or 4507. A. M. 3001, our good and gracious God, (a)" who keepeth mercy for thousands, and forgiveth ini&c. quity, transgression, and sin, (b) will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smo1003, &c. or king flax, but bring forth judgment unto truth." 904. 66 But the same God who professes himself the forgiver of transgression and sin, declares withal, that (c) " he will not clear the guilty, but visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children." In the case of Hiel, that impious rebuilder of Jericho, God was obliged, in order to fulfil the prophecy, to transfer the punishment due to the father upon his sons, because the form of Joshua's malediction is, (d)" Cursed be the man before the Lord, that raiseth up, and buildeth this city Jericho: He shall lay the foundation thereof in his first-born, and in his youngest son shall he set up the gates of it :" and as this malediction was kept upon record, and a thing well known, the people would have had but a slender conception of God's justice, or rather the judgment would have passed without observation, had Hiel alone (whose death might have been imputed to his old age) been cut off in the course of his building this city. But now, by taking his children, one after another, as the building advanced, the hand of God was visible, the denunciation of his servant verified, and a proper caution given to the whole nation, not to despise his patience and long-suffering, because they could not but see, that, upon their persisting in their impenitence, all his threats and comminations would, sooner or later, most certainly come to pass. [To accomplish this object, however, we are not to suppose that any principle of natural justice was violated. Hiel's sons were probably as guilty as himself; for if they had been perfectly innocent, their united influence would surely have been sufficient to prevail with him to abandon his impious and daring enterprise, especially when he saw the prediction begun to be fulfilled in the death of the first-born. But the nation was overrun with idolatry; the law totally neglected; the prophecy of Joshua perhaps generally forgotten; and Hiel and his family appear to have been zealots, if not for the worship of Baal, certainly for neglect of the worship of Jehovah. If such was the case, the young men were justly punished for their own offences, at the same time that an important prophecy was fulfilled; and if it had not been the case, they would surely have protested against their father's conduct, and have taken refuge themselves in the kingdom of Judah.] Hiel himself, indeed, is not concerned in the prophecy; and therefore no mention is made in Scripture of what fate befel him. But, from the impartiality of God's justice, we have reason to suppose, (e) that, after he had lived to be an eye-witness of his children's untimely death, himself was cut off by some sore judgment; or, that if he escaped, his present impunity was his greatest misery, forasmuch as it continued his torment in the sad and lasting remembrance of his sons that were lost through his folly; or else was a means to harden his heart for the infliction of such greater punishments as God had reserved for him. It is certainly an argument either of gross ignorance, or of a very corrupt and depraved mind, to make the condescensions of Scripture matter of exception against it, and to find fault with the sacred penman, because he endeavours, by apt allusions and representations, to bring down Spiritual and Divine things to the measure of our mean and shallow capacities. (f) The Jews conceived of God in heaven as of a king seated on his throne; and that good and bad angels, the one standing on his right hand and the other on his left, were the appointed executioners of his orders, either to reward or punish his subjects. And as princes upon earth do generally nothing of moment without advising with their council and chief officers, so the prophet represents the Almighty God as deliberating with his heavenly courtiers what course he had best to take, in order to bring Ahab to (a) Exod. xxxiv. 7. (e) Pool's Annotations. (b) Isaiah xlii. 3. (d) Josh. vi. 26. destruction. Amidst this consultation, some suggest one expedient and some another; From 1 Kings but none takes with God, until a lying spirit steps out, and offers his service, which viii. to the end God, after some examination into his abilities, accepts. But now no man, I think, can have such a crude conception of the Divine Providence, as to think that this is the method of God's governing the world; that he, who is the fountain of all power and wisdom, needs to advise with any of his creatures, or can be at a loss for any expedient to accomplish his ends; or that he, who is both truth and holiness itself, should ever send a lying spirit among his prophets, which would be to confound all inspiration, and to make the imputation of error redound upon himself. (a) Upon the whole, then, we cannot but infer, that the speech of Micaiah was no more than a parabolical representation of a certain event, which not long after came to pass; that several of the circumstances which are thrown into it, are in a great measure ornamental, and designed only to illustrate the narration; and that therefore they are not to be taken in a literal sense, but in such a manner as other parables are, where the end and design of the speaker is chiefly to be considered; which, in Micaiah's case, was to show the reason why so many of the prophets declared what was false upon this occasion, even because they were moved, not by the Spririt of truth, but that of adulation, [and to make on the minds of his hearers, that deep and vivid impression, which, in poetical description, corporeal images can alone produce.] The prophets indeed, both in their parabolical speeches and symbolical actions, are to be considered as persons of a singular character. For as we find (b) one of them tearing his own garment to pieces, to signify to Jeroboam the alienation of the major part of the kingdom from the house of Solomon; so here we have another desiring his companion (for so what we render neighbour signifies) to give him a wound, (c) that thereby he might have the better opportunity of reproving Ahab for his ill-timed clemency to Benhadad. The princes of the East were very difficult of access; and in the court of Ahab, in particular, the character of a prophet was held in so great detestation, that some expedient was to be found out, to gain him admittance to the king's presence, and an opportunity to speak to him in the manner he designed. After so great a victory as Ahab had lately won by the valour of his men, it may be presumed, that the name of a soldier was become in high esteem; and therefore to personate a soldier, and a wounded soldier likewise, who might more engage the king's pity and attention, the prophet intreats his fellow-collegiate (having first told him his intent) to give him a slight cut with a sword, or some other instrument, that thereby he might be enabled to act his part better. To desire to have his own flesh slashed and cut, was, in appearance, a request so frantic, that justly might his brother prophet have denied him that courtesy, had he not been satisfied that the request came from God: But herein lay the great fault of the recusant; though he knew the authority of God's commands, and that this was the very thing which he enjoined, yet, out of an indiscreet pity and compassion to his brother, he refused to comply. (d) Had he been a stranger indeed to the several methods of Divine prophecy, he might have excused himself with a better grace; but as he was equally a prophet, bred up in the same school with the other, had been informed by the other of his whole design, and well understood the weight of these words, (e) "I command thee in the name of the Lord," he was utterly inexcusable; because disobedience to a Divine command, and especially when delivered by a prophet, was, (ƒ) by the construction of the law, held capital. 66 Now there were two ways (according to the Jewish doctors) wherein the prophets of (a) Le Clerc's Commentary. Annotations. (e) 1 Kings xx. 35. (b) 1 Kings xi. 30, 31. (c) 1 Kings xx. 35. (d) Pool's of 2 Chron. &c. or 4507. or 904. A. M. 3001, old were punished for their offences in their office. Those (a) who prophesied in the Ant. Chris. name of idols, or prophesied falsehoods in God's name, were put to death by the judges ; 1093, &c. but those who either concealed or rejected a true prophecy, were to die by the hand of God. And in the case now before us, the Divine justice might be more disposed to mark what was done amiss; for this reason (among others to us unknown) that, by the severity of this punishment of a prophet's disobedience, proceeding from pity to his brother prophet, he might teach Ahab the greatness of his sin, in sparing him, (through a foolish generosity or compassion) whom, by the laws of religion, and justice, and prudence, and self-preservation, he should have been cut off; and consequently what punishment he might reasonably expect for his disobedience. In the account which the Scripture gives us of Jehoshaphat's reformation, it is said, that he not only (b)" took away the high places and groves, but sent to his princes to teach the cities of Judah, and with them sent Levites, who had the book of the law with them, and went through all the cities of Judah, teaching the people :" But what the proper business of these princes, in their circuit round the kingdom, was, is a matter of some dispute among the learned. Grotius (c) is of opinion, that their commission extended to the instruction of the people, which, in cases extraordinary, is every one's business, and could never be done with more probability of success than by persons who were of the king's council, and invested with his authority. There is reason to think, however, that they did not act in the very same capacity with the priests and Levites that attended them; but that, (d) as judges and justices of peace among us, teach and instruct the people in the laws of the land, when they deliver their charges from the bench; so these great men, in the king's name, did only admonish and require the people to observe the laws of God, which were the municipal laws of the land, and left the particular explication and enforcement of them to those of the sacred order who went along with them; supporting them, in the mean time, in the execution of their office, and obliging the people to receive them with respect, to hear them with attention, and to practise what they taught them. 66 However this be, it is obvious from the sense of the words, that in those days there was a great (e) " famine in the land, (as the prophet expresses it) not a famine of bread, or a thirst of water, but of hearing the words of the Lord." There were then no such public synagogues and public teachers as were afterwards instituted in the kingdom, for the instruction of the people in the sense of the law; for then there would have been no occasion for these commissioners and Levites to have gone about throughout all the cities of Judah; and into such a wretched state of ignorance was the generality of the people fallen, that there was scarce one copy of the law to be found in the hands of any private person in the whole country; for which reason it was thought advisable, and necessary indeed, to carry one with them. The truth is, the synagogues, whereof we read so much in the acts of our Saviour and his apostles, as places appointed for the public instruction of the people, were not of so early an institution as the times we are now speaking of. (f) They did not obtain universally till after the time of the Maccabees; and it is to no later date than this that the words of St James allude, (g) "Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath-day." Upon the whole, therefore, we may infer, that if proper places for religious instruction were not as yet instituted; if the Levites and others, whose stated business it was to instruct the people, were become grossly negligent in their duty; and the people withal were grown so obstinate in their ignorance, as to want a proper authority to compel them to listen to their instructors; then was this commission, which Jehoshaphat gave to persons duly (a) Deut. xviii. 20. (e) Amos viii. 11. (b) 2 Chron. xvii. 6. 66 of 2 Chron. qualified to execute it, far from being needless or supererogant, but such only as became From 1 Kings a pious prince, whose chief ambition was, that (a) the earth should be filled with the viii. to the end knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.' For this reason no doubt it is, that the sacred historian has remarked, (as a reward of this prince's piety) that (b) “ he had not only riches and honours in abundance,” but a more numerous people, and a larger military force, (in proportion to his territories) than any of his most powerful predecessors. The whole amount of the particulars indeed is so very great, (c) that some have suspected a mistake in the transcribers; but when it is considered that the dominions of the kingdom of Judah under Jehoshaphat were not confined to the narrow limits of Judah and Benjamin only, but (d) reached into the tribes of Dan, Ephraim, and Simeon; into Arabia, and the country of the Philistines; in a word, from Beersheba to the mountaints of Ephraim one way, and from Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea the other; when it is considered, that this kingdom received a vast accession, when Jeroboam thrust out the priests and Levites from officiating in the service of the Lord, and multitudes of other piously disposed persons followed them from all parts of Israel, when they found that they might be encouraged in worshipping God at Jerusalem; when it is considered, that this country was exceedingly well cultivated, flourishing in commerce, abounding with foreigners, and what a vast increase of inhabitants in any nation may be produced in the space of an hundred years, which was the very period from David; and when it is considered farther, that soldiers in those days were not kept like our standing armies, in constant pay and duty, but only had their names set down in the king's muster-rolls, in order to be summoned to arms whenever there was occasion, and so returned to their families, and followed their usual occupations when all this is considered, and put together, I say, we shall not find the number of twelve hundred thousand fighting men (even though they may imply six millions of persons of all ages and conditions) to be so very extravagant; especially when it is remembered, that the city of Thebes alone (as it is reported by (e) Tacitus) furnished no less than seven hundred thousand soldiers; that in ancient Rome, there were once between three and four millions of souls; and that in Grand Cairo (as some travellers report) there is now almost twice that number*. We have but one seeming paradox more to account for, and that is the fall (ƒ) of the walls of Aphek upon no less than seven and twenty thousand men. But, in answer to this, (g) we are not to suppose that this wall, or castle, or fort (as it may be rendered), fell upon every individual one, much less that it killed every man it fell on It is sufficient to justify the expression, that it fell upon the main body of these seven and twenty thousand, and that it killed some and maimed others, (for the Scripture does not say that it killed all), as is usual in such cases. Let us suppose, then, that these Syrians, after their defeat on the plains of Aphek, betook themselves to this fenced city, and, despairing of any quarter, mounted the walls, or retired into some castle, with a resolution to defend themselves to the last; and that the Israelitish army comong upon them, plied the walls or the castle on every side so warmly with their batteries, that down they came at once, and killing some, wounding others, and making the rest disperse for fear, did all the execution that the text intends. [Or, which is infinitely more probable, the walls of the city, and great part of the city itself, may have been overthrown by an earthquake, and vast multitudes of men have perished in the ruins.] And indeed, if any time was proper for God's Almighty arm to interpose, (h) it was (a) Isaiah xi. 9. (b) 2 Chron. xviii. 1. (c) Le Clerc's Commentary on ibid xvii. 14. (d) Calmet's ibid. (e) Annals, lib. ii. [This is a very great mistake, Cairo not being more populous than London. Perhaps the author meant Pekin, the capital of China; but even that ci- . (f) 1 Kings xx. 30. tations in locum. (g) Pool's Anno. (h) Ibid. Ant. Chris A. M. 3001, at such a time as this, when these blasphemous people had denied his sovereign power &c. or 4507. and authority in the government of the world, and thereby in some measure obliged 1003, &c. him, in vindication of his own honour, to give them a full demonstration of it, and to shew that he was the a) God of the plains as well as of the mountains; that he could as effectually destroy them in strong-holds as in the open field, and make the very walls, wherein they trusted for defence, the instruments of their ruin. or 904. DISSERTATION II. OF THE TRANSLATION OF ENOCH AND ELIJAH. Of all the events recorded in Scripture, we meet with none that requires our attention more than the translation of the patriarch Enoch, in the times before the flood, and the assumption of the prophet Elijah under the dispensation of the law: For, whether Moses, the great minister of that dispensation, was in like manner exempted from the common fate of mortals, is a matter wherein commentators are not so well agreed. The account of Elijah's translation is so express and circumstantiated, that no question can be made of its reality; but the ambiguity of the words wherein the sacred historian has related the assumption of Enoch, has induced several to think, that though this antediluvian patriarch was highly in favour with God, and for that reason removed from the contagious wickedness which was then overspreading the earth; yet that this removal was effected, not by any miraculous operation of God, but merely by his undergoing a natural death. 66 The words wherein Moses has recorded this transaction are very few, and these of uncertain signification. (b)" Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him." Now it is plain, from several passages in Scripture, not only that the word which we render "God took him," is set to signify our common death, as in the case of Elijah himself, when, under the juniper tree, he prays that God would (c)" take away his life," because he was not "better than his fathers;" and in that of holy Job, when he tells us, that he did not know how soon (d)" his Maker might take him away ;" but that the other expression," he was not," is frequently used in the same sense, as is evident from the lamentation which both Jacob and his son Reuben made for the supposed loss of Joseph: (e)" Joseph is not, and Simeon is not," says the old man : And (f)" the child is not; and I, whither shall I go?" says the son. So that no argument can be drawn from the terms in the text to countenance a miraculous assumption, more than a natural death, in the prophet Enoch. But this is not all. The author of the book, entitled The Wisdom of Solomon, is supposed to carry the matter farther, and to declare positively for the death of this patriarch, when he tells us, (g)" that he pleased God and was beloved of him; so that, living among sinners, he was translated; yea, speedily was he taken away, lest wickedness should alter his understanding, and deceit beguile his soul. Being made perfect in a short time, he fulfilled a long time; for his soul pleased the Lord, therefore hasted he to take him away from among the wicked." Where every line in the description (as some imagine) suits (a) 1 Kings xx. 23. (e) Gen. xlii. 36. (b) Gen. v. 24. (c) 1 Kings xix. 4. (d) Job xxxii. 22. (g) Wisdom iv. 10, &c. |