Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

Q. What was the consequence of his apostacy? A. The Lord raised him up adversaries in the persons of Hadad the Edomite, and Rezon king of Damascus ; and, by the prophet Ahijah, appointed Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, to be king over ten tribes of Israel, after the death of Solomon. "Solomon sought therefore to

of God are denounced against the kings of Judah, because of these execrable holocausts. The scene of these sanguinary rites was the valley of the son of Hinnom, (which separated the mount of Olives from Jerusalem) called Tophet, either from the furnace in which the victims were devoted to the god, or from the drums by which their shrieks were over. powered. The Carthaginians also, a Phoenician colony, carried these inhuman practices to an extreme: being hard pressed in the war with Agathocles, the tyrant of Syracuse, they offered up, at one time, two hundred children of the first rank, to propitiate this bloody deity; and it was even accounted meritorious for mothers to show the utmost unconcern during the perform. ance of this horrid tragedy.-See ROLLIN's Anc. Hist. vol. i. book 2.

Solomon does not appear to have carried his apostacy to this extravagant length, but his posterity did, as the Jewish history expressly declares; because these rites formed a very principal part of the worship of Baal. 2 Chron xxxiii. 6. Jer. xix. 1-13.

Little is known relative to Chemosh, the god of Moab; but Mr. PARKHURST conjectures from Jerem. xlviii. 11–13, 26. that he may be identified with Comus, the god of revelry, of the Greek mythology, to whom, in name, he bears a very close resemblance. Ashtoreth, whose name occurs very early in Mosaic history, Gen. xiv. 5. is identified with the Io, Isis, Juno, Diana, and Venus or Astarte, of pagan superstition: and, according to GALE, (Court of the Gentiles, part 1. book 2, chap. 2.) was worshipped in Britain under the name of Adraste.

kill Jeroboam;" but he fled, and took refuge with Shishak the king of Egypt.

Q. Did Solomon find true felicity in the abundance of carnal pleasures he had provided for himself ›

A. No: after possessing every thing which wealth and power could procure, he declared, as the conviction of his judgment, that without the fear of God, life and all its pleasures were but "vanity and vexation of spirit." A. M. 3027. Q. How long did he reign over Israel? B. C. 977. A. Forty years.

Q. What were the literary works of this prince ? A. "He spake three thousand proverbs; and his songs were a thousand and five. And he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon, even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall: he spake also of beasts and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes." All these works, however, are lost, save a few of the proverbs "which the mer. of Hezekiah, king of Judah, copied out; and two or three of the songs. A. M. 3028. Q. Who succeeded Solomon ?

[ocr errors]

B. C. 976. A. Rehoboam, his son by Naamah the Ammonitess.

Q. By what was his accession followed?

A. The Israelites who had assembled at Shechem to make him king, caused Jeroboam, whom they had recalled from Egypt, to remonstrate with Rehoboam, in their name, against the burdens imposed upon them by Solomon. The king wishing to take counsel on the subject, requested them to come again on the third day. In the

* Prov. xxv. 1.

mean time he advised "with the old men that stood before Solomon his father ;" and they counselled him to serve them, and to give them good words: this opinion, however, he rejected; and adopted the advice of the young men that had grown up with him. Wherefore on the third day when the Israelites came to him, he said to them, "My father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions." They no sooner heard this than they withdrew their allegiance from Rehoboam; Adoram, whom he sent to remonstrate with them, was stoned; and the king, in great alarm, fled to Jerusalem.

A. M. 3028.

B. C. 976.

Rehoboam 1.

CHAPTER VII.

The kingdom of Israel.*

Q. By what was this revolt followed? A. The ten tribes immediately made Jeroboam king: wherefore Rehoboam went

* While the kingdom of the ten tribes subsisted,

Homer and Hesiod are said to have flourished ....B. C. 907

Lycurgus gave laws to Sparta......

884

Caranus, one of the Heraclidæ, founded the kingdom

[blocks in formation]

Nabonassar proclaimed himself king of Babylon, and burnt the annals of his predecessors

747

against them with a large army; but at the commandment of the Lord, by Shemaiah the prophet, his troops were disbanded, and sent home.

Q. Did Jeroboam serve the Lord?

:

A. No fearful of the return of the tribes to their allegiance to David's house, to which he supposed their going up thrice in the year to Jerusalem to worship might contribute, he set up a golden calf* at Dan, and another at Bethel, and thus taught the Israelites to forsake the Lord their God.

Q. Did he endeavour to conciliate the Levites ?

A. No he ordained for the service of his gods priests out of other tribes,† and thus "cast out the priests of the Lord." Moreover he "ordained a feast unto the children of Israel" on "the fifteenth day of the eighth month, in the month which he had devised of his own heart."

Q. How did the Lord manifest his displeasure against Jeroboam ?

A. He sent a prophet to Bethel to predict the defilement of the idolatrous altar by Josiah king of Judah. This duty he performed in presence of Jeroboam; and as a pledge of its fulfilment declared that the altar should

• Jeroboam's idolatry was state policy: he had no confidence in these gods, 1 Kings xiv. 1-4. The calf was a repetition of Aaron's offence.

Not priests of the lowest of the people, 1 Kings xii. 31. but out of all the people: the sin therefore consisted in putting into the priests' office persons not appointed by God.-Compare 1 Kings xii. 31. 2 Chron. xiii. 9. Heb. v. 4.

The ac

forthwith be rent and the ashes poured out. complishment of the predicted sign immediately followed; and the king, greatly irritated, endeavoured to seize the person of the prophet; but his hand, which he had stretched out for the purpose, instantly dried up. He therefore sought the prayers of the man of God, at whose intercession it was immediately restored.

Q. What befel this prophet?

A., Being deceived by another prophet, he disobeyed the word of the Lord. Therefore as he was returning home, he was slain by a lion.*

Q. Had Jeroboam any other iudication of the divine displeasure?

[ocr errors]

A. Yes his son Abijah falling sick, Jeroboam sent his wife in disguise to Shiloh, to ascertain from Ahijah the prophet, the result of his sickness. Ahijah, to whom the Lord had made known the design of the king, accosted her as she entered the door of his house, and announced to her the sentence of extirpation passed upon the family of Jeroboam, and the approaching death of Abijah.

Q. What wars did Jeroboam carry on?

A. He warred with Rehoboam and Abijam all his days. Q. What became of him?

A. After reigning two and twenty years, "the Lord struck him and he died;" and Nadab, his son, whom he had associated with himself in the government, reigned in his stead.

* See the story 1 Kings xiii. 1—25,

« ForrigeFortsæt »