνώμενοιRecords of the Past, vii. 47.[546]Herod., Σαναχάριβος; Jos., Σεναχήριβος. SeeAppendix I. Sin was the moon-god; Merodach, the planet Jupiter; Adar, Saturn; Ishtai, Venus; Nebo, Mercury; Nergal, Mars (Schrader, ii. 117).[547]Sargon seems to have been murdered in the palace of unparalleled splendour which he built at Dur-Sharrukin ("The City of Sargon"). It took him five years to build it with armies of workmen. Its halls, opened by Botta, were the first Assyrian halls ever entered by a modern's foot. It is strange that this greatest of Assyrian kings is only mentioned once in the Bible (Isa. xx. 1). We owe to Assyriology his restoration to his proper place in the annals of mankind. See Ragozin,Assyria, 247-254.[548]Rawlinson,Ancient Monarchies, ii. 178.[549]Canon Rawlinson,Kings of Israel and Judah, 187.[550]On his own monuments this campaign, except its final catastrophe, is narrated in four sections: (1) The subjugation of Phœnicia, and of Philistine towns; (2) the conquest of King Zidka of Askelon; (3) the defeat of Ekron, the restoration of their vassal king Padî to his throne, and the defeat of Egypt at Altaqu; (4) the expedition against Jerusalem (Schrader, E. Tr., i. 298). SeeAppendix I.[551]This allusion is said to be the only instance of humour—"grimhumour, or it would not be Assyrian"—which occurs in the Assyrian annals.[552]Schrader, pp. 234-279. The account of the memorable campaign is narrated in duplicate on the Taylor Cylinder in the British Museum, and on the Bull Inscription at Kouyunjik.[553]Sennacherib calls Tirhakah's army "a host that no man could number"; but it was defeated by the better discipline, the heavier armour, and the superior physical strength of the Assyrians.[554]See Josh. xix. 43.[555]This very phrase "I imposed on them" is found on Sennacherib's monument (Schrader, ii. 1). The references, when not otherwise specified, are to Whitehouse's English translation.[556]In 2 Kings xviii. 16 the word "pillars" or "doorposts" is uncertain. LXX., ἐστηριγμένα; Vulg.,laminas auri.[557]2 Chron. xxxii. 9. He had to besiege it "with all his power." He seems to have thought it even more important than Jerusalem, for he superintended the siege in person (Layard,Nineveh and Babylon, 150;Monuments of Nineveh, 2nd series, pl. 21). The ruined Tel of Umm-el-Lakîs lies between the Wady Simsim and the Wady-el-Ahsy (Riehm).[558]See 2 Chron. xi. 9, xxv. 27; Jer. xxxiv. 7. The allusion to this city in Micah (i. 13) is obscure: "O thou inhabitant of Lachish [swift steed], bind the chariot to the swift steed: she is the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion: for the transgressions of Israel were found in thee." This seems to imply that some form of idolatry had come from Israel to Lachish, and from Lachish to Jerusalem. In Sennacherib's picture of the city, foreign worship is represented as going on in it (Layard,Monuments of Nineveh, Pls. 21 and 24; Rawlinson,Herodotus, i. 477).[559]Isa. xxix., xxx., xxxi.[560]Isa. xxxiii. 8.[561]Isa. xx. 1.[562]Jer. xxxix. 3. The meaning of the name is not certain.Sarîs, in Hebrew, is "eunuch"; but the word is not known in Assyrian records, and we should expectRabsarîsîm, as in Dan. i. 3.[563]Rabsak perhaps meanschief officeror vizier, and is Hebraised into Rabshakeh. Prof. G. A. Smith (Isaiah, p. 345) calls him "Sennacherib's Bismarck." Rabshakeh, usually rendered "chief cupbearer," is an Aramaised form of Rabsak (great chief); but we know of no chief cupbearer at the Assyrian court (Schrader,K. A. T., 199 f.).[564]From an Apis-stêlê he seems to have reigned twenty-six years (b.c.694-668?).[565]Isa. xxii. 1-13.[566]Eliakim. See Isa. xxii. 21, 22.[567]"Vain words"; lit., "a word of the lips." LXX., λόγοι χειλέων.[568]Comp. Isa. xxx. 1-7; Ezek. xxix. 6. It seems to be an over-refinement to suppose that Sennacherib refers to the divisions between Egypt and Ethiopia.[569]2 Kings xviii. 23, A.V.: "Let Hezekiah give pledges."[570]Heb.,Arâmîth.[571]2 Kings xviii. 28, wherestoodshould be renderedcame forward.[572]The coarse expression is softened down by the Chronicler (2 Chron. xxxii. 18).[573]The kings of Assyria usually called themselves "great king, mighty king, king of the multitude, king of the land Assur."[574]Every one must notice the glaring inconsistency between thisdefianceof Jehovah and the previous claim to the possession of His sanction. On Hamath, Arpad, etc., see Schrader, ii. 7-10.[575]Isa. xxxiii. 8: "He hath broken the covenant, he hath despised the cities, he regardeth no man."[576]1 Kings xx. 32; 2 Kings vi. 30.[577]Sennacherib had already carried off vast numbers. See Isa. xxiv. 1-12; Demetriusap.Clem. Alex.,Strom., i. 403.[578]Isaiah's phrase,na'arî melek, "lads of the king," is contemptuous. LXX., παιδάρια.[579]Heb.,ruach; LXX., δίδωμι ἐν αὐτῷ πνεῦμα. Theodoret calls this "spirit"cowardice(τὴν δειλίαν οἶμαι δηλοῦν).[580]Libnah means "whiteness." Dean Stanley (S. and P., 207, 258) identifies it with a white-faced hill, the Blanchegarde of the Crusaders.[581]The dates usually given are Sabaco,b.c.725-712; Shabatok, 712-698; Tirhakah, 698-672. Manetho, Τάραχος; Strabo, Τεράκων, ὁ Αἰθιώψ. He was third king of the twenty-fifth dynasty, and the greatest of the Egyptian sovereigns who came from Ethiopia. He reigned gloriously for many years. We see his figure at Medinet Abou, smiting ten captive princes with an iron mace; but he was finally defeated by Esarhaddon, and in 668 by Assurbanipal at Karbanit (Canopus). He is called by his conqueror "Tar-ku-u, King of Egypt and Cush" (Schrader,K. A. T., 336 ff.).[582]Heb.,Sepharîm; Vulg.,litteræ; 2 Chron. xxxii. 17. The more ordinary term for a letter isiggereth.[583]2 Kings xix. 12 (Heb.); Ezek. xxvii. 23. On these places see Schrader, ii. 11, 12. It had been indeed Sennacherib's work "to reduce fenced cities to ruinous heaps." He boasts on the Bellino Cylinder, "Their smaller towns without number I overthrew, and reduced them to heaps of rubbish" (Records of the Past, i. 27).[584]"It is a prayer without words, a prayer in action, which then passes into a spoken prayer" (Delitzsch).[585]The Assyrians are sometimes represented in their monuments as hewing idols to pieces in honour of their god Assur (Botta,Monum., pl. 140).[586]LXX., κινεῖν τὴν κεφαλήν, "a gesture of scorn" (Psalm xxii. 7, cix. 25; Lam. ii. 15). With the vaunts of Sennacherib compare Claudian,De bell. Geth., 526-532."Cum cesserit omnisObsequiis natura meis? Subsidere nostrisSub pedibus montes,arescere vidimus amnes...Fregi Alpes,galeis Padum victricibus hausi."Keil,ad loc.[587]Comp. 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11 (Heb.); Psalm xxxix. 1; Isa. xxx. 28; Ezek. xxxviii. 4, xxix. 4. The Assyrians drove a ring through the lower lip, the Babylonians through the nose. See Rawlinson,Ancient Monarchies, ii. 314, iii. 436.[588]2 Kings xix. 33. "The river of Egypt" (Nachal-ha-Mizraim) is the Wady-el-Arish.[589]Isa. x. 33, 34, xi. 1, xiv. 8; Stanley,Lectures, ii. 410.[590]אוֹת. A sign "is a thing, an event, or an action intended as a pledge of the Divine certainty of another. Sometimes it is a miracle (Gen. iv. 15, Heb.), or a permanent symbol (Isa. viii. 18, xx. 3, xxxvii. 30; Jer. xliv. 29)" (Delitzsch).[591]The first year they should eatsaphîach(LXX., αὐτόματα; Vulg.,quæ repereris); the second year,sachîsh(LXX., τὰ ἀνατέλλοντα; Vulg.,quæ sponte nascuntur).[592]2 Kings xix. 35: "It came to pass that night." Isaiah only has "then"; Josephus, κατὰ τὴν πρώτην τῆς πολιορκίας νύκτα. Menochius understands it "in celebri illa nocte." The LXX. omits "that," and simply says "in the night" (νυκτός). Comp. Psalm xlvi. 5 (Heb.); Isa. xvii. 14.[593]Josephus, followed by many moderns, and even by Keil, suggests a plague. The malaria of the Pelusiotic marshes easily breeds pestilence. The "maleak Jehovah" is "the destroyer" (mashchith) (Exod. xii. 23; 2 Sam. xxiv. 16.) Comp. Justin., xix. 11; Diod. Sic., xix. 434.[594]Comp. 2 Sam. xxiv. 15, 16.[595]The Babyl. Talmud and some Targums, followed by Vitringa, etc., attribute to it storms of lightning; Prideaux, Heine, and Faber, to the simoom; R. José, Ussher, etc., to a nocturnal attack of Tirhakah.[596]It is, however, perfectly possible that a contingent was left on guard. "Where is the [past] terror? Where is he that rated the tribute? Where is he that received it?" (Isa. xxxiii. 18). "At the noise of the tumult the people flee" (Isa. xxxiii. 3); "At Thy rebuke, O God of Jacob, both chariot and horse are cast into a dead sleep" (Psalm lxxvi. 6). Comp. Psalm xlviii. 4-6.[597]This is the meaning of "he departed, and went, and returned."[598]Not, only fifty-five days, as we read in Tobit i. 21.[599]Jos.,Antt., X. i. 5: "In his own temple to Araskê"; LXX., Ἀσαράχ; Isa. xxxvii. 38. One guess connects the word with Nesher, "the eagle-god," often seen on the Assyrian bas-reliefs. Lenormant calls him "the god of human destiny."[600]Alex. Polyhistorap.Euseb., i. 27; Kimchiad2 Kings xix. 37. Buxtorf (Bibl. Rabbinic.) says that Sennacherib entered the temple to ask his counsellors why Jehovah favoured Israel. Being told that it was because of Abraham's willingness to offer Isaac, he said, "Then I will offer my two sons." Rashi adds that they slew him to save their own lives. (See Schenkel and Riehm,s.v."Sanherib"—both articles by Schrader).[601]See Schrader in Riehm'sHandwörterbuch,s.vv."Sanherib," "Asarhaddon." Esarhaddon, judging from what is called "Sennacherib's will," in which the king leaves him splendid presents, seems to have been a favourite of his father (Records of the Past, i. 136). He says that on hearing of his father's murder, "I was wrathful as a lion, and my soul raged within me, and I lifted my hands to the great gods to assume the sovereignty of my father's house." SeeAppendix I.[602]The Book of Tobit (i. 21) calls him Sarchedonas.[603]2 Chron. xxxiii. 11.[604]2 Chron. xxxii. 23.[605]Wellhausen, p. 116.[606]Herod., ii. 14. "Sin" (Tanis?), Ezek. xxx. 15. It lay in the midst of morasses, and some attribute the catastrophe to the malaria.[607]The deliverance is really connected with Tirhakah, whose deeds are recorded in a temple at Medinet Habou, but the jealousy of the Memphites attributed it to the piety of Sethos. See G. W. Wilkinson,Ancient Egyptians, i. 141; Rawlinson,Herodotus, i. 394.[608]Antt., X. i. 1-5.[609]Comp. 1 Sam. v., vi., where, after a plague, the Philistines sent an expiation of five golden mice.[610]We may add that even the Chronicler drops a veil over Sennacherib's actual capture of fortresses in Judah ("hethoughtto win them for himself," 2 Chron. xxxii. 1: comp. 2 Kings xviii. 13; Isa. xxxvi. 1).[611]Isa. vi. 11-13.[612]Isa. v. 26-30.[613]Isa. vii. 18.[614]Isa. viii., xxviii. 1-15, x. 28-34.[615]Isa. xiv. 29-32, xxix., xxx.[616]Isa. i. 19, 20.[617]Isa. x. 33, xxix. 5-8, xxx. 20-26, 30-33.[618]Isa. xxxviii. 6. See for this paragraph an admirable chapter in Prof. Smith'sIsaiah, pp. 368-374.[619]Isa. xlvii. 13.[620]Stanley,Lectures, ii. 531.[621]Isa. xl. 15.[622]Isa. xix. 24, 25.[623]Ecclus. xlix. 4.[624]One legend says that Hephzibah was a daughter of Isaiah. Not so Josephus (Antt., X. iii. 1).[625]See Gen. xli. 51. His name may have referred to the new union between the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. Comp. 2 Chron. xxx. 6, xxxi. 1.[626]Chron. xxxiv. 1-3.[627]See Zeph. i. 8. Comp. 2 Chron. xxiv. 17; Isa. xxviii. 14; Jer. v. 5, etc.[628]Mic. vii. 1-20.[629]LXX., τῇ Βαά̈λ. The feminine, however, does not imply that Baal was here worshipped as a female deity, but is probably due to the fact that later Jews always avoided using thenamesof idols (from a misapprehension or too literal view of Exod. xxiii. 13), and therefore called BaalBosheth("shame"), which is feminine. Hence the names Mephibosheth, Jerubbesheth, Ishbosheth. In Suidas (s.v.Μανασσῆς) he is charged with having set up in the Temple "a four-faced image of Zeus."[630]For בָּתִּים, in 2 Kings xxiii. 7, the LXX. read χεττίμ (?). Grätz, (Gesch. d. Juden., ii. 277) suggests בְּנָדִים, "broidered robes." Ezek. xvi. 16. See Herod., i. 199; Strabo, xvi. 1058; Luc.,De Deâ. Syr., § 6; Libanius,Opp., xi. 456, 557;Ep. of Jeremy, 43; Döllinger,Judenthum u. Heidenthum, i. 431; Rawlinson,Phœnicia, 431.[631]Chron. xxxiii. 3; 2 Kings xxiii. 5. Movers,Rel. d. Phöniz., i. 65 "In all the books of the Old Testament written before the Assyrian period no trace of star-worship is to be to found." 2 Kings xvii. 16.[632]Jer. vii. 18, viii. 2, xix. 13; Zeph. i, 5.[633]See Deut. iv. 19, xvii. 3.[634]2 Kings xxiii. 11, 12.[635]See Jer. vii, 31, 32, xix. 2-6, xxxii. 35; Psalm cvi. 37, 38.[636]Ewald infers from Isa. lvii. 5-9; Jer. ii. 5-13, that he actuallysoughtfor all foreign kinds of worship, in order to introduce them.[637]1 Sam. iii. 11; Jer. xix. 3.[638]Comp. Isa. xxxiv. 11; Lam. ii. 8.[639]2 Kings xxi. 13. LXX., ἀλάβαστρος,al.πυξίον. The Vulgate also takes it to mean the obliteration of writing on a tablet: "Delebo Jerusalem sicut deleri solent tabulæ; et ducam crebrius stylum super faciem ejus."[640]2 Kings xxi. 16; Heb., "from mouth to mouth"; LXX., στόμα εἰς στόμα; Vulg.,donec impleret Jerusalem usque ad os. Comp. 2 Kings x. 21.[641]Antt., X. iii, 1: "He butchered alike all the just among the Hebrews." To this reign of terror some refer Psalm xii. 1; Isa. lvii. 1-4.[642]This (as I have said) cannot be regarded as certain. Isaiah began to prophesy in the year that King Uzziah died, sixty years before Manasseh. It is a Jewish Haggadah. See Gesen on Isa. i., p. 9, and the Apocryphal "Ascension of Isaiah."[643]Esarhaddon reigned only eight years, till 668, and then resigned in favour of his son Assurbanipal. In his reign Psammetichus recovered Egypt, and put an end to the Dodecarchy. In the reign of his successor, Assuredililani, Assyria began to decline (647-625).[644]Comp. Isa. xxxix. 6; Jos.,Antt., X. iii. 2. The phrase "among the thorns" means "with rings" (comp. Isa. xxx. 28, xxxvii. 29; Ezek. xxxviii. 4; Amos iv. 2). Assurbanipal says similarly that he seized Necho, "bound him with bonds and iron chains, hands and feet," but afterwards allowed him to return to Egypt (Schrader, ii. 59).[645]Late and worthless Haggadoth, echoed by still later writers (Suidas and Syncellus), say he was kept in a brazen cage, fed on bran bread dipped in vinegar, etc. SeeApost. Constt., ii. 22: "And the Lord hearkened to his voice, and there became about him a flame of fire, and all the irons about him melted." John Damasc.,Parall., ii. 15, quotes from Julius Africanus, that while Manasseh was saying a psalm his iron bonds burst, and he escaped. SeeSpeakers Commentary, on Apocrypha, ii. 363.[646]Such pardon from a king of Assyria was rare, but not unparalleled. Pharaoh Necho I. was taken in chains to Nineveh, and afterwards set free (Schrader,K. A. T., p. 371).[647]See 2 Chron. xxvii. 3. The "fish gate" was, perhaps, a weak point (Zeph. i. 10).[648]2 Chron. xxxiii. 19. Heb.,dibhrî Chozai; A.V., "the story of the Seers"; R.V., "in the history of Hozai"; LXX., ἐπὶ τῶν λόγων τῶν οὐρανιῶν; Vulg.,in sermonibus Hozai. The elements of doubt suggested by the name "Babylon," and by the liberation of Manasseh, have been removed by further knowledge. See Budge,Hist. of Esarhaddon, p. 78; Schrader,K. A. T., 369 ff.[649]Since the Council of Trent this prayer has been relegated to the end of the Vulgate with 3, 4, Esdras. Verse 8 (the supposed sinlessness of the Patriarchs) at once shows it to be a mere composition.[650]2 Kings xxiii. 12.[651]2 Kings xxi. 20.[652]2 Chron. xxxiii. 15.[653]2 Kings xxiii. 26.[654]Jer. xv. 1-9.[655]The later Jews certainly took no account of his repentance. His name was execrated (see the substitution of Manasseh for Moses in Judg. xviii. 30), and he was denied all part in the world to come. The Apocryphal "Prayer of Manasses" has no authority, though it is interesting (Butler,Analogy, pt. ii., ch. v.).[656]In estimating the Chronicler's story, we cannot wholly forget the fact that a number of Haggadic legends clustered thickly round the name of Manasseh in the literature of the later Jews. He is charged with incest, with the murder of Isaiah, the distortion of Scripture, etc., and is represented as having got to heaven, not by real repentance, but by challenging God on His superiority to idols. The Targum, after 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11, adds, "And the Chaldees made a copper mule, and pierced it all over with little holes, and put him therein. And when he was in straits, he cried in vain to all his idols. Then he prayed to Jehovah and humbled himself; but the angels shut every window and lattice of heaven, that his prayer might not enter. But forthwith the pity of the Lord of the world rolled forth, and He made an aperture in heaven, and the mule burst asunder, and the Spirit breathed on him, and he forsook all his idols." "No books," says Dr. Neubauer, "are more subject to additions and various adaptations than popular histories." See Mr. Ball's commentary (Speaker's Commentary, ii. 309, andSanhedrin, f. 99, 2; 101, 1; 103, 2).[657]The name Amon is unusual. Some identify it with the name of the Egyptian sun-god (Nah. iii. 8). If so, we see yet another element of Manasseh's syncretism, and (as some fancy) an attempt to open relations with Psammetichus of Egypt. But perhaps the name may be Hebrew for "Architect" (1 Kings xxii. 26; Neh. vii. 59).[658]2 Kings xxi. 19. The LXX. reads "twelve years," but not so Josephus (Antt., X. iv. 1), or 2 Chron. xxxiii. 21.[659]Zeph. iii. 1-11. Comp. i. 4.[660]Chemarim, 2 Kings xxiii. 5; Hos. x. 5. The root in Syriac means "to be sad," but Kimchi derives it from a root "to be black." The Vulgate renders itædituiandaruspices.[661]We are told in the titles of their books that both these prophets prophesied in the days of Josiah; but such pictures can only apply to the earliest years of his reign.[662]See Jer. v., vi., vii.,passim.[663]Jer. vi. 13-15.[664]Jer. v. 30, 31.[665]Kamphausen (Die Chronologie der hebräischer Könige) makes Josiah succeed to the throne in 638.[666]Otherwise his genealogy would not be mentioned for four generations (Hitzig).[667]Zeph. i. 1. Jeremiah also was highly connected. He was a priest and his father Hilkiah may be the high priest who found the book; "for his uncle Shallum, father of his cousin Hanameel, was the husband of Huldah the prophetess" (2 Kings xxii. 14; Jer. xxxii. 7). The fact that Jeremiah's property was at Anathoth, where lived the descendants of Ithamar (1 Kings ii. 26), whereas Hilkiah was of the family of Eleazar (1 Chron. vi. 4-13), does not seem fatal to the view that his father was the high priest.[668]Zeph. ii. 4-7.[669]Zeph. ii. 12-15.[670]Jer. ii. 1-35. Considering the very great part played by Jeremiah for nearly half a century of the last history of Judah, the non-mention of his name in the Book of Kings is a circumstance far from easy to explain.[671]Jer. iv. 6, A. V., "retire, stay not." Comp. Isa. x. 24-31.[672]Jer. iv. 7-27.[673]Jer. v. 15-17.[674]Jer. vi. 1, 22, 23, 24.[675]The almond tree (shâqâd) "seems to be awake (shâqâd), whatsoever trees are still sleeping in the torpor of winter" (TristramNat. Hist. of the Bible, 332; Jer. i. 11-14).[676]The name Kimmerii (on the Assyrian inscriptions Gimirrai) is connected with Gomer. The Persians call them Sakai or Scyths. The nomad Scyths had driven the Kimmerii from the Dniester while Psammetichus was King of Egypt. For allusions to this see Jer. vi. 22seq., viii. 16, ix. 10. The first notice of them is in an inscription of Esarhaddon,b.c.677, who says that he defeated "Tiushpa,the Gimirrai, a roving warrior, whose own country was remote." Zephaniah and Jeremiah were certainly thinking of the Scythians (Eichhorn, Hitzig, Ewald; and more recently Kuenen,Onderzoek, ii. 123; Wellhausen,Skizzen, 150). Inb.c.626 they could not have consciously had the Chaldæans in view, though, twenty-three years later, Jeremiah may have had.[677]See Ezek. xxxviii., xxxix.[678]Ezek. xxxviii. 2. So Gesenius, Hävernick, etc., and R.V.[679]The form in the Vulgate and the Alexandrian MS. of the LXX. is Mosech; in the Assyrian inscription, Muski. As far back as 1120 Tiglath-Pileser I. had overrun Tubal (the Tublai, Tabareni) and Moschi, between the Black Sea and the Taurus. They were neither Aryans nor Semites. In Gen. x. 2; 1 Chron. i. 5, Gog, Magog, Meshech, and Gomer are sons of Japheth. They are referred to in Rev. xx. 8.[680]Herod., i. 74, 103-106, iv. 1-22, vii. 64; Pliny,H. N., v. 16; Jos.,Antt., I. vi. 1; Syncellus,Chronogl., i. 405.[681]Sayce,Ethnology of the Bible; Records of the Past, ix. 40; Schrader,K. A. T., 159. Some identify Gog with Gyges, King of Lydia, who was killed in battleagainstthe Scythians, but whose name stood for a geographical symbol of Asia Minor, sometimes called Lud. It is said that in 665 Gyges (Gugu) sent two Scythian chiefs as a present to Nineveh.[682]Hence, in 2 Macc. iv. 47, 3 Macc. vii. 5, Scythian is used with the modern connotation of "Barbarian."[683]Ezek. xxxii. 26, 27; Cheyne,Jeremiah("Men of the Bible") p. 31.[684]Expositor, 2nd series, iv. 263; Cheyne,Jeremiah, 31. Hitzig and Ewald (erroneously?) refer Psalms lv., lix., to these events, and it seems also to be an error to suppose that the later name of Bethshan—Scythopolis—has anything to do with this incursion. Like the names of Pella, Philadelphia, etc., it is later than the age of Alexander the Great. See 2 Macc. xii. 30; Jos.,B. J., II. xviii.,Vit.vi. Perhaps Scythopolis is a corruption of Sikytopolis, the city of Sikkuth; or Scythian may merely stand for "Barbarian," as in 3 Macc. vii. 5; Col. iii. 11 (Cheyne,l.c.).[685]Nah. i. 10, ii. 5, iii. 12; Diod. Sic., ii. 26.[686]Nah. iii. 8-11.[687]Strabo, xvi. 1, 3: ἠφανίσθη παοαχρῆμα.[688]Xen.,Anab., III. iv. 7.[689]Chaldees, Kardim, Kasdim, Kurds.[690]Nabu-pal-ussur, "Nebo protect the son"b.c.625-7. Jos.,Antt.X. xi. 1: comp.Ap., i. 19.[691]Newman,Hebrew Monarchy, p. 315.[692]2 Kings xxiii. 4. We have here the first mention of "the second priest" (if, with Grätz, we readCohen mishneh, as in 2 Kings xxv. 18; Jer. lii. 24). In later days he was called "the Sagan." At this time he probably acted as "Captain of the Temple" (Grätz, ii. 319).[693]Comp. 2 Kings xii. 15, where we find the same remark.[694]Exod. xv. 20; Judg. iv. 4; Isa. viii. 3. "The prophetess" seems to mean "prophet's wife." Noadiah was a false prophetess.[695]Exod. xxviii. 2, etc.[696]2 Kings xxii. 14. Heb.,mishneh, lit. "second"; A.V., "the college"; R.V., "the second quarter." Perhaps it means "the lower city" (Neh. xi. 9; Zeph. i. 10). It puzzled the LXX.: ἐν τῇ μασενᾷ. Vulg.,in secunda. Jerome says, "Haud dubium quin urbis partem significet quæ interiori muro vallabatur." Comp. Zeph. i. 10, "an howling from thesecond" (i.e., quarter of the city); Neh. xi. 9, where, for "second over the city" (A. and R.V.), read "over the second part of the city."[697]Another reading is "in Jerusalem," which gets over an historic difficulty.[698]Comp. 2 Kings xi. 14; LXX., ἐπὶ τοῦ στύλου; Heb.,al-ha-ammud; Vulg.,super gradum.[699]2 Kings xxiii. 4; for "in the fields of Kedron" one version has ἐν τῷ ἐμπυρισμῷ τοῦ χειμάῤῥου, "in the burning-place of the wady,"—perhaps readingbemisrephothforbishedamoth, and alluding to lime-kilns in the wady. It is surprising that they should carry the ashes "to Bethel." Thenius suggests the reading בֵּית־אַל, "place of execution" (lit., "house of nothingness").[700]Hos. x. 5; Zeph. i. 4 (the only other places where the word occurs). Thedelevitof the Vulgate (2 Kings xxiii. 5) only means that he put them down, and the κατέκαυσε of the LXX. should be κατέπαυσε.
[489]If this was a genuine relic, it must have been nearly eight hundred years old. It is never mentioned elsewhere.
[490]נְחֻשׁתָּן, "a brazen thing." The king certainly showed a horror of sacerdotal imposture and religious materialism. Yet Renan argues, from Isa. x. 11, xxvii. 9, xxx. 9, 22, that he must have had a certain amount of tolerance. SeeHist. du Peuple d'Israel, iii. 30.
[491]2 Kings xviii. 4.Vayyikrais like the English indefinite plural. The impersonal rendering (as in other passages) is adopted in the Targum of Jonathan, the Peshito, etc., and by Luther, Bunsen, Ewald, and most moderns.
[492]This relic is still shown in the Church of St. Ambrose at Milan. It used to be the popular notion that it would hiss at the end of the world. The history of the Milan "relic" is that a Milanese envoy to the court of the Emperor John Zimisces at Constantinople chose it from the imperial treasures, being assured that it was made of the same metal that Hezekiah had broken up (Sigonius,Hist. Regn. Ital., vii.). It is probably a symbol used by some ophite sect. See Dean Plumptre,Dict. of Bibl.,s.v."Serpent."
[493]2 Kings xvi. 8; Driver,Isaiah, 68.
[494]The diverting of the water-courses enabled him to bring the water into the city by a subterranean tunnel. The Saracens took a similar precaution (Gul. Tyr., viii. 7). SeeAppendix II., where the inscription is given; and compare 2 Chron. xxxii. 30. Apparently it carried the water of Gihon to the south-east gate, where were the king's gardens. Ecclus. xlviii. 17: "Ezekias fortified his city, and brought in water into the midst thereof: he digged the hard rock with iron, and made wells for water." For "water" the MSS. read "Gog," a corruption probably for ἀγωγὸν, "a conduit" (Geiger) or "Gihon" (Fritzsche).
[495]Psalm xlvi. 1-11.
[496]2 Chron. xxviii. 18.
[497]2 Kings xviii. 8: comp. xvii. 9. Josephus says that he failed to take Gath (Antt., IX. xiii. 3).
[498]A.V., "treasurer" (soken; lit., "deputy" or "associate": Isa. xxii. 15). He was "over the household." The Egyptian alliance had for Judah, as Renan points out, some of the fascination that a Russian alliance has often had for troubled spirits in France (Hist. du Peuple d'Israel, iii. 12).
[499]Renan says that he may have been a Sebennyite, and his name Sebent.
[500]Isa. xxii. 17, 18: "Behold, the Lord shall sling and sling, and pack and pack, and toss and toss thee away like a ball into a distant land; and there thou shalt die" (Stanley). The versions vary considerably.
[501]Isa. xxxvii. 2. There can be little doubt that there were nottwoShebnas.
[502]Mic. i. 10-16. See the writer'sMinor Prophets("Men of the Bible" Series), pp. 130-133, for an explanation of this enigmatic prophecy.
[503]Jer. xxvi. 8-24. He tells us that the prophecy was delivered in the reign of Hezekiah. See myMinor Prophets, pp. 123-140.
[504]Isa. x. 28-32. It would involve a cross-country route over several deep ravines—e.g., the Wady Suweinit, near Michmash. In 1 Sam. xiv. 2, Thenius, for "Migron," reads "the Precipice." Some take Aiath for Ai, three miles south of Bethel. Renan says (Hist. du Peuple d'Israel, iii.): "Nom d'Anathoth, arrangé symboliquement."
[505]Isa. x. 14. The metaphor of a bird's nest occurs more than once in the boastful Assyrian records.
[506]Isa. xxx. 1-7. Rahab means "fierceness," "insolence." For the various uses of the word, see Job xxvi. 12; Isa. li. 9, 10, 15; Psalm lxxxix. 9, 10, lxxxvii. 4, 5.
[507]See Dr. S. Cox (Expositor, i. 98-104) on Isa. xxviii. 7-13.
[508]Acts xvii. 18.
[509]Isa. xxviii. 7-22.
[510]Professor Smith,Isaiah, i. 12.
[511]Bagehot,Physics and Politics, p. 73; Smith,Isaiah, 109.
[512]One of the first to point out thenecessaryrearrangement of the events of Hezekiah's reign was Dr. Hincks, in his paper on "A Rectification of Chronology which the newly discovered Apis-stêlês render necessary" (Journ. of Sacred Lit., October 1858). See my article on Hezekiah, Smith,Dict. of the Bible, 2nd ed., ii. 1251.
[513]Heb.,sh'chîn; LXX., ἕλκος; Vulg.,ulcus.
[514]The Rabbis even make his sickness the punishment for his having neglected to secure an heir. He pleads that he foresaw the wickedness of his son. Isaiah tells him not to try to forestall God (Berachoth, f. 10, 1).
[515]Isa. xxxviii. 10-20.
[516]Comp. 1 Kings xxi. 4 (Ahab).
[517]2 Kings xx. 4. TheQ'rîor "read" text is, as here rendered,chatsee(comp. 1 Kings vii. 8), and is followed by the LXX. (ἐν τῇ αὐλῇ τῇ μέσῃ), by the Vulgate (mediam partem atrii), and by the A.V. The R.V., which adopts the Kethîb or written text,ha'îr, renders it "the middle part of the city." If this be the true reading, it would mean that Isaiah had gone some distance from the palace, and was now perhaps in the Valley between the Upper and the Lower City. But it seems not improbable that (1) "the steps of Ahaz" would be in the royal court, and (2) the answer of God, like the mercy of Christ to the suffering, may have come promptly as an echo to the appealing cry.
[518]The LXX. calls "the stairs" ἀναβαθμοὺς τοῦ οἴκου τοῦ πατρός σου, and so, too, Josephus (Antt., X. ii. 1). The Targum calls them "an hour-stone." Symmachus has, στρέψω τὴν σκίαν τῶν γραμμῶν ἥ κατέβη ἐν ὡρολογίῳ Ἀχάζ.
[519]It should, however, be observed that on the question of priority critics are divided. Grotius, Vitringa, Paulus, Drechsler, etc., thought that the account in the Book of Isaiah is the original; De Wette, Maurer, Koster, Winer, Driver, etc., regard that account as a later abbreviation, perhaps from a common source.
[520]See Professor Lumby,ad loc.
[521]There is an exactly similar sun-dial not far from Delhi.
[522]Journ. of Asiatic Soc., xv. 286-293.
[523]Figs have a recognised use for imposthumes. See Dioscorides and Pliny quoted in Celsius,Hierobot., ii. 373. In the passage ofBerachothquoted above, Hezekiah in his sickness asks Isaiah to give him his daughter in marriage, that he may have an heir. Isaiah replies that the decree of his death is irrevocable. The king bids Isaiah depart, and says (quoting Job xiii. 15) that a man must not despair, even if a sword is laid on his neck.
[524]Comp. Psalm xlii. 4.
[525]Isa. xxxviii. 10-20.
[526]The Babylonian form of his name is Marduk-habal-iddi-na—i.e., "Merodach gave a son." He is the Mardokempados of thePtolemaic Canon, and the second fragment of his reign (six months) is mentioned by Polyhistor (ap.Euseb.). Josephus calls him Baladan (Antt., X. ii. 2). He was originally the prince of the ChaldæanBit Yakîm. Sargon calls him "Merodach-Baladan, the foe, the perverse, who, contrary to the will of the great gods, ruled as king at Babylon." He displaced him for a time by "Belibus, the son of a wise man, whom one had reared like a little dog" (as we might say "like a tame cat") "in my palace" (Schrader, ii. 32). In the Assyrian records he is often called (by mistake?) "the son of Yakim." For the adventures of the Babylonian hero, see Schrader,K. A. T., 213 ff., 224 ff., 227, and in Riehm,Handwörterbuch, ii. 982.
[527]Isa. xiv. 4, xiii. 19.
[528]Gen. x. 10, 11, xi. 1-9.
[529]Jos.,Antt., X. ii. 2: Σύμμαχόν τε αὐτὸν εἶναι παρεκάλει καὶ φίλον.
[530]2 Kings xx. 13. LXX., ἐχάρη.
[531]See Dan. i. 6.
[532]2 Chron. xxxiii. 11.
[533]Job i. 21.
[534]Manasseh seems to mean "one who forgets." See Gen. xli. 51. It was the name of the husband of Judith (Judith viii. 2), and is found in Ezra x. 30, 33.
[535]One legend of his birth resembles the finding of Moses in the bulrushes.
[536]Schrader,K. A. T., pp. 272-274;Records of the Past, vii. 28.
[537]Smith,Eponym Canon, p. 130.
[538]See Prof. Smith,Isaiah, p. 198.
[539]Records of the Past, vii. 40. Sargon's words are, "The people of Philistia, Judah, Edom, and Moab were speaking treason. The people and their evil chiefs, to fight against me, untoPharaoh, the King of Egypt, a monarch who could not save them, their presents carried, and besought his alliance" (G. Smith,Assyrian Discoveries, 290).
[540]On the monuments calledTurtanu, "Holder of power." See Schrader in Riehm,s.v.
[541]Raphia, or Ropeh, is on the borders of the desert. Asia beat Africa in every encounter—at Raphia, at Altaqu, at Carchemish. The impression of the seal of Shabak, attached to his capitulations with Sargon, was found at Nineveh by Sir A. H. Layard, and is now in the British Museum. Shabak died in 712. His son Shabatoh succeeded him in Egypt, and his nephew(?) Tirhakah in Ethiopia. Sabaco's name assumes many forms (LXX., Σηγώρ; Herod., ii. 137; Σαβακώς; Vulg.,Sua). The Egyptians called him Shaba(ka).
[542]Isa. xx. 1-6.
[543]Lenormant,Les Premières Civilisations, ii. 203;Records of the Past, vii. 41-46.
[544]Isa. xxi. 6, A.V., "Watch in the watch-tower." Hitzig, Cheyne, "They spread the carpets." Much in this short oracle (xxi. 1-10) is obscure. Isaiah seems, in denouncing the fate of Babylon, to mourn for the ruin of the smaller states of which it was the prelude (G. Smith,Soc. of Bibl. Arch., ii. 320 Kleinert,Stud. u. Krit., 1877 W. R. Smith inEnc. Brit.,s.v."Isaiah").
[545]Isa. xxi. 10—i.e., "My people threshed and trodden"; LXX., ὁ καταλελειμμένος καὶ οἱ ὀδυνώμενοιRecords of the Past, vii. 47.
[546]Herod., Σαναχάριβος; Jos., Σεναχήριβος. SeeAppendix I. Sin was the moon-god; Merodach, the planet Jupiter; Adar, Saturn; Ishtai, Venus; Nebo, Mercury; Nergal, Mars (Schrader, ii. 117).
[547]Sargon seems to have been murdered in the palace of unparalleled splendour which he built at Dur-Sharrukin ("The City of Sargon"). It took him five years to build it with armies of workmen. Its halls, opened by Botta, were the first Assyrian halls ever entered by a modern's foot. It is strange that this greatest of Assyrian kings is only mentioned once in the Bible (Isa. xx. 1). We owe to Assyriology his restoration to his proper place in the annals of mankind. See Ragozin,Assyria, 247-254.
[548]Rawlinson,Ancient Monarchies, ii. 178.
[549]Canon Rawlinson,Kings of Israel and Judah, 187.
[550]On his own monuments this campaign, except its final catastrophe, is narrated in four sections: (1) The subjugation of Phœnicia, and of Philistine towns; (2) the conquest of King Zidka of Askelon; (3) the defeat of Ekron, the restoration of their vassal king Padî to his throne, and the defeat of Egypt at Altaqu; (4) the expedition against Jerusalem (Schrader, E. Tr., i. 298). SeeAppendix I.
[551]This allusion is said to be the only instance of humour—"grimhumour, or it would not be Assyrian"—which occurs in the Assyrian annals.
[552]Schrader, pp. 234-279. The account of the memorable campaign is narrated in duplicate on the Taylor Cylinder in the British Museum, and on the Bull Inscription at Kouyunjik.
[553]Sennacherib calls Tirhakah's army "a host that no man could number"; but it was defeated by the better discipline, the heavier armour, and the superior physical strength of the Assyrians.
[554]See Josh. xix. 43.
[555]This very phrase "I imposed on them" is found on Sennacherib's monument (Schrader, ii. 1). The references, when not otherwise specified, are to Whitehouse's English translation.
[556]In 2 Kings xviii. 16 the word "pillars" or "doorposts" is uncertain. LXX., ἐστηριγμένα; Vulg.,laminas auri.
[557]2 Chron. xxxii. 9. He had to besiege it "with all his power." He seems to have thought it even more important than Jerusalem, for he superintended the siege in person (Layard,Nineveh and Babylon, 150;Monuments of Nineveh, 2nd series, pl. 21). The ruined Tel of Umm-el-Lakîs lies between the Wady Simsim and the Wady-el-Ahsy (Riehm).
[558]See 2 Chron. xi. 9, xxv. 27; Jer. xxxiv. 7. The allusion to this city in Micah (i. 13) is obscure: "O thou inhabitant of Lachish [swift steed], bind the chariot to the swift steed: she is the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion: for the transgressions of Israel were found in thee." This seems to imply that some form of idolatry had come from Israel to Lachish, and from Lachish to Jerusalem. In Sennacherib's picture of the city, foreign worship is represented as going on in it (Layard,Monuments of Nineveh, Pls. 21 and 24; Rawlinson,Herodotus, i. 477).
[559]Isa. xxix., xxx., xxxi.
[560]Isa. xxxiii. 8.
[561]Isa. xx. 1.
[562]Jer. xxxix. 3. The meaning of the name is not certain.Sarîs, in Hebrew, is "eunuch"; but the word is not known in Assyrian records, and we should expectRabsarîsîm, as in Dan. i. 3.
[563]Rabsak perhaps meanschief officeror vizier, and is Hebraised into Rabshakeh. Prof. G. A. Smith (Isaiah, p. 345) calls him "Sennacherib's Bismarck." Rabshakeh, usually rendered "chief cupbearer," is an Aramaised form of Rabsak (great chief); but we know of no chief cupbearer at the Assyrian court (Schrader,K. A. T., 199 f.).
[564]From an Apis-stêlê he seems to have reigned twenty-six years (b.c.694-668?).
[565]Isa. xxii. 1-13.
[566]Eliakim. See Isa. xxii. 21, 22.
[567]"Vain words"; lit., "a word of the lips." LXX., λόγοι χειλέων.
[568]Comp. Isa. xxx. 1-7; Ezek. xxix. 6. It seems to be an over-refinement to suppose that Sennacherib refers to the divisions between Egypt and Ethiopia.
[569]2 Kings xviii. 23, A.V.: "Let Hezekiah give pledges."
[570]Heb.,Arâmîth.
[571]2 Kings xviii. 28, wherestoodshould be renderedcame forward.
[572]The coarse expression is softened down by the Chronicler (2 Chron. xxxii. 18).
[573]The kings of Assyria usually called themselves "great king, mighty king, king of the multitude, king of the land Assur."
[574]Every one must notice the glaring inconsistency between thisdefianceof Jehovah and the previous claim to the possession of His sanction. On Hamath, Arpad, etc., see Schrader, ii. 7-10.
[575]Isa. xxxiii. 8: "He hath broken the covenant, he hath despised the cities, he regardeth no man."
[576]1 Kings xx. 32; 2 Kings vi. 30.
[577]Sennacherib had already carried off vast numbers. See Isa. xxiv. 1-12; Demetriusap.Clem. Alex.,Strom., i. 403.
[578]Isaiah's phrase,na'arî melek, "lads of the king," is contemptuous. LXX., παιδάρια.
[579]Heb.,ruach; LXX., δίδωμι ἐν αὐτῷ πνεῦμα. Theodoret calls this "spirit"cowardice(τὴν δειλίαν οἶμαι δηλοῦν).
[580]Libnah means "whiteness." Dean Stanley (S. and P., 207, 258) identifies it with a white-faced hill, the Blanchegarde of the Crusaders.
[581]The dates usually given are Sabaco,b.c.725-712; Shabatok, 712-698; Tirhakah, 698-672. Manetho, Τάραχος; Strabo, Τεράκων, ὁ Αἰθιώψ. He was third king of the twenty-fifth dynasty, and the greatest of the Egyptian sovereigns who came from Ethiopia. He reigned gloriously for many years. We see his figure at Medinet Abou, smiting ten captive princes with an iron mace; but he was finally defeated by Esarhaddon, and in 668 by Assurbanipal at Karbanit (Canopus). He is called by his conqueror "Tar-ku-u, King of Egypt and Cush" (Schrader,K. A. T., 336 ff.).
[582]Heb.,Sepharîm; Vulg.,litteræ; 2 Chron. xxxii. 17. The more ordinary term for a letter isiggereth.
[583]2 Kings xix. 12 (Heb.); Ezek. xxvii. 23. On these places see Schrader, ii. 11, 12. It had been indeed Sennacherib's work "to reduce fenced cities to ruinous heaps." He boasts on the Bellino Cylinder, "Their smaller towns without number I overthrew, and reduced them to heaps of rubbish" (Records of the Past, i. 27).
[584]"It is a prayer without words, a prayer in action, which then passes into a spoken prayer" (Delitzsch).
[585]The Assyrians are sometimes represented in their monuments as hewing idols to pieces in honour of their god Assur (Botta,Monum., pl. 140).
[586]LXX., κινεῖν τὴν κεφαλήν, "a gesture of scorn" (Psalm xxii. 7, cix. 25; Lam. ii. 15). With the vaunts of Sennacherib compare Claudian,De bell. Geth., 526-532.
"Cum cesserit omnisObsequiis natura meis? Subsidere nostrisSub pedibus montes,arescere vidimus amnes...Fregi Alpes,galeis Padum victricibus hausi."Keil,ad loc.
"Cum cesserit omnisObsequiis natura meis? Subsidere nostrisSub pedibus montes,arescere vidimus amnes...Fregi Alpes,galeis Padum victricibus hausi."Keil,ad loc.
[587]Comp. 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11 (Heb.); Psalm xxxix. 1; Isa. xxx. 28; Ezek. xxxviii. 4, xxix. 4. The Assyrians drove a ring through the lower lip, the Babylonians through the nose. See Rawlinson,Ancient Monarchies, ii. 314, iii. 436.
[588]2 Kings xix. 33. "The river of Egypt" (Nachal-ha-Mizraim) is the Wady-el-Arish.
[589]Isa. x. 33, 34, xi. 1, xiv. 8; Stanley,Lectures, ii. 410.
[590]אוֹת. A sign "is a thing, an event, or an action intended as a pledge of the Divine certainty of another. Sometimes it is a miracle (Gen. iv. 15, Heb.), or a permanent symbol (Isa. viii. 18, xx. 3, xxxvii. 30; Jer. xliv. 29)" (Delitzsch).
[591]The first year they should eatsaphîach(LXX., αὐτόματα; Vulg.,quæ repereris); the second year,sachîsh(LXX., τὰ ἀνατέλλοντα; Vulg.,quæ sponte nascuntur).
[592]2 Kings xix. 35: "It came to pass that night." Isaiah only has "then"; Josephus, κατὰ τὴν πρώτην τῆς πολιορκίας νύκτα. Menochius understands it "in celebri illa nocte." The LXX. omits "that," and simply says "in the night" (νυκτός). Comp. Psalm xlvi. 5 (Heb.); Isa. xvii. 14.
[593]Josephus, followed by many moderns, and even by Keil, suggests a plague. The malaria of the Pelusiotic marshes easily breeds pestilence. The "maleak Jehovah" is "the destroyer" (mashchith) (Exod. xii. 23; 2 Sam. xxiv. 16.) Comp. Justin., xix. 11; Diod. Sic., xix. 434.
[594]Comp. 2 Sam. xxiv. 15, 16.
[595]The Babyl. Talmud and some Targums, followed by Vitringa, etc., attribute to it storms of lightning; Prideaux, Heine, and Faber, to the simoom; R. José, Ussher, etc., to a nocturnal attack of Tirhakah.
[596]It is, however, perfectly possible that a contingent was left on guard. "Where is the [past] terror? Where is he that rated the tribute? Where is he that received it?" (Isa. xxxiii. 18). "At the noise of the tumult the people flee" (Isa. xxxiii. 3); "At Thy rebuke, O God of Jacob, both chariot and horse are cast into a dead sleep" (Psalm lxxvi. 6). Comp. Psalm xlviii. 4-6.
[597]This is the meaning of "he departed, and went, and returned."
[598]Not, only fifty-five days, as we read in Tobit i. 21.
[599]Jos.,Antt., X. i. 5: "In his own temple to Araskê"; LXX., Ἀσαράχ; Isa. xxxvii. 38. One guess connects the word with Nesher, "the eagle-god," often seen on the Assyrian bas-reliefs. Lenormant calls him "the god of human destiny."
[600]Alex. Polyhistorap.Euseb., i. 27; Kimchiad2 Kings xix. 37. Buxtorf (Bibl. Rabbinic.) says that Sennacherib entered the temple to ask his counsellors why Jehovah favoured Israel. Being told that it was because of Abraham's willingness to offer Isaac, he said, "Then I will offer my two sons." Rashi adds that they slew him to save their own lives. (See Schenkel and Riehm,s.v."Sanherib"—both articles by Schrader).
[601]See Schrader in Riehm'sHandwörterbuch,s.vv."Sanherib," "Asarhaddon." Esarhaddon, judging from what is called "Sennacherib's will," in which the king leaves him splendid presents, seems to have been a favourite of his father (Records of the Past, i. 136). He says that on hearing of his father's murder, "I was wrathful as a lion, and my soul raged within me, and I lifted my hands to the great gods to assume the sovereignty of my father's house." SeeAppendix I.
[602]The Book of Tobit (i. 21) calls him Sarchedonas.
[603]2 Chron. xxxiii. 11.
[604]2 Chron. xxxii. 23.
[605]Wellhausen, p. 116.
[606]Herod., ii. 14. "Sin" (Tanis?), Ezek. xxx. 15. It lay in the midst of morasses, and some attribute the catastrophe to the malaria.
[607]The deliverance is really connected with Tirhakah, whose deeds are recorded in a temple at Medinet Habou, but the jealousy of the Memphites attributed it to the piety of Sethos. See G. W. Wilkinson,Ancient Egyptians, i. 141; Rawlinson,Herodotus, i. 394.
[608]Antt., X. i. 1-5.
[609]Comp. 1 Sam. v., vi., where, after a plague, the Philistines sent an expiation of five golden mice.
[610]We may add that even the Chronicler drops a veil over Sennacherib's actual capture of fortresses in Judah ("hethoughtto win them for himself," 2 Chron. xxxii. 1: comp. 2 Kings xviii. 13; Isa. xxxvi. 1).
[611]Isa. vi. 11-13.
[612]Isa. v. 26-30.
[613]Isa. vii. 18.
[614]Isa. viii., xxviii. 1-15, x. 28-34.
[615]Isa. xiv. 29-32, xxix., xxx.
[616]Isa. i. 19, 20.
[617]Isa. x. 33, xxix. 5-8, xxx. 20-26, 30-33.
[618]Isa. xxxviii. 6. See for this paragraph an admirable chapter in Prof. Smith'sIsaiah, pp. 368-374.
[619]Isa. xlvii. 13.
[620]Stanley,Lectures, ii. 531.
[621]Isa. xl. 15.
[622]Isa. xix. 24, 25.
[623]Ecclus. xlix. 4.
[624]One legend says that Hephzibah was a daughter of Isaiah. Not so Josephus (Antt., X. iii. 1).
[625]See Gen. xli. 51. His name may have referred to the new union between the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. Comp. 2 Chron. xxx. 6, xxxi. 1.
[626]Chron. xxxiv. 1-3.
[627]See Zeph. i. 8. Comp. 2 Chron. xxiv. 17; Isa. xxviii. 14; Jer. v. 5, etc.
[628]Mic. vii. 1-20.
[629]LXX., τῇ Βαά̈λ. The feminine, however, does not imply that Baal was here worshipped as a female deity, but is probably due to the fact that later Jews always avoided using thenamesof idols (from a misapprehension or too literal view of Exod. xxiii. 13), and therefore called BaalBosheth("shame"), which is feminine. Hence the names Mephibosheth, Jerubbesheth, Ishbosheth. In Suidas (s.v.Μανασσῆς) he is charged with having set up in the Temple "a four-faced image of Zeus."
[630]For בָּתִּים, in 2 Kings xxiii. 7, the LXX. read χεττίμ (?). Grätz, (Gesch. d. Juden., ii. 277) suggests בְּנָדִים, "broidered robes." Ezek. xvi. 16. See Herod., i. 199; Strabo, xvi. 1058; Luc.,De Deâ. Syr., § 6; Libanius,Opp., xi. 456, 557;Ep. of Jeremy, 43; Döllinger,Judenthum u. Heidenthum, i. 431; Rawlinson,Phœnicia, 431.
[631]Chron. xxxiii. 3; 2 Kings xxiii. 5. Movers,Rel. d. Phöniz., i. 65 "In all the books of the Old Testament written before the Assyrian period no trace of star-worship is to be to found." 2 Kings xvii. 16.
[632]Jer. vii. 18, viii. 2, xix. 13; Zeph. i, 5.
[633]See Deut. iv. 19, xvii. 3.
[634]2 Kings xxiii. 11, 12.
[635]See Jer. vii, 31, 32, xix. 2-6, xxxii. 35; Psalm cvi. 37, 38.
[636]Ewald infers from Isa. lvii. 5-9; Jer. ii. 5-13, that he actuallysoughtfor all foreign kinds of worship, in order to introduce them.
[637]1 Sam. iii. 11; Jer. xix. 3.
[638]Comp. Isa. xxxiv. 11; Lam. ii. 8.
[639]2 Kings xxi. 13. LXX., ἀλάβαστρος,al.πυξίον. The Vulgate also takes it to mean the obliteration of writing on a tablet: "Delebo Jerusalem sicut deleri solent tabulæ; et ducam crebrius stylum super faciem ejus."
[640]2 Kings xxi. 16; Heb., "from mouth to mouth"; LXX., στόμα εἰς στόμα; Vulg.,donec impleret Jerusalem usque ad os. Comp. 2 Kings x. 21.
[641]Antt., X. iii, 1: "He butchered alike all the just among the Hebrews." To this reign of terror some refer Psalm xii. 1; Isa. lvii. 1-4.
[642]This (as I have said) cannot be regarded as certain. Isaiah began to prophesy in the year that King Uzziah died, sixty years before Manasseh. It is a Jewish Haggadah. See Gesen on Isa. i., p. 9, and the Apocryphal "Ascension of Isaiah."
[643]Esarhaddon reigned only eight years, till 668, and then resigned in favour of his son Assurbanipal. In his reign Psammetichus recovered Egypt, and put an end to the Dodecarchy. In the reign of his successor, Assuredililani, Assyria began to decline (647-625).
[644]Comp. Isa. xxxix. 6; Jos.,Antt., X. iii. 2. The phrase "among the thorns" means "with rings" (comp. Isa. xxx. 28, xxxvii. 29; Ezek. xxxviii. 4; Amos iv. 2). Assurbanipal says similarly that he seized Necho, "bound him with bonds and iron chains, hands and feet," but afterwards allowed him to return to Egypt (Schrader, ii. 59).
[645]Late and worthless Haggadoth, echoed by still later writers (Suidas and Syncellus), say he was kept in a brazen cage, fed on bran bread dipped in vinegar, etc. SeeApost. Constt., ii. 22: "And the Lord hearkened to his voice, and there became about him a flame of fire, and all the irons about him melted." John Damasc.,Parall., ii. 15, quotes from Julius Africanus, that while Manasseh was saying a psalm his iron bonds burst, and he escaped. SeeSpeakers Commentary, on Apocrypha, ii. 363.
[646]Such pardon from a king of Assyria was rare, but not unparalleled. Pharaoh Necho I. was taken in chains to Nineveh, and afterwards set free (Schrader,K. A. T., p. 371).
[647]See 2 Chron. xxvii. 3. The "fish gate" was, perhaps, a weak point (Zeph. i. 10).
[648]2 Chron. xxxiii. 19. Heb.,dibhrî Chozai; A.V., "the story of the Seers"; R.V., "in the history of Hozai"; LXX., ἐπὶ τῶν λόγων τῶν οὐρανιῶν; Vulg.,in sermonibus Hozai. The elements of doubt suggested by the name "Babylon," and by the liberation of Manasseh, have been removed by further knowledge. See Budge,Hist. of Esarhaddon, p. 78; Schrader,K. A. T., 369 ff.
[649]Since the Council of Trent this prayer has been relegated to the end of the Vulgate with 3, 4, Esdras. Verse 8 (the supposed sinlessness of the Patriarchs) at once shows it to be a mere composition.
[650]2 Kings xxiii. 12.
[651]2 Kings xxi. 20.
[652]2 Chron. xxxiii. 15.
[653]2 Kings xxiii. 26.
[654]Jer. xv. 1-9.
[655]The later Jews certainly took no account of his repentance. His name was execrated (see the substitution of Manasseh for Moses in Judg. xviii. 30), and he was denied all part in the world to come. The Apocryphal "Prayer of Manasses" has no authority, though it is interesting (Butler,Analogy, pt. ii., ch. v.).
[656]In estimating the Chronicler's story, we cannot wholly forget the fact that a number of Haggadic legends clustered thickly round the name of Manasseh in the literature of the later Jews. He is charged with incest, with the murder of Isaiah, the distortion of Scripture, etc., and is represented as having got to heaven, not by real repentance, but by challenging God on His superiority to idols. The Targum, after 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11, adds, "And the Chaldees made a copper mule, and pierced it all over with little holes, and put him therein. And when he was in straits, he cried in vain to all his idols. Then he prayed to Jehovah and humbled himself; but the angels shut every window and lattice of heaven, that his prayer might not enter. But forthwith the pity of the Lord of the world rolled forth, and He made an aperture in heaven, and the mule burst asunder, and the Spirit breathed on him, and he forsook all his idols." "No books," says Dr. Neubauer, "are more subject to additions and various adaptations than popular histories." See Mr. Ball's commentary (Speaker's Commentary, ii. 309, andSanhedrin, f. 99, 2; 101, 1; 103, 2).
[657]The name Amon is unusual. Some identify it with the name of the Egyptian sun-god (Nah. iii. 8). If so, we see yet another element of Manasseh's syncretism, and (as some fancy) an attempt to open relations with Psammetichus of Egypt. But perhaps the name may be Hebrew for "Architect" (1 Kings xxii. 26; Neh. vii. 59).
[658]2 Kings xxi. 19. The LXX. reads "twelve years," but not so Josephus (Antt., X. iv. 1), or 2 Chron. xxxiii. 21.
[659]Zeph. iii. 1-11. Comp. i. 4.
[660]Chemarim, 2 Kings xxiii. 5; Hos. x. 5. The root in Syriac means "to be sad," but Kimchi derives it from a root "to be black." The Vulgate renders itædituiandaruspices.
[661]We are told in the titles of their books that both these prophets prophesied in the days of Josiah; but such pictures can only apply to the earliest years of his reign.
[662]See Jer. v., vi., vii.,passim.
[663]Jer. vi. 13-15.
[664]Jer. v. 30, 31.
[665]Kamphausen (Die Chronologie der hebräischer Könige) makes Josiah succeed to the throne in 638.
[666]Otherwise his genealogy would not be mentioned for four generations (Hitzig).
[667]Zeph. i. 1. Jeremiah also was highly connected. He was a priest and his father Hilkiah may be the high priest who found the book; "for his uncle Shallum, father of his cousin Hanameel, was the husband of Huldah the prophetess" (2 Kings xxii. 14; Jer. xxxii. 7). The fact that Jeremiah's property was at Anathoth, where lived the descendants of Ithamar (1 Kings ii. 26), whereas Hilkiah was of the family of Eleazar (1 Chron. vi. 4-13), does not seem fatal to the view that his father was the high priest.
[668]Zeph. ii. 4-7.
[669]Zeph. ii. 12-15.
[670]Jer. ii. 1-35. Considering the very great part played by Jeremiah for nearly half a century of the last history of Judah, the non-mention of his name in the Book of Kings is a circumstance far from easy to explain.
[671]Jer. iv. 6, A. V., "retire, stay not." Comp. Isa. x. 24-31.
[672]Jer. iv. 7-27.
[673]Jer. v. 15-17.
[674]Jer. vi. 1, 22, 23, 24.
[675]The almond tree (shâqâd) "seems to be awake (shâqâd), whatsoever trees are still sleeping in the torpor of winter" (TristramNat. Hist. of the Bible, 332; Jer. i. 11-14).
[676]The name Kimmerii (on the Assyrian inscriptions Gimirrai) is connected with Gomer. The Persians call them Sakai or Scyths. The nomad Scyths had driven the Kimmerii from the Dniester while Psammetichus was King of Egypt. For allusions to this see Jer. vi. 22seq., viii. 16, ix. 10. The first notice of them is in an inscription of Esarhaddon,b.c.677, who says that he defeated "Tiushpa,the Gimirrai, a roving warrior, whose own country was remote." Zephaniah and Jeremiah were certainly thinking of the Scythians (Eichhorn, Hitzig, Ewald; and more recently Kuenen,Onderzoek, ii. 123; Wellhausen,Skizzen, 150). Inb.c.626 they could not have consciously had the Chaldæans in view, though, twenty-three years later, Jeremiah may have had.
[677]See Ezek. xxxviii., xxxix.
[678]Ezek. xxxviii. 2. So Gesenius, Hävernick, etc., and R.V.
[679]The form in the Vulgate and the Alexandrian MS. of the LXX. is Mosech; in the Assyrian inscription, Muski. As far back as 1120 Tiglath-Pileser I. had overrun Tubal (the Tublai, Tabareni) and Moschi, between the Black Sea and the Taurus. They were neither Aryans nor Semites. In Gen. x. 2; 1 Chron. i. 5, Gog, Magog, Meshech, and Gomer are sons of Japheth. They are referred to in Rev. xx. 8.
[680]Herod., i. 74, 103-106, iv. 1-22, vii. 64; Pliny,H. N., v. 16; Jos.,Antt., I. vi. 1; Syncellus,Chronogl., i. 405.
[681]Sayce,Ethnology of the Bible; Records of the Past, ix. 40; Schrader,K. A. T., 159. Some identify Gog with Gyges, King of Lydia, who was killed in battleagainstthe Scythians, but whose name stood for a geographical symbol of Asia Minor, sometimes called Lud. It is said that in 665 Gyges (Gugu) sent two Scythian chiefs as a present to Nineveh.
[682]Hence, in 2 Macc. iv. 47, 3 Macc. vii. 5, Scythian is used with the modern connotation of "Barbarian."
[683]Ezek. xxxii. 26, 27; Cheyne,Jeremiah("Men of the Bible") p. 31.
[684]Expositor, 2nd series, iv. 263; Cheyne,Jeremiah, 31. Hitzig and Ewald (erroneously?) refer Psalms lv., lix., to these events, and it seems also to be an error to suppose that the later name of Bethshan—Scythopolis—has anything to do with this incursion. Like the names of Pella, Philadelphia, etc., it is later than the age of Alexander the Great. See 2 Macc. xii. 30; Jos.,B. J., II. xviii.,Vit.vi. Perhaps Scythopolis is a corruption of Sikytopolis, the city of Sikkuth; or Scythian may merely stand for "Barbarian," as in 3 Macc. vii. 5; Col. iii. 11 (Cheyne,l.c.).
[685]Nah. i. 10, ii. 5, iii. 12; Diod. Sic., ii. 26.
[686]Nah. iii. 8-11.
[687]Strabo, xvi. 1, 3: ἠφανίσθη παοαχρῆμα.
[688]Xen.,Anab., III. iv. 7.
[689]Chaldees, Kardim, Kasdim, Kurds.
[690]Nabu-pal-ussur, "Nebo protect the son"b.c.625-7. Jos.,Antt.X. xi. 1: comp.Ap., i. 19.
[691]Newman,Hebrew Monarchy, p. 315.
[692]2 Kings xxiii. 4. We have here the first mention of "the second priest" (if, with Grätz, we readCohen mishneh, as in 2 Kings xxv. 18; Jer. lii. 24). In later days he was called "the Sagan." At this time he probably acted as "Captain of the Temple" (Grätz, ii. 319).
[693]Comp. 2 Kings xii. 15, where we find the same remark.
[694]Exod. xv. 20; Judg. iv. 4; Isa. viii. 3. "The prophetess" seems to mean "prophet's wife." Noadiah was a false prophetess.
[695]Exod. xxviii. 2, etc.
[696]2 Kings xxii. 14. Heb.,mishneh, lit. "second"; A.V., "the college"; R.V., "the second quarter." Perhaps it means "the lower city" (Neh. xi. 9; Zeph. i. 10). It puzzled the LXX.: ἐν τῇ μασενᾷ. Vulg.,in secunda. Jerome says, "Haud dubium quin urbis partem significet quæ interiori muro vallabatur." Comp. Zeph. i. 10, "an howling from thesecond" (i.e., quarter of the city); Neh. xi. 9, where, for "second over the city" (A. and R.V.), read "over the second part of the city."
[697]Another reading is "in Jerusalem," which gets over an historic difficulty.
[698]Comp. 2 Kings xi. 14; LXX., ἐπὶ τοῦ στύλου; Heb.,al-ha-ammud; Vulg.,super gradum.
[699]2 Kings xxiii. 4; for "in the fields of Kedron" one version has ἐν τῷ ἐμπυρισμῷ τοῦ χειμάῤῥου, "in the burning-place of the wady,"—perhaps readingbemisrephothforbishedamoth, and alluding to lime-kilns in the wady. It is surprising that they should carry the ashes "to Bethel." Thenius suggests the reading בֵּית־אַל, "place of execution" (lit., "house of nothingness").
[700]Hos. x. 5; Zeph. i. 4 (the only other places where the word occurs). Thedelevitof the Vulgate (2 Kings xxiii. 5) only means that he put them down, and the κατέκαυσε of the LXX. should be κατέπαυσε.