occurs anywhere else in the Old Testament); and if we accept the chronology already explained,' it would be possible for the prophet to have been still alive while this prince was king of Judah. Moreover, neither Elijah nor Elisha ever appear to have carried on their work by means of writing: and these inappropriate elements in the narrative, as well as the deficiency of the actual contents of the letter,2 indicate that the work from which the Chronicler derived his information was of very late date. Perhaps this was the same work about Elijah and Elisha as that of which fragments of the beginning have been preserved,3 representing, in accordance with the recognised example of antiquity, how their very birth was attended by omens of all their future greatness. 5 3. But it was the ascension of Elijah which was the favourite subject in later times for the accretion of fresh stories and ideas. He now ranked with Enoch, or, as others made out, with Moses,4 and was supposed to continue in heaven a mysterious life which no death had ever interrupted, whence he was ready at any time to return to earth. Moreover, a life thus continuous must have extended itself before as well as after its earthly career: and so it became the further belief of many that this man of fire had already appeared once in the similar personality of Moses' grand-nephew Phinehas. Hence he finally coalesced in popular imagination as the pattern of eternal youth and active succour with the man of paradise, whom the Islamite nations call al Chidhr." 1 P. 21 sq. 2 The language of the short letter is quite that of the Chronicler; cf. especially , ver. 12, with ver. 11. In Epiphanius' De Vit. Proph. v. 6. -For other Apocryphal writings under Elijah's name, cf. Fabricii Cod. Apocr. Vet. Test. and Zunz's Gottesdienstl. Vorträge, p. 130 sq. + Vol. ii. p. 225. 5 See note on Rev. xi. 3 sqq. On account of the expression Num. XXV. 11. What serious errors were really caused in the narratives by the confusion of these two, may be seen, for example, from Hamza's Arab. Annalen, p. 89 sq., according to Gottw. A grave said to be Elijah's is now shown in the village of Shobar near Damascus (cf. Seetzen's Reisen, i. p. 314); but the country is full of such pretended graves of antiquity. This personage is often mentioned, e.g. in Weil's Legenden, pp. 177-181; and there are many very beautiful tales current in Islam of how he drinks the water of VOL. IV. 6 life, retains everlasting youth, and takes perpetual pleasure in giving aid to men; see Qirq Vezir, p. 80-83, 85 sq., 165, 168. Jalaleldîn's History of Jerusalem, according to Reynolds, p. 129 sqq.; according to i. p. 269, he is placed by the side of Noah in the story of Ibn-Arabshah, Fâqîh. p. 25, 5; but he is again distinguished from I , i.e. Elijah, Sharastâni, i. p. 131, In later times the Persian legends of the bird Simorg became much mixed up with them (Shâhnâmeh, i. p. 228, Mohl); but the name ‚¿l, i.e. Green, is unquestion. ably genuine Arabic, and the conception is probably, therefore, a remnant of the ancient Arabic legends of the gods. That Elijah was, at a very early period, regarded in a similar way, may be concluded from Mal. iii. 1, 23 sq.; cf. Ecclus. xlviii. 1–14. Many features of this conception were transferred by the Christians to their St. George. SECTION II. THE HOUSE OF JEHU: THE DESTRUCTION OF SAMARIA AND DELIVERANCE OF JERUSALEM. The great revolution under Jehu and its immediate consequences had now thrown both the kingdoms back upon a primitive condition, in which it was the first business of each to restore and re-establish tranquillity. The grave mistakes and the perverted efforts of the last century were blotted out, and it became possible to lay a more satisfactory foundation both in Samaria and in Jerusalem. But the monarchical power issued from the struggles through which it had just passed, terribly crippled and weakened. The pure moral awe which it had inspired, its primitive grandeur, and its ancient authority had been most violently shaken in the kingdom of the Ten Tribes, by constant revolutions, and violently enough in Judah also by recent events; nor could that wonderful power ever be felt again, in virtue of which the human monarchy had hitherto been the firmest prop of the nation. Encircled by a profound veneration, all-powerful, and scarcely to be bridled by the sanctity of prophetic utterance, sometimes, therefore, violent to excess, but always supported both by a higher consciousness and by the sacred awe in which it was held by the people, the firmest stay, consequently, of the internal unity and external power of the nation, such had the primitive monarchy in Israel been; but now it lay already in ruins, and it could never rise again to the same elevation as of old. It is especially this weakening of the regal power which henceforth determines the course of our history. Since the strongest power of the times was irreparably enfeebled, every other restraint was far more easily loosened; for as yet it was not possible for any force to appear capable of uniting everything firmly together. Unable to exercise a general control, the regal power became itself a detached force in the nation, and so was ready to take sides, and grew more dependent on parties. The prophetic power (so far as it did not degenerate), in spite of its powerful cooperation in the rise of the house of Jehu, saw itself further and further separated, in the course of time, from the crown. Every popular aspiration developed itself with greater internal liberty, and in some directions, therefore, even more beautifully and perfectly than before; in others, however, with greater looseness and want of restraint. Freedom increased everywhere, but since, whenever a religion takes it under its guidance, its power of holding the whole people together constantly diminishes, it exercised an injurious rather than a purely beneficial influence on the national life. It was, however, a natural consequence of the general condition of the two kingdoms, that all these tendencies could not but work with far sharper and more destructive force in the northern than in the southern state. An age in which the ancient rigour of monarchy has already exhibited its deficiencies and weaknesses to the world only too plainly, and proved itself incapable of even protecting, by its power, the higher welfare of the people which it was called into existence to support and extend, is not, however, without some advantages. It gives birth to a deeper movement of all the hitherto concealed spiritual forces among the people in an attempt to show what they too can do towards remedying the national evils which have become palpable, and properly adjusting all life and activity. We can follow such periods with profound sympathy, in so far as they show the utmost that can be accomplished by a people already highly cultivated, working on the basis of its earlier acquisitions, and bringing into play its deepest and most varied powers as yet uncorrupted and now liberated from the close confinement of its previous shackles. Such a period had now arrived for ancient Israel in all its fulness. The range of the pursuit of wisdom which had been so active and bold ever since the time of Solomon, was no doubt contracted during this period,' but within the narrower limits which were imposed upon it by the general position of Israel at the time, it developed itself all the more freely, nay, in many schools, only too much so. The chief indications of this fact are found in the power of doubt and mockery, and the folly of mockers, that is, according to the Greek expression, sceptics, who gained an increasing ascendancy during the succeeding centuries, and did not spare even the most sacred subjects. But the popular freedom also, in opposition to the power of the crown, now rapidly spread its wings. The deliberative order which took a part in all legislation, now rose with unmistakably important results from the basis which had long ago been laid in Israel, although, in accordance with the essential difference between the two kingdoms, it received a specific development in 2 Vol. iii. pp. 11 sq., 310. 1 P. 19. each. Moreover, the general internal restlessness of life increased in both the kingdoms during the following centuries almost without interruption; and this tendency was all the more one-sided and threatening in proportion to the growing weakness of Israel's dominion abroad, and the narrow limits within which, in spite of every vicissitude, it becomes, in the long run, more and more closely circumscribed. The immediate consequence of this contraction of the boundaries of the whole field of national power, as well as of the intense exertion and the ever increasing restlessness of the endeavours and capabilities which were still left to the people, was to involve the lower classes in Israel in more and more suffering, and the times came when the 'poor' and 'oppressed"1 were constantly and sadly on the increase, and even when everyone was reckoned in their number who held aloof from the perverted effort for freedom, and in simple fidelity to the true religion preferred suffering from injustice to participating in it.2 To protect these men as far as possible from the greediness and injustice of their less scrupulous neighbours was now the noblest privilege and one of the most imperative duties of the monarchy,3 the ideal function of which, at any rate, required it to stand above the contending parties in the realm, and counteract their destructive efforts. In all these directions, then, the tendencies of Israel, even at that time, resembled those of many modern states; and all the restive turbulence of Grecian freedom before Alexander was then striving to develope itself in Israel; only the Greeks found it easy to throw off a monarchy which had never established itself so firmly amongst them as it had done in Israel. But it is of still greater interest to observe in this connexion that there is every indication that many of the surrounding kingdoms, the Egyptian and Phoenician, for instance, found themselves, at this epoch in a similar condition," from which, after the release of every effort from the constraint in which it had previously been repressed, it was extremely difficult for any nation of antiquity to regain compact unity and power. All these states, together with Israel, exercised a most powerful mutual influence over each other; and it was soon to be de cided whether or not these dissolving forces were now to gain the ascendant in Israel and its two kingdoms as well. A long period had therefore to elapse at first, before the two kingdoms could be in a position to recover from the evils and deficiencies of the last revolution, and begin with energy to lay the improved foundation now possible. But at the commencement of this period, even the kingdom of the Ten Tribes had still a great deal of the old national vigour left, and both were still successful in raising themselves up to make a fresh beginning; nay, under the dynasty of Jehu, which lasted twice as long as its predecessor, the kingdom of the Ten Tribes reached a cohesion and strength which it had never before been able to maintain. But even thus it was soon overtaken by its fate, for the germs of internal ruin and dissolution which lay in its very foundations were only brought out more rapidly and continuously by the long period of unbroken prosperity to which it at last attained once more; and when the Assyrians were aspiring after universal empire, the same causes only assisted them in destroying a kingdom which had never drawn the breath of healthy life. But while the larger kingdom advanced thus irretrievably towards its final ruin, the smaller once more collected its higher forces, after they had been united and developed with greater firmness under the pressure of the times,and reached such wonderful power that it sustained, with the happiest and richest results, the blow under which its neighbour succumbed, and almost succeeded in raising itself by a creative effort to a fresh existence. The close of this second period of the two kingdoms is, therefore, wholly different from that of the first century of their existence; and when all their casual oscillations are over, the widely divergent destiny involved in the very origin of each appears in strong relief under the light of history. This period, ending with the sixth year of the reign of king Hezekiah, in which Samaria was destroyed, embraces one hundred and sixty-five years, reckoning by the reigns of the several kings of Judah as given in our present books of Kings; but according to the years assigned to the kings of the Ten Tribes up to the destruction of the kingdom, only one hundred and fortythree years and seven months. A closer investigation shows that there are two considerable mistakes in the books of Kings, which can be corrected with tolerable certainty. The error 1 The mistake in 2 Kings xiii. 10, is not of importance. We must follow the Aldine edition of the LXX and read thirty nine instead of thirty-seven, in accordance with xiii. 1, xiv. 1. |