place were pleasing to God; that he had imitated this very wicked king Jeroboam; and although that man's soul had perished, yet did he express to the life his wickedness; and he said, that he should therefore justly experience the like calamity with him; since he had been guilty of the like wickedness. But Baasha, though he heard beforehand what miseries would befall him and his whole family for their insolent behaviour, yet did not he leave off his wicked practices for the time to come; nor did he care to appear to be other than worse and worse till he died; nor did he even then repent of his past actions, nor endeavour to obtain pardon of God for them; but did as those do, who have rewards proposed to them, when they have once in earnest set about their work, they do not leave off their labours. For thus did Baasha grow worse when the prophet foretold to him what would come to pass: as if the threatened perdition of his family, and the destruction of his house were good things; and as if he were a combatant for wickedness, he every day took more and more pains for it. And at last he took his army, and assaulted a certain considerable city called Ramah, which was forty furlongs distant from Jerusalem; and when he had taken it, he fortified it; having previously determined to leave a garrison in it, that they might thence make excursions, and do mischief to the kingdom of Asa.

Hereupon Asa was afraid of the attempts the enemy might make upon him; and, considering with himself how many mischiefs this army that was left in Ramah might do to the country over which he reigned, he sent ambassadors* to the king of the Damascens, with gold and silver, desiring his assistance, and putting him in mind that they had a friendship together,† from the times of their forefathers. So be gladly received that sum of money; and made a league with him, and brake the friendship he had with Baasha, and sent the commanders of his own forces unto the cities that were under Baasha's dominion; and ordered them to do them mischief. So they went and burnt some of them, and spoiled others: Ijon, Dan, and Abelmaim,‡ and many others.

About an. 937.

+ See 1 Kings xix. 15-xx. 34.

+ This Abelmaim, or in Josephus's copy, Abellane, that belonged to the land of

Now when the king of Israel heard this, he left off building and fortifying Ramah, and returned to assist his own people under the distresses they were in. But Asa-made use of the materials that were prepared for building that city, for erecting in the same place two strong cities; the one of which was called Geba, and the other Mizpah. So that after this, Baasha had no leisure to make expeditions against Asa, for he was prevented by death, and was buried in the city Tirzah.* Elah, his son, took the kingdom; but when he had reigned two years, he was treacherously slain by Zimri, the captain of half his army: for when he was at a feast of Arza, his steward's house, he persuaded some of the horsemen, that were under him, to assault Elah; and by that means he slew him when he was without his armed men, and his captains. For they were all busied in the siege of Gibbethon, a city of the Philistines.

When Zimri, the captain of the army, had killed Elah, he took the kingdom himself; and, according to Jehu's prophecy, slew all the house of Baasha. For it came to pass that Baasha's house utterly perished, on account of his impiety, in the same manner as we have already described the destruction of the house of Jeroboam. But the army that was besieging" Gibbethon, when they heard what had befallen the king, and that when Zimrit had killed him he had gained the kingdom, they bestowed the government on Omri their general, who drew off his army from Gibbethon, and came to Tirzah, where the royal palace was, and assaulted the city, and took it by force. But when Zimri saw that the city had none to defend it, he fled into the inmost part of the palace, and set it on fire,

*

Israel, and bordered on the country of Damascus, is supposed both by Hudson and Spanheim to be the same with Abel or Abila, whence came Abilene, Luke iii. 1. This may be that city so denominated from Abel the righteous, there buried, con. cerning the shedding of whose blood within the compass of the land of Israel, I understand our Saviour's words, about the fatal war and overthrow of Judea by Titus, and bis 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 Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, all these things shall come upon this generation." Matt. xxiii. 35, 36. Luke xi. 51. See Authent. Rec. P. II. page 884, 885.

* 1 Kings xvi. 6,

+ About an. 930.

and burnt himself with it; when he had reigned only seven days. Hereupon the people of Israel were presently divided ; and part of them would have Tibni to be king, and part Omri; but when those who were for Omri's ruling had beaten Tibni, Omri reigned over all the multitude.

Now it was in the thirtieth† year of the reign of Asa, that Omri reigned for twelve years: six of these years he reigned in the city Tirzah, and the rest in the city called Samareon, but named by the Greeks Samaria. But he himself called it Semareon, from Semer, who sold him the mountain whereon he built it. Now Omri was no way different from those kings that reigned before him; but only that he grew worse than they. For they all sought how they might turn people away from God, by their daily wicked practices. And on that account it was that God made one of them to be slain by another; and that no one person of their families should remain. This Omri also died at Samaria, and Ahab his son succeeded him.‡ Now by these events we may learn what concern God hath for the affairs of mankind; and how he loves good men, and hates the wicked and destroys them root and branch. For many of these kings of Israel, they and their families, were miserably destroyed, and taken away one by another, in a short time, for their transgressions. But Asa, who was king of Jerusalem, and of the two tribes, attained, by God's blessing, a long and a felicitous old age, for his piety and his righteousness; and died happily, when he had reigned forty-one years. And when he was dead, his son Jehoshaphat succeeded him

* 1 Kings xvi. 18.

The thirty-first, Heb. and Septuagint.

* An. 919.

The words in the text are these,-They laid him on the bed, which was filled with sweet odours, and divers kinds of spices, prepared by the apothecaries' art : and they made a great burning for him. 2 Chron. xvi. 26. But then the question is, whether the body itself was burnt, or only some spices and odoriferous drugs to prevent any bad smell that might attend the corpse. The Greeks and Romans indeed, when they burnt any dead bodies, threw frankincense, myrrh, cassia, and other fragrant things into the fire, and this in such abundance, that Pliny, (Nat. Hist. cap. 18,) represents it as a piece of profaneness, to bestow such heaps of frankincense upon a dead body, when they offered it so sparingly to their gods. The Jews, however, (say the maintainers of this side of the question,) were accustomed to inter, and not to burn their dead, though they might possibly learn

in the government. He was born of Asa's wife Azubah. And all men allowed that he followed the works of David his forefather, and this both in courage and piety. But we are not obliged now to speak any more of the affairs of this king.

CHAP. XIII.

OF THE IMPIETY OF AHAB KING OF ISRAEL; THE ACTIONS of the PROPHET ELIJAH; AND THE MURDER OF NABOTH.

AHAB, the king of Israel, dwelt in Samaria, and held the government for twenty-two years; and made no alteration in the conduct of the kings that were his predecessors, but only in such things as were of his own invention for the worse, and in his most gross wickedness. He imitated them in their wicked courses, and in their injurious behaviour towards God; and most especially he imitated the transgression of Jeroboam. For he worshipped the heifers that he had made; and he contrived other absurd objects of worship. He also married Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Tyrians and Sidonians; of whom he learnt to worship her own gods. This woman was active and bold; and fell into so great a degree of impurity and madness, that she built a temple to the god of the Tyrians, which they call Belus, and planted a grove of all sorts of trees; she also appointed priests and false prophets to this god. The king also himself had many such about him; and so exceeded in madness and wickedness all the kings that went before him.

from the Egyptians the usage of burning many spices at their funerals, as we find they did at the funeral of Zedekiah king of Judah, Jer. xxxiv. 5, but notwithstanding this, some very able commentators are of opinion, that all these spices and perfumes were burnt along with Asa's body; and they remark, that among his other offences, the sacred history takes no notice of this vanity of his, in ordering his body to be disposed of according to the manner of the Gentiles, and not of his own people. Though therefore they suppose that Asa was the first who introduced this custom; yet, in after ages, it became very frequent, and was thought the more honourable ceremony of the two, 2 Chron. xxi. 19. Ibid. xvi. 14. Amos vi. 10. Patrick's and Calmet's Commentaries on 2 Chron. xvi. 14. B.

* An. 916.

Now there was a prophet* of God, of Thesbon,† a country in Gilead, that came to Abab, and said to him, that God foretold he would not send rain nor dew in those years upon try, but when he should appear.

* About an. 910.

the coun

And when he had confirm

Thesbe was a town on the other side of Jordan, in the tribe of Gad, and in the land of Gilead, where this prophet was born, or at least inhabited for some time. Since the Scripture makes no mention either of the quality of his parents, the manner of his education, or his call to the prophetic office, some Jewish doctors have been of opinion that he was an angel sent from heaven, in the midst of the general corruption of the world, to preserve the true worship of God. Others pretend, that he was a priest descended from the tribe of Aaron; that his father's name was Sabaca, and his birth altogether miraculous: whilst others again will needs have it, that he was Phineas, the son of Aaron, who, after having lived a long while concealed, appeared again in the world under the name of Elijah. But where the Scripture is silent, all particulars of this kind are of small authority. This, however, may be said with safety of him, that he was one of the chief, if not the prince of the prophets of his age; a man of great and elevated soul, of a generous and undaunted spirit, a zealous defender of the cause of God, and a just avenger of the violation of his honour. Calmel's Commentary. B.

St. James's words are these :-Elias was a man subject to the like passions as we are; and he prayed earnestly, that it might not rain, and it rained not on the earth for the space of three years and six months. Our blessed Saviour makes mention of the like compass of time, Luke iv. 25, and yet neither of these are contradictory to what the sacred history tells us, viz. That the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year, 1 Kings xviii. 1. For we must remember, that as Egypt had usually no rain, but was watered by the river Nile; so the land of Canaan had generally none, except twice a year, which they called the early and latter rain. The former of these was in the month Nisan, which answers to our March; and the other in the month Marheshvan, which answers to our October. Now, at the beginning of the drought, Ahab might very probably impute the want of rain to natural causes; but when, after six months, neither the former nor the latter rain fell in their season, he then began to be enraged at Elijah, as the cause of the national judgment, and forced him, at God's command, to save his life by flight; and from that time the three years in the historian are to be computed, though from the first notice which Elijah gave Ahab of this approaching calamity, to the expiration of it, were certainly three years and a half. This calamity is said to have been procured by Elijah's prayers: but we must not therefore imagine that his prayers were spiteful and malicious, but necessary rather, and charitable to the offenders; that by the sharp and long affliction which they produced, God's honour, and the truth of his word and threatenings (which was now universally contemned) might be vindicated; and that the Israelites (whose present impunity hardened them in their idolatry) might hereby be awakened to see their wickedness, their dependence upon God, and the necessity of their returning to his religion and worship. Bedford's Scripture Chronology, lib. vi. c. 2. and Pool's Annotations. B.

1 Kings xvii. 1.