claim the vineyard at the year of jubilee. And so Jezebel could tell her husband that Naboth was dead; and Ahab never asked how or why, but made ready to take possession. When we read we can only think of the burning words of David in the 10th Psalm:

He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den :

He lieth in wait to catch the poor:

He doth catch the poor, when he draweth him into his net.
He croucheth, and humbleth himself,

That the poor may fall by his strong ones.

He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten:

He hideth his face; he will never see it.

Arise, O LORD; O God, lift up thine hand:

Forget not the humble.

Wherefore doth the wicked contemn God?

He hath said in his heart, Thou wilt not require it.

Thou hast seen it; for thou beholdest mischief and spite, to requite it with thy hand :

The poor committeth himself unto thee; thou art the helper of the fatherless.

Did Naboth know them? Did he so commit himself and his children unto the Lord?

[He probably did not know that he was tracing out beforehand the suffering of Him who, for the sake of His own vineyard, consented to be betrayed into the hands of wicked men, accused of blasphemy, and by two false witnesses, and put to death without the gate, with the consenting outcry of all His people.]

LESSON XX.

THE SENTENCE UPON AHAB.

B.C. 899. -1 KINGS xxi. 17—29; 2 CHRON. xviii. 1, 2;
I KINGS xxii. 3, 4.

And the word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, Arise, go down to meet Ahab king of Israel, which is in Samaria; behold, he is in the vineyard of Naboth, whither he is gone down to possess it.

And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the LORD, Hast thou killed, and also taken possession? And thou shalt speak unto him, saying,

Thus saith the LORD, In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall d gs lick thy blood, even thine.

And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? And he answered, I have found thee: because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the LORD.

Behold, I will bring evil upon thee, and will take away thy posterity,

And will make thine house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah, for the provocation wherewith thou hast provoked me to anger, and made Israel to sin.

And of Jezebel also spake the LORD, saying, The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall Jezreel.

Him that dieth of Ahab in the city the dogs shall eat; and him that dieth in the field shall the fowls of the air eat.

But there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the LORD, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up.

And he did very abominably in following idols, according to all things as did the Amorites, whom the LORD cast out before the children of Israel.

And it came to pass, when Ahab heard these words, that he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly.

And the word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying,

Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me? because he humbleth himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days: but in his son's days will I bring the evil upon his house.

Now Jehoshaphat had riches and honour in abundance, and joined affinity with Ahab.

And after certain years he went down to Ahab to Samaria. And Ahab killed sheep and oxen for him in abundance, and for the people that he had with him.

And the king of Israel said unto his servants, Know ye that Ramoth in Gilead is ours, and we be still, and take it not out of the hand of the king of Syria?

And he said unto Jehoshaphat, Wilt thou go with me to battle to RamothGilead? And Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, I am as thou art, my people as thy people, my horses as thy horses.

COMMENT.-Ahab had been as one who knew nothing about his wife's cruel stratagem, and no doubt she supposed that the knowledge of it was confined to those who had carried out her scheme at Jezreel. But when Ahab went at the head of his guards in full state to take possession of the confiscated property of the blasphemer, a figure in a rough garment, not seen since that awful day on Mount Carmel, stood full before him with the stern question, "Hast thou killed and also taken possession? In the place where

* Connected his family.

the dogs licked the blood of Naboth, shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine." Ahab's only answer was, "Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?" Woe to whoever learns to look on God's messenger as his enemy. Those who dread as foes the ministers of God may be sure that their case is becoming only too like Ahab's. The measure of his sin had not been full till he permitted this cruel treatment of the poor. The shedding of innocent blood is always more dreadful in the sight of God than almost any other wicked action; and now the same doom as had befallen the house of Jeroboam and the house of Baasha was to come upon that of Ahab, with the additional horror that those packs of wild dogs that act as the scavengers of the Eastern towns should lick the blood of Ahab and devour the limbs of Jezebel, his haughty, queenly wife. It seems as if Isaiah must have had this in his mind when, some two hundred years later, he said (Isaiah v. 8)—

Woe unto them that join house to house,

That lay field to field, till there be no place,

That they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!
In mine ears said the LORD of hosts,

Of a truth many houses shall be desolate,
Even great and fair, without inhabitant.

Unjust winning of wealth is the surest way to make the fields lie desolate. Ahab had sold himself to work wickedness. For the sake of Phoenician riches and pomp he had tried to be as a Phoenician; for the sake of the poor price of a vineyard, he had let his wife tamper with justice, and give an innocent man and his children to a shameful death. Therefore he should perish! And yet perhaps one of the very things that made Ahab's crimes worse was that his heart was not too hard to feel and fear. He was shocked at the dooin, and grieved so deeply that the merciful God had pity on him, and decreed that the evil should not come on his family in its fulness in his own time, but in that of his son. His repentance was fleeting, but not false-hearted, and it deceived the good Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, who, with something of Solomon's largeness of heart, may have grieved at holding aloof from the sister kingdom, especially after the signal deliverance from the Syrians, so plainly the work of God, and who thus made the one mistake of his life, the connecting his family with Ahab's. His error must have begun

in not inquiring of the Lord. We can fancy his thinking he should only be answered out of priestly prejudice, and believing he was obeying the call of a warm heart, when he consented to give his son and heir Jehoram in marriage to Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, and went down himself to Samaria, perhaps to fetch home the bride, at any rate to hold a great feast, which he no doubt looked on as a feast of reconciliation and union of the Twelve Tribes, forgetting that all union that does not begin in the fear of the Lord must be hollow and false.

LESSON XXI.

MICAIAH THE SON OF IMLA.

B.C. 897.-1 KINGS Xxii. 4-28; 2 CHRON. xviii. 4—27.

And Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, Enquire, I pray thee, at the word of the LORD to-day.

Therefore the king of Israel gathered together of prophets four hundred men, and said unto them, Shall we go to Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall I forbear? And they said, Go up; for God will deliver it into the king's hand.

But Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here a prophet of the LORD besides, that we might enquire of him?

And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, There is yet one man, by whom we may enquire of the LORD: but I hate him; for he never prophesied good unto me, but always evil: the same is Micaiah the son of Imla. And Jehoshaphat said, Let not the king say so.

And the king of Israel called for one of his officers, and said, Fetch quickly Micaiah the son of Imla.

And the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat king of Judah sat either of them on his throne, clothed in their robes, and they sat in a void place* at the entering in of the gate of Samaria; and all the prophets prophesied before

them.

And Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah had made him horns of iron, and said, Thus saith the LORD, With these thou shalt push Syria until they be consumed.

And all the prophets prophesied so, saying, Go up to Ramoth-gilead, and prosper for the LORD shall deliver it into the hand of the king. And the messenger that went to call Micaiah spake to him, saying,

* Open space.

Behold, the words of the prophets declare good to the king with one assent; let thy word therefore, I pray thee, be like one of theirs, and speak thou good.

And Micaiah said, As the LORD liveth, even what my God saith, that will I speak.

And when he was come to the king, the king said unto him, Micaiah, shall we go to Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall I forbear? And he said, Go ye up, and prosper, and they shall be delivered into your hand.

And the king said to him, How many times shall I adjure thee that thou say nothing but the truth to me in the name of the LORD?

Then he said, I did see all Israel scattered upon the mountains, as sheep that have no shepherd: and the LORD said, These have no master ; let them return therefore every man to his house in peace.

And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, Did I not tell thee that he would not prophesy good unto me, but evil?

Again he said, Therefore hear the word of the LORD; I saw the LORD sitting upon his throne, and all the host of heaven standing on his right hand and on his left.

And the LORD said, Who shall entice Ahab king of Israel, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead? And one spake saying after this manner, and another saying after that manner.

Then there came out a spirit, and stood before the LORD, and said, I will entice him. And the LORD said unto him, Wherewith?

And he said, I will go out, and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And the LORD said, Thou shalt entice him, and thou shalt also prevail: go out and do even so.

Now therefore, behold, the LORD hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of these thy prophets, and the LORD hath spoken evil against thee.

Then Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah came near, and smote Micaiah upon the cheek, and said, Which way went the Spirit of the LORD from me to speak unto thee?

And Micaiah said, Behold, thou shalt see on that day when thou shalt go into an inner chamber to hide thyself.

Then the king of Israel said, Take ye Micaiah, and carry him back to Amon the governor of the city, and to Joash the king's son;

And say, Thus saith the king, Put this fellow in the prison, and feed him with bread of affliction and with water of affliction, until I return in peace. And Micaiah said, If thou return at all in peace, the LORD hath not spoken by me. And he said, Hearken, O people, every one of you.

COMMENT.-Ramoth was one of the Levitical cities lying in the land of Gilead, twelve miles beyond the Jordan, one of those appointed by Moses from his last encampment as the refuge of the manslayer. It had fallen into the hands of Syria during the decay of Israel. What better way could there be of sealing the reconciliation of the two kingdoms than by joining their forces to deliver it from the enemy, who had lain still and crushed ever since the great defeat at Aphek? Jehoshaphat readily agreed at