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(1) SAMARIA, p. 552-The text to which this note is appended sufficiently indicates the origin of Samaria. It remained the capital of Israel until the ruin of that kingdom by the Assyrians, after which it became the chief seat of the people whom the king of Assyria planted in the desolated country, and who are hence in the subsequent history known by the name of Samaritans. Between them and the restored Jews there was always a bitter and not always bloodless enmity, which subsisted down to the extinction of the Hebrew commonwealth. The town was utterly destroyed by Hyrcanus the king-priest of the Jews, in the year 129 B.C.; and in this state it remained until the time of Herod the Great, who, being much pleased with its situation, rebuilt it in a very beautiful manner, and gave it the name of Sebaste, a Greek word equivalent to the Latin Augusta, in honour of the Emperor Augustus. Under this name it continued to flourish until the Jews were finally expelled from Palestine by the Emperor Adrian, after which the place went gradually to decay; and at present the inhabited part of the site forms a mean and miserably poor village, named Subusta, containing not more than thirty dwellings.

"The situation," says Dr. Richardson, "is exceedingly beautiful, and strong by nature, more so, I think, than Jerusalem. It stands on a fine large insulated hill,* compassed all round by a broad deep valley; and when fortified, as it is stated to have been, by Herod, one would have imagined that in the ancient system of warfare nothing but famine would have reduced such a place. The valley is The hill is semi-spherical.-Elliot.

surrounded by four hills, one on each side, which are cultivated in terraces to the top, sown with grain, and planted with fig and olive trees, as is also the valley. The hill of Samaria itself, likewise, rises in terraces to a height equal to any of the adjoining mountains."

The first view of the place, even in its present state, is highly imposing. And there are sufficient remains of Herod's city to enforce the impressions which the history of the site has prepared the mind to receive. These however consist chiefly of numerous limestone columns, still standing, on the upper part of the hill, but without their capitals. Hardy counted eighty that were standing, besides many that lay prostrate. There are also some remains of fortifications; but the most conspicuous ruin is that which appears in the cut at the head of the chapter. This was a large church, attributed to the Empress Helena, and said to have been built over the dungeon in which John the Baptist was confined and afterwards beheaded by order of Herod. This cave or dungeon is still pointed out; besides which there are under the church several vaults which probably opened into the sides of the hill. The building itself is in a very elaborate but fantastic style of architecture; the columns used in which are of no known order, although the capitals approach nearer to the Corinthian than to any other. The east end, with its pentagonal projection, is nearly perfect, confirming a remark of Maundrell, that if any portion of a church is left standing in these parts it is sure to be the eastern end.

VOL. 1.

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EXCEPT in its first act, the commencement of Rehoboam's reign was not blameworthy, nor, as it respects his separate kingdom, unprosperous. In those days the wealth and welfare of a state was deemed to consist in a numerous population; and of this kind of strength the kingdom of Judah received large additions by migration from that of Israel, through the defection of the Levitical body, and the discontent with which a large and valuable portion of the population regarded the arbitrary innovations of Jeroboam. It may indeed be, in a great degree, imputed to this cause, that, although so much inferior in territorial extent, the kingdom of Judah appears throughout the history of the two kingdoms to be at least equal to that of Israel.

Rehoboam, seeing that he had an adverse kingdom so near at hand, employed the first years of his reign in putting his dominions in a condition of defence. He built and fortified a considerable number of places in Judah and Benjamin, which he stored well with arms and victuals, and in which he placed strong garrisons. For three years he remained faithful to the principles of the theocracy, and received a full measure of the prosperity which had been promised to such obedience. But when he beheld himself, as he deemed, secure and prosperous in his kingdom, his rectitude, which appears never to have been founded on very strong principles, gave way. It was not long before the acts which stained the later years of his father were more than equalled by him. Not only was idolatry openly tolerated and

practised, but also the abominable acts, outrageous even to the mere instincts of morality, which some of these idolatries sanctioned or required. Thus the abominations of Judah verysoon exceeded those of Israel. And we shall, throughout the historical period on which we have entered, observe one very important distinction in the religious (which, according to the spirit of the Hebrew institutions, means also the political) condition of the two kingdoms. Israel rested with tolerable uniformity in a sort of intermediate system between the true religion and idolatry, with enough of elementary truth to preserve some show of fidelity to the system, and enough of idolatry and human invention to satisfy the corrupt tendencies of the age and country. Hence, while, on the one hand, it never, under its best kings, reached that purity of adherence to the Mosaical system which was sometimes exemplified in the sister kingdom; so, on the other, it never, or very rarely, fell to those depths of iniquity to which Judah sometimes sunk under its more wicked and weak kings. For Judah, resting on no such intermediate point as had been found in Israel, was in a state of constant oscillation between the extremes of good and evil.

In the case of Rehoboam, the loose principles which prevailed at the latter end of his father's reign, together with the fact that the mother, from whom his first ideas had been imbibed, was an Ammonitess, may partly account for the extreme facility of his fall. Indeed, with reference to the latter fact, it may be observed that among the kings there is scarcely one known to be son of a foreign and consequently idolatrous mother, who did not fall into idolatry, a circumstance which is sufficient alone to explain and justify the policy by which such connections were forbidden.

The chastisement of Rehoboam and his people was not long delayed. It was inflicted by the Egyptians, who, in the fifth year of Rehoboam,

invaded the land under Shishak their king, in such strong force as intimated the expectation of a more formidable resistance than was encountered; or rather, perhaps, was designed to shorten the war by overawing opposition. There were 1200 chariots, 60,000 horsemen, and a vast body of infantry, the latter composed chiefly from the subject nations of Lybia and Ethiopia. Shishak took with ease the fenced cities on which Rehoboam had placed so much reliance; and when he appeared before Jerusalem, that city appears to have opened its gates to him. Here he reaped the first-fruits of that rich spoil, from the gold of the temple and of the palace, which supplied so many subsequent demands. In the extremity of distress, while the city was in the hands of an insulting conqueror, who stripped the most sacred places of their costly ornaments and wealth, the king of Judah and his people turned repentingly to God, and implored deliverance from his hand. He heard them; and inclined Shishak to withdraw with the rich spoil he had gained, without attempting to retain permanent possession of his conquest. Astonished himself at the facility with which that conquest had been made, this king despised the people who had submitted so unresistingly to his arms, and, according to the testimony of Herodotus,* cited by Josephus himself, he erected, at different points on his march home, triumphal columns charged with emblems very little to the honour of the nation which had not opposed him.

[Shishak, king of Egypt. Thebes.]

Although it is difficult to assign a specific reason, beyond a conqueror's thirst for spoil, for this invasion of the dominions of the son by a power which had been so friendly to the father, it does not strike us, as it does some writers, that the difficulty is increased by the fact of the matrimonial alliance which Solomon had formed with the royal family of Egypt. Rehoboam

Herod., i. 105.

was born before that alliance was contracted, and he and his mother were not likely to be regarded with much favour by the Egyptian princess or her family. Indeed it would seem that she had died, or her influence had declined, or her friends deemed her wronged, before the latter end of Solomon's reign; for it is evident that the king of Egypt, this very Shishak, was not on the most friendly terms with Solomon, since he granted his favour and protection to the fugitive Jeroboam, whose prospective pretensions to divide the kingdom with the son of Solomon forms the only apparent ground of the distinction with which he was treated. This circumstance may direct attention to what appears to us the greater probability, that the expedition was undertaken at the suggestion of Jeroboam, who had much cause to be alarmed at the defection of his subjects to Rehoboam, and at the diligence which that king employed in strengthening his kingdom. The rich plunder which was to be obtained would, when pointed out, be an adequate inducement to the enterprise.

The severe lesson administered by this invasion to Rehoboam and his people was not in vain, for we read no more of idolatrous abominations during the eleven remaining years of this reign. In consequence, these were rather prosperous years for the kingdom; and, save a few skirmishes with the king of Israel, we learn of no troubles by which it was, during these years, disturbed. But, like his father, Rehoboam "desired many wives." His harem contained eighteen wives and sixty concubines,-a number which, we cannot doubt, was much opposed to the notions of the Hebrew people, although it seems rather moderate as compared with the establishment of Solomon, or those which we still find among the kings of the East. Of all his wives, the one Rehoboam loved the most was Maachah, a daughter (or grand-daughter *) of Absalom. Her son, Abijah, he designed for his successor in the throne to ensure which object, he made adequate provision for his other sons while he lived, and prudently separated them from each other, by dispersing them through his dominions as governors of the principal towns. This policy was successful; for although this king had twenty-eight sons, besides three-score daughters, his settlement of the crown was not disputed at his death. This event took place in the year 973 B.C., in the eighteenth year of his reign. Abijah, otherwise called Abijam, succeeded his father, and the first public act of his short reign appears to justify the preference which had been given to him. Jeroboam, whose policy it was to harass and weaken the house of David, and to render the two kingdoms as inimical to each other as possible, thought the succession of the new king, young and inexperienced, a favourable opportunity for an aggressive movement. He seems therefore to have made a general military levy, which amounted to the prodigious number of 800,000 men. Abijah when he heard of this formidable muster was not discouraged, but, although he could raise only half the number of men, took the field against his opponent. They met near Mount Zemarim, on the borders of Ephraim. The armies were drawn out in battle array, when Abijah, who was posted on an elevated spot, finding the opportunity favourable, beckoned with his hand, and began to harangue Jeroboam and the hostile army. His speech was good, and to the purpose; but it does not seem to us entitled to the unqualified praise which it has generally received. He began with affirming the divine right of the house of David to reign over all Israel, by virtue of the immutable covenant by which Jehovah had promised to David that his posterity should reign for ever. Consequently he treated the secession of the ten tribes as an unprincipled act of rebellion against the royal dynasty of David, and against God-an act whereby the crafty Jeroboam, with a number of vain and lawless associates, had availed themselves of the weakness and inexperience of Rehoboam to deprive the chosen house of its just rights. This statement doubtless embodies the view which the house of David, and the party attached to its interests, took of the recent event. They regarded as a rebellion what

This lady is mentioned in three places, and in all of them the name of her father is differently given. In 1 Kings xv. 2, it is "Maachah, the daughter of Abishalom;" in 2 Chron. xi. 20, “Maachah, the daughter of Absalom;" and in 2 Chron. xiii., "Michaiah, the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah." The Jews believe that Absalom the son of David is intended. This does not appear quite certain; but if so, we may take their explanation that Maachah was the daughter of Tamar, the daughter of Absalom; in which case, the comparison of texts will intimate that Uriel married Tamar, and Maachah was their danghter, which consequently makes her the grand-daughter of Absalom and daughter of Uriel. This, upon the whole, seems more probable than that the several names, Abishalom, Absalom, and Uriel, all point to the same person as the father of Maachah.

was truly a revolution; and which, although, like other revolutions, it had its secret springs (as in the jealousy between the tribes of Ephraim and Judah), was not only justifiable in its abstract principles, but on the peculiar theory of the Hebrew constitution: for it had the previous sanction and appointment of Jehovah, as declared to both parties; and, in its immediate cause, sprung from a most insulting refusal of the representative of the dynasty to concede that redress of grievances which ten-twelfths of the whole nation demanded, and which it had a right to demand and obtain before it recognised him as king. However, a king of Judah could not well be expected to take any other than a dynastic and party view of this great question and that such, necessarily, was the view of Abijah is what we have desired to explain, as the generally good spirit of his harangue has disposed hasty thinkers to take the impression which he intended to convey.

With more justice, Abijah proceeded to animadvert on the measures-the corruptions and arbitrary changes-by which Jeroboam had endeavoured to secure his kingdom; and, with becoming pride, contrasted this with the beautiful order in which, according to the law of Moses, and the institutions of David and Solomon, the worship of Jehovah was conducted by the Levitical priesthood in that "holy and beautiful house" which the Great King honoured with the visible symbol of his inhabitance. He concluded: "We keep the charge of Jehovah our God; but ye have forsaken him. And, behold, God himself is with us for our captain, and his priests with sounding trumpets to cry alarm against you. O children of Israel, fight not against Jehovah the God of your fathers; for ye shall not prosper.'

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By Jeroboam this harangue was only viewed as an opportunity for executing a really clever military operation. He secretly ordered a body of men to file round the hill, and attack the Judahites in the rear, while he assailed them in front. This manœuvre was so well executed, that Abijah, by the time he had finished his speech, perceived that he was surrounded by the enemy. The army of Judah raised a cry of astonishment and alarm, and a universal panic would in all likelihood have ensued. But the priests at that instant sounded their silver trumpets, at which well-known and inspiriting signal the more stout-hearted raised a cry for help to Jehovah, and rushed upon the enemy; and their spirited example raised the courage and faith of the more timid and wavering. The host of Israel could not withstand the force which this Divine impulse gave to the arm of Judah. Their dense mass was broken and fled, and of the whole number it is said not fewer than 500,000 were slain,-a slaughter, as Josephus † remarks, such as never occurred in any other war, whether it were of the Greeks or the barbarians. This would still be true if the number had been much smaller. numbers so large," Jahn § remarks, "there may be some error of the transcribers; but it is certain that after this defeat the kingdom of Israel was considerably weakened, while that of Judah made constant progress in power and importance. We must here mention, once for all, that, owing to the mistakes of transcribers in copying numerals, we cannot answer for the correctness of the great numbers of men which are mentioned here and in the sequel. When there are no means of rectifying these numbers, we set them down as they occur in the books." Such also is our own practice.

"In

This great victory was pursued by Abijah, in the re-taking and annexation to his dominion of some border towns and districts, some of which had originally belonged to Judah and Benjamin, but which the Israelites had found means to include in their portion of the divided kingdom. Among these towns was Bethel; and this being the seat of one of the golden calves, the loss of it must have been a matter of peculiar mortification to Jeroboam, and of triumph to Abijah.

The reign of Abijah was not by any means answerable to the expectations which his speech

Antiq. viii. 2, 3.

2 Chron. xiii. 11, 12. With reference to the high numbers which occur here, Dr. Hales observes: "The numbers in this wonderful battle are probably corrupt, and should be reduced to 40,000, 80,000, and 50,000 (slain), as in the Latin Vulgate of Sixtus Quintus, and many earlier editions, and in the old Latin translation of Josephus; and that such were the readings in the Greek text of that author originally, Vignoles judiciously collects from Abarbanel's charge against Josephus of having made Jeroboam's loss uo more than 50,000 men, contrary to the Hebrew text." See Kennicott's Dissertations,' vol. i. p. 533, and vol. ii. p. 201, &c., 564. To this we may add the remark of Jahn, in which we more entirely concur.

Book v. sect. 36.

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