[205] LXX., ? d??aste???sa.

[206] 2 Kings x. 14, A.V., "at the pit." Lit., "in" or "into the cistern."

[207] See Martin, _Hist. de France_, ix. 114.

[208] Whittier.

[209] Jer. x.x.xv. 1-19. Josephus (_Antt._, IX. vi. 6) calls him "a good man and a just, who had long been a friend of Jehu." "He was," says Ewald (_Gesch._, iii. 543), "of a society of those who despaired of being able to observe true religion undisturbedly in the midst of the nation with the stringency with which they understood it, and therefore withdrew into the desert."

[210] Jer. x.x.xv. (written about B.C. 604). Communities of Nazarites seem to have sprung up at this epoch, perhaps as a protest against the prevailing luxury (Amos ii. 11).

[211] In Josephus it is Jehonadab who blesses the king.

[212] Heb., ?????? ???.

[213] Striking hands was a sign of good faith (Job xvii. 3; Prov.

xxii. 26).

[214] He did it "in subtilty" (?????????). This substantive occurs nowhere else, but is connected with the name Jacob. LXX., ?? pte???s?, "in taking by the heel," with reference to the name Jacob, "supplanter."

[215] Lit., "mouth to mouth." LXX., st?a e?? st?a.

[216] Ver. 22, ??????????, _Vestiarum_, occurs here only. The LXX.

omits it or puts it in Greek letters. Targum, ??pt?a?, "chests" Sil.

Italicus (iii. 23) describes the robes of the priests of the Gaditanian Hercules,--

"_Nec discolor ulli, Ante aras cultus; velantur corpora lino Et Pelusiaco praefulget stamine vertex._"

KEIL, _ad loc._

It was a mixture of "the rich dye of Tyre and the rich web of Nile."

[217] The phrase may be impersonal, "when one [_i.e._, they] had finished the sacrifice"; but the narrative seems to imply that Jehu offered it himself (LXX., ?? s??et??esa? p?????te? t?? ????a?t?s??

Vulg., _c.u.m completum esset holocaustum_).

[218] A.V., images; R.V., pillars.

[219] Comp. Ezra vi. 11; Dan. ii. 5.

[220] Amos i. 11.

[221] Amos ii. 1.

[222] Hos. i. 4.

[223] Psalm lxxvi. 10.

[224]

Jehu 842-814.

Jehoahaz 814-797.

Joash 797-781.

Jeroboam II. 781-740.

Zechariah 740.

[225] 2 Kings viii. 12.

[226] Isa. xiii. 11-16; Hos. x. 14, xiii. 16; Nah. iii. 10.

[227] Amos i. 3, 4.

[228] Amos i. 6-15.

[229] See Appendix I., Schrader, _Keilinschriften u. das Alte Test._, 208 ff.; Sayce, _Records of the Past_, v. 41; Layard, _Nineveh_, p.

613; Rawlinson, _Herodotus_, i. 469. He is twice mentioned in inscriptions of Shalmaneser II. (861-825). He is called Ja-hu-a, son of Omri. The name of Omri was familiar in Nineveh; for Ahab had fought as a va.s.sal of a.s.syria at the battle of Karkar, and Samaria was called Beth-Khumri. Shalmaneser would not trouble himself with the fact that Jehu had extirpated the old dynasty. His black stele was found by Layard, and is figured in _Monuments of Nineveh_, i., pl. 53. The name of Jehu was first deciphered by Dr. Hincks in 1851.

[230] Schrader (E. T.), ii. 199.

[231] Mic. vi. 16.

[232] 2 Kings xiii. 6.

CHAPTER XIV

_ATHALIAH_ (B.C. 842-836)--_JOASH BEN-AHAZIAH OF JUDAH_ (B.C. 836-796)

2 KINGS xi. 1-xii. 21

"Par cette fin terrible, et due a ses forfaits, Apprenez, Roi des Juifs, et n'oubliez jamais, Que les rois dans le ciel ont un juge severe, L'innocence un vengeur, et les orphelins un pere!"

RACINE, _Athalie_.

"Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway, That, hushed in grim repose, expects its evening prey."

GRAY.

Before we follow the destinies of the House of Jehu we must revert to Judah, and watch the final consequences of ruin which came in the train of Ahab's Tyrian marriage, and brought murder and idolatry into Judah, as well as into Israel.

Athaliah, who, as queen-mother, was more powerful than the queen-consort (_malekkah_), was the true daughter of Jezebel. She exhibits the same undaunted fierceness, the same idolatrous fanaticism, the same swift resolution, the same cruel and unscrupulous wickedness.

It might have been supposed that the miserable disease of her husband Jehoram, followed so speedily by the murder, after one year's reign, of her son Ahaziah, might have exercised over her character the softening influence of misfortune. On the contrary, she only saw in these events a short path to the consummation of her ambition.

Under Jehoram she had been queen: under Ahaziah she had exercised still more powerful influence as Gebirah, and had a.s.serted her sway alike over her husband and over her son, whose counsellor she was to do wickedly. It was far from her intention tamely to sink from her commanding position into the abject nullity of an aged and despised dowager in a dull provincial seraglio. She even thought that

"To reign is worth ambition, though in h.e.l.l; Better to reign in h.e.l.l than serve in heaven."

The royal family of the House of David, numerous and flourishing as it once was, had recently been decimated by cruel catastrophes. Jehoram, instigated probably by his heathen wife, had killed his six younger brothers.[233] Later on, the Arabs and Philistines, in their insulting invasion, had not only plundered his palace, but had carried away his sons; so that, according to the Chronicler, "there was never a son left him, save Jehoahaz [_i.e._, Ahaziah], the youngest of his sons."[234] He may have had other sons after that invasion; and Ahaziah had left children, who must all, however, have been very young, since he was only twenty-two or twenty-three when Jehu's servants murdered him. Athaliah might naturally have hoped for the regency; but this did not content her. When she saw that her son Ahaziah was dead, "she arose and destroyed all the seed royal." In those days the life of a child was but little thought of; and it weighed less than nothing with Athaliah that these innocents were her grandchildren. She killed all of whose existence she was aware, and boldly seized the crown. No queen had ever reigned alone either in Israel or in Judah. Judah must have sunk very low, and the talents of Athaliah must have been commanding, or she could never have established a precedent hitherto undreamed of, by imposing on the people of David for six years the yoke of a woman, and that woman a half-Phnician idolatress. Yet so it was! Athaliah, like her cousin Dido, felt herself strong enough to rule.