The Expositor's Bible: The First Book of Kings

564

We shall have further glimpses of Jehoshaphat in the reigns of Ahab and even of Jehoram.

565

See 1 Chron. xvi. 34; 2 Chron. v. 13, vii. 3, xx. 21; Psalms cvi., cvii., cxviii., etc. The eighty-third Psalm may owe its origin to this deliverance, and Hengstenberg thinks Psalms xlvii. and xlviii. also.

566

The title "valley of Jehoshaphat" is thought also to have derived its origin from these events. Comp. Joel iii. 2.

567

2 Chron. xxi. 2, 3.

568

There is a little exaggeration here.

569

2 Kings ix. 31.

570

R.V., "the castle of the king's house."

571

Justin, Hist., i. 3; cf. Herod., i. 176, vii. 107; Liv., xxi. 14. Ewald elaborates out of his own consciousness an extraordinary romance about Zimri and the queen-mother.

572

Josephus (Antt., VIII. xii. 5) says that Tibni was assassinated, as does the Rabbinic Seder Olam Rabba, chap. xvii. LXX., καὶ ἀπέθανε Θαβνὶ καὶ Ἰωρὰμ ὁ ἀδελφὸς αὐτοῦ.

573

Athaliah is called "the daughter of Omri."

574

The Aramæans have come to be incorrectly called Syrians because the Greeks confused them with the Assyrians.

575

1 Kings xx. 34.

576

2 Kings iii. 4.

577

1 Kings xvi. 25.

578

Micah vi. 16.

579

Isa. xxviii. 1-4.

580

Stanley, Lectures, ii. 242.

581

1 Kings xx. 1; 2 Kings vi. 24.

582

Josephus, Antt., XV. vii. 7. One of the few instances in Palestine where the ancient name has been superseded by a more modern one. The early Assyrians call it Beth-Khumri, "House of Omri"; but the name Sammerin occurs in the monument of Tiglath-Pileser II.

583

About £800 of our money.

584

LXX., Σκοπία; שָׁמַר, "to watch."

585

Meyer, Gesch. d. Alt., 331; Kittel, ii. 221; Schrader, Keilinschr., i. 165.

586

נְבוּרָתֹו (1 Kings xvi. 27).

587

It is needless in each separate case to enter into the chronological minutiæ about which the historian is little solicitous. A table of the chronology so far as it can be ascertained is furnished, infra.

588

1 Kings xx. 5; 2 Kings x. 7.

589

Hitzig thinks that Psalm xlv. was an epithalamium on this occasion, from the mention of "ivory palaces" and "the daughter of Tyre." Had it been composed for the marriage of Solomon, or Jehoram and Athaliah, or any king of Judah, there would surely have been an allusion to Jerusalem. Moreover, the queen is called שֵׁנָל, which is a Chaldee (Dan. v. 2), or perhaps a North Palestine word. The word in Judah was Gebira.

590

Ἰθόβαλος, Josephus, Antt., VIII. xiii. 1; c. Ap., I. 18 (quoting the heathen historian Menander of Ephesus). It may, however, be "Man of Baal," like Saul's son Ishbaal (Ishbosheth). In Tyre the high priest was only second to the king in power (Justin, Hist., xviii. 4), and Ethbaal united both dignities. He died aged sixty-eight. Another Ethbaal was on the throne during the siege of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar (Josephus, Antt., X. xi. I).

591

Josephus, c. Ap., I. 18. The genealogy is: —

See Canon Rawlinson, Speaker's Commentary, ad loc.

592

Plaut., Pænul., V. ii. 6, 7. Phœnician names abound in the element "Baal."

593

Ahaziah ("Jehovah supports"), Jehoram ("Jehovah is exalted"), Athaliah (?). The word Baal merely meant "Lord"; and perhaps the fact that at one time it had been freely applied to Jehovah Himself may have helped to confuse the religious perceptions of the people. Saul, certainly no idolater, called his son Eshbaal ("the man of Baal"); and it was only the hatred of the name Baal in later times which led the Jews to alter Baal into Bosheth ("shame"), as in Ishbosheth, Mephibosheth. David himself had a son named Beeliada ("known to Baal"), which was altered into Eliada (1 Chron. xiv. 7, iii. 8; 2 Sam. v. 16; comp. 2 Chron. xvii. 17). We even find the name Bealiah ("Baal is Jah") as one of David's men (1 Chron. xii. 5). Hoshea too records that Baali ("my Lord") was used of Jehovah, but changed into Ishi ("my husband") (Hosea ii. 16, 17). It is used simply for owner ("the baal of an ox") in "the Book of the Covenant" (Exod. xxi. 28). See Robertson Smith, Rel. of the Semites, 92.

594

Ethbaal is called King of Sidon (1 Kings xvi. 31), and was also King of Tyre (Menander ap. Josephus, Antt., VIII. xiii. 1).

595

1 Kings xvi. 23; 2 Kings iii. 2, x. 27.

596

Asherim seem to be upright wooden stocks of trees in honour of the Nature-goddess Asheroth. The Temple of Baal at Tyre had no image, only two Matstseboth, one of gold given by Hiram, one of "emerald" (Dius and Menander ap. Josephus, Antt., VIII. v. 3; c. Ap., I. 18; Herod., ii. 66).

597

Döllinger, Judenth. u. Heidenthum (E. T.), i. 425-29.

598

2 Sam. x. 5; Judg. iii. 28.

599

2 Chron. xxviii. 15.

600

Comp. Josh. vi. 26; 2 Sam. x. 5.

601

Rev. ii. 20.

602

1 Kings xxi. 25, 26.

603

Henry Smith, The Trumpet of the Lord sounding to Judgment.

604

Tobit i. 2.

605

Josephus, Antt., VIII. xiii. 2; Vat. (LXX.), Θεσβίτης ὁ ἐκ θεσβῶν. The Alex. LXX. omits Θεσβίτης. An immense amount has been written about Elijah. Among others, see Knobel, Der Prophetismus, ii. 73; Köster, Der Thesbiter; Stanley, ii., lect. xxx.; Maurice, Prophets and Kings, serm. viii.; F. W. Robertson, ii., serm. vi.; Milligan, Elijah (Men of the Bible).

606

See 1 Chron. ii. 55.

607

See Cheyne, The Hallowing of Criticism, p. 9.

608

Zech. xiii. 4.

609

The word also means "sea-mist" (Cheyne, p. 15).

610

Lev. xxvi. 19; Psalm cxxxiv. 1; Heb. x. 11.

611

So too Ecclus. xlviii. 2, "He brought a sore famine upon them, and by his zeal he diminished their number"; but the writer adds, "By the word of the Lord he shut up the heavens." Deut. xxviii. 12; Amos iv. 7.

612

2 Sam. xxi. 1.

613

2 Sam. xxiv. 13. "Three," not "seven," is probably here the true reading.

614

Not "by," as in the A.V. Cherith means "cut off" (1 Kings xvii. 3). "The Lord hid him" (Jer. xxxvi. 26). "In famine he shall redeem thee from death… At famine and destruction thou shalt laugh" (Job v. 20-22).

615

Robinson.

616

Benjamin of Tudela.

617

Marinus Sanutus (1321).

618

The ravens were unclean birds (Deut. xiv. 14), and this naturally startled and offended the Rabbis.

619

Prov. xxx. 17.

620

Orbo was a small town near the Jordan and Bethshan.

621

On the other side, Bunsen (Bibelwerk, v. 2, 540) speaks too strongly when he says that "nothing but boundless ignorance, or, where historical criticism has not died out, an hierarchical dilettanti reaction, foolhardy hypocrisy, and weak-hearted fanaticism would wish to demand the faith of a Christian community in the historic truths of these miracles as if they had actually taken place." He regards the whole narrative as a "popular epic – the fruit of an inspiration, which he, as it were some superhuman being, awakened in his disciples."

622

I append the remarks of Professor Milligan, a theologian of unimpeachable orthodoxy. "The miracle," he says, "is so remarkable, so much out of keeping with most of the other miracles of Scripture, that even pious and devout minds may well be perplexed by it, and we can feel no surprise at the attempts made to explain it. Such attempts are not inconsistent with the most devout reverence for the word of God. They are rather, not unfrequently, the result of a just persuasion that the Eastern mind did not express itself in forms similar to those of the West" (Elijah, p. 22). He proceeds to protest against the harsh condemnation of those who thus only try to interpret the real ideas present in the mind of the writer. He regards it as perhaps a highly poetic and figurative representation of the truth that the God of Nature was with Elijah. "The value of the Prophet's experience is neither heightened by a literal, nor diminished by a figurative, interpretation of what passed" (p. 24).

623

1 Kings xvii. 7. Perhaps years (Lev. xxv. 29; 1 Sam. xxvii. 7).

624

Job vi. 17.

625

Menander, quoted by Josephus, Antt., VIII. xiii. 2. He says it lasted for a year.

626

LXX., "My sons" – perhaps with reference to "her house" in verse 15.

627

Perhaps the language of the Hebrew is not actually decisive. Josephus says, τὴν ψυχὴν ἀφεῖναι καὶ δόξαι νεκρόν. In any case his recovery was due to Elijah's prayer.

628

The phrase "man of God" is characteristic of the Book of Kings, in which it occurs fifty-three times. It became a normal description of Elijah and Elisha. "What have I to do with thee?" Comp. 2 Sam. xvi. 10; Luke v. 8. It was a common superstition that death always followed the appearance of superhuman beings.

629

Compare the similar revivals of life wrought by Elisha (2 Kings iv. 34), and by St. Paul (Acts xx. 10).

630

Amos ix. 3: "And though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence." The phrase shows the security and seclusion of these caves and thickets, the haunt once of lions and bears, and still of leopards and hyænas.

631

The LXX. adds that he inflicted vengeance because Elijah was not found: "Καὶ ἐνέπρησε τὴν βασιλείαν καὶ τὰς χωρὰς αὐτῆς ὅτι οὐχ εὔρηκέ σε" (1 Kings xviii. 10).

632

Obadiah seems to have believed in miraculous transference of the Prophet from place to place. Comp. Ezek. iii. 12-14 (where "the spirit" may be rendered "a spirit," or "a wind"), viii. 3; 2 Kings ii. 16; Acts viii. 39; and the Ebionite Gospel of St. Matthew. "My mother, the Holy Ghost, took me by a hair of the head, and carried me to Mount Tabor" (Orig. in Joann., ii., § 6; and Jer. in Mic. vii. 6). So in Bel and the Dragon 33-36 (Abarbanel, Comm. in Habakkuk) the prophet Habakkuk is said to have been taken invisibly to supply food to Daniel in the den of lions. "Then the angel of the Lord took him by the crown and bare him by the hair of his head, and through the vehemency of his spirit" (Midr. Robshik Rabba, "in the might of the Holy Ghost") "set him in Babylon."

633

1 Kings xviii. 15, LXX., "The Lord God of Israel" has now become to him more prominently "the Lord God of Hosts."

634

The phrase had already been applied to Achan (Josh. vii. 25).

635

I.e., were maintained at Jezebel's expense. The subsequent narration is silent as to the presence of the prophets of the Asherah, and Wellhausen thinks that the words here are an interpolation.

636

Isa. xxxiii. 9, xxxv. 2; Micah vii. 14. Its beauty and fruitfulness are alluded to in Jer. xlvi. 18, l. 19; Amos i. 2, ix. 3; Nahum i. 4; Cant. vii. 5.

637

Sir George Grove, to whose excellent article in Smith's Dict. of Bible (i. 279) I am indebted, quotes Martineau (i. 317), Porter's Handbook, Van de Velde, etc. See, too, Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, pp. 353-56.

638

On these Lapides judaici, see my Life of Christ, i. 129. Illustrations are given in the illustrated edition.

639

Jambl., Vit. Pythag., iii.; Suet., Vesp., 5; Tac., Hist., ii. 78; Reland, Palest., pp. 327-30.

640

Megiddo lies in the plain below, and this scene of conflict between good and the powers of evil was an anticipated Armageddon.

641

Isa. xlix. 2; Cheyne, p. 16.

642

LXX., 1 Kings xviii. 21, ἕως πότε ὑμεῖς χωλανεῖτε ἐπ' ἀμφοτέραις ταῖς ἰγνύαις. Vulg., usquequo claudicatis in duas partes? Cheyne renders it: "How long will ye go lame upon tottering knees?" In Psalm cxix. 113, סֵעֲפִים are "the double-minded." In Ezek. xxxi. 6, סְעַפּוֹת, "diverging branches." In Isa. ii. 21, סְעִפֵי, "clefts of rocks" (Bähr).

643

Herodian (Hist., v. 3) describes the dance of Heliogabalus round the altar of the Emesene Sun-god, and Apuleius describes at length the fanatic leapings and gashings of the execrable Galli– the eunuch-mendicant priests of the Syrian goddess. From these sources and from allusions in Seneca, Lucian, Statius, Arnobius, etc., Movers (Phöniz., i. 682) derives his description (quoted by Keil, ad loc., E.T., p. 281): "A discordant howling opens the scene. Now they fly wildly through one another, with the head sunk down to the ground, but turning round in circles, so that the loose flowing hair drags through the mire. Thereupon they first bite themselves on the arm, and at last cut themselves with two-edged swords, which they are wont to carry. Then begins a new scene. One of them who surpasses all the rest in frenzy, begins to prophesy with sighs and groans, openly accuses himself of past sins, which he now wishes to punish by the mortifying of the flesh, takes the knotted whip which the Galli are wont to bear, lashes his back, cuts himself with swords, till the blood trickles down from his mangled body."

644

Verse 27. Others render it "meditating" (De Wette Thenius) or "peevish" (Bähr). Comp. Hom., Il., i. 423; Od., i. 22, etc.

645

This instance of "grim sarcastic humour" is almost unique in Scripture. It was made more mordant by the paronomasia כִּי־שִׂיחַ וְכִי־שִׂיג לֹּו (2 Sam. i. 22).

646

Plutarch (De Superstit., p. 170) says: "The priests of Bellona offered their own blood, which was deemed powerful to move their gods." Comp. Herod., ii. 61; Lucian, De Dea Syra, 50; Apul., Metam., viii. 28.

647

עַד לַעֲלוֹת הַמִּנחָה, "till towards (Numb. xxviii. 4) the offering of the Minchah." LXX., θυσία; Vulg., sacrificium and holocaustum. In verse 39 it is omitted in the LXX. "There is a great concurrence of evidence that the evening sacrifice of the first Temple was not a holocaust, but a cereal oblation" (Robertson Smith, p. 143, quoting 1 Kings xviii. 34; 2 Kings xvi. 15; Ezek. ix. 4, Heb).

648

Heb., וַיִתְנַבְּאוּ; LXX., διέτρεχον; Vulg., transiliebant. Literally, they acted like frantic prophets (1 Sam. xviii. 10; Jer. xxix. 26).

649

LXX., θαλάσσαν, or "sea" – the name given to Solomon's molten laver; but the description, "as great as would contain two seahs of seed," is curious, for a seah was only the third of an ephah.

650

Blunt (Undesigned Coincidences, II. xxxii.) thinks that as the drought had been so intense the water must have been sea-water. But Josephus says it was drawn ἀπὸ τῆς κρήνης (Antt., VIII. xiii. 5); and the well still exists.

651

Priests, both pagan and mediæval, have been adepts at deception. At the Reformation the mechanism of winking Madonnas, etc., was exposed to the people. At Pompeii may still be seen the secret staircase behind the altar, and the pipes let into the head of Isis from behind, through which the priests spoke her pretended oracles. St. Chrysostom (Orat. in. Petr. et Eliam, which is of uncertain genuineness) tells us that he had himself seen (θεάτης αὐτὸς γενομένος) altars with concealed hollows in the middle, into which the unsuspected operator crept, and blew up a fire which the people were assured was self-kindled (see Keil, p. 282). One legend says that on this occasion a man was suffocated, who had been concealed by the Baal priests inside their altar.

652

1 Kings xviii. 36.

653

Comp. Lev. ix. 24. Analogous stories existed among pagans (Hom., Il., ii. 305; Od., ii. 143; Verg., Ecl., viii. 105). Pliny says that annals recorded the eliciting of lightning by prayers and incantations (H. N., ii. 54; Winer, Realwörterb. 371).

654

It is after Elijah's time, and probably from his influence, that from this time proper names compounded with Jehovah become almost the rule – as in Ahaziah, Jehoram, Jehu, Jehoahaz, Joash, Pekahiah, etc.

655

1 Kings xix. 1, בְּחָרֶב; LXX., ἐν ῥομφάιᾳ.

656

Renan, Vie de Jésus, 100.

657

Matt. xii. 19, 20; Isa. xlii. 2, 3; Ezek. xxxiv. 16.

658

LXX., ὅτι φωνὴ τῶν ποδῶν τοῦ ὑετοῦ. Perhaps, with reference to this reading, Josephus afterwards describes "the little cloud" as "no bigger than a human footstep" (οὐ πλέον ἴχνους ἀνθρωπίνου).

659

LXX., τῷ παιδαρίῳ αὐτοῦ.

660

LXX., 1 Kings xviii. 45, Καὶ ἔκλαιε καὶ ἐπορεύετο Ἀχαὰβ ἕως Ιεζράελ.

661

Menander of Ephesus (Josephus, Antt., VIII. xiii. 2).

662

Eisenlohr, Das Volk Israel, p. 162.

663

He refers to Gibbon, iv. 232.

664

See Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brönte.

665

LXX., 1 Kings xix. 2.

666

The touch "which belongeth to Judah" shows that the Elijah-narrative emanated from some prophet in the northern schools. In later days it was much visited by pilgrims from the Northern Kingdom (Amos v. 5, viii. 14).

667

Matt. xxvi. 36.

668

1 Kings xix. 4, 5, רֹתֶם אֵחָת; Vulg., subter unam juniperum. The plant is the Genista monosperma, with papilionaceous flowers. Not "juniper," as in Luther (Wachholder) and the A.V. LXX., ῥαθμὲν φύτον. See Robinson, Researches, i. 203, 205. It gave its name to the station Rithmah (Numb. xxxiii. 18) and the Wadies Retemît and Retâmah.

669

Comp. Moses (Numb. xi. 15), Jonah (Jonah iv. 3).

670

Pope's epitaph on Mrs. Elizabeth Corbet, in St. Margaret's Westminster.

671

Jer. xx. 1-18.

672

Psalm cii. 6, 8.

673

Psalm xxxviii. 11, 12.

674

Jer. v. 31, xxix. 9.

675

John xvi. 32.

676

Krummacher.

677

The coals (reshaphim) for the cake (LXX., ἔγκρυφίας ὀλυρίτης; Vulg., subcinericius panis) were the dry twigs of the broom plant, still sold for that purpose in the markets of Cairo. Comp. Psalm cxx. 4; "coals of juniper."

678

1 Kings xix. 5. מַלְאָךְ means "a messenger," and in verse 2 is used of the messenger of Jezebel.

679

Exod. xxxiii. 22.

680

Bible Educator, iii. 135.

681

The use of the plural, and the absence of any objections to an uncentralised worship, are proofs of the northern origin of the Elijah-episode.

682

LXX., αὔριον; Josephus, Antt., VIII. xiii. 7; Comp. Exod. xxxiv. 2. It is hardly likely that the stupendous vision would follow instantly and without a moment's preparation.

683

Deut. iv. 12, 15, (comp. v. 4, 22, 23). Of Moses, on the other hand, it is said, "the similitude of the Lord shall he behold" (Numb. xii. 8; Exod. xxxiii. 11; Deut. xxxiv. 10).

684

מָקוֹם, τόπος, "place," was a sort of recognised euphemism for God in Rabbinic and Alexandrian exegesis. Thus, in Exod. xxiv. 10, for "they saw the God of Israel," the LXX. have εἷδον τὸν τόπον οὗ εἱστήκει ὁ θεός. Philo says, "God Himself is called Place" (De Somn., i. 525). Rabbi Isaac says, "God is not in Makom, but Makom is in God." See my Bampton Lectures on Hist. of Interpretation, p. 120; Early Days of Christianity, i. 261.

685

Psalm civ. 4; Heb. i. 7. This intermediacy of angels is prominently alluded to in Acts vii. 53; Gal. iii. 19; Heb. ii. 2, 3; Deut. xxxiii. 2; Psalm lxviii. 17.

686

The anthropomorphism which the Targumists disliked vanishes in the Chaldee: "And before Him was a host of angels of the wind rending the mountains, and breaking the rocks, before the Lord but the Shechinah was not in the hosts of the angels of the wind, and after the hosts of the angels of the wind was the host of the angel of the earthquake, etc."

687

Job xxxviii. 1, xl. 6.

688

Ezek. i. 4.

689

Jer. xxiii. 19, 20, xxv. 32, xxx. 23.

690

Psalms xviii. 10, civ. 3, 5.

691

Nahum i. 3, 5.

692

Psalm xviii. 7, lxxvii. 18, xcvii. 4; Judg. v. 4; 2 Sam. xxii. 8.

693

Hab. iii. 3-16.

694

1 Kings xix. 12; LXX., φωνὴ αὔρας λεπτῆς; Vulg., Sibilus auræ tenuis; Chaldee, "a voice of angels singing in silence."

695

Jehu was the grandson of Nimshi, and was the son of Jehoshaphat (2 Kings ix. 2).

696

Isa. xi. 4, xlix. 2; comp. Jer. i. 10, xviii. 7.