A. M. 3246. A. C. 758; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 4686. A. C. 725. 1 KINGS viii. TO THE END OF 2 CHRON. the same manner as did the pot of manna, and Aaron's rod, for a monument of God's miraculous mercy to the Israelites in their passage through the wilderness; but, because the preceding times of iniquity had made it an object of idolatrous worship, Hezekiah thought proper to destroy it, in order to take away all occasion of the like abuse for the future. Having thus removed all the objects of idolatry, he took care in the next place to restore the temple worship to its ancient splendour and purity. To this purpose he put the priests and Levites in their courses, and appointed every one his proper ministration. The tithes and first fruits, which idolatrous princes had detained, on purpose to bring the priesthood into poverty, and thence into contempt, he returned to the church; and a out of his own privy purse, as we say, ordered the expenses of the daily oblations, as well as of the larger offerings on the great festivals of the year to be defrayed.

He was succeeded by his son Sennacherib, who, as soon as he was settled on the throne, renewed the demand for the tribute, and upon Hezekiah's refusing to comply, marched a great army into Judea, in order to fall upon him.

Upon these, and several other accounts, Hezekiah deserved the title of one of the best of kings that ever reigned in Judah; nor was God in the least wanting to reward his piety in a most signal manner. For, while Salmaneser was engaged in the siege of Samaria, he warred against the Philistines, and not only regained all the cities of Judah, which they had seized during the time that Pekah and Rezin jointly distressed the land, but also dispossessed them of almost all their own territories, except Gaza and Gath.

As soon as the siege of Samaria was over, Salmaneser sent to Hezekiah to demand the tribute which his father Ahaz had agreed to pay to the kings of Assyria; but Hezekiah refused to pay it; which would doubtless have brought the Assyrian upon him, with all his power, had he not been diverted by the war he entered into against Tyre, and died before he had put an end to it.

are some who acknowledge the cheat, and disclaim it.—Le Clerc's Commentary and Prideaux's Connection, anno 726.

d Not long before this, Hezekiah was taken with a sore illness, and had a message from God, by the prophet Isaiah, to settle his affairs and prepare for death; but, upon his great concern, and hearty prayer to God, he obtained another message from him by the same prophet, promising him a reprieve for fifteen years longer, and a deliverance from the Assyrians, who were then coming against him. Both these were events beyond his expectation; and therefore, to give him a full assurance of faith, God, at his request, made the sun go backward ten degrees upon the sun-dial that Ahaz had erected; and when, by the prophet's directions, a plaster of figs was applied to his ulcer, he recovered in the space of three days, and went up to the temple to return God thanks for so wonderful a deliverance.

Upon Hezekiah's recovery, Merodach-Baladan king of Babylon sent ambassadors to congratulate him, and at the same time to enter into an alliance with him against Sennacherib, whose growing power the Babylonians, as well as the Jews, had reason to fear: and Hezekiah was so taken with the honour done him upon this occa sion, that, out of the vanity and pride of his heart, he showed the ambassadors all the wealth and strength

war which Hezekiah had lately made upon them, laid hold on the
opportunity to reduce Gath, which had some time before revolted
from under his obedience. Hereupon the people of Gath,
against the Tyrians.
applying themselves to Salmaneser, engaged him in their cause
He soon took several of their cities, and
at length closely besieged their capital: but before he could carry
the place, which held out for five years, he died, and by that
means gave some respite to Hezekiah.-Prideaux's Connection,
anno 720.

d In the course of the sacred history, this sickness of Hezekiah's is placed immediately after the defeat and death of Sennacherib; a After that David had brought the ark of the Lord into the whereas it plainly happened before that time, because in the mestent which he had pitched for it, near his own palace, the Scrip- sage which God sent him upon his bed of sickness by the prophet ture seems to intimate, (1 Chron. xvi. 1.) that he divided the Isaiah, he promises to deliver Jerusalem out of the hands of the priests and Levites into two bodies; one of which he left at Gi- king of Assyria,' (2 Kings xx. 6.) The truth of the matter isbeah, to attend in the tabernacle which Moses made; and the Hezekiah reigned in all nine and twenty years, (2 Kings xviii. other he took with him to Jerusalem. And from this time, it is 2.) He had already reigned fourteen years, when Sennacherib highly probable, that out of his own estate he supplied whatever invaded him (2 Kings xviii. 13.), and after his sickness he conwas necessary for the sacred ministry of this his domestic taber-tinued to reign fifteen years (2 Kings xx. 6.), so that his sickness nacle on Mount Sion. When Solomon had built the temple, he obliged himself to defray all the expenses, both ordinary and extraordinary, of the altar, (2 Chron. viii. 13.) And, in like manner, upon the rebuilding of the temple, at the return from the captivity, Ezekiel assigns a proper revenue to the king, to answer the expense of all sacrifices, both stated and occasional, (chap. xlvi.) so that Hezekiah in this did properly no more than what was incumbent on him; though several of his idolatrous predecessors had doubtless withdrawn the fund appropriated to that purpose, which made it so commendable in him to restore it to its proper channel.—Culmet's and Patrick's Commentaries,

The words in the text are,-'So that, after him, was none like him amongst all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him, (2 Kings xviii. 5.) Now it is plain that the same commendation is given of Josiah, namely, that like unto him was there no king before him, which turned to the Lord, with all his heart, &c., neither after him arose there any like him,' (2 Kings xxiii. 25.) So that this character of Hezekiah must relate to some particular virtue wherein he stood distinguished from the rest of the kings of Judah, and that was, his trusting in the Lord God of Israel,' as it is in the beginning of the verse, and not in the help of any foreign forces, as all the other kings, even the most renowned for their piety, in some measure, are known to have done.-Calmet's Commentary.

с The king of Tyre finding the Philistines brought low by the

must have happened in the very same year that the king of As syria invaded his kingdom; but the sacred penman deferred the account he was to give of that, until he had finished the history of Sennacherib, which he was willing to give the reader at one view; and this is the true reason of the mislocation--Calmet's Commentary.

e The conquests which the Assyrians were everywhere making could not fail of giving umbrage to the neighbouring powers to confederate against them; and therefore we may well suppose that, besides the business of congratulating Hezekiah's recovery, the purpose of this embassy was to enter into an alliance with him against Sennacherib, whose growing power the Babylonians had reason to fear, as well as the Jews; and, as the author of the Chronicles expresses it, to inquire into the wonder that was done in the land,' (2 Chron. xxxii. 31.) that is, to inquire ala the miracle of the sun's retrogradation, which could not fail d being a matter of great curiosity to the Chaldeans, who, above all other nations, were at that time given to the study of astronomy. Calmet's Commentary and Prideaux's Connection, anno 713.

The things which Hezekiah showed to the Babylonian am bassadors, were the riches of his house, his treasures, his armoury, and all his stores and strength for war; and the reason for his doing this, was doubtless, to make the Babylonians put the great er value upon his friendship: but herein he offended God, that he not only laid a bait before these foreigners, to encourage tiæm

A. M. 3246. A. C. 758; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 4686. A. C. 725, 1 KINGS viii. TO THE END OF 2 CHRON.

of his kingdom, for which the prophet Isaiah was sent to reprove him, and to let him know that a day would come when all the stores he made such ostentation of should be carried into Babylon; which admonition a he received in a very decent and humble manner.

He

Sennacherib, in the mean time, advanced with a mighty army against the fenced cities of Judah; and, having taken several of them, he came at length and sat down before Lachish, and threatened, after he had taken that, to besiege even Jerusalem itself. Hereupon Hezekiah, taking advice of his princes and chief counsellors, made all manner of preparations for a vigorous defence. He repaired the walls, and fortified them with towers. provided darts and shields in great abundance, and all other arms and artillery that might be useful, either to defend the place or annoy the enemy. He had the people inrolled that were fit for war, and placed over them good officers, both to instruct them in all military exercise, and to head and conduct them when they were to make their sallies. He stopped up the fountains for a good

to invade his country, but seemed to place more confidence in this new alliance with them, than in the power of the Almighty, whose favour and protection he had so long experienced. The author of the Chronicles tells us, that, in the business of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, who sent unto him to inquire of the wonder that was done in the land, God left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart,' (2 Chron. xxxii. 31.) And, from hence some have inferred, that Hezekiah's great offence lay, not so much in the ostentation of his military stores and treasures, as in his not giving sufficient glory to God for so signal a miracle, and his recovery ensuing thereupon, and in his not representing this matter to these idolatrous ambassadors, in such powerful and convincing terms as might have drawn them over to the knowledge of the true God, which was the proper improvement he should have made of this divine Vouchsafement to him.-Le Clerc's Commentary. [However we may endeavour to excuse Hezekiah, it is certain that he made an exhibition of his riches and power in a spirit of great vanity; and that this did displease the Lord. It was also ruinous to Judea; when those foreigners had seen such a profusion of wealth, such princely establishments, and such a fruitful land, it was natural for them to conceive the wish that they had such treasures, and from that to covet the very treasures they saw. They made their report to their king and countrymen, and the desire to possess the Jewish wealth became general; and in consequence of this there is little doubt that the conquest of Jerusalem was projected.]- Dr A. Clarke.-ED.

compass round, and the brook that passed by the wal's of the city, in order to distress the enemy for want of water: and, to strengthen himself the more against them, he entered into an alliance offensive and defensive with the king of Egypt. But this alliance the prophet Isaiah highly blamed, as it implied a diffidence of the Almighty's power to help him, and would redound to his own shame, and reproach, and confusion at last; which accordingly came to pass. For, while Sennacherib was besieging Lachish, Hezekiah, observing that this new ally of his made no haste to come to his assistance, and being sadly sensible that of himself he was not sufficient to resist so powerful an adversary as the king of Assyria, sent ambassadors to him, desiring him to retire out of his dominions, and promising to submit to such conditions as he should be pleased to impose upon him.

The demand which Sennacherib made, was the payment of three hundred talents of silver, and thirty talents of gold; which Hezekiah was not able to raise, without exhausting all his treasures, and stripping the very doors of the temple of the gold plates wherewith they were overlaid. This diverted the king of Assyria for some time; so that, leaving Judea, he turned his arms against Egypt; e but after a series of different sucwant of water; but this is what the besiegers do generally practise against the besieged. In this manner it was Holofernes intended to distress Bethulia, (Judith vii.); and of Semiramis, Cyrus, and Alexander, it is reported, that they all took Babylon by diverting the current of the Euphrates. But Hezekiah here takes another method; he is for preventing the Assyrians from carrying on the siege of Jerusalem by intercepting the water, that is, by filling up the fountain-heads with earth, that the enemy might not perceive where any water was; and so carrying their streams through pipes and subterraneous channels into the city, there to be received in basins and large pools for the benefit of the besieged: and this he might do with more facility to himself, and prejudice to the enemy, because (except the springs and brooks that were just contiguous to the city) the whole country, (according to Strabo, b. xvi.) for the space of sixty furlongs round about, was all barren and waterless.-Le Clerc's Commentary.

c This must be the brook Kidron, which ran in a valley of that name, between the city and the mount of Olives, when it had any water in it; for, except in the case of great rains, or the snow's dissolving from the mountains, it was generally dry. However, if it had any fountain-head, by stopping up that, and diverting its current by conveyances under ground, Hezekiah might, in like manner, make it of no use to the besiegers.Patrick's and Calmet's Commentaries.

d The Hebrew talent, according to Scripture, (Exod. xxv. 39.) contains three hundred shekels, and every shekel answering to the value of three shillings, these three hundred talents of silver must contain, of our money, thirteen thousand five hundred pounds; and the thirty talents of gold, one hundred and sixtyfour thousand two hundred and fifty; so that the whole sum here paid by Hezekiah amounted to one hundred and seventy-seven thousand seven hundred and fifty pounds of our money.—Prideaux's Connection, anno 713.

a The words in the text are: Then said Hezekiah unto Isaiah, good is the word of the Lord, which thou hast spoken. | And he said, is it not good if peace and truth be in my days? (2 Kings xx. 19.) The prophet hath told him, that the very people whom he had been so highly complimenting would carry his posterity into captivity; and to return him such an answer as this, shows not all the concern which a good prince ought to have for his people and posterity. It shows, indeed, as if he cared not what became of them, so long as he was permitted to live easy and happy. The words in the original are to this effect, that which thou hast told me from God, is good:' I willingly submit to it: but shall peace and truth,' that is, solid and lasting peace, continue for my time?" "May I flatter myself with so much happiness? And will God be so gracious as not to revoke the grant which he hath made me of a longer continuance here? He is just, no doubt, in every thing he sends upon us; but do these threats relate to me or my posterity only? Well were it for me, if he would suspend the execution of his wrath for the little time that I have to live." This is the natural sense of Hezekiah's answer; and accordingly Josephus makes him say, "That though I am much afflicted at the thoughts of the misery that will befall my family, yet, since it is God's pleasure that it should be so, I have no more to beg of Heaven, than that I may enjoy the small remainder of my miserable life in peace.-time king of Egypt, and the chief pontiff likewise of the god Jewish Antiq. b. x. c. 3. and Calmet's Commentary.

e What might possibly be the occasion of a war between two kingdoms so widely distant as Assyria and Egypt were, it is difficult to know. We have nowhere any information from history, and are left therefore to conjecture-that, after Salmaneser had taken away the ten tribes, and sent colonies in their room, the tribe of Simeon, which lay nearest to Egypt, becoming part of his dominions, as well as the rest, the Egyptians might take the advantage of the Assyrians' great distance, and make some encroachments upon it. That Sennacherib, when he was come as far as Judea, might take that opportunity to proceed with his arms into Egypt, in order to be revenged on Sevechus, the son of Sabacon or So, whom Herodotus calls Sethon, who was at this

Vulcan. And as he was a weak prince, the king of Assyria

It is an old stratagem in war, to distress an enemy by the gained many advantages over him; but, sitting down at length

A. M. 3246. A. C. 758; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A M. 4686. A. C. 725. 1 KINGS viii. TO THE END OF 2 CHRON.

cesses, he returned again, and invested Lachish, and | delivered the demand from the king of Assyria, spake thence, contrary to all faith, and the agreement subsist- in the Hebrew tongue, and in a very insolent and impeing between him and the kings of Judah, sent three of his rious manner, to the three ministers of state whom Heprincipal officers, with a good detachment of forces to zekiah sent to parley with him, telling them, “That it demand the surrender of Jerusalem. was in vain for them to trust in their God for help, be

• Rabshakeh, for that was the name of the person who cause his master's arms had been all along so victorious,

с

that the gods of other nations could not resist their course, before Pelusium, when he had brought his platforms, as Josephus and much more vain would it be, to depend on the king of tells us, within a little of the top of the walls, and was upon the Egypt for assistance, who was hardly able to support his very point of giving the assault, news was brought him, that Tirown dominions, and would certainly fail them when hakah king of Ethiopia was upon his march, with a great rein- they looked for his aid. Their wisest way, therefore, forcement to assist the Egyptians; whereupon he immediately would be to surrender the town to his master, the great raised the siege, and drew off.his army, which gave occasion to the fabulous account in Herodotus, namely, That upon the king of Assyria, at discretion; for if they pretended to king's prayer to his god Vulcan, there came in one night such stand a siege, (and this he spake with a louder voice troops of rats, into the camp of the Assyrians, that they gnawed than ordinary, in the audience of the people that were all their bowstrings to pieces, and so, in effect, disarmed the whole camp of the besiegers, and made them draw off from the upon the wall, and in hopes of creating a revolt town with so much precipitation."-Le Clerc's Commentary on among them,) his master would distress them to such a 2 Kings xxiii. 29, and Jewish Antiquities, b. x. c. I. The degree, that they should be compelled to eat their own overthrow of Sennacherib, whese expedition was designed parti- |‹ excrements, and drink their own piss."" cularly against Egypt, is described by Herodotus, (ii. 141,) but When Hezekiah heard the blasphemous message, evidently corrupted by the Egyptian priests from whom Herodotus received the narration., His words are: "After this a priest of which Rabshakeh had delivered to his ministers, he rent Vulcan, by name Setho, ascended the throne. He very impru- his clothes, put on sackcloth, went to the temple to dently treated the soldiers with great severity, as though he address himself to God, and sent an account thereof should never stand in need of their services. He insulted them to his prophet Isaiah. But Isaiah's answer was, not to in many ways, and took from them the lands which had been granted to them by former kings, at the rate of twelve aruræ fear the menaces of the proud Assyrian; for that God (gaugas) to a man. (Compare Is. xix. 1-4.) But afterwards would soon find out a method to make him depart his when Sennacherib king of the Arabs and Assyrians was advanc-country; which accordingly came to pass. For news ing against Egypt with a great army, the Egyptian soldiers refused to lend their aid against him. The priest was now in great perplexity; and, going into the temple, complained to his idol, with tears, of the peril he was in. In the midst of his complaints he was overtaken by sleep, and there appeared to him in a vision, the god standing by him, and bidding him to be of good courage, for no misfortune should befall him in encountering the Arabian army; for he himself would send him helpers. Confiding in this dream, he took such Egyptians as were willing to follow him, and encamped at Pelusium; for through this place the invaders must necessarily make their attack. None of the soldiers followed him, but only the merchants, artificers, and populace. When they had arrived there, field mice in great numbers spread themselves about among their enemies, and gnawed in pieces the quivers and bows, and thongs of the shields, so that on the following morning they were obliged to flee, destitute of arms, and many fell. Even to this day there stands in the temple of Vulcan a stone statue of this king, having a mouse in his hand, and speaking by an inscription to the following effect, Let him who looks on me reverence the gods.' From this narrative, though considerably distorted, it is plain that the Egyptians attributed their deliverance from Sennacherib to a deity, and to that deity whom the Greeks call "Hparos, Vulcan. Among the Egyptians he is named Phtha or Kneph; and because he is said to have made the world, he is also called Anuoveyos, the artificer. Now, as the God of the Hebrews was the Creator of the world, the Egyptians might easily confound him with their Phtha, and attribute this deliverance to the latter. The circumstance of Setho's going into the temple and complaining of his danger to Phtha, is manifestly borrowed from what is related of Hezekiah, (Is. xxxvii. 14, 15.) Eusebius makes Setho the first king of the nineteenth Diospolitic dynasty, and assigns to his reign fifty-five years. But if Tirhakah, whom Manetho places as the third of the twenty-fifth Ethiopic dynasty, with a reign of twenty years, was master of Egypt, then Setho could be only a tributary king and a vassal of this universal conqueror, or, at most could only reign over the Delta and Upper Egypt.-Jahn's Hebrew Commonwealth.-ED.

a Tartan, Rabsaris, and Rabshakeh, are not the proper names of these men, but rather denote their employments and offices. Tartan signifies the president of the customs, Rabsaris, the chief eunuch, and Rabshakeh, the principal cup-bearer; and because he spake Hebrew with some fluency, the rabbins are generally of opinion, that he was either an apostate Jew, or one of the captivity of Israel. It is certain that he was a very eloquent mao, and his speech very well calculated to raise sedition, or defection among the besieged; but that a person of his edu

cation should be versed in the Phoenician, which is in a manner the same with the Hebrew language, is no wonder at all. Moreover, had he been a Jew, though an apostate, he should have known better, one would think, than to have upbraided Hezekiah, with acting according to the law under which he lived, in destroying the groves and altars of idols, and in requiring his subjects to worship God in Jerusalem only, (2 Kings xviii. 22. — Le Clerc's Commentary.

The words in the text are, Now behold thou trustest upon the staff of this bruised reed, even upon Egypt, (2 Kings xvii. 21.) The comparison is excellent, to denote an ally that is not only weak and unable to help, but dangerous likewise to those that rely upon him for succour; and his representing the power of Egypt to be as brittle as the canes or reeds that grow on the banks of the Nile, for it is to this, no doubt, that the Assyrian orator alludes, is a great beauty in the similitude. This, however, must be allowed, that what he here speaks in contempt of the Egyptian strength, has more of ostentation in it than truth; because the Assyrian army, having lately made an attempt to subdue that kingdom, was now returned into Judea with disgrace. Patrick's, Le Clerc's, and Calmet's Commentaries.

e 2 Kings xix. 7. Behold I will send a blast upon him.' The destruction of Sennacherib and his army appears to have been eflected by that pestilential wind called the simoom. Mr Bruce thus speaks of it:-"We had no sooner got into the plains than we felt great symptoms of the simoom; and about a quarter be fore twelve, our prisoner first, and then Idris called out, The simoom! the simoom!' My curiosity would not suffer me to fall down without looking behind me; about due south, a little to the east, I saw the coloured haze as before. It seemed now is be rather less compressed, and to have with it a shade of blur: the edges of it were not defined as those of the former, but like a very thin smoke, with about a yard in the middle tinged with those colours. We all fell upon our faces, and the simoom passed with a gentle shuffling wind. It continued to blow in this mat ner till near three o'clock, so that we were all taken ill that night, and scarcely strength was left us to load the camels, and arra the baggage." (Travels, vol. iv. p. 581.) in another place M Bruce describes it as producing a desperate kind of inditierence about life; that it brought upon him a degree of cowardice and languor, which he struggled with in vain; and that it completrhy exhausted his strength. From the accounts of various travellers, it appears to have been almost instantaneously fatal and petriy ing. It was consequently a fit agent to be employed in desal

d

of the Lord came down into the camp of the Assyrians, and smote no less than a hundred fourscore and five thousand men : so that, terrified with this slaughter, Sennacherib made haste into his own country, and took up his residence at Nineveh; where he had not been long, before e his two eldest sons, Adrammelech and Sharezer conspired against him, and, as he was worship

A. M. 3246. A. C. 758; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 4686. A. C. 725. 1 KINGS viii. TO THE END OF 2 CHRON. being brought him that Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, or of the Cuthites rather in Arabia, had invaded some part of his dominions, he immediately raised the siege of Libnah, where he then was, and marched against the eneiny however, before he raised the siege, he sent a second summons to Hezekiah, as insolent and blasphemous as the former. This was delivered in a letter; and Hezekiah had no sooner read it, but he went into the temple, spread it before the Lord, and implored of lightning; others by fire from heaven; others by a scorching wind; and others by their falling foul of one another in the obscuhim a deliverance from this outrageous enemy; which rity of the night; but which way soever it was effected, accordIsaiah assured him he should have, because that the Lording to the Hebrew idiom, there is no impropriety in saying, that had taken the city of Jerusalem under his protection, and it was done by a destroying angel, which is a comprehensive would not therefore suffer the king of Assyria, not-phrase, that reconciles all the Scripture passages wherein this terrible defeat is mentioned, and all the sentiments of commenwithstanding all his vain boastings, to come near it. tators concerning it.-Calmet's Dissert. on the Defeat of the Army of Sennacherib.

In the mean time, the king of Assyria having engaged the Ethiopian army, and given them a great overthrow, was in full march to Jerusalem, flushed with this fresh victory, and resolved to destroy the place, and every soul in it; when the very night after that the prophet had given the king of Judah this assurance, an angel

ing the army of Sennacherib. It sometimes happens, that during an excessive heat, there comes a breath of air still more burning, and that both men and beasts being already overpowered and faint, this small increase of heat entirely deprives them of respiration.-Niebuhr's Description of Arabia, p. 81.-ED.

a Libnah was not far from Lachish, both situated on the mountains of Judea; and it is probable that Sennacherib, not finding himself able to carry the latter, had removed the siege to Libnah, which was a place not so well fortified in his opinion, and yet so situated, that by keeping a good guard in the chops of the mountains, he might carry on the siege, without any fear of Tirhakah's coming upon him.-Le Clerc's Commentary.

d The reign of the good king Hezekiah was signalized by the ed to him and his people out of the hands of the Assyrians under extraordinary and memorable deliverance, which the Lord grantSennacherib. The destruction of the vast multitude whom that invader commanded, and who became all dead corpses in a single night, is in one passage attributed to an angel of the Lord; but, in another part of the same history, and also by Isaiah, it is said to have been occasioned by a blast, which is generally, and on good grounds, supposed to mean the simoom, or hot pestilential wind which is so prevalent in the sultry regions of the east. It is a south wind, which, blowing over an immense tract of heated ground or sand, becomes itself so hot and stifling, as to occasion the greatest danger, and even immediate death to the traveller. Its approach is indicated by a haze in the atmosphere, in colours like the purple part of the rainbow, and passes along with silent and incredible velocity. The moment it is perceived by the natives and the camels, who are well acquainted with its fatal power, they instantly fall to the ground, and bury their mouth and nostrils in the sand. Della Valle mentions the melancholy fate of two gentlemen, who were travelling with him, and who having gone, during the middle of the day, into a khan to rest, fell asleep at the open window, and were found dead, and their bodies very black and disfigured, in consequence of a blast of the simoom having passed over them while they lay, unconscious of their danger, in that exposed situation. Another traveller mentions, that the water in their skins was dried up in a moment, and that his companion, who had been bathing in the Tigris, having on a pair of Turkish drawers, showed them, on his return, perfectly dried in an instant by this hot wind having come across the river. The most circumstantial, however, as well as the most recent account of a dreadful destruction, occa

The prophet, in his answer to Hezekiah, has given us an admirable description of the ridiculous vanity and ostentation of a king puffed up with great success: By thy messengers thou hast reproached the Lord, and hast said, With the multitude of my chariots I am come up to the height of the mountains, and the sides of Lebanon; and I will enter into the lodgings of his borders, and enter into the forest of his Carmel. I have digged, and drunk strange waters, and with the soles of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of besieged places,' (2 Kings xix. 23, &c.) as if he had said, "What can resist the force of my victorious arms? Or where is the place that is inaccessible to the strength and activity of these troops? I have scaled the top of the highest❘sioned by this hot wind in the year 1813, is given in the newsmountains, with my heavy chariots of war. I have ascended even Lebanon itself, and through the most difficult passages have opened and plained myself a way. Who then shall hinder me from taking up my quarters in what part of Judea I please, from either climbing up to the top of Carmel, or from coming down into the fruitful vales, by making an entire conquest of the country? At my call fountains, even in the driest places, arise; at my beck the hills subside, the rocks divide, and make me a way; and at my approach, the deepest rivers and ditches run dry; so that resistance is unavailable, and victory must attend my standard wherever I go, or whatever enterprise I take in hand."

e The ancient Jews, as well as the Persians and Arabians, were of opinion, that there is an angel of death, or an exterminating angel, to whom God has given the commission to take away the lives, either of single persons, or of multitudes of people at once, wherein the Almighty gives the order, but leaves the method of doing it to the discretion of the angel; so that in which way soever the infliction is made, it is always said to be done by the angel of God. The modern Jews are much of the same opinion: for they maintain that this angel of death stands at every dying man's bed's head, with a naked sword in his hand, at the extremity of which there hang three drops of gall, and that the sick person, seeing this angel, in a great fright opens his mouth, whereupon he immediately drops into it these three fatal drops; the first of which occasions his death; the second makes him pale and livid; and the third reduces him to the dust in the grave, with some other notions of the like nature. Now since the Scripture has nowhere said expressly, in what manner this Assyrian army was destroyed, some have thought that it was by a plague; others by thunder and

papers of that day. The caravan from Mecca to Aleppo consisted of 2000 souls, merchants and travellers, pilgrims returning from performing their devotions at Mecca, and a numerous train of attendants, the whole escorted by 400 military. The march was in three columns. On the 15th of August, they entered the great Arabian desert, in which they travelled seven days, and were nearly approaching its boundary. A few hours more would have placed them beyond the reach of danger, when, on the morning of the 23d, just as they had struck their tents, and begun their march, a wind rose and blew with tremendous rapidity. They pushed on as fast as their beasts of burden could carry them, to escape the threatened dauger, when the fatal simoom set in suddenly, the sky was overcast, dense clouds appeared, whose extremity darkened the horizon, and shot with the rapidity of lightning across the desert. They approached the columns of the caravan. Both men and beasts, overcome by a sense of common danger, uttered piercing cries, and the next moment fell beneath its pestilential influence. Of 2000 souls composing the caravan, not more than twenty escaped the calamity, and these owed their preservation to the swiftness of their dromedaries. Such, in all probability, was the terrible agent which heaven employed for the destruction of the prodigious army led on by the king of Assyria.-Jamieson's Eastern Manners.-ED.

e When Sennacherib was got home, after the loss of so great an army, he demanded of some about him, what the reason might be, that the irresistible God of heaven so favoured the Jewish nation? To which he was answered, that Abraham, from whom they were descended, by sacrificing his only son to him, had

|

A. M. 3246. A. C. 758; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 4772. A. C. 639. 1 KINGS viii. TO THE END OF 2 CHRON. ping at the temple of Nisroch, a his god, fell upon him, The prophets who were sent to reprove him, he treated and slew him; and afterwards making their escape into with the utmost contempt and outrage, and filled, in Armenia, gave room for Esarhaddon, their younger short, all the land with innocent blood, which he shed in brother, to succeed in the throne. carrying on his detestable purposes: but it was not long

After this signal defeat of the Assyrian army, Hezekiah || before the divine vengeance overtook him. lived the remainder of his days in peace and tranquillity, being both honoured and revered by all neighbouring nations, who by this, and several more instances, perceived that he was under the immediate protection of God, and were therefore afraid to give him any molestation. So that, being at rest from wars, he applied his thoughts to the good government of his people, and the improvement of the city of Jerusalem, by erecting magazines, and filling them with arms, and by making a new aqueduct, which was of great convenience to the inhabitants for the supplying them with water. At length, after a course of great and worthy actions, he died in the twenty-ninth year of his reign, and was buried, with great solemnity, in the most honourable place of the sepulchres of the sons of David. Happy in every thing else, except in being succeeded by a son, whose name was Manasseh, and who, in the beginning of his reign more especially, proved the very worst of all his race.

Esarhaddon being settled in the kingdom of Babylon, began to set his thoughts on the recovery of what his father Sennacherib had lost in Syria and Palestine; and having raised a great army, marched into the territories of the ten tribes, from whence he carried away a great multitude of Israelites, who were remains of the former captivity, and so sending some of his generals with a part of his army to Judea to reduce that country likewise, they vanquished Manasseh in battle, and having taken him hid in a thicket of briers and brambles, brought him prisoner to Esarhaddon, d who put him in irons, and carried him prisoner to Babylon.

Manasseh was but a minor of twelve years old when he succeeded to the crown; and as he had the misfortune to fall into the hands of such guardians and chief ministers, as were ill affected to his father's reformation,

e His prison and chains brought him to himself, and made him so sensible of his heinous provocations against God, that with deep sorrow and humiliation, ƒ he implored the divine pity and forgiveness, and thereupon prevailed with God, to mollify the king of Babylon's heart, who restored him to his liberty, and reinstated him in his kingdom.

Upon his return to Jerusalem, he redressed, as much as he could, the mischiefs which his former impiety had

king's reign, were Hoshea, Joel, Nahum, Habakkuk, some say e The prophets who were supposed to have been living in this Obadiah; and who was the greatest prophet of them all, Isaiah, In the late reign he was in great esteem at court, and being himself of the blood royal, and as some say, the king's father-in-law, he thought it more incumbent upon him to endeavour to reclaim him from his degenerate wicked courses. But this so exasperat ed him against Isaiah, that, instead of hearkening to his remon

they took all the care imaginable to breed him up in the strongest aversion to it, and to corrupt his mind with the worst of principles, both as to religion and government. For he not only worshipped idols, restored high places, and erected altars unto Baal, but in the room of the ark of the covenant set up an idol, even in the sanctuary itself, made his children pass through the fire to Mo-strances, he caused him to be apprehended, and to make his loch, practised witchcrafts and enchantments, and consulted soothsayers, and such persons as dealt with familiar spirits.

Nor was he content to practise these abominations himself, but being naturally of a cruel temper, he raised bitter persecutions against those who would not conform. purchased his protection to his progeny; whereupon the king replied, If that will win him, I will spare him two of mine to gain him to my side:' which when his two sons, Sharezer and Adrammelech heard, they resolved to prevent their own death by sacrificing him. But for all this fiction, there is no other foundation but that scarce any thing else can be thought of, that can afford any excuse for so wicked a parricide.-Prideaux's Connection, anno 709.

a Some take this god to be the figure of Noah's ark; others of a dove, which was worshipped among the Assyrians; and others of an eagle. The Hebrew of Tobit, published by Munster, calls it Dagon; but Selden acknowledges, that in all his reading he never met with any thing that could help him to explain it. Jurieu, however, seems to be more lucky in his inquiries; for, by several arguments, he has made it appear, that this idol was Jupiter Belus, the founder of the Babylonish empire, who was worshipped under the form of an eagle; and therefore, he observes farther, that as this Belus in profane history was the same with the Nimrod of Moses, between Nimrod and Nisroch the dissimilitude is not great, nor is it improbable that to perpetuate his honour, his votaries might change the name of Nimrod, which signifies a rebel, into that of Nisroch, which denotes a young eagle. Patrick's Commentary, and Jurieu's History of Doctrines, &c. part 4. c. 11.

torture both more lingering, and more exquisite, had him sawn asunder with a wooden saw, to which the author of the epistle to the Hebrews, c. xi. 37.; may be thought to allude.-Calmet's Commentary, and Howell's History, in the notes.

d From Isaiah xx. 1, we may learn, that Esarhaddon, whom the sacred writer in that place calls Sargon, king of Assyria, sent Tartan, his general into Palestine; and it was he, very probably, who took Manasseh and carried him prisoner to Babylon. Esahaddon was some time before, no more than king of Assyria, but upon his accession to the throne, he made himself master of Babylon and Chaldea, and so united the two empires together.Calmet's Commentary and Prideaux's Connection, anno 677.

e The Jewish doctors have a tradition, that while Manasseh was at Babylon, by the direction of his conqueror, he was put in a large brazen vessel full of holes, and set near to a great fire: that in this extremity, he had recourse to all his false deities, to whom he had offered so many sacrifices, but received no relief from them; that remembering what he had heard his good father Hezekiah say, namely, when thou art in tribulation, if thou turn to the Lord thy God, he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee,' (Deut. iv. 30, 31.) he was thereupon immediately delivered, and in a moment translated to his kingdom; but this is no less a fiction, than that miraculous flame which the author of the imperfect comment upon St Matthew speaks of, that encompas sed him on a sudden, as he was praying to God, and having melted his chains asunder, set him at liberty. See Tradit. Hebr. in Paratip. et Targum, in 2 Chron. xxiii..11. In all probability it was Saos Duchin, the successor of Esarhaddon, who, sem years after his captivity, released Manasseh out of prison. f We have a prayer, which it is pretended he made in prison. The church does not receive it as canonical, but it has a place among the apocryphal pieces, and in our collections, stands be In the innermost and chiefest of the rooms of the royal fore the books of the Maccabees. The Greek church, however, sepulchres of the house of David, was the body of Hezekiah placed has received it into their Euchologium, or book of prayers, and in a niche, which in the upper end of the room was very likely at they use it sometimes as a kind of devout form, and what con that time cut on purpose for it, to do him the greater honour.-tains nothing in it deserving censure.-Calmet's Dictionary unPrideaux's Connection, anno 699.

der the word Manasseh.