upon his people, is, however, contradicted by the fact, that in 957, he sent his wife, disguised, to inquire of Ahijah, a prophet of God, concerning the fate of his eldest son, then labouring under sickness. The prophet was blind and deaf through age. Yet he instantly recognised the queen under her disguise, and sent her home with a message of wrath. Her sick son died as soon as her foot passed the threshold of the palace; and the death of that youth left no room to doubt that the rest of the prophet's terrible foreshadowings would come to pass.

Though the first outbreak of hostility between Judah and Israel had been staid, grounds of quarrel were too numerous to permit the establishment of a lasting peace. On the contrary, war, with all its attendant miseries, soon broke out, and continued through the latter years of Rehoboam's life. It seems to have been of a very desultory nature, and proved more hurtful to Judah than to Israel. But when Rehoboam died, which he did in 958 B. C., a bolder policy was assumed by the men of Judah. The new king, Abijam, if he inherited his father's vices, seems to have possessed a far greater share both of courage and of conduct. He assembled a great army; marched against Jeroboam, and fought and won a decisive battle at Mount Ephraim. This he followed up with so much vigour, that Jeroboam could no longer keep the field. Various towns and frontier provinces passed from the vanquished to the victor, and a peace was concluded, which endured, without intermission, twelve years.

B. C. 955. The reign of Abijam was short: it extended over three years only. That of his son and successor Asa reached to forty years, and was, upon the whole, both honourable and prosperous. It is recorded of him that "he did that which was

R

right in the eyes of the Lord his God," and the Lord his God blessed him with success in all his undertakings. Ten years of perfect peace gave him the opportunity of purging the land from the stain of idolatry; and when war came he met it boldly. A swarm of people from Ethiopia burst, about the year B. C. 942, into Judea. Their numbers were put down at a million of fighting men, and they came with chariots and horses innumerable. These Asa encountered, and overthrew with great slaughter, and enriched himself and his capital with the spoil of their camp. There was much rejoicing in the land, because of this deliverance, nor was its safety hazarded again for some time.

B. C. 930. Asa had reigned five and thirty years, and was, perhaps, somewhat spoiled by prosperity, when the prospect of a second invasion from Israel too much alarmed him. Doubtless, the

prince who led the invading force was no common man. His name was Baasha, and, by a successful conspiracy, he had at once displaced and extinguished the entire family of Jeroboam. But Asa ought to have remembered that God's people, so long as they continued true to God's worship, were safe from all enemies, as indeed the annals of his own times had shown. A few reverses at the outset of the campaign sufficed, however, to shake their confidence; and when Baasha began to fortify at Ramah, in Benjamin, with a view to hold Jerusalem in check, Asa was tempted, in an evil hour, to look abroad for succour. There reigned, at this time in Damascus, the capital of Syria, one Benhadad, a powerful monarch, and the ally both of Israel and of Judah. Him Asa induced by rich gifts to break his faith with Baasha; and an invasion by the Syrians soon compelled the Israelites

DEATH OF ASA.

JEHOSHAPHAT.

175

to retire from the frontier of Judah. But Asa's policy was not pleasing in God's sight. A prophet, by name Hanani, was commissioned to reprove the king, and to tell him that the nation would suffer for his deed. Asa did not receive the rebuke as he ought to have done. He threw the prophet into prison, and, becoming irritable in proportion as he felt that he had done wrong, he committed various acts of tyranny towards his people. The latter days of his life did not, therefore, fulfil the promise of his maturity. And being smitten with a sore disease in his legs, he died, after protracted suffering, in the forty-first year of his reign.

B. C. 914. - Asa was succeeded on the throne of Judah by Jehoshaphat his son, a man of rare piety and virtue. He had reached the age of thirty-five when his father died, and he reigned, with honour to himself and advantage to his country, five and twenty years. His life seems to have been devoted to the improvement of the morals and the manners of his people. All heathen rites and customs he put down with a strong hand, and he employed learned and zealous persons to go about from town to town, instructing the inhabitants in the religion of Jehovah. Throughout the whole extent of his reign Judah suffered nothing from the assaults of a foreign enemy. The Philistines, who had planned a revolt, shrank from the enterprise, and paid him tribute. The Arabians sent him yearly gifts of sheep and goats, in token of their good will. In one particular only Jehoshaphat committed a grave error, sent for the daughter of Ahab, king of Israel, to be the wife of his son Jehoram. It may be well if I take advantage of this state of repose in Judah, to sketch with a rapid pen the revolutions that had occurred or were then passing in Israel.

for he

CHAP. XXX.

FIRST BOOK OF KINGS AND SECOND BOOK OF CHRONICLES- continued.

REVOLUTIONS

IN ISRAEL.

JEROBOAM.

NADAB.

BAASHA. ELAH. ZIMRI. OMRI. АНАВ. ELIJAH THE PROPHET.

On the death of Jeroboam, B. C. 930, Nadab his son succeeded to the throne. The reign of this prince, of whom it is recorded that "he did evil in the sight of the Lord," was very short; it scarcely reached to two years; for Baasha, an officer of rank, conspired against him and slew him in his camp before Gibbethon. This blow the conspirator followed up by putting to death, without mercy, all who belonged to the line of Jeroboam; and then he seized the crown. He wore it three and twenty years, almost all of which were spent amid wars and perplexities; and left it at his death to Elah his son. But Elah's arm

was too feeble to sustain so heavy a burden. Zimri, a general of cavalry, slew him, ere he had reigned two years, and destroyed himself within seven days after the perpetration of the act. Then arose a civil

war between two factions, that of Tibni and that of Omri, neither of whom was in the most remote degree connected by blood with the royal line. It ended in favour of Omri, who went beyond the worst of his predecessors in the extravagance and enormity of his idolatry; nevertheless, he made himself a name by building the city of Samaria, and transferring thither the seat of government in Israel.

Five years thus witnessed in Israel three bloody revolutions leading to three changes of dynasty,

REVOLUTIONS IN ISRAEL.

177

and five separate reigns. That of Omri reached to ten years; and (in B. C. 910) he died in his bed, leaving the kingdom to his son Ahab. Now, of Ahab it is recorded that he "did evil in the sight of the Lord, above all that went before him." Not content with adhering to the customs of Jeroboam and of Omri, he took to wife Jezebel, the daughter of the king of Zidon, and added to all the other impure superstitions of the day the worship of Baal. It was with the daughter of this pair that Jehoshaphat king of Judah unfortunately became connected, and both he and his country had good cause to rue the proceeding.

The influence of the court being exerted to foster and encourage idolatry, idolatry soon became prevalent through all circles in Israel. Jehovah was openly renounced, and before the unholy shrines of Baal the most loathsome vices were perpetrated. In proof of the extent to which apostacy was carried, the annals of the kingdom relate that one Hiel, as if in defiance of God's revealed will, set himself in this reign to rebuild the walls of Jericho. He fulfilled his task, but he did so at the expense of the penalty which Joshua had imposed. His eldest son died the same day that he laid the foundation stone, and his youngest and last lived only to see his father's impious work completed.

From the days of Samuel downwards there were never wanting in either division of Israel a class of men of whom frequent mention is made, under the general appellation of prophets. Their influence over society made itself more or less felt, according to the moral and religious condition of the ages in which they lived. In Judah they appear to have been almost always treated with respect. In Israel, where the government promoted idolatry for its