sports of his court, and was deceived by their flattering lies. But the wrath of God is as ready for them as the baker's oven is for the bread he is kneading! What a terrible comparison! And the description goes on. On the day of the king-his birthday most likely, for his accession-day never came round-these treacherous flatterers hold a revel with the king, they intoxicate him with bottles of wine. He scorns—that is, he jests and jokes with profane mirth; but all the time they are preparing the fire, Shallum is conspiring against him; his foes lie in wait till the king has, like his predecessor Elah, finished drinking himself drunk." The comparison of the baker watching his bread is transferred to the rebels; they watch till the moment has come, and then, in the morning, the palace burneth with devouring fire!

66

And Shallum reigned but one month before Menahem came from the old royal city of Tirzah, destroyed him, and reigned.

As for Samaria, her king is cut off

As the foam upon the water. (Hosea X. 7.)

LESSON LXII.

THE REIGN OF MENAHEM.

B.C. 771.—2 KINGS xv. 16—25; HOSEA xi. I—10.

Then Menahem smote Tiphsah, and all that were therein, and the coasts thereof from Tirzah : because they opened not to him, therefore he smote it.

In the nine and thirtieth year of Azariah * king of Judah began Menahem the son of Gadi to reign over Israel, and reigned ten years in Samaria.

And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD: he departed not all his days from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.

And Pul the king of Assyria came against the land and Menahem gave Pul a thousand talents of silver, that his hand might be with him to confirm the kingdom in his hand.

And Menahem exacted the money of Israel, even of all the mighty men of wealth, of each man fifty shekels of silver, to give to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria turned back, and stayed not there in the land.

And the rest of the acts of Menahem, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?

* Uzziah.

And Menahem slept with his fathers; and Pekahiah his son reigned in his stead.

In the fiftieth year of Azariah king of Judah Pekahiah the son of Menahem began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and reigned two years.

And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD: he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.

But Pekah the son of Remaliah, a captain of his, conspired against him, and smote him in Samaria, in the palace of the king's house, with Argob and Arieh, and with him fifty men of the Gileadites: and he killed him, and reigned in his room.

This is Hosea's exhortation through all this wickedness : *

When Israel was a child, then I loved him,

And called my son out of Egypt.

As they called them, so they went from them :

They sacrificed unto Baalim,† and burned incense to graven images.

I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms;

But they knew not that I healed them.

I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love:

And I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws,

And I laid meat unto them.

He shall not return into the land of Egypt,

But the Assyrian shall be his king,

Because they refused to return.

And the sword shall abide on his cities,

And shall consume his branches, and devour them,

Because of their own counsels.

And my people are bent to backsliding from me :

Though they called them to the most High,

None at all would exalt him.

How shall I give thee up, Ephraim ?

How shall I deliver thee, Israel?

How shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim?
Mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together.

I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger,

I will not return to destroy Ephraim,

For I am God, and not man;

The Holy One in the midst of thee:
And I will not enter into the city.
They shall walk after the LORD:
He shall roar like a lion :

When he shall roar, then the children shall tremble from the west.

COMMENT.-Menahem seems to have been a more warlike prince than the two who came before him. He kept his throne for ten years, and even made an expedition against Assyria; that is, if Tiphsah be rightly interpreted to mean the city which later historians knew as Thapsacus, upon the Euphrates, and which had + Many gods.

*Not for the little ones.

been Solomon's border town. He made a cruel slaughter of the inhabitants because they would not open their gates to him, and by this means brought upon himself, as it would seem, the anger of the terrible Assyrian kings. The king who repented at the preaching of Jonah was now dead, and there reigned at Nineveh a king called in Hebrew Pul, but in his own inscriptions Kil-lush. He was the first to begin the series of attacks upon the land of Canaan which were to end in the captivity of all the chosen people. Jehu had only gone to pay tribute to Shalmaneser at Damascus ; Pul actually advanced upon Samaria, and Menahem had to buy him off with 1,000 talents of silver, each talent being worth 340/., which he raised by requiring 50 shekels, i.e. about 67., from every wealthy man in Israel. There is an Assyrian inscription recording a tribute paid by Mirikimmi, king of Samaria, which most likely refers to this sum. The Israelites had now swept away their last regular dynasty, and had fallen into that miserable state of decay when no one but a warrior can win or keep the throne. Menahem indeed reigned for ten years, but his son Pekahiah only reigned long enough to show that he was no more worthy than the rest, and was slain by another successful soldier, named Pekah, a man, as we shall see, of courage and ability, though, as usual, an idolater and a fierce and bloodthirsty wretch. The fifty Gileadites were probably soldiers of the guard of which Pekah was the captain. The whole succession of Israel had become so irregular and uncertain that the prophets had left off dating their writings by any king after Jeroboam II.; but we know from Hosea's dates, the years of the kings of Judah, that he was all this time striving with the sin-stained Israelites, and though we are not certain to what exact time all his songs refer, the one here given suits well with these reigns. What a beautiful pleading it is on the part of the Lord Himself, reminding His people how they had been as it were a child to Him! "Israel is my firstborn," He had said to Pharaoh; and He here deigns to picture Himself as a nursing father to a wilful child, who would turn aside to Baalim,—that is, to many gods. Calling Israel after the leading tribe, Ephraim, God speaks of Himself as teaching him to go, setting him like a babe on his feet, and holding him by the arms. Yet he would not perceive whence that love came. Nay, even as a child is aided by leading-strings, the cords of love and of benefits

-not ropes such as we drag refractory cattle by-were used to draw them on. The yoke of bondage was taken off, food was given them in plenty. Yet all had been in vain—punishment must come. It would not be bondage in Egypt, as before, but in Assyria; and yet how the merciful One mourns at giving up His people to punishment! He will not make them even now like Admah and Zeboim, the two cities that shared the ruin of Sodom. He is God, mighty to save—not angry man ; and there shall yet be a hope that even Ephraim may turn to the Lord. His Voice, the Voice as of the Lion of Judah, shall be heard, and the children shall tremble from the West. Yes, the West Europe, scarcely yet known to the Israelites, is here mentioned, for it has been from the West that the great number of the children of strangers who have heard His voice came.

This prophecy has been chosen because it contains one that St. Matthew cites. “Out of Egypt have I called My Son" (Matt. ii. 15). He says it was fulfilled by our Lord's return from His refuge in Egypt. This is because all Israel, the body of God's adopted people, was a type of the Saviour, His own Son. And in like manner every Christian is a Son of God, called out of bondage to sin,—that is, in Egypt. And if we return to our sins, it is not to Egypt or the former state that we shall fall, but into the much worse condition of captivity to the terrible Assyrian—the wicked, violent, cruel world,

LESSON LXIII.

ISAIAH'S SONG OF THE VINEYARD, AND JOTHAM'S REIGN.

B.C. 758.—Is. v. I—7; 2 CHRON. xxvi. 23, xxvii. 1—6.

Now will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard.

My well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill :

And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof,

And planted it with the choicest vine,

And built a tower in the midst of it,

And also made a winepress therein :

And he looked that it should bring forth grapes,

And it brought forth wild grapes.

And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah,
Judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard.

What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not
done in it?

Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes,
Brought it forth wild grapes?

And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard :
I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up,
And break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down :
And I will lay it waste :

It shall not be pruned, nor digged;

But there shall come up briers and thorns :

I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.
For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel,
And the men of Judah his pleasant plant:

And he looked for judgment, but behold oppression ;

For righteousness, but behold a cry.

*

*

So Uzziah slept with his fathers, and they buried him with his fathers in the field of the burial which belonged to the kings; for they said, He is a leper; and Jotham his son reigned in his stead.

Jotham was twenty and five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. His mother's name also was Jerushah, the daughter of Zadok.

And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father Uzziah did: howbeit he entered not into the temple of the LORD. And the people did yet corruptly.

He built the high gate of the house of the LORD, and on the wall of Ophel* he built much.

Moreover he built cities in the mountains of Judah, and in the forests he built castles and towers.

He fought also with the king of the Ammonites, and prevailed against them. And the children of Ammon gave him the same year an hundred talents of silver, and ten thousand measures of wheat, and ten thousand of barley. So much did the children of Ammon pay unto him, both the second year, and the third.

So Jotham became mighty, because he prepared his ways before the LORD his God.

COMMENT. In the latter part of Uzziah's reign of fifty-two years, while he dwelt in his lonely house of suffering and repentance, while his good son Jotham governed the land of Judah, the great prophet Isaiah began his songs. He was the greatest of all the prophets, both in the beauty and the subject of his writings. He is often called the Evangelical prophet, because his predictions more * The lofty place.