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up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD: and the LORD spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land."

Q. Of what was this event a type?

A. Of the descent of Christ into the grave.

Q. What followed Jonah's deliverance ?

*

A. He was commanded a second time to go and prophecy the overthrow of Nineveh within forty days : which he did accordingly.†

Q. What was the consequence ›

A. The king and the nobles proclaimed a very strict fast; and they, and all the people, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth, and humbled themselves before the Lord. And "they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them, and he did it not."

Q. What followed this?

A. Jonah made himself a booth, and sat under it, eastward of the city, to watch its fall. Finding, however, that the Lord had extended mercy towards it, he was sore displeased, and prayed for death.

vessel with Jonah encountered the tempest, I have been witness to their existence, after the subsiding of a storm, in which, perhaps, the agitation of the waters roused these enormous monsters from their oozy beds, in the caverns of the deep." See WILSON's Travels in Egypt, &c.

Matt. xii. 39, 40.

+ Bishop Newton thinks that Jonah spoke this prediction during the reign of some Assyrian prince, anterior to any whose names are given in Scripture.

Q. How did the Lord condescend to convince Jonah of his folly?

A. Jonah being much annoyed by the heat, the Lord prepared a gourd which afforded him a refreshing shade. But the gourd being smitten the day following by a worm, withered; and Jonah, overcome by the heat, "wished in himself to die; and God said to Jonah, Dost thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said I do well to be angry even unto death."

Q. What reply did the Lord make to Jonah ?

A. "Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left, and also much cattle?"

A. M. 3237. Q. When did the interregnum of Israel B. C. 767.

cease?

Uzziah 38. A. In the thirty-eighth year of Uzziah, king of Judah, when Zachariah, the fourth generation from Jehu, ascended the throne of his father Jeroboam. After a short reign of six months, this prince was slain by Shallum, who usurped the throne.

A. M. 3238. Q. How long did Shallum reign?

B. C. 766. A. Only one month; being slain by Uzziah 39. Menahem, son of Gadi, who reigned in his stead.

Q. What acts of Menahem are recorded?

4. His extreme barbarity to the cities which did

not open to him; and the imposition of a tax of fifty shekels of silver upon all the wealthy Israelites, to raise a thousand talents of silver for Pul, king of Assyria, A. M. 3249. who had made war upon him. He reigned ten years, and left the kingdom to Pekahiah his son.

B. C. 755.
Uzziah 50.

A. M. 3251.

B. C. 753.
Uzziah

Q. How long did Pekahiah reign ?

A. Only two years: Pekah, one of his 52. captains, slew him in his palace, with fifty of the Gileadites, and reigned in his stead. Q. What war was undertaken by Pekah?

A. He fought with Rezin, king of Syria, against Judah, and in one battle slew one hundred thousand men, and carried into captivity a hundred thousand people, with much spoil.

Q. What became of the captives ?

A. By the advice of Oded, the prophet, some of the heads of the people insisted upon restoring them to liberty therefore, after having fed and clothed them, they sent them back to Samaria.

Q. What powerful monarch attacked Israel in this reign ?

A. Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria, "who took Ijon, and Abel-beth-maachah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and carried them captive to Assyria."

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Q. What befel Pekah?

After a reign of twenty years, he was slain by Hosea son of Elah; who, after

A. M. 3278.

B. C. 726.

Ahaz 12.

B. C. 720.

an interregnum of eight years, ascended the throne of Israel.

Q. Was his reign prosperous?

A. No: he was subdued by Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, to whom he became tributary until the A. M. 3284. seventh year of his reign. He then made an alliance with So, king of Egypt, Hezekiah 5. and brought no present to the king of Assyria.* Shalmaneser, therefore, seized his person, put him in prison, and encamped before Samaria. A. M. 3286. Q. What was the issue of the war ? B. C. 718. A. After a siege of three years, the city Hezekiah 7. fell into the hands of Shalmaneser, who "carried away Israelt captive into Assyria, and put them in Halah and in Habor, by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes." Thus ended the kingdom of Israel, three hundred and seventy-nine years after its commencement under Saul.‡

Q. Why did the Lord thus afflict the Israelites ?

A. "Because they obeyed not the voice of the LORD their God, but transgressed his covenant, and all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded, and would not hear them, nor do them."

Q. How were the Israelitish cities repeopled?

* See note (*) page 204.

+ This captivity must be understood of the mass of the people, because many Israelites were still left in the land. 2 Chron. xxxiv. 6, 9. See Chron. Table, No. 4.

A. The king of Assyria peopled them with men from Babylon, from Cuthah, from Ava, from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim. But because they feared not the Lord, he sent lions among them, which slew many of them. Q. What was the consequence ?

A. Believing that God was displeased because they had not rendered him due worship, they laid the matter before Shalmaneser, who thereupon sent one of the priests to "teach them the manner of the God of the land. Howbeit, every nation made gods of their own : -so these nations feared the LORD, and served their graven images, both their children, and their children's children."*

A. M. 3028.

CHAPTER VIII.

The kingdom of Judah.

Q. What was Rehoboam's first undertaking, after the separation of the ten Jeroboam 1. tribes ?

B. C. 976.

A. He built several cities and strong-holds for the defence of his kingdom.

Q. Did he serve the Lord ?

A. Yes; for a short time: but when he thought his kingdom established, he forsook the law of the Lord.

* These people were the ancestors of the Samaritans whom the Jews so much detested.-See the sequel.

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