A. M. 3001. A. C. 1003; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 4522. A. C. 889. 1 KINGS viii. TO THE END OF 2 CHRON. was not all; for no sooner was the Syrian army departed, | talents; but, & by the direction of a prophet whom God but the distemper, or rather that complication of distempers, wherewith, some time before, God had afflicted Joash, grew worse and worse; so that being confined to his bed, two of his own servants, Zabad and Jehozabad, conspired against him, and a slew him; who, after a reign of forty years, was succeeded by his son Amaziah, and buried in the city of David, but not in the royal sepulchres.

Amaziah was five and twenty years old when he began to reign, and for some time behaved tolerably well, though he followed the example of his ancestors in letting the high places stand, and in suffering the people to offer sacrifice and burn incense there. e As soon as he found himself settled in the throne, he very justly took revenge of the two traitors that had murdered his father: but their children he did not touch, because it was contrary to the law that children should be put to death for their fathers.' About four and fifty years before his accession, the Edomites had revolted, in the reign of Jehoram, from the kingdom of Judah; and therefore, having a design to reduce them to their former subjection, he new-modelled and new-officered his army, and upon a general muster found them to be no less than 300,000 fighting men: but, thinking these too few for his intended expedition, he hired of the king of Israel 100,000 more, for whom he ƒ paid him 100

Deut. xxiv. 16.

a These two murderers, (mongrel fellows, whose fathers were Jews, but their mothers aliens,) perhaps were of his bedchamber; and, having constant access to the king, might more easily accomplish their design: however, he was so weak and feeble that he could make no resistance, and had fallen into that contempt and disesteem, that his guards minded not what became of him. -Patrick's Commentary.

Though the people could not punish wicked kings for their impieties while they lived, yet they fixed an odium upon their memory when they were dead; whereby they both preserved the sacredness of their supreme power, (as Grotius, On the Law of War and Peace, b. i. c. 3. sect. 16. speaks,) and kept kings in some measure under awe for fear of what might befall them after their decease.-Patrick's Commentary.

c It seems that these two assassins continued to be men of weight and interest at court, even after they had murdered their king; for his son, we may observe from 2 Kings xiv. 8. retained them in his service for some time, nor durst he venture to execute justice upon them, until he was well settled in his authority, and had divested those of all power who were their friends and abettors.-Patrick's Commentary.

d In this he acted like a good man, and contrary to the wicked customs of many kingdoms, where, if any one be guilty of high treason, not only he, but his children likewise, who are neither conscious nor partakers of any of his traitorous practices, are equally devoted to destruction, lest they, forsooth, should form any faction against the prince, or seek revenge for their father's death.-Le Clerc's Commentary.

sent to him on purpose to dissuade him from employing these auxiliaries, they were, with much ado, discharged, and himself went in person against the Edomites with none but his own men, the people of Judah. However, being thus shamefully dismissed, as they thought, they were not a little exasperated against Amaziah; and therefore, in their return home, they plundered all the towns in their way, killed no less than 3000 men, and carried away a considerable booty, to make an amends for the plunder they had promised themselves in the Edomitish war.

i

h

Amaziah, as we said, with none but his own forces, marched against the Edomites. In the valley of salt he gave them battle, slew 10,000 upon the spot, and took 10,000 prisoners. From thence he marched to Selah, the metropolis of Arabia Petræa, of which he soon became master, and from the top of the rock whereon the town stood, threw the ten thousand he had taken prisoners headlong, so that they were all dashed to pieces.k

the cities of Judah, from Samaria even unto Beth-horon, 2 Chron. xxv. 13.) They went very probably first to Samaria, where they complained to their own king of the bad treat ment they had received from Amaziah, and desired some reparation to be made them for the affront put upon them, and the loss of the profit which they might have made in the war; but, finding him not inclinable to make them satisfaction, they immediately fell foul upon the territories of Judah, and, from Samaria, for that is the place of their setting out, even to Bethhoron, a town not far distant from Jerusalem, ravaged the country, and did the mischief here mentioned; which they might more easily do, because the war with Edom had drained the country of all the forces that should have opposed them.Patrick's and Calmet's Commentaries on 2 Chron. xxv. 6. 13. g The Jews will needs have it, that this prophet was Amos, the father of Isaiah; but their tradition is built upon a mistake, namely, that Amos the prophet was Isaiah's father.

h This valley lay towards the land of Edom, and was so called, either from the salt springs which were therein, or from the salt that was dug up there.—Patrick's Commentary on 2 Sam, viii. 13.

i Selah, in the Hebrew tongue, signifies a rock, and so exactly answers to the Greek word petra, that most commentators, wita very good reason, have agreed, that this Selah is the same with Petra, the metropolis of Arabia Petræa, and from whence, as some imagine, the whole country took its name; though others think, that, as this city had its situation on a rock, so the acjocent tract was called Arabia Petræa from its being overspress with such rocks, or rocky hills.—Wells' Geography of the Od Testament, vol. iii.

That this was an ancient punishment among the Romans, we may learn from Livy, Plutarch, and several others; as Mr Selden (de Synedriis, b. 1.) observes, that it was in use among other nations; but we do not find it commonly practised among the Jews. It is not in the catalogue of the punishments which Moses enacts; neither was it ever inflicted by any regular judicature; and therefore one would think that the Edomites, either by some such like cruelty to the people of Judah, had provoked them to make a retaliation in this manner, or that they were, in their very

e Hence some have made an observation, how much the iniquities of the people of Judah had diminished their numbers since the days of Jehoshaphat, which was a space of but eighty-disposition, so apt to revolt, that there could be no keeping them two years: for this king could bring no more than 300,000 men into the field; whereas Jehoshaphat brought almost four times as many. Patrick's Commentary.

f If these be reckoned for talents of silver, as they generally are, each talent, at 125 pounds weight, and each pound weight at £4 in value, the whole will amount to £50,000 sterling, which will be but ten shillings to each man, officers included, Very low pay! unless we suppose, that this whole sum was given to the king of Israel for the loan of so many men, and that the men were to have their pay besides; or rather, that they were to have no other pay but the booty which they took from the enemy; and that this was the true reason why they were so exasperated at their dismission, as to fall upon

in subjection, without some such sad exemplary punishment as this.-Calmet's Dissert. on Punishments, and Le Clerc's Com mentary on 2 Chron. xxv. 12.

k 2 Chron. xxv. 12. This mode of punishment was practised by the Greeks and Romans, as well as the Jews. In Greece, according to the Delphian law, such as were guilty of sacrilege were led to a rock, and cast down headlong. (Ælian, Vor. Hist. b. xi. c. 5.) The Romans also inflicted it on various malefactors, by casting them down from the Tarpeian rock. (Lity Hist. b. vi. c. 20.) Mr Pitts, in his account of the Mahometans, (p. 10,) informs us, that in Turkey, at a place called Constantine, a town situate at the top of a great rock, the usual way of exe cuting great criminals is by pushing them off the cliff. This

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But his cruelty to the captives was not the worse thing | triumph, plundered the temple and palace of all that he was guilty of in this expedition. In his return, he a was valuable, laid a tax upon the land, carried off' hosbrought with him the idols of Edom, to which he paid tages for the security of the payment; and that, in case adoration, and offered incense; which thing provoked of any failure in this respect, the city might lie open to the Lord so, that he sent a prophet to reprove him for his invasions, he broke down all the fortifications of the his apostasy, and to threaten him with the destruction wall, from the gate of Ephraim to the corner gate, about which in a short time came to pass. For, being now 400 cubits in length, and so returned to Samaria. elated with his success against the Moabites, and resenting the affront which the Israelitish army had lately put upon him, he sent Joash king of Israel a challenge to meet and engage him in a pitched battle.

a Idolatry, at the best, can no ways be apologized for; but no reason can be invented, why any person should make the objects of bis adoration such gods as could not deliver their own people out of their enemies' hands,' as the prophet very justly reproves Amaziah, (2 Chron. xxv. 15.), unless we suppose that the images of these gods were so very beautiful, that he perfectly fell in love with them, or that he worshipped them for fear they should owe him a spite, and do him some mischief, in revenge for what he had done against the Edomites. How much more wise were the sentiments of Fabricius Maximus, upon the like occasion, who, having conquered Tarentum, and being asked, what should be done with their gods? bid them leave them with the Tarentines, "for what madness is it," as he adds, "to hope for any safety from those who cannot preserve themselves ?"-Patrick's Com-upon any other terms than that the citizens of Jerusalem should mentary.

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e

king of Judah, the prophet Elisha fell sick of a disease, | Elisha's tomb, which, as soon as it had touched his whereof he died. The king of Israel, upon this occa- body, immediately revived, so that the man stood upon sion, came to visit him; and having much a lamented his feet, and went home, no doubt, with the company. the loss which all Israel would have by his death, he This miracle, which was a divine confirmation of the received his blessing, and dying counsel to wage war truth of all Elisha's prophecies, could not fail of being against the Syrians with all courage and bravery; giving a powerful means to encourage Jehoash in his engaging him assurance, and, by the emblem of a bow and arrows, in war with the Syrians. Nor was his success less than making him sensible of the several victories which God the prediction; for, ƒ in three pitched battles he vanhad decreed that he should obtain. quished Benhadad, (his father Hazael being then dead,) recovered all the cities that had been taken from his father Jehoahaz, and reunited them to the kingdom of Israel. After this he lived quiet from all enemies, until Amaziah king of Judah gave him the small disturbance we have spoken of: but, after the victory which he gained over him, we hear no more of his appearing in the field, may therefore conclude that, after a reign of sixteen years, he died in peace, and was succeeded in his throne by his son Jeroboam.

This was the last prediction of Elisha that we read of, for soon after this he died; but it was not the last miracle that we find he did: for, some time after his interment, a company of Israelites, as they were going to bury a dead person, perceiving a band of Moabites making towards them, d put the corpse for haste into

a His words are, My father! my father! the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof,' (2 Kings xiii. 14.) which are the very same that Elisha used concerning his master Elijah, when he was taken up into heaven, (2 Kings ii. 12.) signifying the great authority he had maintained among them, included in the word father, and the many glorious victories which he had obtained for them, by the efficacy of his counsels and prayers.Patrick's Commentary.

and

In the fifteenth year of Amaziah king of Judah, this Jeroboam, the second of that name, began to reign over Israel, and by the encouragement which the prophet

where the place of his sepulture was. Hereon some have imaginb This was a symbolical action, whereby the prophet intended ed, that he was carried to Abelmeholah, the place of his nativity, to to represent the victories, which he had promised the king of Israel be there interred among his ancestors: others think that he was against the Syrians more fully and plainly to him. His shooting at first buried on Mount Carmel, a favourite place of his, and the first arrow eastward, or to that part of the country which the afterwards removed to Samaria: others again say, that he was Syrians had taken from his ancestors, was a declaration of war buried at Nineveh; and, to this very day, the inhabitants show against them for so doing; and his striking the other arrows his monument at Mosul, which was built, as they say, upon the against the ground, was an indication how many victories he was very same spot where old Nineveh stood. But the most prevailto obtain; but his stopping his hand too soon, denoted the imper- ing opinion, founded upon a constant tradition, is, that he was fection of his conquests, which did not please the prophet so well, buried somewhere in the neighbourhood of Samaria, because there, and for what reason we shall see in the course of the objections.in all appearance, he died. The tomb, however, that is usually Le Clerc's Commentaries. ["It was an ancient custom to shoot an arrow or cast a spear into the country which an army intended to invade. Justin says that, as soon as Alexander the Great had arrived on the coasts of Ionia, he threw a dart into the country of the Persians. • When they had reached the continent, Alexander first threw a javelin as if upon a hostile land.' (Just. b. ii.) The dart, spear, or arrow thrown, was an emblem of the commencement of hostilities. Virgil (Æn. ix. 51.) represents Turnus as giving the signal of attack by throwing a spear:

"Who first," he cried, "with me the foe will dare?" Then hurled a dart, the signal of the war.

Pitt.

Servius, in his note upon this place, shows that it was a custom to proclaim war in this way: the pater patratus, or chief of the feciales, a sort of heralds, went to the confines of the enemy's country, and, after some solemnities, said with a loud voice, I wage war with you, for such and such reasons:' and then threw in a spear. It was then the business of the parties thus defied or warned to take the subject into consideration; and if they did not, within thirty days, come to some accommodation, the war was begun.-Dr A. Clarke's Commentary.—ED.

e These Moabites were not such a gang of robbers as sometimes infest our roads, but a regular body of men, well appointed, and under proper officers, to the number of a small army, who made incursions into the territories of Judah and Israel, generally at the beginning of the year, which is the season proper for armies to take the field; and therefore some have observed that the month Nisan, which, with the Jews, is the first in their year, had its name from Nisim, which signifies the engines of war,' which were usually set up in that month; in like manner as the month, which we call March, and, in part, answers to the Jewish Nisan, had its name among the Romans from Mars, their god of war; because most nations, at that time, began their military expeditions.—Patrick's and Calmet's Commentaries.

d The common places of burying among the Hebrews, were in the fields, in caverns dug into a rock, with niches for the corpses to be placed in, and, at the entrance of the sepulchre, there was a hewn stone, which might be removed or replaced without any damage to the tomb. The Jews, as Josephus informs us, gave Elisha a pompous and honourable interment, answerable to the dignity and merit of so great a prophet; but he does not tell us

shown for his in that city, can be nothing more than the reposi-
tory of his remains, since his original burying-place was cer-
tainly at some distance from it.-Jewish Antiq. b. ix, c. 9.
e Josephus, in his account of this transaction, varies a little
from the sacred history: for "it happened, after Elisha's burial,"
says he, "that a traveller was killed upon the way by some
thieves, and his body thrown into Elisha's monument, which,
upon the bare touch of the prophet's corpse, instantly revived.”
The Jewish doctors, who love to improve upon every miracle,
tell us that this person, whom they pretend to call Sellum, after
he was revived, did presently die again, because he was a wicked
man, and did not deserve to live long; never considering, that
his hasty death afterwards was the ready way to impair the credit
of the miracle, and make it indeed of no effect. However this
may be, it is certain, that by this miracle, as we find it related
in Scripture, God did the highest honour to his prophet, and
confirmed the truth of what he had promised to the king of Israel.
as well as the certainty of a future life; in which sense some
part of the character, which the author of Ecclesiasticus, (chap.
xlviii. 12,) gives him, may not improperly be understood:
Elisha was filled with Elijah's spirit; whilst he was not moved
with the presence of any prince, neither could any bring him
into subjection: no word could overcome him; and after his
death his body prophesied: he did wonders in his life, and at his
death were his works marvellous."—Jewish Antiq. b. ix. c. 9. and
Calmet's Commentary.

f We have no particulars of the war between Jehoash and the Syrians, nor can we tell where these three battles were fought; but the success of them was so great, that the king of Israel not only retook all the places that had been lost in his own dominions, but repulsed the enemy into their own country, and there obtained a signal victory over them.-Patrick's Commentary,

9 The only mention we have of this prophet, whom the Jews will have to be the son of the widow of Zarephtha, whom Elijah raised from the dead, but without any foundation of reason, is in this passage, and the account of his famous mission to Nineveh, What the prophecies were, whereby he encouraged Jeroboam to proclaim war against the king of Syria, we have no where recorded; but as we have not every thing which the prophets did write, so several prophets, we must know, did not commit their predictions to writing, From this place, however, we may observe

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Jonah gave him, proved successful in many military achievements. He recovered a large territory, which several kings had taken from his predecessors, even all the country from Libanus on the north, to the Lake Asphaltites, on the south; but especially on the east of Jordan, whereby he enlarged those conquests which his father Joash had made: and whereas Hamath and Damascus had, in the days of David and Solomon, been tributaries to the kings of Judah, but had now revolted from Israel, he conquered them again, and a made them pay homage to him, as they had formerly done to his predecessors. So that, after a long reign of one and forty years, wherein his arms were all along successful, he died in much honour and renown, and was buried with his ancestors; but whether it was through wars abroad, or through discord and dissention at home, he left the government in such confusion, that after his decease, there was an interregnum for the space of two and twenty years.

During the time of this interregnum, Jonah, d the son of Amittai, who had prophesied before, in the time of Jeroboam, was now sent upon another errand. His commission was expressly to Nineveh, whither he was to go, and to exhort the inhabitants to repentance, bethat God was very merciful to the Israelites, though they were certainly a very wicked people, in continuing a race of prophets among them, even after Elisha was dead.-Patrick's Comment.

a Some are of opinion, that when Jeroboam reconquered these two chief cities of Syria, he restored them to the kingdom of Judah because they belonged to it of right, and reserved to himself only a small tribute to be paid him by the way of acknowledgment. This is what the original Hebrew, as well as the Chaldee and Septuagint versions seem to favour: but the Syriac and Arabic translators have omitted the word Judah, and may therefore be supposed to think, as several others do, that Jeroboam kept to himself all those places which he had recovered at his own hazard and expense.-Calmet's Commentary.

This was much longer than any of the kings of Israel had reigned; for even Jehu himself, though his reign was longer than that of any who went before him, reigned but twenty-eight years; God having on purpose prolonged this prince's reign, because he was not minded to blot out the name of Israel from under heaven,' but to save them by his hand.-2 Kings xiv. 27.

e The prophet Amos, who lived in the reign of this prince, was accused by Amaziah the priest of Bethel, for prophesying that Jeroboam should die by the sword;' but Amos never made any such prediction. It was a false accusation which this idolatrous priest sent against him, because he was desirous, to have him removed out of the way.-Amos. vii. 10, &c.

d It is a very common opinion among the Jews, as we said, that Jonah was the widow of Zarephtha's son; and this opinion they found upon the words of the mother, when she received her son alive from the prophet's hand: By this I know, that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth,' (1 Kings xvii. 24.) for therefore, say they, was the child called the son of Amittai; because Amittai signifies truth: a weak reason, God wot! and such as is plainly repugnant to the testimony of Scripture. For this we know for certain, that Jonah lived in the reigns of Joash and Jeroboam the Second, kings Israel, and therefore could not be the widow of Zarephtha's son, since the former of these princes did not begin to reign till sixty years after the translation of Elijah. Others pretend that he was son to the Shunamite woman, whom the prophet Elisha raised from the dead; but Shunam and Gath-hepher, where we are certain Jonah was born, were two quite different places, the former in the tribe of Issachar, the other in that of Zebulun; and therefore, we may conclude, that Amittai was the proper name of Jonah's father, who lived in a little canton of the tribe of Zebulun, called Hepher or Hopher, wherein was the town of Gath, which is generally believed to be the same with Jotapata, so famous for the siege which Josephus the Jewish historian, there maintained against the Roman army, a little before the destruction of Jerusalem.--Calmet's Preface on Jonah, and his Dictionary under the word.

cause the cry of their sins had reached heaven.' But instead of obeying the divine command, the sacred history informs us that he bent his course another way, and intending to retire to Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, embarked at Joppa, e a seaport on the Mediterranean; that as as soon as he had well got to sea, an unaccountable storm arose which gave the mariners a suspicion, that some great malefactor was got on board, upon whose account the heavens seemed so very angry; that therefore calling all the people together, they made them cast lots, in order to know who this guilty person was; that when the lot fell upon Jonah, he freely owned, that he was a Jew, who worshipped the God of heaven, and not only a Jew, but a prophet likewise, who had been ordered to go to Nineveh, but was now endeavouring to flee from the divine presence; that since he found it was impossible to do that, and every one's life, upon his account, was in such imminent danger, he wished them to throw him overboard, as the only way to appease the storm; that with some reluctancy, the seamen did it, whereupon there immediately ensued a calm, which struck the

e Joppa is a seaport town in Palestine, upon the Mediterranean, and was formerly the only port which the Jews had upon that coast, whither all the materials that were sent from Tyre, towards the building of Solomon's temple, were brought and landed. The town itself is very ancient; for profane authors reckon it was built before the flood, and derive the name of it from Joppa, the daughter of Elolas, and the wife of Cepheus, who was the founder of it. Others are rather inclined to believe, that it was built by Japhet, and from him had the name of Japho, which was afterwards moulded into Joppa, but is now generally called Jaffa, which comes nearer to the first appellation. The town is situated in a fine plain, between Jamnia to the south, Cæsarea of Palestine to the north, and Rama or Ramula, to the east; but at present is in a poor and mean condition; nor is its port by any means good, by reason of the rocks which project into the sea. The chief thing for which this place was famous, in ancient pagan history, is the exposition of Andromeda, the daughter of Cepheus king of Egypt, who, for her mother's pride, was bound to a rock, in order to be devoured by a sea monster, but was delivered by the valour and bravery of Perseus, who afterwards married her; for in the times of Mela and Pliny, there were some marks remaining, as they themselves testify, namely, Mela, b. i. c. 11; Pliny, b. v. c. 13; Joseph, on the Jewish Wars, b, iii. c. 15, of the chains wherewith this royal virgin was bound to the rock which projects into the sea. But all this is mere fiction, first founded upon the adventure of Jonah, who set sail from this port, and then improved with the accession of some particular circumstances. Calmet's Commentary on Jonah, i. 3.

f The Jewish doctors, who are great lovers of prodigies, are not even satisfied with what they meet with in this history of Jonah, but have over and above added, that as soon as the ship, wherein he was embarked, was under sail, it all on a sudden stood stock still, so that it could be made to move neither backward nor forward, notwithstanding all the pains that the mariners took in rowing: but others, with more probability say, that while all the rest of the ships were quiet and unmolested, the storm fell upon none but that wherein Jonah was, which made the seamen think that there was something miraculous in it; and thereupon called upon the company that sailed with them, to come and cast lots, as the superstitious custom among the heathens was, whenever they were in any great distress: that accordingly they cast lots three different times, which still fell upon Jonah; and that they let him down several times with a rope, without plunging him into the sea, and as often as they did it, found the storm abate, and whenever they pulled him up again, found it increase: so that at last they were forced to commit him to the mercy of the waves: all which are circumstances which the Scripture account neither favours nor contradicts.—Calmet's Commentary.

g The people of the east have a tradition, that it was not above four leagues from Joppa, over against Antipatris, that the seamen threw Jonah overboard.

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people with such devotion, that they offered a sacrifice to | by its spreading leaves so shaded his booth from the the Lord, and made their vows; that in the mean while heat of the sun, that it pleased him much; but being God had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah, in next morning gnawed by a worm, it withered away, whose belly he continued for three days and three nights, which so fretted the impatient man, that he even desired and then upon his supplications to heaven, was thrown to die; and that hereupon God took occasion to exposout upon the shore; that being thus wonderfully deliver- tulate with him, and show him the unreasonableness of ed, he disputed the divine command no longer, but his repining at the loss of a plant, which cost him nomade the best of his way to Nineveh, which, at that time, thing, which rises in one night, and dies in another, and was a very large city, and having got into the heart of yet having no concern or commiseration for the destrucit, delivered his message, namely, that within forty days tion of a populous city, wherein there were above that city should be destroyed, with great boldness and 120,000 innocent babes, and consequently the number intrepidity; that the people of Nineveh, believing this of all its inhabitants vastly large; and with this way of message to be sent from God, proclaimed a a most solemn reasoning, d we may suppose, he reconciled his prophet's fast, and from the highest to the lowest, putting on wayward thoughts to this his merciful method of prosackcloth, and addressing their prayers to God, showed ceeding. But to return to the affairs of Judah. such tokens of sorrow and repentance, that he reversed After the murder of Amaziah at Lachish, Uzziah, who their doom, or at least deferred it for some years; that likewise called Azariah, in the sixteenth year of his Jonah being sore displeased at this, as fearing that it which was in the seven and twentieth year of the might bring some disgrace upon his prophetic office, after some expostulations with God, retired out of the city, and having built him a booth, sat under the cover of it, to see what the end would be; that while he was here, God caused a gourd to spring hastily up, which

b

a The history tells us, that by a decree from the king and his nobles, neither man nor beast, neither herd nor flock were allowed to taste any thing, but were kept up from feeding and drinking water,' (Jonah iii. 7.) This was carrying their abstinence to a greater severity than what we find practised among the Jews. For though in times of public calamity, and on the day of solemn expiation, we find that they made their children fast, as we may gather from Joel ii. 16, yet we nowhere read of their extending that rigour to their cattle. Virgil indeed, in one of his eclogues, brings in a shepherd, telling his companion, that for the death of Julius Cæsar, the mourning was so general, that even the sheep and other creatures were not driven to water. But then the question is, whether this may not be looked upon as a poetical exaggeration. From Homer, and some other ancient authors, we learn, that when any hero, or great warrior died, the custom was to make his horses fast for some time, and to cut off part of their hair; nor may we forget mentioning, what some historians tell us, of the people inhabiting the Canaries and Peru, namely, that in times of great drought, they shut up their sheep and goats, without giving them any thing to eat, upon presumption that their loud cries and bleating will reach heaven, and prevail with God to give them rain.-Horn on the Origin of the American Nations, b. 2. c. 13.

The text tells us of the king of Nineveh, that upon the preaching of Jonah, he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes,' (Jonah iii. 6,) and, what is pretty strange, some have thought, that the king thus penitent upon this occasion, was Sardanapalus, a man famous among heathen authors for his luxury and riches, and in whose reign the famous city of Nineveh was taken by Arbaces and Belesis. But others, with more probability, suppose, that it was Pul, the father of this Sardanapalus, whom some heathen authors call Anabaxarus, and others Anacyndaraxus. For, as he died, according to Usher, about the year of the world 3237, he might be upon the throne in the reign of Jeroboam II. king of Israel, which was the time when Jonah was sent to Nineveh.-Calmet's Commentary, and Usher at A. M. 3254.

e The word Kikajon, by the Septuagint, Arabic, and Syriac versions, is called a gourd; but most of the ancient Greek translators, following St Jerome in this particular, choose rather to render it ivy. St Jerome, however, acknowledges, that the word ivy does not answer the signification of the Hebrew Kikajon, though he thinks it much better in this place than a gourd, which, growing close to the earth, could not have shaded Jonah from the heat of the sun; for the Kikajon, according to him, is a shrub which grows in the sandy places of Palestine, and increases so suddenly, that in a few days it comes to a considerable height. It is supported by its trunk, without being upheld by any thing else; and by the thickness of its leaves, which re

is

age,

semble those of a vine, affords, in hot weather, a very agreeable best judges say the ricinus or palma Christi, from which we get shade.-Calmet's Dictionary, under the word Kikajon. [“The what is vulgarly called castor oil, is here meant. It is a tree as large as the olive, has leaves which are like those of the vine, and is also quick of growth. This in all probability was the plant in question, which had been already planted, though it had not attained its proper growth, and was not then in full leaf. Celsus, in his Hierobot., says it grows to the height of an olive tree; the trunk and branches are hollow like a kex, and the leaves sometimes as broad as the rim of a hat. It must be of a soft or spurgy substance, for it is said to grow surprisingly fast. See Tayl under the root pp. 1670. But it is evident there was something supernatural in the growth of this plant, for it is stated to have come up in a night; though the Chaldee understands the pas sage thus: "It was here last night and is withered this night." In one night it might have blown, and expanded its leaves cosiderably, though the plant had existed before, but not in fa bloom till the time that Jonah required it for a shelter.]-Dr A. Clarke's Commentary.—ED.

d The book of Jonah ends as abruptly as it begins: it begins with a conjunctive copulative, and the word of the Lord came upon Jonah,' so it should be read, which has made some commentators think, that it was but an appendix to some of his other writings; and it ends without giving us any manner of account, either what became of the Ninevites, or of Jonah himself, after this expedition. It is likely indeed, from the compassionata expressions which God makes use of towards the Ninevites, tai for that time he reversed their doom: and it is not improbable that Jonah, when be had executed his commission, and been satisfied by God concerning his merciful procedure, returned into Judea; but the author of the lives and deaths of the prephets, who goes under the name of Epiphanius, tells us, that, returning from Nineveh, and being ashamed to see that his pre diction was not fulfilled, he retired with his mother to the cy of Tyre, where he lived in the plain of Sear, until he died, and was buried in the cave of Ceneze us, judge of Israel; but whethe author means by Cenezeus, unless it be Caleb, who is frequeray surnamed the Kenezite, though we do not read of his being ever a judge of Israel, or rather Othniel, who was the son of Kenar, and one that judged Israel, we cannot tell.-Caimet's Dictions } under the word Jonah, and Howell's History, in the notes. e The words are much of the same siguification; for the former signifies the strength, and the other the help of God.

f Commentators have been at a good deal of trouble to recce cile a seeming contradiction in this computation. For if Am ziah, the father of Azariah, lived but fifteen years, after the beginning of Jeroboam's reign, as appears from 2 Kings xiv. 17. then Azariah must begin his reign, not in the twenty-seven but, if he succeeded his father immediately, in the sixteenth, of fifteenth rather, of Jeroboam; but our learned Dr Lightfoot scives this at once, by supposing, that there was an interreguur. wherein the throne was vacant eleven, or rather twelve year between the death of Amaziah and the inauguration of his s Azariah, who being left an infant of four years old when his late died, was committed to the guardianship of the grandees of the