all the bowls and other instruments required at the sacrifices, which had been taken away in the time of Athaliah. And thus the Temple was once more brought back to serve to God's honour and glory.

LESSON XLV.

JEHOAHAZ'S REIGN AND JOASH'S APOSTASY.

B.C. 856.—2 KINGS xiii. 1—7; 2 CHRON. xxiv. 15—26.

In the three and twentieth year of Joash the son of Ahaziah king of Judah, Jehoahaz the son of Jehu began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and reigned seventeen years.

And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, and followed the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which made Israel to sin; he departed not therefrom.

And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he delivered them into the hand of Hazael king of Syria, and into the hand of Ben-hadad the son of Hazael, all their days.

And Jehoahaz besought the LORD, and the LORD hearkened unto him: for he saw the oppression of Israel, because the king of Syria oppressed them.

(And the LORD gave Israel a saviour, so that they went out from under the hand of the Syrians: and the children of Israel dwelt in their tents, as beforetime.

Nevertheless they departed not from the sins of the house of Jeroboam, who made Israel sin, but walked therein: and there remained the grove also in Samaria.)

Neither did he leave of the people to Jehoahaz but fifty horsemen, and ten chariots, and ten thousand footmen; for the king of Syria had destroyed them, and had made them like the dust by threshing.

But Jehoiada waxed old, and was full of days when he died; an hundred and thirty years old was he when he died.

And they buried him in the city of David among the kings, because he had done good in Israel, both toward God, and toward his house.

Now after the death of Jehoiada came the princes of Judah, and made obeisance to the king. Then the king hearkened unto them.

And they left the house of the LORD God of their fathers, and served groves and idols: and wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this their trespass.

Yet he sent prophets to them, to bring them again unto the LORD; and they testified against them but they would not give ear.

And the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest, which stood above the people, and said unto them, Thus saith God, Why transgress ye the commandments of the LORD, that ye cannot prosper? because ye have forsaken the LORD, he hath also forsaken you.

*The pillar of wood.

XLV.] JEHOAHAZ'S REIGN AND JOASH'S APOSTASY. 131

And they conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the house of the LORD.

Thus Joash the king remembered not the kindness which Jehoiada his father had done to him, but slew his son. And when he died, he said, The LORD look upon it, and require it.

And it came to pass at the end of the year, that the host of Syria came up against him: and they came to Judah and Jerusalem, and destroyed all the princes of the people from among the people, and sent all the spoil of them unto the king of Damascus.

For the army of the Syrians came with a small company of men, and the LORD delivered a very great host into their hand, because they had forsaken the LORD God of their fathers. So they executed judgment against Joash.

And when they were departed from him, (for they left him in great diseases,) his own servants conspired against him for the blood of the sons of Jehoiada the priest, and slew him on his bed, in Millo, and he died: and they buried him in the city of David, but they buried him not in the sepulchres of the kings.

And these are they that conspired against him; Zabad the son of Shimeath an Ammonitess, and Jehozabad the son of Shimrith a Moabitess.

COMMENT.—In B.C. 856, the same in which Joash carried out his repairs of the Temple, Jehu the Avenger died, and Israel came under his son Jehoahaz, who was of the usual ungodly character of the Israelite kings, not indeed worshipping Baal, but persisting in the calf-worship, and retaining the wooden pillar of Ashtoreth at Samaria. Hazael of Syria, so long appointed the executioner of God's vengeance, fulfilled all the dreadful prophecies of Elisha, together with his son, whom he had named after the old race of the kings of Syria, Benhadad.

Then Jehoahaz prayed to the Lord, and deliverance was granted in mercy, even after these transgressions. A saviour—by which a brave captain is probably meant—was raised up, and peace was restored; though, so diminished was the strength of Israel, that the King had but ten chariots and fifty horsemen left, so utterly trampled down like dust on a threshing-floor had Israel become. And be it remembered, Elisha was still alive, beholding the accomplishment of all that had been foretold through his master and himself.

But there was a far sadder sight to come. Good Jehoiada, the priest who had sheltered and restored the child of the house of David and destroyed Baal's worship out of the land of Judah, died

at an extraordinary old age, and in honour of his services was buried in the tombs of the kings, the only graves within the city of Jerusalem. No sooner was he dead than the chiefs of Judah, who had never wholly put away their idolatry, came about the King, and apparently flattered him on the liberty he had gained in being rid of the old man who had governed him so long. We can well believe that they made him ashamed of being brought up more like a priest than a prince, and that he feared to show himself scrupulous. Perhaps they told him it was the narrow fancy of the priests that forbade any worship save at Jerusalem, and that it became a king to be wider and more liberal in feeling. At any rate, Joash was led away by them to permit and join in their idolatry; and when, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Zechariah, Jehoiada's son, and thus probably his own cousin, stood forth above the people—no doubt on the slope leading up to the altar-rebuking them for their idolatry, the King, ashamed, ungrateful, and passionate, completed his sin by encouraging the tumult in which the holy man was slain where he stood.

It is to this horrible deed that our Lord is thought by many to refer, when He says-" That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar." It is supposed that Jehoiada was also called Barachiah. But as this was by no means the last of the murders committed by the Jews, others think that the Zacharias here mentioned was the father of John the Baptist, who had been killed in the Temple shortly before our Lord spoke. There is, however, this resemblance between Zachariah's death and Abel's-that as Abel's blood called for vengeance, Zachariah said in the spirit of prophecy, "The Lord require it." He was a Jewish martyr, not a Christian calling for forgiveness for his murderers. The vengeance was not long in coming. Hitherto the Syrians had never attacked Judah, only the kings of Judah had sometimes assisted Israel against them. Now the weakened state of Israel, trampled and threshed to dust, opened a way for the Syrian armies, and a very little band came, perhaps on a foray, against Judah. To their amazement, "a very great host of the once unconquerable men of Judah were utterly routed by

them, and they were able to advance to Jerusalem, and, as it appears by the Book of Kings, carried off many prisoners and spoil of gold and silver, which the King gave them from the Temple he had once enriched. He himself was sore diseased and helpless, the servants whom he had preferred to the holy men who had brought him up now turned against him, and as he lay sick and helpless on his bed in Millo, namely the castle on Mount Zion, two men with heathen mothers killed him in the fortieth year of his reign and fortyseventh of his age. And while the noble priest Jehoiada lay buried in the tombs of David, Joash was not reckoned worthy to sleep among them. He is a sad warning that it is not enough to be brought up well, nor to begin well, but that a dangerous time comes when our earliest friends are taken from us, and that we must never cease to watch.

LESSON XLVI.

THE DEATH OF ELISHA.

B.C. 850.-2 KINGS xiii. 9-11, 14-25.

And Jehoahaz slept with his fathers; and they buried him in Samaria : and Joash his son reigned in his stead.

In the thirty and seventh year of Joash king of Judah began Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz to reign over Israel in Samaria, and reigned sixteen years.

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

*

*

*

*

*

And Joash

Now Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he died. the king of Israel came down unto him, and wept over his face, and said, O my father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof.

And Elisha said unto him, Take bow and arrows. And he took unto him bow and arrows.

And

And he said to the king of Israel, Put thine hand upon the bow. he put his hand upon it: and Elisha put his hands upon the king's hands. And he said, Open the window eastward. And he opened it. Then Elisha said, Shoot. And he shot. And he said, The arrow of the LORD'S deliverance, and the arrow of deliverance from Syria: for thou shalt smite the Syrians in Aphek, till thou have consumed them.

And he said, Take the arrows. And he took them. And he said unto

the king of Israel, Smite upon the ground. And he smote thrice, and stayed.

And the man of God was wroth with him, and said, Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times; then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it whereas now thou shalt smite Syria but thrice.

:

And Elisha died, and they buried him. And the bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the coming in of the year.

And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of men; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet.

But Hazael king of Syria oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz.

And the LORD was gracious unto them, and had compassion on them, and had respect unto them, because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and would not destroy them, neither cast he them from his presence as yet.

So Hazael king of Syria died; and Ben-hadad his son reigned in his stead.

And Jehoash the son of Jehoahaz took again out of the hand of Benhadad the son of Hazael the cities, which he had taken out of the hand of Jehoahaz his father by war. Three times did Joash beat him, and recovered the cities of Israel.

COMMENT. Returning to the kingdom of Samaria, we find that the death of Jehoahaz, B.C. 856, had placed on the throne his son, another Jehoash, or Joash, named perhaps in honour of the king of Judah, who must have been at the height of his prosperity at the time of the birth of this third of the house of Jehu. Joash of Samaria did not rise above the sins of his family. He too followed the worship of the calves, but though disobedient in his manner of worship, he did not, any more than his father and grandfather, disown the true Lord God of Israel, and he honoured and esteemed the great prophet Elisha.

It seems, however, as if Elijah and Elisha had been specially raised up to strive against the worship of Baal with the house of Ahab, for after the extermination by Jehu, Elisha never again seems to have come forward, although he lived about thirty-five years after it. He was probably teaching in the schools of the prophets, and fostering that spirit which, under the guidance of God the Holy Ghost, revealed itself soon after in the writings by which we still profit. Such was the honour and reverence in which he was held, that his presence was felt as a sort of protection, and when he lay sick unto death King Joash came to see him, and wept over him, lamenting in the very words that Elisha himself had used when he