DEATH OF AHAB.

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of the prophet, the king not only made no reply, but he put on sackcloth, and humbled himself. Nevertheless the sum of his iniquities was complete, and punishment came in due time upon him.

B. C. 897.-It was about this time that war was renewed between Israel and Syria. It continued three years, and was still in progress, when Jehoshaphat king of Judah went down to visit his allies and connections in Samaria. Ahab was in the act of preparing an expedition for the recovery of Ramoth-gilead, and Jehoshaphat agreed, after a slight demur, to attend him into the field. But no good came of the enterprise. In the battle which ensued, Ahab received a mortal wound, and Jehoshaphat with difficulty escaped amid the wreck of the defeated army. The Israelites carried Ahab, bleeding and faint, to his summer house at Jezreel, where he died. And the dogs literally drank his blood, as it fell on the road and was accumulated in the pool beside Naboth's vineyard, where the servants washed the chariot.

Ahab left the throne of Israel to his son Ahaziah, and with it the burden of sins in which the young man had been too faithfully reared.

CHAP. XXXII.

SECOND BOOKS OF KINGS AND OF

JEHORAM

RAEL.

CHRONICLES.

KING OF JUDAH. AHAB KING OF IS-
ELIJAH, AND ELISHA, THE PROPHETS.

B. C. 897.-THE events recorded in the preceding chapter occurred in the seventeenth year of the reign

of Jehoshaphat king of Judah: they made a deep impression upon his mind, and though it was too late to undo the evil which had been done in the alliance between his eldest son and the daughter of Ahab, Jehoshaphat strove as far as possible to guard against the consequences. He more and more devoted himself to the rooting out of idolatry and the instruction of the people, by public teachers, in God's law. It was a measure as prudent as it was righteous, for God forsook him not to the end of his days. When all his neighbours, the Moabites, Edomites, and the people of Seir, combined against him, God caused such differences to arise among themselves, that they destroyed one another, after they had taken the field, without once forcing the troops of Judah to strike a blow. The booty which was collected from the spoil of the slaughtered chiefs well nigh made up for the loss of the treasure wherewith Asa had purchased the safety of Jerusalem from the king of Egypt, and during the rest of Jehoshaphat's reign the land had peace.

B. C. 889. On the death of this good king, the sceptre passed to his eldest son, Jehoram. This young man had reached the thirty-third year of his age, and he was not slow in giving proof of the spirit which swayed him. He put the whole of his brothers, six in number, to death, and resigning himself absolutely to the guidance of Athaliah, his wife, filled the land with altars and images of Baal. He drew tighter, likewise, the alliance between Judah and Israel, sending succours to the latter in her wars against Syria. But a general revolt of all the neighbouring tribes who had paid his father tribute, forced him to look ere long to dangers nearer home: gainst these he made head but imperfectly; and he

of a painful and lingering disease, ere peace in any measure restored.

DEATH OF AHAZIAH. JORAM.

185

"Who

Meanwhile the state of Israel was lamentable in the extreme. Ahaziah, the successor of Ahab, surpassed his father in the enormity of his idolatries, and possessed little of his personal courage or conduct. Moab rebelled against him and defied his power, which, indeed, he had no time to exert; for he had not completed the second year of his reign, when an accident cut it short. He fell, one day, through a lattice or window into the court, and received a severe injury. Anxious about himself, he sent to inquire of Beelzebub, the god of Ekron, whether he might not survive; and became furious when the messenger, returning almost immediately, informed him that he could not. told you?" said the king. "A venerable man, arrayed in a garment of camel's hair, with a leathern girdle about his loins." "It is Elijah the prophet," exclaimed the sick man. "Send and smite him, or bring him here." Two companies, each of fifty men, were ordered, in succession, to perform this task; and they perished, one after the other, by fire. A third went out; and the officer humbling himself before the prophet, begged and obtained his own life and the lives of his men. the king gained nothing by his folly. Elijah came to the palace; upbraided Ahaziah with his idolatry, and told him that he should not recover. He died the same night, and left the throne to his brother Joram.

But

This Joram, or Jehoram (for the word is spelt both ways), ascended the throne ere Jehoshaphat king of Judah died. And he was assisted by Jehoshaphat, as well as by the Edomites, the tributaries to Judah, in re-establishing his authority over Moab. But the expedition, though it succeeded, was one of extreme danger and difficulty,

S

because the march of the allied troops carried them through the sandy deserts, where, but for the advice of Elisha the prophet, who accompanied them, they would have perished to a man. They dug deep trenches in the sand, into which the water filtered, and so saved their lives. But Joram soon forgot both the goodness of God and the momentary feeling of gratitude to which so remarkable a deliverance gave birth. He was not indeed, like his father, a worshipper of Baal; but the sins of Jeroboam he failed to take away; and his reign, besides being occupied in constant struggles, was in consequence cut short at the end of twelve years. It was during this interval that certain events befell, which must not be passed by unnoticed.

Elijah the prophet, when hiding in the desert from Ahab and Jezebel, had received, it will be borne in mind, various commissions from God, Some of these, though given in direct terms to himself, could hardly be executed except by his successor; and Elijah, therefore, seems to have done all that was required of him, in the appointment of Elisha to become the great prophet of Israel in his room. He found this man ploughing in the field. He cast his mantle upon him; and Elisha, comprehending the purpose of the act, left his plough in the furrow and followed the man of God. He then learned all that God had given him to execute, and he braced himself to do his duty.

Elisha and Elijah do not appear to have been always or even much together. On the contrary, the former, after being fully instructed in the part which he should be required to play, returned for a season to the college in Gilgal; and gave himself up, as was then the custom with prophetselect, to private meditation and frequent prayer.

ELIJAH. ELISHA.

187

He was thus employed when, on a certain day, in the beginning of the reign of Joram, Elijah came to salute him. They proceeded together round the various seminaries, that the venerable Elijah might take leave of the students, and then bent their steps towards the Jordan. Here Elijah would have parted from Elisha, but the latter would not. He insisted on sharing his master's fortunes to the end; and Elijah, thus importuned, permitted him to walk at his side. They reached the margin of the stream; and Elijah smiting the water with his cloak, it parted asunder, and they crossed dry shod. They moved a little deeper into the wilderness, when suddenly a vision appeared in the air as of a chariot of fire with horses. "My father, my father," exclaimed Elisha, as he gazed upwards, "the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof." The words were still in his mouth when Elijah mounted the car, and a whirlwind carried him out of the sight of his companion. In token, however, that God's spirit was not withdrawn from him, Elijah let fall his mantle on Elisha; and the latter, recrossing the Jordan, set about the performance of the great work to which he had been thus marvellously called.

B. C. 881. - Many wonderful things are recorded of Elisha. He conferred upon Jericho the benefit of fresh water, and taught the people how to render the land in its vicinity fruitful. He punished the people of Bethel, famous for their idolatries, by causing certain of their children who mocked him to be torn in pieces by bears. He delivered the sons of a poor widow from slavery, by miraculously supplying her with the means of paying a heavy debt. He besought God for a lady whose charities were very extensive, and God gave her a son, the one