LESSON XVIII.

THE DEFEAT OF THE SYRIANS.

B.C. 900.--I KINGS XX. 22—43.

And the prophet came to the king of Israel, and said unto him, Go, strengthen thyself, and mark, and see what thou doest: for at the return of the year the king of Syria will come up against thee.

And the servants of the king of Syria said unto him, Their gods are gods of the hills; therefore they were stronger than we; but let us fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they.

And do this thing, Take the kings away, every man out of his place, and put captains in their rooms:

And number thee an army, like the army that thou hast lost, horse for horse, and chariot for chariot: and we will fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they. And he hearkened unto their voice, and did so.

And it came to pass at the return of the year, that Ben-hadad numbered the Syrians, and went up to Aphek, to fight against Israel.

And the children of Israel were numbered, and were all present, and went against them: and the children of Israel pitched before them like two little flocks of kids; but the Syrians filled the country.

And there came a man of God, and spake unto the king of Israel, and said, Thus saith the LORD, Because the Syrians have said, The LORD is God of the hills, but he is not God of the valleys, therefore will I deliver all this great multitude into thine hand, and ye shall know that I am the LORD.

And they pitched one over against the other seven days. And so it was, that in the seventh day the battle was joined: and the children of Israel slew of the Syrians an hundred thousand footmen in one day.

But the rest fled to Aphek, into the city; and there a wall fell upon twenty and seven thousand of the men that were left. And Ben-hadad fled, and came into the city, into an inner chamber.

And his servants said unto him, Behold now, we have heard that the kings of the house of Israel are merciful kings: let us, I pray thee, put sackcloth on our loins, and ropes upon our heads, and go out to the king of Israel: peradventure he will save thy life.

So they girded sackcloth on their loins, and put ropes on their heads, and came to the king of Israel, and said, Thy servant Ben-hadad saith, I pray thee, let me live. And he said, Is he yet alive? he is my brother.

Now the men did diligently observe whether any thing would come from him, and did hastily catch it: and they said, Thy brother Ben-hadad. Then he said, Go ye, bring him. Then Ben-hadad came forth to him; and he caused him to come up into the chariot.

And Ben-hadad said unto him, The cities, which my father took from thy father, I will restore; and thou shalt make streets for thee in Damascus, as my father made in Samaria. Then said Ahab, I will send thee away with this covenant. So he made a covenant with him, and sent him

away.

And a certain man of the sons of the prophets said unto his neighbour in the word of the LORD, Smite me, I pray thee. And the man refused to smite him.

Then said he unto him, Because thou hast not obeyed the voice of the LORD, behold, as soon as thou art departed from me, a lion shall slay thee. And as soon as he was departed from him, a lion found him, and slew him.

Then he found another man, and said, Smite me, I pray thee. And the man smote him, so that in smiting he wounded him.

So the prophet departed, and waited for the king by the way, and disguised himself with ashes upon his face.

And as the king passed by, he cried unto the king: and he said, Thy servant went out into the midst of the battle; and, behold, a man turned aside, and brought a man unto me, and said, Keep this man: if by any means he be missing, then shall thy life be for his life, or else thou shalt pay a talent of silver.

And as thy servant was busy here and there, he was gone. And the king of Israel said unto him, So shall thy judgment be; thyself hast decided it.

And he hasted, and took the ashes away from his face; and the king of Israel discerned him that he was of the prophets.

And he said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Because thou hast let go out of thy hand a man whom I appointed to utter destruction, therefore thy life shall go for his life, and thy people for his people.

And the king of Israel went to his house heavy and displeased, and came to Samaria.

COMMENT.-The great notion of the old heathen world was, that every nation had its own patron-god, and that each god fought for his own people. The other nations did not disbelieve that the Lord JEHOVAH existed, but they thought Him the God merely of the Israelites; and in Jezebel's case she regarded it as a handto-hand fight between Him and Baal for the possession of Israel. But in spite of Elijah's despondency it is plain that, after the great challenge on Mount Carmel, the people, and Ahab himself, were less devoted to the new worship than before, and Ahab listened to the prophet who bade him prepare for another attack from the Syrians next year. The Syrians fancied that the power of the gods of Israel was in the hills, and therefore chose to fight in the plains, and lest there should have been treachery in the thirty-two tributary kings, all the commands were given to native

Syrian captains. The place of battle was before Aphek, believed to have been in the great plain of Jezreel, and here the Syrians filled the country, while the Israelites were only like two little flocks of kids in comparison: but again a signal victory was given to Ahab, and of the Syrians who fled twenty-seven thousand more were destroyed by the falling down of the city wall. Benhadad himself, who had taken refuge in Aphek, was surrounded by the Israelite army, and fled from chamber to chamber for shelter, till his servants proposed to go with tokens of submission and throw themselves on Ahab's mercy, so as to judge whether their master might trust to it. Ahab had thought Benhadad slain, and his observation was, "Is he yet alive? he is my brother." The suppliants were anxiously watching his words, and said, "Thy brother Benhadad?" meaning " Do you acknowledge him as such?" Ahab sent for him, and took him into his chariot, and accepted the terms he offered, namely the restoration of the cities that had been taken from Israel, and the being allowed to build a quarter at Damascus where the Israelites might live and trade.

But it appears that this was like Saul's lenity to Agag. Benhadad had been an open enemy of the Lord, and therefore ought not to have been treated as a brother under misfortune. So a prophet was sent to rebuke Ahab by a figurative action, and force him to sentence himself. For this it was needful to come before him wounded; and here is a lesson that it is never a trifle to disobey a command of the Lord. The man who refused to believe and strike in the name of the Lord suffered the same punishment as the disobedient prophet, and was killed by a lion; and in the mean time the prophet announced to Ahab that his had been an act of disobedience and want of faith, instead of true mercy, and therefore that his life should be the forfeit for Benhadad's, which he had spared.

LESSON XIX.

NABOTH'S VINEYARD.

B.C. 899.-1 KINGS xxi. 1—16.

And it came to pass after these things, that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard, which was in Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab king of Samaria.

And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house and I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it; or, if it seem good to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money.

And Naboth said to Ahab, The LORD forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee.

And Ahab came into his house heavy and displeased because of the word which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him: for he had said, I will not give thee the inheritance of my fathers. And he laid him down upon his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no bread.

But Jezebel his wife came to him, and said unto him, Why is thy spirit so sad, that thou eatest no bread?

And he said unto her, Because I spake unto Naboth the Jezreelite, and said unto him, Give me thy vineyard for money; or else, if it please thee, I will give thee another vineyard for it: and he answered, I will not give thee my vineyard.

And Jezebel his wife said unto him, Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? arise, and eat bread, and let thine heart be merry: I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.

So she wrote letters in Ahab's name, and sealed them with his seal, and sent the letters unto the elders and to the nobles that were in his city, dwelling with Naboth.

And she wrote in the letters, saying, Proclaim a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people :

And set two men, sons of Belial,* before him, to bear witness against him, saying, Thou didst blaspheme God and the king. And then carry him out, and stone him, that he may die.

And the men of his city, even the elders and the nobles who were the inhabitants in his city, did as Jezebel had sent unto them, and as it was written in the letters which she had sent unto them.

They proclaimed a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people.

And there came in two men, children of Belial, and sat before him: and the men of Belial witnessed against him, even against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, Naboth did blaspheme God and the king. Then they carried him forth out of the city, and stoned him with stones, that he died.

* Worthless men.

Then they sent to Jezebel, saying, Naboth is stoned, and is dead.

And it came to pass, when Jezebel heard that Naboth was stoned, and was dead, that Jezebel said to Ahab, Arise, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give thee for money: for Naboth is not alive, but dead.

And it came to pass, when Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, that Ahab rose up to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it.

COMMENT.—That Ahab had spared Benhadad out of vanity and false policy instead of mercy was plain from his dealings with his own subject. Jezreel, on the slope of Mount Gilboa, looking out on the plain to which it gave its name, seems to have been the home of the house of Omri, while Samaria was their capital, and here it was that Ahab coveted the inheritance of Naboth to join to his own garden. But Naboth refused, citing the law: "So shall not the inheritance of the children of Israel remove from tribe to tribe: for every one of the children of Israel shall keep himself to the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers." (Numb. xxxvi. 7.) And Ahab showed himself childishly vexed and grieved. It is plain that, bad as the kingdom of Samaria was, still the framework of the old law was observed, and kept it above the nations around, so that the Syrians esteemed the kings of Israel as merciful kings; but to a fierce, proud princess like Jezebel, restraint seemed like an insult. "Dost thou now govern the kingdom?” she said, as though she thought a real king would never have been put off by a subject's refusal. She undertook the whole, and Ahab thought himself cleared by turning aside and pretending to know nothing about it. Meanwhile Jezebel took his signet and raised a plot, causing worthless men to be found to accuse Naboth of uttering blasphemy against God and the king. It was to be done with all solemnity. A fast was held to mark the horror of Naboth's supposed crime, and to turn aside the evils he was said to have called down. Then came two witnesses-two, because "at the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is worthy of death be put to death; but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death" (Deut. xvii. 6)—and accused him before all the assembly of the town. He was dragged out to the open space beyond the wall and there stoned; and, as it afterwards appears (2 Kings ix. 26), his children were stoned with him, so that there might be none left to