[592] 2 Kings xix. 35: "It came to pa.s.s that night." Isaiah only has "then"; Josephus, ?at? t?? p??t?? t?? p???????a? ???ta. Menochius understands it "_in celebri illa nocte_." The LXX. omits "that," and simply says "in the night" (???t??). Comp. Psalm xlvi. 5 (Heb.); Isa.

xvii. 14.

[593] Josephus, followed by many moderns, and even by Keil, suggests a plague. The malaria of the Pelusiotic marshes easily breeds pestilence.

The "_maleak Jehovah_" is "the destroyer" (_mashchith_) (Exod. xii. 23; 2 Sam. xxiv. 16.) Comp. Justin., xix. 11; Diod. Sic., xix. 434.

[594] Comp. 2 Sam. xxiv. 15, 16.

[595] The Babyl. Talmud and some Targums, followed by Vitringa, etc., attribute to it storms of lightning; Prideaux, Heine, and Faber, to the simoom; R. Jose, Ussher, etc., to a nocturnal attack of Tirhakah.

[596] It is, however, perfectly possible that a contingent was left on guard. "Where is the [past] terror? Where is he that rated the tribute? Where is he that received it?" (Isa. x.x.xiii. 18). "At the noise of the tumult the people flee" (Isa. x.x.xiii. 3); "At Thy rebuke, O G.o.d of Jacob, both chariot and horse are cast into a dead sleep"

(Psalm lxxvi. 6). Comp. Psalm xlviii. 4-6.

[597] This is the meaning of "he departed, and went, and returned."

[598] Not, only fifty-five days, as we read in Tobit i. 21.

[599] Jos., _Antt._, X. i. 5: "In his own temple to Araske"; LXX., ?sa???; Isa. x.x.xvii. 38. One guess connects the word with Nesher, "the eagle-G.o.d," often seen on the a.s.syrian bas-reliefs. Lenormant calls him "the G.o.d of human destiny."

[600] Alex. Polyhistor _ap._ Euseb., i. 27; Kimchi _ad_ 2 Kings xix.

37. Buxtorf (_Bibl. Rabbinic._) says that Sennacherib entered the temple to ask his counsellors why Jehovah favoured Israel. Being told that it was because of Abraham's willingness to offer Isaac, he said, "Then I will offer my two sons." Rashi adds that they slew him to save their own lives. (See Schenkel and Riehm, _s.v._ "Sanherib"--both articles by Schrader).

[601] See Schrader in Riehm's _Handworterbuch_, _s.vv._ "Sanherib,"

"Asarhaddon." Esarhaddon, judging from what is called "Sennacherib's will," in which the king leaves him splendid presents, seems to have been a favourite of his father (_Records of the Past_, i. 136). He says that on hearing of his father's murder, "I was wrathful as a lion, and my soul raged within me, and I lifted my hands to the great G.o.ds to a.s.sume the sovereignty of my father's house." See Appendix I.

[602] The Book of Tobit (i. 21) calls him Sarchedonas.

[603] 2 Chron. x.x.xiii. 11.

[604] 2 Chron. x.x.xii. 23.

[605] Wellhausen, p. 116.

[606] Herod., ii. 14. "Sin" (Tanis?), Ezek. x.x.x. 15. It lay in the midst of mora.s.ses, and some attribute the catastrophe to the malaria.

[607] The deliverance is really connected with Tirhakah, whose deeds are recorded in a temple at Medinet Habou, but the jealousy of the Memphites attributed it to the piety of Sethos. See G. W. Wilkinson, _Ancient Egyptians_, i. 141; Rawlinson, _Herodotus_, i. 394.

[608] _Antt._, X. i. 1-5.

[609] Comp. 1 Sam. v., vi., where, after a plague, the Philistines sent an expiation of five golden mice.

[610] We may add that even the Chronicler drops a veil over Sennacherib's actual capture of fortresses in Judah ("he _thought_ to win them for himself," 2 Chron. x.x.xii. 1: comp. 2 Kings xviii. 13; Isa. x.x.xvi. 1).

[611] Isa. vi. 11-13.

[612] Isa. v. 26-30.

[613] Isa. vii. 18.

[614] Isa. viii., xxviii. 1-15, x. 28-34.

[615] Isa. xiv. 29-32, xxix., x.x.x.

[616] Isa. i. 19, 20.

[617] Isa. x. 33, xxix. 5-8, x.x.x. 20-26, 30-33.

[618] Isa. x.x.xviii. 6. See for this paragraph an admirable chapter in Prof. Smith's _Isaiah_, pp. 368-374.

[619] Isa. xlvii. 13.

[620] Stanley, _Lectures_, ii. 531.

[621] Isa. xl. 15.

[622] Isa. xix. 24, 25.

[623] Ecclus. xlix. 4.

CHAPTER XXIX

_MANa.s.sEH_

B.C. 686-641

2 KINGS xxi. 1-16

"Shall the throne of wickedness have fellowship with Thee, That frameth mischief by statute?

They gather themselves in troops against the soul of the righteous, And condemn the innocent blood."--PSALM xciv. 20, 21.

"Though the mills of G.o.d grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience long He waiteth, with exactness grinds He all."

Mana.s.seh was born after Hezekiah's recovery from his terrible illness.

He was but twelve years old when he began to reign. Of his mother Hephzibah we know nothing, nor of the Zechariah who was her father; but perhaps Isaiah in one pa.s.sage (lxii. 4) may refer to her name, "My delight is in her."[624] The son of Hezekiah and Hephzibah was the worst of all the kings of Judah, and had the longest reign.

The tender age of Mana.s.seh when he came to the throne may perhaps account for the fact that the "forgetfulness" which his name implied[625] was not a forgetting of other sorrows, but of all that was n.o.ble and righteous in the attempted reformation which had been the main religious work of his father's life. In Judah, as in England, a king was not supposed to be of age until he was eighteen.[626] For six years Mana.s.seh must have been to a great extent under the influence of his regents and counsellors.

There always existed in Jerusalem, even in the best times, a heathenising party, and it was, unfortunately, composed of princes and aristocrats who could bring strong influence to bear upon the king.[627] They did not deny Jehovah, but they did not recognise Him as the sole or the supreme G.o.d of heaven and earth. To them He was the local deity of Israel and Judah. But there were other G.o.ds, the G.o.ds of the nations, and their aim always was to recognise the existence of these deities and to pay homage to their power. If their favour could not be purchased except by their immediate votaries, at least their anger might be averted. These politicians advocated a fatal and incongruous syncretism, or at least an unlimited tolerance for heathen idols, for which they could, unhappily, quote the precepts and example of the Wise King, Solomon. If any one questioned their views as a dangerous idolatry, and an insult to

"Jehovah thundering out of Zion, throned Between the cherubim,"

they had but to point from the walls of Jerusalem to the confronting summit of Olivet, where still remained the shrines which the son of David had erected three centuries earlier to Chemosh, and Milcom, and Ashtoreth, who, since his day, had always found, even in Jerusalem, some worshippers, open or secret, to acknowledge their divinity.

And these worldlings, in their tolerance for the intolerable, could always appeal to two powerful instincts of man's fallen nature--sensuality and fear--"l.u.s.t hard by hate." There was something in the worship of Baal-Peor and of Moloch which appealed to the undying ape and tiger in the unregenerate human heart.