Antiquities of the Jews — Book 8, Chapter 15

1. And these were the circumstances in which Ahab was. But I now return
to Jehoshaphat, the king of Jerusalem, who, when he had augmented his
kingdom, had set garrisons in the cities of the countries belonging to
his subjects, and had put such garrisons no less into those cities which
were taken out of the tribe of Ephraim by his grandfather Abijah, when
Jeroboam reigned over the ten tribes [than he did into the other]. But
then he had God favorable and assisting to him, as being both righteous
and religious, and seeking to do somewhat every day that should be
agreeable and acceptable to God. The kings also that were round about
him honored him with the presents they made him, till the riches that he
had acquired were immensely great, and the glory he had gained was of a
most exalted nature.

2. Now, in the third year of this reign, he called together the rulers
of the country, and the priests, and commanded them to go round the
land, and teach all the people that were under him, city by city, the
laws of Moses, and to keep them, and to be diligent in the worship of
God. With this the whole multitude was so pleased, that they were not so
eagerly set upon or affected with any thing so much as the observation
of the laws. The neighboring nations also continued to love Jehoshaphat,
and to be at peace with him. The Philistines paid their appointed
tribute, and the Arabians supplied him every year with three hundred and
sixty lambs, and as many kids of the goats. He also fortified the great
cities, which were many in number, and of great consequence. He prepared
also a mighty army of soldiers and weapons against their enemies. Now
the army of men that wore their armor, was three hundred thousand of the
tribe of Judah, of whom Adnah was the chief; but John was chief of two
hundred thousand. The same man was chief of the tribe of Benjamin, and
had two hundred thousand archers under him. There was another chief,
whose name was Jehozabad, who had a hundred and fourscore thousand armed
men. This multitude was distributed to be ready for the king's service,
besides those whom he sent to the best fortified cities.

3. Jehoshaphat took for his son Jehoram to wife the daughter of Ahab,
the king of the ten tribes, whose name was Athaliah. And when, after
some time, he went to Samaria, Ahab received him courteously, and
treated the army that followed him in a splendid manner, with great
plenty of corn and wine, and of slain beasts; and desired that he would
join with him in his war against the king of Syria, that he might
recover from him the city Ramoth, in Gilead; for though it had belonged
to his father, yet had the king of Syria's father taken it away from
him; and upon Jehoshaphat's promise to afford him his assistance, [for
indeed his army was not inferior to the other,] and his sending for his
army from Jerusalem to Samaria, the two kings went out of the city, and
each of them sat on his own throne, and each gave their orders to their
several armies. Now Jehoshaphat bid them call some of the prophets, if
there were any there, and inquire of them concerning this expedition
against the king of Syria, whether they would give them counsel to make
that expedition at this time, for there was peace at that time between
Ahab and the king of Syria, which had lasted three years, from the time
he had taken him captive till that day.

4. So Ahab called his own prophets, being in number about four hundred,
and bid them inquire of God whether he would grant him the victory, if
he made an expedition against Benhadad, and enable him to overthrow that
city, for whose sake it was that he was going to war. Now these prophets
gave their counsel for making this expedition, and said that he would
beat the king of Syria, and, as formerly, would reduce him under his
power. But Jehoshaphat, understanding by their words that they were
false prophets, asked Ahab whether there were not some other prophet,
and he belonging to the true God, that we may have surer information
concerning futurities. Hereupon Ahab said there was indeed such a one,
but that he hated him, as having prophesied evil to him, and having
foretold that he should be overcome and slain by the king of Syria, and
that for this cause he had him now in prison, and that his name was
Micaiah, the son of Imlah. But upon Jehoshaphat's desire that he might
be produced, Ahab sent a eunuch, who brought Micaiah to him. Now the
eunuch had informed him by the way, that all the other prophets had
foretold that the king should gain the victory; but he said, that it was
not lawful for him to lie against God, but that he must speak what he
should say to him about the king, whatsoever it were. When he came to
Ahab, and he had adjured him upon oath to speak the truth to him, he
said that God had shown to him the Israelites running away, and pursued
by the Syrians, and dispersed upon the mountains by them, as flocks of
sheep are dispersed when their shepherd is slain. He said further, that
God signified to him, that those Israelites should return in peace to
their own home, and that he only should fall in the battle. When Micaiah
had thus spoken, Ahab said to Jehoshaphat, "I told thee a little while
ago the disposition of the man with regard to me, and that he uses to
prophesy evil to me." Upon which Micaiah replied, that he ought to hear
all, whatsoever it be, that God foretells; and that in particular, they
were false prophets that encouraged him to make this war in hope of
victory, whereas he must fight and be killed. Whereupon the king was in
suspense with himself: but Zedekiah, one of those false prophets, came
near, and exhorted him not to hearken to Micaiah, for he did not at all
speak truth; as a demonstration of which he instanced in what Elijah had
said, who was a better prophet in foretelling futurities than Micaiah 42
for he foretold that the dogs should lick his blood in the city of
Jezreel, in the field of Naboth, as they licked the blood of Naboth, who
by his means was there stoned to death by the multitude; that therefore
it was plain that this Micaiah was a liar, as contradicting a greater
prophet than himself, and saying that he should be slain at three days'
journey distance: "and [said he] you shall soon know whether he be a
true prophet, and hath the power of the Divine Spirit; for I will smite
him, and let him then hurt my hand, as Jadon caused the hand of Jeroboam
the king to wither when he would have caught him; for I suppose thou
hast certainly heard of that accident." So when, upon his smiting
Micaiah, no harm happened to him, Ahab took courage, and readily led his
army against the king of Syria; for, as I suppose, fate was too hard for
him, and made him believe that the false prophets spake truer than the
true one, that it might take an occasion of bringing him to his end.
However, Zedekiah made horns of iron, and said to Ahab, that God made
those horns signals, that by them he should overthrow all Syria. But
Micaiah replied, that Zedekiah, in a few days, should go from one secret
chamber to another to hide himself, that he might escape the punishment
of his lying. Then did the king give orders that they should take
Micaiah away, and guard him to Amon, the governor of the city, and to
give him nothing but bread and water.

5. Then did Ahab, and Jehoshaphat the king of Jerusalem, take their
forces, and marched to Ramoth a city of Gilead; and when the king of
Syria heard of this expedition, he brought out his army to oppose them,
and pitched his camp not far from Ramoth. Now Ahab and Jehoshaphat had
agreed that Ahab should lay aside his royal robes, but that the king of
Jerusalem should put on his [Ahab's] proper habit, and stand before the
army, in order to disprove, by this artifice, what Micaiah had foretold.
43 But Ahab's fate found him out without his robes; for Benhadad, the
king of Assyria, had charged his army, by the means of their commanders,
to kill nobody else but only the king of Israel. So when the Syrians,
upon their joining battle with the Israelites, saw Jehoshaphat stand
before the army, and conjectured that he was Ahab, they fell violently
upon him, and encompassed him round; but when they were near, and knew
that it was not he, they all returned back; and while the fight lasted
from the morning till late in the evening, and the Syrians were
conquerors, they killed nobody, as their king had commanded them. And
when they sought to kill Ahab alone, but could not find him, there was a
young nobleman belonging to king Benhadad, whose name was Naaman; he
drew his bow against the enemy, and wounded the king through his
breastplate, in his lungs. Upon this Ahab resolved not to make his
mischance known to his army, lest they should run away; but he bid the
driver of his chariot to turn it back, and carry him out of the battle,
because he was sorely and mortally wounded. However, he sat in his
chariot and endured the pain till sunset, and then he fainted away and
died.

6. And now the Syrian army, upon the coming on of the night, retired to
their camp; and when the herald belonging to the camp gave notice that
Ahab was dead, they returned home; and they took the dead body of Ahab
to Samaria, and buried it there; but when they had washed his chariot in
the fountain of Jezreel, which was bloody with the dead body of the
king, they acknowledged that the prophecy of Elijah was true, for the
dogs licked his blood, and the harlots continued afterwards to wash
themselves in that fountain; but still he died at Ramoth, as Micaiah had
foretold. And as what things were foretold should happen to Ahab by the
two prophets came to pass, we ought thence to have high notions of God,
and every where to honor and worship him, and never to suppose that what
is pleasant and agreeable is worthy of belief before what is true, and
to esteem nothing more advantageous than the gift of prophecy 44 and
that foreknowledge of future events which is derived from it, since God
shows men thereby what we ought to avoid. We may also guess, from what
happened to this king, and have reason to consider the power of fate;
that there is no way of avoiding it, even when we know it. It creeps
upon human souls, and flatters them with pleasing hopes, till it leads
them about to the place where it will be too hard for them. Accordingly
Ahab appears to have been deceived thereby, till he disbelieved those
that foretold his defeat; but, by giving credit to such as foretold what
was grateful to him, was slain; and his son Ahaziah succeeded him.

FOOTNOTES:

1 (return) [ This execution upon Joab, as a murderer, by slaying him,
even when he had taken sanctuary at God's altar, is perfectly agreeable
to the law of Moses, which enjoins, that "if a man come presumptuously
upon his neighbor to slay him with guile, thou shalt take him from mine
altar that he die," Exodus 21:14.]

2 (return) [ This building of the walls of Jerusalem, soon after David's
death, illustrates the conclusion of the 51st Psalm, where David prays,
"Build thou the walls of Jerusalem;" they being, it seems, unfinished or
imperfect at that time. See ch. 6. sect. 1; and ch. 1. sect. 7; also 1
Kings 9:15.]

3 (return) [ It may not be amiss to compare the daily furniture of king
Solomon's table, here set down, and 1 Kings 4;22, 23, with the like
daily furniture of Nehemiah the governor's table, after the Jews were
come back from Babylon; and to remember withal, that Nehemiah was now
building the walls of Jerusalem, and maintained, more than usual, above
a hundred and fifty considerable men every day, and that, because the
nation was then very poor, at his own charges also, without laying any
burden upon the people at all. "Now that which was prepared for me daily
was one ox and six choice sheep; also fowls were prepared for me, and
once in ten days store of all sorts of wine; and yet for all this
required not the bread of the governor, because the bondage was heavy
upon this people," Nehemiah 5:18: see the whole context, ver. 14-19. Nor
did the governor's usual allowance of forty shekels of silver a-day,
ver. 15, amount to 45 a day, nor to 1800 a-year. Nor does it indeed
appear that, under the judges, or under Samuel the prophet, there was
any such public allowance to those governors at all. Those great charges
upon the public for maintaining courts came in with kings, as God
foretold they would, 1 Samuel 8:11-18.

4 (return) [ Some pretended fragments of these books of conjuration of
Solomon are still extant in Fabricius's Cod. Pseudepigr. Vet. Test. page
1054, though I entirely differ from Josephus in this his supposal, that
such books and arts of Solomon were parts of that wisdom which was
imparted to him by God in his younger days; they must rather have
belonged to such profane but curious arts as we find mentioned Acts
19:13-20, and had been derived from the idolatry and superstition of his
heathen wives and concubines in his old age, when he had forsaken God,
and God had forsaken him, and given him up to demoniacal delusions. Nor
does Josephus's strange account of the root Baara [Of the War, B. VIII.
ch. 6. sect. 3: seem to be other than that of its magical use in such
conjurations. As for the following history, it confirms what Christ
says, Matthew 12;27 "If I by Beelzebub cast out demons, by whom do your
Sons cast them out?"]

5 (return) [ These epistles of Solomon and Hiram are those in 1 Kings
5:3-9, and, as enlarged, in 2 Chronicles 2:3-16, but here given us by
Josephus in his own words.]

6 (return) [ What Josephus here puts into his copy of Hiram's epistle to
Solomon, and repeats afterwards, ch. 5. sect. 3, that Tyre was now an
island, is not in any of the three other copies, viz. that of the Kings,
Chronicles, or Eusebius; nor is it any other, I suppose, than his own
conjectural paraphrase; for when I, many years ago, inquired into this
matter, I found the state of this famous city, and of the island
whereupon it stood, to have been very different at different times. The
result of my inquiries in this matter, with the addition of some later
improvements, stands thus: That the best testimonies hereto relating,
imply, that Paketyrus, or Oldest Tyre, was no other than that most
ancient smaller fort or city Tyre, situated on the continent, and
mentioned in Joshua 19:29, out of which the Canaanite or Phoenician
inhabitants were driven into a large island, that lay not far off in the
sea, by Joshua: that this island was then joined to the continent at the
present remains of Paketyrus, by a neck of land over against Solomon's
cisterns, still so called; and the city's fresh water, probably, was
carried along in pipes by that neck of land; and that this island was
therefore, in strictness, no other than a peninsula, having villages in
its fields, Ezekiel 26:6, and a wall about it, Amos 1:10, and the city
was not of so great reputation as Sitlon for some ages: that it was
attacked both by sea and land by Salmanasser, as Josephus informs us,
Antiq. B. IX. ch. 14. sect. 2, and afterwards came to be the metropolis
of Phoenicia; and was afterwards taken and destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar,
according to the numerous Scripture prophecies thereto relating, Isaiah
23.; Jeremiah 25:22; 27:3; 47:4; Ezekiel 26., 27., 28.: that seventy
years after that destruction by Nebuchadnezzar, this city was in some
measure revived and rebuilt, Isaiah 23:17, 18, but that, as the prophet
Ezekiel had foretold, chap. 26:3-5, 14; 27: 34, the sea arose higher
than before, till at last it over flowed, not only the neck of land, but
the main island or peninsula itself, and destroyed that old and famous
city for ever: that, however, there still remained an adjoining smaller
island, once connected to Old Tyre itself by Hiram, which was afterwards
inhabited; to which Alexander the Great, with incredible pains, raised a
new bank or causeway: and that it plainly appears from Ifaundreh, a most
authentic eye-witness, that the old large and famous city, on the
original large island, is now laid so generally under water, that scarce
more than forty acres of it, or rather of that adjoining small island
remain at this day; so that, perhaps, not above a hundredth part of the
first island and city is now above water. This was foretold in the same
prophecies of Ezekiel; and according to them, as Mr. Maundrell
distinctly observes, these poor remains of Old Tyre are now "become like
the top of a rock, a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the
sea."]

7 (return) [ Of the temple of Solomon here described by Josephus, in
this and the following sections of this chapter, see my description of
the temples belonging to this work, ch. 13, These small rooms, or side
chambers, seem to have been, by Josephus's description, no less than
twenty cubits high a piece, otherwise there must have been a large
interval between one and the other that was over it; and this with
double floors, the one of six cubits distance from the floor beneath it,
as 1 Kings 6:5]

8 (return) [ Josephus says here that the cherubims were of solid gold,
and only five cubits high, while our Hebrew copies [1 Kings 6;23, 28:
say they were of the olive tree, and the LXXX. of the cypress tree, and
only overlaid with gold; and both agree they were ten cubits high. I
suppose the number here is falsely transcribed, and that Josephus wrote
ten cubits also.]

9 (return) [ As for these two famous pillars, Jachin and Booz, their
height could be no more than eighteen cubits, as here, and 1 Kings 7:15;
2 Kings 25:17; Jeremiah 3:21; those thirty-five cubits in 2 Chronicles
3:15, being contrary to all the rules of architecture in the world.]

10 (return) [ The round or cylindrical lavers of four cubits in
diameter, and four in height, both in our copies, 1 Kings 7:38, 39, and
here in Josephus, must have contained a great deal more than these forty
baths, which are always assigned them. Where the error lies is hard to
say: perhaps Josephus honestly followed his copies here, though they had
been corrupted, and he was not able to restore the true reading. In the
mean time, the forty baths are probably the true quantity contained in
each laver, since they went upon wheels, and were to be drawn by the
Levites about the courts of the priests for the washings they were
designed for; and had they held much more, they would have been too
heavy to have been so drawn.]

11 (return) [ Here Josephus gives us a key to his own language, of right
and left hand in the tabernacle and temple; that by the right hand he
means what is against our left, when we suppose ourselves going up from
the east gate of the courts towards the tabernacle or temple themselves,
and so vice versa; whence it follows, that the pillar Jachin, on the
right hand of the temple was on the south, against our left hand; and
Booz on the north, against our right hand. Of the golden plate on the
high priest's forehead that was in being in the days of Josephus, and a
century or two at least later, seethe note on Antiq. B. III. ch. 7.
sect. 6.]

12 (return) [ When Josephus here says that the floor of the outmost
temple or court of the Gentiles was with vast labor raised to be even,
or of equal height, with the floor of the inner, or court of the
priests, he must mean this in a gross estimation only; for he and all
others agree, that the inner temple, or court of the priests, was a few
cubits more elevated than the middle court, the court of Israel, and
that much more was the court of the priests elevated several cubits
above that outmost court, since the court of Israel was lower than the
one and higher than the other. The Septuagint say that "they prepared
timber and stones to build the temple for three years," 1 Kings 5:18;
and although neither our present Hebrew copy, nor Josephus, directly
name that number of years, yet do they both say the building itself did
not begin till Solomon's fourth year; and both speak of the preparation
of materials beforehand, 1 Kings v. 18; Antiq. B. VIII. ch. 5. sect. 1.
There is no reason, therefore, to alter the Septuagint's number; but we
are to suppose three years to have been the just time of the
preparation, as I have done in my computation of the expense in building
that temple.]

13 (return) [ This solemn removal of the ark from Mount Sion to Mount
Moriah, at the distance of almost three quarters of a mile, confutes
that notion of the modern Jews, and followed by many Christians also, as
if those two were after a sort one and the same mountain, for which
there is, I think, very little foundation.]

14 (return) [ This mention of the Corinthian ornaments of architecture
in Solomon's palace by Josephus seems to be here set down by way of
prophecy although it appears to me that the Grecian and Roman most
ancient orders of architecture were taken from Solomon's temple, as from
their original patterns, yet it is not so clear that the last and most
ornamental order of the Corinthian was so ancient, although what the
same Josephus says, [Of the War, B. V. ch. 5. sect. 3,] that one of the
gates of Herod's temple was built according to the rules of this
Corinthian order, is no way improbable, that order being, without
dispute, much older than the reign of Herod. However, upon some trial, I
confess I have not hitherto been able fully to understand the structure
of this palace of Solomon, either as described in our Bibles, or even
with the additional help of this description here by Josephus; only the
reader may easily observe with me, that the measures of this first
building in Josephus, a hundred cubits long, and fifty cubits broad, are
the very same with the area of the cart of the tabernacle of Moses, and
just hall' an Egyptian orout, or acre.]

15 (return) [ This signification of the name Pharaoh appears to be true.
But what Josephus adds presently, that no king of Egypt was called
Pharaoh after Solomon's father-in-law, does hardly agree to our copies,
which have long afterwards the names of Pharaoh Neehob, and Pharaoh
Hophrah, 2 Kings 23:29; Jeremiah 44:30, besides the frequent mention of
that name Pharaoh in the prophets. However, Josephus himself, in his own
speech to the Jews, Of the War, B. V. ch. 9. sect. 4, speaks of Neehao,
who was also called Pharaoh, as the name of that king of Egypt with whom
Abraham was concerned; of which name Neehao yet we have elsewhere no
mention till the days of Josiah, but only of Pharaoh. And, indeed, it
must be conceded, that here, and sect. 5, we have more mistakes made by
Josephus, and those relating to the kings of Egypt, and to that queen of
Egypt and Ethiopia, whom he supposes to have come to see Solomon, than
almost any where else in all his Antiquities.]

16 (return) [ That this queen of Sheba was a queen of Sabea in South
Arabia, and not of Egypt and Ethiopia, as Josephus here asserts, is, I
suppose, now generally agreed. And since Sabea is well known to be a
country near the sea in the south of Arabia Felix, which lay south from
Judea also; and since our Savior calls this queen, "the queen of the
south," and says, "she came from the utmost parts of the earth," Matthew
12:42; Luke 11:31, which descriptions agree better to this Arabia than
to Egypt and Ethiopia; there is little occasion for doubting in this
matter.]

17 (return) [ Some blame Josephus for supposing that the balsam tree
might be first brought out of Arabia, or Egypt, or Ethiopia, into Judea,
by this queen of Sheba, since several have said that of old no country
bore this precious balsam but Judea; yet it is not only false that this
balsam was peculiar to Judea but both Egypt and Arabia, and particularly
Sabea; had it; which last was that very country whence Josephus, if
understood not of Ethiopia, but of Arabia, intimates this queen might
bring it first into Judea. Nor are we to suppose that the queen of
Sabaea could well omit such a present as this balsam tree would be
esteemed by Solomon, in case it were then almost peculiar to her own
country. Nor is the mention of balm or balsam, as carried by merchants,
and sent as a present out of Judea by Jacob, to the governor of Egypt,
Genesis 37:25; 43:11, to be alleged to the contrary, since what we there
render balm or balsam, denotes rather that turpentine which we now call
turpentine of Chio, or Cyprus, the juice of the turpentine tree, than
this precious balm. This last is also the same word that we elsewhere
render by the same mistake balm of Gilead; it should be rendered, the
turpentine of Gilead, Jeremiah 8:22.]

18 (return) [ Whether these fine gardens and rivulets of Etham, about
six miles from Jerusalem, whither Solomon rode so often in state, be not
those alluded to, Ecclesiastes 2:5, 6, where he says, "He made him
gardens and orchards, and planted trees in them of all kinds of fruits:
he made him pools of water, to water the wood that bringeth forth
trees;" and to the finest part whereof he seems to allude, when, in the
Canticles, he compares his spouse to a garden "enclosed," to a "spring
shut up," to a "fountain sealed," ch. 4. 12 [part of which from rains
are still extant, as Mr. Matmdrell informs us, page 87, 88]; cannot now
be certainly determined, but may very probably be conjectured. But
whether this Etham has any relation to those rivers of Etham, which
Providence once dried up in a miraculous manner, Psalm 74:15, in the
Septuagint, I cannot say.]

19 (return) [ These seven hundred wives, or the daughters of great men,
and the three hundred concubines, the daughters of the ignoble, make one
thousand in all; and are, I suppose, those very one thousand women
intimated elsewhere by Solomon himself, when he speaks of his not having
found one [good] woman among that very number, Ecclesiastes 7:28.]

20 (return) [ Josephus is here certainly too severe upon Solomon, who,
in making the cherubims, and these twelve brazen oxen, seems to have
done no more than imitate the patterns left him by David, which were all
given David by Divine inspiration. See my description of the temples,
ch. 10. And although God gave no direction for the lions that adorned
his throne, yet does not Solomon seem therein to have broken any law of
Moses; for although the Pharisees and latter Rabbins have extended the
second commandment, to forbid the very making of any image, though
without any intention to have it worshipped, yet do not I suppose that
Solomon so understood it, nor that it ought to be so understood. The
making any other altar for worship but that at the tabernacle was
equally forbidden by Moses, Antiq. B. IV. ch. 8. sect. 5; yet did not
the two tribes and a half offend when they made an altar for a memorial
only, Joshua 22; Antiq. B. V. ch. 1. sect. 26, 27.]

21 (return) [ Since the beginning of Solomon's evil life and adversity
was the time when Hadad or Ader, who was born at least twenty or thirty
years before Solomon came to the crown, in the days of David, began to
give him disturbance, this implies that Solomon's evil life began early,
and continued very long, which the multitude of his wives and concubines
does imply also; I suppose when he was not fifty years of age.]

22 (return) [ This youth of Jeroboam, when Solomon built the walls of
righteous and keep the laws, because he hath proposed to thee the
greatest of all rewards for thy piety, and the honor thou shalt pay to
God, namely, to be as greatly exalted as thou knowest David to have
been." Jerusalem, not very long after he had finished his twenty years
building of the temple and his own palace, or not very long after the
twenty-fourth of his reign, 1 Kings 9:24; 2 Chronicles 8:11, and his
youth here still mentioned, when Solomon's wickedness was become
intolerable, fully confirm my former observation, that such his
wickedness began early, and continued very long. See Ecclus. 47:14.]

23 (return) [ That by scorpions is not here meant that small animal so
called, which was never used in corrections, but either a shrub, furze
bush, or else some terrible sort of whip of the like nature see Hudson's
and Spanheim's notes here.]

24 (return) [ Whether these "fountains of the Lesser Jordan" were near a
place called Dan, and the fountains of the Greater near a place called
Jor, before their conjunction; or whether there was only one fountain,
arising at the lake Phiala, at first sinking under ground, and then
arising near the mountain Paneum, and thence running through the lake
Scmochonitis to the Sea of Galilee, and so far called the Lesser Jordan;
is hardly certain, even in Josephus himself, though the latter account
be the most probable. However, the northern idolatrous calf, set up by
Jeroboam, was where Little Jordan fell into Great Jordan, near a place
called Daphnae, as Josephus elsewhere informs us, Of the War, B. IV. ch.
1. sect. 1: see the note there.]

25 (return) [ How much a larger and better copy Josephus had in this
remarkable history of the true prophet of Judea, and his concern with
Jeroboam, and with the false prophet of Bethel, than our other copies
have, is evident at first sight. The prophet's very name, Jadon, or, as
the Constitutions call him, Adonias, is wanting in our other copies; and
it is there, with no little absurdity, said that God revealed Jadon the
true prophet's death, not to himself as here, but to the false prophet.
Whether the particular account of the arguments made use of, after all,
by the false prophet against his own belief and his own conscience, in
order to persuade Jeroboam to persevere in his idolatry and wickedness,
than which more plausible could not be invented, was intimated in
Josephus's copy, or in some other ancient book, cannot now be
determined; our other copies say not one word of it.]

26 (return) [ That this Shishak was not the same person with the famous
Sesostris, as some have very lately, in contradiction to all antiquity,
supposed, and that our Josephus did not take him to be the same, as they
pretend, but that Sesostris was many centuries earlier than Shishak, see
Authent. Records, part II. page 1024.]

27 (return) [ Herodotus, as here quoted by Josephus, and as this passage
still stands in his present copies, B. II. ch. 14., affirms, that "the
Phoenicians and Syrians in Palestine [which last are generally supposed
to denote the Jews] owned their receiving circumcision from the
Egyptians;" whereas it is abundantly evident that the Jews received
their circumcision from the patriarch Abraham, Genesis 17:9-14; John
7:22, 23, as I conclude the Egyptian priests themselves did also. It is
not therefore very unlikely that Herodotus, because the Jews had lived
long in Egypt, and came out of it circumcised, did thereupon think they
had learned that circumcision in Egypt, and had it not broke. Manetho,
the famous Egyptian chronologer and historian, who knew the history of
his own country much better than Herodotus, complains frequently of his
mistakes about their affairs, as does Josephus more than once in this
chapter. Nor indeed does Herodotus seem at all acquainted with the
affairs of the Jews; for as he never names them, so little or nothing of
what he says about them, their country, or maritime cities, two of which
he alone mentions, Cadytus and Jenysus, proves true; nor indeed do there
appear to have ever been any such cities on their coast.]

28 (return) [ This is a strange expression in Josephus, that God is his
own workmanship, or that he made himself, contrary to common sense and
to catholic Christianity; perhaps he only means that he was not made by
one, but was unoriginated.]

29 (return) [ By this terrible and perfectly unparalleled slaughter of
five hundred thousand men of the newly idolatrous and rebellious ten
tribes, God's high displeasure and indignation against that idolatry and
rebellion fully appeared; the remainder were thereby seriously cautioned
not to persist in them, and a kind of balance or equilibrium was made
between the ten and the two tribes for the time to come; while otherwise
the perpetually idolatrous and rebellious ten tribes would naturally
have been too powerful for the two tribes, which were pretty frequently
free both from such idolatry and rebellion; nor is there any reason to
doubt of the truth of the prodigious number upmost: signal an occasion.]

30 (return) [ The reader is to remember that Cush is not Ethiopia, but
Arabia. See Bochart, B. IV. ch. 2.]

31 (return) [ Here is a very great error in our Hebrew copy in this
place, 2 Chronicles 15:3-6, as applying what follows to times past, and
not to times future; whence that text is quite misapplied by Sir Isaac
Newton.]

32 (return) [ This Abelmain, or, in Josephus's copy, Abellane, that
belonged to the land of Israel, and bordered on the country of Damascus,
is supposed, both by Hudson and Spanheim, to be the same with Abel, or
Ahila, whence came Abilene. This may be that city so denominated from
Abel the righteous, there buried, concerning the shedding of whose blood
within the compass of the land of Israel, I understand our Savior's
words about the fatal war and overthrow of Judea by Titus and his Roman
army; "That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the
land, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zacharias son of
Barnchins, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily, I say
unto you, all these things shall come upon this generation," Matthew
23;35, 36; Luke 11:51.]

33 (return) [ Josephus, in his present copies, says, that a little while
rain upon the earth; whereas, in our other copies, it is after many
days, 1 Kings 18:1. Several years are also intimated there, and in
Josephus, sect. 2, as belonging to this drought and famine; nay, we have
the express mention of the third year, which I suppose was reckoned from
the recovery of the widow's son, and the ceasing of this drought in
Phmuiela [Footnote which, as Menander informs us here, lasted one whole
year]; and both our Savior and St. James affirm, that this drought
lasted in all three years and six months, as their copies of the Old
Testament then informed them, Luke 4:25; James 5:17. Josephus here seems
to mean, that this drought affected all the habitable earth, and
presently all the earth, as our Savior says it was upon all the earth,
Luke 4:25. They who restrain these expressions to the land of Judea
alone, go without sufficient authority or examples.]

34 (return) [ Mr. Spanheim takes notice here, that in the worship of
Mithra [the god of the Persians] the priests cut themselves in the same
manner as did these priests in their invocation of Baal [the god of the
Phoenicians].]

35 (return) [ For Izar we may here read [with Hudson and Cocceius]
Isachar, i.e of the tribe of Isachar, for to that tribe did Jezreel
belong; and presently at the beginning of sect. 8, as also ch. 15. sect.
4, we may read for Iar, with one MS. nearly, and the Scripture, Jezreel,
for that was the city meant in the history of Naboth.]

36 (return) [ "The Jews weep to this day," [says Jerome, here cited by
Reland,] "and roll themselves upon sackcloth, in ashes, barefoot, upon
such occasions." To which Spanheim adds, "that after the same manner
Bernice, when his life was in danger, stood at the tribunal of Florus
barefoot." Of the War, B. II. ch. 15. sect. 1. See the like of David, 2
Samuel 15:30; Antiq. B. VII. ch. 9. sect. 2.]

37 (return) [ Mr. Reland notes here very truly, that the word naked does
not always signify entirely naked, but sometimes without men's usual
armor, without heir usual robes or upper garments; as when Virgil bids
the husbandman plough naked, and sow naked; when Josephus says [Antiq.
B. IV. ch. 3. sect. 2: that God had given the Jews the security of armor
when they were naked; and when he here says that Ahab fell on the
Syrians when they were naked and drunk; when [Antiq. B. XI. ch. 5. sect.
8: he says that Nehemiah commanded those Jews that were building the
walls of Jerusalem to take care to have their armor on upon occasion,
that the enemy might not fall upon them naked. I may add, that the case
seems to be the same in the Scripture, when it says that Saul lay down
naked among the prophets, 1 Samuel 19:24; when it says that Isaiah
walked naked and barefoot, Isaiah 20:2, 3; and when it says that Peter,
before he girt his fisher's coat to him, was naked, John 21:7. What is
said of David also gives light to this, who was reproached by Michal for
"dancing before the ark, and uncovering himself in the eyes of his
handmaids, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself," 2
Samuel 6:14, 20; yet it is there expressly said [ver. 14: that "David
was girded with a linen ephod," i.e. he had laid aside his robes of
state, and put on the sacerdotal, Levitical, or sacred garments, proper
for such a solemnity.]

38 (return) [ Josephus's number, two myriads and seven thousand, agrees
here with that in our other copies, as those that were slain by the
falling down of the walls of Aphek; but I suspected at first that this
number in Josephus's present copies could not be his original number,
because he calls them "oligoi," a few, which could hardly be said of so
many as twenty-seven thousand, and because of the improbability of the
fall of a particular wall killing so many; yet when I consider
Josephus's next words, how the rest which were slain in the battle were
"ten other myriads," that twenty-seven thousand are but a few in
comparison of a hundred thousand, and that it was not "a wall," as in
our English version, but "the walls" or "the entire walls" of the city
that fell down, as in all the originals, I lay aside that suspicion, and
firmly believe that Josephus himself hath, with the rest, given us the
just number, twenty-seven thousand.]

39 (return) [ This manner of supplication for men's lives among the
Syrians, with ropes or halters about their heads or necks, is, I
suppose, no strange thing in later ages, even in our own country.]

40 (return) [ It is here remarkable, that in Josephus's copy this
prophet, whose severe denunciation of a disobedient person's slaughter
by a lion had lately come to pass, was no other than Micaiah, the son of
Imlah, who, as he now denounced God's judgment on disobedient Ahab,
seems directly to have been that very prophet whom the same Ahab, in 1
Kings 22:8, 18, complains of, "as one whom he hated, because he did not
prophesy good concerning him, but evil," and who in that chapter openly
repeats his denunciations against him; all which came to pass
accordingly; nor is there any reason to doubt but this and the former
were the very same prophet.]

41 (return) [ What is most remarkable in this history, and in many
histories on other occasions in the Old Testament, is this, that during
the Jewish theocracy God acted entirely as the supreme King of Israel,
and the supreme General of their armies, and always expected that the
Israelites should be in such absolute subjection to him, their supreme
and heavenly King, and General of their armies, as subjects and soldiers
are to their earthly kings and generals, and that usually without
knowing the particular reasons of their injunctions.]

42 (return) [ These reasonings of Zedekiah the false prophet, in order
to persuade Ahab not to believe Micaiah the true prophet, are plausible;
but being omitted in our other copies, we cannot now tell whence
Josephus had them, whether from his own temple copy, from some other
original author, or from certain ancient notes. That some such plausible
objection was now raised against Micaiah is very likely, otherwise
Jehoshaphat, who used to disbelieve all such false prophets, could never
have been induced to accompany Ahab in these desperate circumstances.]

43 (return) [ This reading of Josephus, that Jehoshaphat put on not his
own, but Ahab's robes, in order to appear to be Ahab, while Ahab was
without any robes at all, and hoped thereby to escape his own evil fate,
and disprove Micaiah's prophecy against him, is exceeding probable. It
gives great light also to this whole history; and shows, that although
Ahab hoped Jehoshaphat would be mistaken for him, and run the only risk
of being slain in the battle, yet he was entirely disappointed, while
still the escape of the good man Jehoshaphat, and the slaughter of the
bad man Ahab, demonstrated the great distinction that Divine providence
made betwixt them.]

44 (return) [ We have here a very wise reflection of Josephus about
Divine Providence, and what is derived from it, prophecy, and the
inevitable certainty of its accomplishment; and that when wicked men
think they take proper methods to elude what is denounced against them,
and to escape the Divine judgments thereby threatened them, without
repentance, they are ever by Providence infatuated to bring about their
own destruction, and thereby withal to demonstrate the perfect veracity
of that God whose predictions they in vain endeavored to elude.]