1 CHRON. IV. 18.

"And these are the sons of Bithiah the daughter of Pharaoh, which Mered took."

These two Egyptians rebelled successfully against the Persians, and each ruled as king, or Pharaoh, for a few years over his own half of Egypt. They were then conquered and put to death by Artaxerxes Longimanus, B.C. 454. He, however, made their sons satraps of their provinces on the re-establishment of the Persian power in Egypt. This was some few years after Ezra had been allowed by the Persians to return to Jerusalem as high priest, and governor of the province. Hence, while Jews and Egyptians were alike allowed by the Persians to live under the government of native satraps, or viceroys, Mered, the son of Ezra, may well be supposed to have married a daughter of one of these two Pharaohs, the sister of a satrap of part of Egypt.

2 CHRONICLES, XIV. 8.

And Asa had an army of men that bare targets and spears, out of Judah ..... and out of Benjamin, that bare shields and drew bows."

This figure of an Egyptian soldier, bearing a spear and target, is from the Description de l'Egypte, iv. 46. Such, also, was the shield which was carried before Goliath when he fought with the young David (1 Sam. xvii. 7). We learn from 1 Kings, x. 16, that the target, or large shield, weighed five times as much as the smaller shield; but in 2 Chron. ix. 15, it is described as only twice the weight. Such, however, was the great weight of this piece of armour that it made it suitable for a noble warrior, who was himself partially clothed in metal, to have a servant called his armour-bearer to accompany him, to carry this and perhaps his helmet. It is of this target that the Psalmist speaks when he says, "With favour wilt Thou encompass him as with a shield." (Ps. v. 12.)

2 CHRONICLES, XIV. 9.

"And there came out against them Zerah the Ethiopian with an host of a thousand thousand, and three hundred chariots; and came Mareshah."

unto

Ze-ra, Son of the Sun, a title of every Egyptian king,--here, perhaps, meaning Rameses VII. of Thebes. Though calling him a Cushite or Ethiopian, the writer probably only meant that he was of the Upper Country, as distinguished from the kings of Lower Egypt, who had latterly held sway over both kingdoms. Ethiopia, as distinguished from Upper Egypt, had not yet risen into power.

Shishank of Bubastis and his son Osorchon may have governed Egypt for about fifty years; but on the death of Osorchon, Bubastis was no longer strong enough to hold itself independent of Thebes. At that time, about the year B.C. 925, Zerah the Ethiopian invaded Judea with an army of chariots, which could only have been Egyptian; and if we count the succession of generations, Rameses VII. may have been ruling in Thebes, and he, probably, made this vain attempt to rival his great predecessors in making himself master not only of Lower Egypt, but of the neighbouring Judea.

2 CHRONICLES, XXI. 7.

"Howbeit the Lord would not destroy the house of David, because of the covenant that He had made with David, and as He [had] promised to give a light [or lamp] to him and to his sons for ever."

ד

The figure of the Egyptian god Thoth, known by his ibis-shaped head. He has a cow's tail tied to his girdle, and hanging down behind, which is an ornament worn by the Egyptian kings. He is hanging up a lamp upon the heavens in honour of the deceased king Oimenepthah I. The horizontal bar represents the vault of heaven. In this way the Egyptian described the stars as lamps hanging down from heaven.-From the Sarcophagus of Oime

nepthah in Sir John Soane's Museum. By the Jews, as long as a man and his posterity were prosperous, his lamp was said to be shining in heaven. And when a man's family was destroyed, his lamp was said to be put out. So in Prov. xiii. 9, "The lamp of the wicked shall be put out;" and again in Prov. xx. 20, and xxiv. 20.

2 CHRONICLES, XXVIII. 2.

"For he [Ahaz] walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, and made also molten images for Baalim."

The Assyrian god Baal, the Sun, in the form of a winged man without legs, holding a bow in his left hand, placed within a ring. Over it is placed the Egyptian winged sun, to show that the Assyrians copied from the Egyptian emblems.

The nations around the Israelites worshipped a variety

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