cients: for the Arabian gulf, which hath now obtained that name, was never for any such redness of it so called; for neither the water (as some will have it) nor the sand (as others say) hath there any appearance of that colour, nor was it ever by any of the easterns formerly so called. Throughout the whole scripture of the Old Testament u it is called Yam Suph, that is, the Weedy Sea, by reason of the great quantity of sea-weed which is therein; and the same name it also hath in the ancient Syriac version, as well as in the Targum or Chaldea paraphrases. But, among the ancient inhabitants of the countries adjoining, it was called Yam Edom, i. e. the Sea of Edom: for the sons of Edom having possessed all that country, which, lying between the Red sea and the Lake of Sodom, was by the Greeks called Arabia Petrea, they then named it, from their father Edom, the land of Edom; and because that which we now call the Red sea washed upon it, thence it was called the sea of Edom, or, in the dialect of the Greeks, the Edomean or Idumean sea, in the same manner as that which washeth upon Pamphylia was called the Pamphylian sea, and that which washeth upon Tyrrhenia the Tyrrhenian sea, and so in abundance of other instances. But the Greeks, who took this name from the Phoenicians, finding it by them to be called Yam Edom, instead of rendering it the sea of Edom, or the Idumean sea, as they ought, mistook the word Edom to be an appellative instead of a proper name; and therefore rendered it iguga áλassa, that is, the Red sea; for Edom, in the language of that country signified red; and it is said in Scripture, that Esau having sold his birth-right to his brother Jacob for a mess of red pottage, he was for that reason called Edom, that is, the red. And Strabo, Pliny, Mela,a and others, b say, that this sea was called so, not from any redness that was in it, but from a great king, called Erythrus, who reigned in the country adjoining upon it; which name Erythrus, signifying the same in Greek that u See Exod. x, 19; xiii, 18, &c. x Gen. xxv, 30. Lib. 16, p. 766 z Lib. 6, c. 23. a Lib. 3, c. 8. Agatharcides, edit. Ox. p. 2. Q. Curtius, lib. 8, c. 9. & lib. 10, c. 1. Philostratus, lib. 3, c. 15. Arrianus in Rerum Indicarum libro, p. 579. edit. Blanc. Edom did in the Phoenician and Hebrew languages, that is, the red, this plainly proves, that the great king Erythrus could be none other than Edom, who having planted his posterity in the country, as I have said, from him it was called the land of Edom, or, with a Greek termination, Edomea, or Idumea, and from that land the sea which washed upon it was called the sea of Edom; but the Greeks translating Edom as an appellative into the word red, which it signified, instead of rendering it in the same sound, as a proper name; from this mistake it was by them called the Red sea, and that name it hath retained ever since. e But fully to clear what hath been above said, it is necessary farther to observe, that the Idumea mentioned by Strabo, Josephus, Pliny, Ptolemy, and other ancient writers, was not that land of Edom, or Idumea, which gave name to the Red sea, but another ancient Idumea, which was vastly larger than that Idumea which those authors describe; ford it included all that land, which was afterwards, from Petra, the metropolis of it, called Arabia Petrea for all this was inhabited by the sons of Edom, and from thence it was anciently called the land of Edom. But, on a sedition which arose among them, a party going off from the rest, while the land of Judea lay desolate during the Babylonish captivity, they planted themselves on the southwestern part of that country, where they were called Idumeans; and that land alone which they there possessed was the Idumea which those authors mention. Those who remained behind, joining themselves to the Ishmaelites, were, from Nebaioth, or Nabath, the f son of Ishmael, called Nabathæans, and the country which they possessed Nabathea; and by that name we often hear of them in the ancient Greek and Latin writers. But to return from whence I have digressed, Ahaz 4. Ahaz, having gone so far with Tiglath-Pileser, as hath been said, found it necessary for him to overlook all injuries to avoid provoking greater; An. 739. c See Fuller's Miscellanies, lib. 4, c. 20. d That it reached to the Red sea appears from 2 Chron. viii. 17; for Elath and Esion-geber, cities of Edom, were ports on the Red sea. e Strabo, lib. 16, p. 760. f Gen. xxv, 13. and therefore, carrying on the compliment towards him as if he had really been that friend and protector, which he pretended to be as soon as he heard that he was returned to Damascus, & he went thither to him, to pay him that respect and obeisance, which, after having owned him as his protector and sovereign, he did now, as his client and tributary, owe unto him. While he was at Damascus on this occasion, he saw there an idolatrous altar, of a form which he was much pleased with; whereupon, causing a pattern of it to be taken, he sent it to Urijah, the high-priest, at Jerusalem, to have another there made like unto it; and, on his return, having removed the altar of the Lord out of its place in the temple, ordered this new altar to be set up in its stead; and thenceforth giving himself wholly up to idolatry, instead of the God of Israel, he worshipped the gods of the Syrians, and the gods of the other nations round him, saying, that they helped their people, and that therefore he would worship them, that they might help him also. And accordingly, having filled Jerusalem and all Judea with their idols and their altars, he would suffer no other god, but them only, to be worshipped in the land; whereby, having excluded the only true God, the Lord his Creator, whom alone he ought to have adored, he caused his temple to be shut up, and utterly suppressed his worship throughout all his kingdom. And this he did with an air and profession of anger and defiance, for that he had not delivered him in his distress, when the Syrians and Israelites came against him, as if it were in his power to revenge himself upon the Almighty, and execute his wrath upon him that made him; to such an extravagant height of folly and madness had his impiety carried him beyond all that had reigned before him in Jerusalem: and in this he continued, till at length he perished in it, being cut off in the flower of his age, before he had outlived half his days. Tiglath-Pileser, on his return into Assyria, carried with him great numbers of the people, whom he had taken captive in the kingdom of Damascus, and in the h 2 Kings xvi, 10-16. 2 Kings xvi. 2 Chron. xxviii, 22-25. g2 Kings xvi, 10. land of Israel. Those of Damascus he planted in Kir, and those of Israel in Halah, and labor, and Hara, and on the river Gozan in the land of the Medes. Kir was a city in the hither part of Media; but Halah, Habor, Hara, and the river Gozan, were farther remote. And herein was accomplished the prophecy of the prophet Amos against Israel, wherein he foretold, in the days of Uzziah, the grandfather of Ahaz, that God would cause them to go into captivity beyond Damascus, that is, unto places beyond where those of Damascus should be carried. St. Stephen," quoting this prophecy, renders it beyond Babylon. So the common editions of the Greek Testament have it, and it is certainly true; for what was beyond Kir was also beyond Babylon, for Kir was beyond Babylon: but Wicelius' edition hath Damascus in St. Stephen's speech also, and, no doubt, he had ancient copies which he followed herein. The planting of the colonies by Tiglath-Pileser, in those cities of the Medes plainly proves Media to have been then under the king of Assyria: for, otherwise, what had he to do to plant colonies in that country: and therefore Tiglath-Pileser and Arbaces were not two distinct kings, whereof one had Media, and the other Assyria, as P archbishop Usher supposeth, but must both be the same person expressed under these two distinct names. And a Diodorus Siculus positively tells us, that Arbaces had Assyria, as well as Media, for his share in the partition of the former empire; and therefore there is no room for a Tiglath-Pileser, or a Ninus junior, distinct from him, to reign in Assyria during his time, but it must necessarily be one and the same person, that was signified by all these different names. Pekah, by this conquest which the Assyrians made upon him, being stript of so large a part of his kingdom, was hereby brought lower than he had afore brought king Ahaz. For he had now scarce any thing k2 Kings xvi, 9. m Amos v, 26, 27. 11 Chron. v, 26. n Acts vii, 43. o See Dr. Mill's Greek Testament, Acts vii, 43. q Lib. 2. left, but the city of Samaria, and the territories of the tribe of Ephraim, and the half tribe of Manasseh only; which bringing him into contempt with his people, as well as raising their indignation against him (as is commonly the case of unfortunate princes) Hoshea, the son of Elah, rose up against him, and slew him, after he had reigned in Samaria twenty years; and hereby was fully accomplished that prophecy of Isaiahs concerning him, which is above related. After this the elders of the land seem to have taken the government into their hands; for Hoshea had not the kingdom till nine years after, that is, towards the end of the twelfth year of Ahaz. An. 629. In the fourteenth year of Ahaz died Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, after he had Ahaz 14. reigned nineteen years; and Salmaneser, his son, (who in " Tobit is called Enemesser, and in ▾ Hosea, Shalmon,) reigned in his stead. And, as soon as he was settled in the throne, he came into Syria and Palestine, and there subjected Samaria to his dominion, making Hoshea, the king thereof, to become his vassal, and pay tribute unto him. In this expedition, among other prey which he took and carried away with him, w was the golden calf, which Jeroboam had set up in Bethel, and had been there, ever since his time, worshipped by the ten tribes of Israel, that had revolted with him from the house of David. The other golden calf, which was at the same time set up by him in Dan, had been taken thence, about ten years before by Tiglath-Pileser, in the invasion which he then made upon Galilee, in which province that city stood. And therefore the apostate Israelites, being now deprived of the idols which they had so long worshipped, began again to return to the Lord their God, and to go up to Jerusalem there to worship before him; and Hoshea encouraged them herein. For whereas y the kings of Israel had hitherto maintained guards upon the frontiers to hinder all under their subjection from going |