LESSON LXXX.

THE FATE OF SENNACHERIB.

B.C. 713.-2 CHRON. xxxii. and 2 KINGS xix. ; PSALM lxxvi.

And the LORD sent an angel, which cut off all the mighty men of valour, and the leaders and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned with shame of face to his own land.

So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at.Nineveh.

And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword: and they escaped into the land of Armenia: and Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead.

Thus the LORD saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib the king of Assyria, and from the hand of all other, and guided them on every side.

And many brought gifts unto the LORD to Jerusalem, and presents to Hezekiah king of Judah: so that he was magnified in the sight of all nations from thenceforth.

ASAPH'S SONG OF PRAISE.

In Judah is God known :

His name is great in Israel.

In Salem also is his tabernacle,

And his dwelling-place in Zion.

There brake he the arrows of the bow,

The shield, and the sword, and the battle.

Thou art more glorious and excellent

Than the mountains of prey.

The stout-hearted are spoiled,

They have slept their sleep :

And none of the men of might have found their hands.
At thy rebuke, O God of Jacob,

Both the chariot and horse are cast into a dead sleep.

Thou, even thou, art to be feared:

And who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry?

Thou didst cause judgment to be heard from heaven;

The earth feared, and was still,

When God arose to judgment,

To save all the meek of the earth.

Surely the fierceness of man shall turn to thy praise :

The remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain.

Vow, and pay unto the LORD your God:

Let all that be round about him bring presents unto him that ought

to be feared.

He shall cut off the spirit of princes:

He is terrible to the kings of the earth.

Still Jerusalem was un

COMMENT.-The two years passed. touched, but the Assyrians held the whole country, and the land, whether by necessity or out of obedience, lay untilled. Then Sennacherib advanced again with all his host, intending the destruction of Egypt and the utter ruin of Jerusalem, which he expected to capture upon his way. He advanced; he set up his camp; the tents were spread through the valleys. What was become of Isaiah's promise? That night the destroying angel of the Lord passed over the Assyrian camp, and perhaps came with the hot wind of the desert. But we need not trouble ourselves how he did it. What we know is, that all the mighty men of valour, the leaders and captains, or as Isaiah's own account, copied into the Book of Kings, tells us, 145,000 men were all dead corpses when the few survivors rose in the morning! Some think this happened at Libnah the night of Hezekiah's prayer, but the promise of a sign makes this unlikely, and the best students of Jewish history suppose that it was in the manner here told—before Jerusalem. Sennacherib returned "by the way that he came." The Egyptians were as much relieved as the Jews, and they took possession of the story, which they told in their own way to the Greek historian Herodotus. They said that it was the Egyptian city Pelusium that Sennacherib was threatening, that Tirhakah was away with the army, and that his father Sethi prayed in despair to his god, who in one night sent a host of mice, which gnawed to pieces all the bow-strings and bridges of the enemy, so that they returned discomfited! In witness of which the Egyptians showed a figure of Sethi with a mouse in his hand!* How absurd a story to make out of the grand and awful reality! Yet still the one point of the power of prayer was not forgotten. Some have thought again that

the destruction really happened at Pelusium. Indeed, the Scripture does not say where, but we infer that it must mean the night of the encamping at Jerusalem.

Asaph could not fail to give thanks for such a deliverance in a noble psalm, exulting in God's defence of His own Salem: "There brake He the arrows (or the flashings) of the bow, the shield, the sword, and the battle." It is as one who had seen them all dead corpses that Asaph sings, "At Thy rebuke, O God of Jacob, both the chariot and horse are fallen into a deep sleep."

"And there lay the steed with his nostril spread wide,

But through it there rushed not the breath of his pride."

Faithfully Asaph gives all the glory to God, who had turned Sennacherib's fierceness to His praise; and he goes on to foretell "the remainder of wrath shall keep holy day to Thee." This is understood to mean that while no attack on God's Church shall prosper, the children of those most bitter against her shall come and do her honour and service. This great deliverance did strike all nations round. Many presents were brought to Hezekiah, and these no doubt he gave to "Him that ought to be feared,” making for the treasures that Shebna had made him send in vain to the Assyrian.

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Meantime Sennacherib had returned, and went on palace building, until, some thirty-five years later, in the temple of Nisroch, he was slain by his own two sons. Nisroch, a gigantic human figure, with an eagle's head and four great wings, stood helpless to save him, unknowing of their fate. They, or their followers, destroyed the face of their father in all the sculptures of his palace. We have the slabs still-the proud king with his face broken away. But their punishment soon came, for their younger brother Esarhaddon drove them away into Armenia, and wars with them occupied him as long as Judah deserved to be at peace.

LESSON LXXXI.

TOBIT.

ABOUT B.C. 660.--APOCRYPHA.

We have one glance allowed us of the state of the Israelites in their captivity in Media and Assyria, before we entirely lose sight of them as a people.

The book in which this history is given is among those known by the title of the Apocrypha, and which are not considered to be inspired by God in the same way as the other Scriptures. These books are found in the great Greek translation of the Old Testament, that was made by some of the Jews living at Alexandria, and was used by all the Greek-speaking Jews of the dispersion. The Jews of Palestine, however, did not consider them as truly the Word of God, but only as useful reading, giving good advice, or supplying pieces of history. The Church herself did not decide how they should be regarded, till that good and learned man, St. Jerome, looked closely into the history of the Holy Scripture, and marked off what was not proved to have been "written by the inspiration of God." By his decision our English branch of the Church abides; and, as the Thirty-nine Articles tell us, she reads them as being full of instruction, though it is not safe to prove doctrines from them, as if they were the sure Word of God. Indeed, when they are examined, it is plain that they are not divine like the other books. The sentences are not full and heavy, with twofold and threefold meanings; the history is not living parable; there is no prophecy, or what seems like it is but a copy from real prophecy. In short, there is all the difference between the writings of men from their own powers, and those of men "moved by the Holy Ghost."

Apocryphal is from a Greek word meaning "secret,” as some say, because they were only read in private, not openly in the synagogues; while the true Scriptures are called the Canon, from a word meaning "a reed," because a reed was used to rule and measure with; and they have been the rule and measure of faith from the first.

The book of Tobit has many wonderful things in it-so strange, that as they do not come to us on God's own authority, some have thought they cannot be true; and it is not wrong to doubt of them, as it would be of the miracles in the canon of Scripture. People may judge for themselves in the matter, and look on this either as a history or as an instructive tale; it is not a matter of faith. But ere we rashly say these things are impossible, or say that we here find notions picked up by the Jews among the Chaldeans and Persians, let us remember that it is certain that angels and spirits

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are around us everywhere, and that the veil between the visible and invisible worlds was often taken away in those olden times; and it is plain, from many parts of the Bible, that much that we call the work of nature is guided by the unseen armies of heaven. likewise know that in heathen lands-nay, it would seem everywhere but in Jerusalem—Satan and his angels were allowed to exercise strange powers over the minds and bodies of men, before the prince of this world was conquered by our blessed Lord; so that it would be very bold to say, that because we never knew of anything like the events in this book, they cannot be true. In fact, almost all wise and good men, till very recent times, agreed in believing the facts, though they did not reckon the book to be inspired.

There was a Chaldee copy which St. Jerome translated into Latin, but which has not come down to our times; and our translation was made from the Greek of the Alexandrian version. The Chaldee was most likely the language in which it was begun by Tobit himself, and finished by his son.

Tobit begins his own life by telling us of his native home in Galilee, where the tribe of Naphtali dwelt before the captivity. He was one of those of Galilee who “saw a great light," for the darkness of idol worship had not closed in on his family. His good grandmother, Deborah, was one of those who had never "bowed the knee to Baal," nor "kissed the calves;" so even in wicked Israel she bred him up, in his orphan state, to observe the law of God; and those holy lessons of hers were with him all his life. His tribe was mostly carried away by Tiglath Pileser; but he was left, and took advantage of King Hoshea's permission to his subjects to visit Jerusalem at the feasts, and carried thither his tithes and offerings as faithfully as had ever been done in the best of times. The good grandmother was taken away from the evil to come, and had been buried in peace before the final ruin of the kingdom of Samaria; when Tobit, with his wife Anna and his son Tobias, were carried away to Nineveh by Shalmaneser, or Enemessar, as he calls him.

There Tobit was one of the many of the chosen people whom their heathen conquerors found their most trusty servants. Shalneser made him purveyor, that is, finder of provisions to the