Another famine.

A.M. 3112. dicted should last seven years, and he counselled the Shunamite, B.C. 892. whose child he had restored, to leave the country until this dreadful visitation should have passed away. She accordingly departed, and at the close of the seven years, returning to petition the king of Israel for her land, she found him conversing with Gehazi respecting the miracles of Elisha, her own case being at that moment under consideration; a circumstance so propitious to her application, that she was not only reinstated in her property, but indemnified for the loss she had sustained during her absence.

Hazael.

Jehoram,

king of Judah.

At this time Elisha went down to Damascus. Benhadad being sick, sent Hazael, one of his chief ministers, to learn of the prophet if he should recover, who abruptly intimated to him his own designation to the Syrian throne ;-depicting also the bloody crimes toward the Israelites that would stain his future reign. To this, Hazael replied, with that memorable indignation at his own existing dispositions, which was at once a proof of the blindness of his heart, and the correctness of his moral perceptions, "But what is thy servant a DOG, that he should do this great thing?" Upon his return he murdered his sovereign, and seized upon his throne.

A.M. 3115. Jehoram had succeeded his father Jehoshaphat on the throne of B.C. 889. Judah, and his first act was to destroy all the branches of the royal family, with several of his nobles. This barbarous custom of securing the throne by the extermination of those who might be supposed likely to advance any pretensions to it, is very prevalent in the East; and the seclusion, almost confinement, in which the princes of the family are kept, renders them an easy prey to the first jealous tyrant who assumes the reins of government. He had married the daughter of Ahab, and shared her idolatry. The Edomites revolted from his sway, and he lost also Libnah. A writing from Elijah was brought him, prepared, it should seem, some time before, as the prophet had been translated some years, foretelling the calamities which should fall upon his family, and his own mortal disease. These things happened accordingly, and he was not even buried in the royal sepulchres.

A.M. 3119.

Ahaziah.

Jehu anointed

king.

Ahaziah (or, as he is otherwise called, Jehoahaz) succeeded him, B.C. 885. and joined Joram, king of Israel, in a second attempt to recover Ramoth-Gilead, which proved as disastrous as the former; for the king of Israel was severely wounded, and the king of Judah continued with him, on account of this indisposition; during which Elisha sent a young prophet secretly to anoint JEHU king over Israel, who was immediately acknowledged by his fellow-officers, and proceeded without delay to surprise the sick monarch at Jezreel. The kings of Israel and Judah went out to meet him, and demand the occasion of his unexpected appearance; he slew them both, and entering the Judah slain. city, saw Jezebel, who was yet living, at one of the windows of the palace, from which he caused her to be precipitated, and she died. Jezebel slain The body of Jehoram was cast into the field of Naboth, whom his by dogs. father Ahab had murdered; and when Jehu sent out to bury Jezebel,

Kings of
Israel and

anddevoured

he found her almost devoured by dogs, according to the prophetic A.M. 3119. threatening delivered so long before.

B.C. 885.

Jehu followed these severe measures with the slaughter of the seventy sons of Ahab and forty-two of the relations of Ahaziah. He then, with a mixture of fraud and unhallowed zeal, proclaimed a Jehu's zeal, solemn festival in honour of Baal; and thus assembling all the and idolatry. worshippers of that idol, caused them to be slain in the temple, and extirpated idolatry in general. But he afterwards fell into the practices of Jeroboam, and dishonoured his early career. Hazael at this time began to weaken the empire of Israel, and Jehu died after Dies. a reign of twenty-eight years.

ATHALIAH, in the meanwhile, had, at the death of her son Ahaziah, A.M. 3120. destroyed all the seed-royal, with the exception of Joash, then an B.c. 884. infant, who was secretly conveyed beyond her malice, while she Athaliah. usurped the throne of Judah. At the close of six years, Jehoiada the high priest took such measures as terminated her tyranny, by proclaiming JOASH king, and causing her to be put to death. During Joash. the life of Jehoiada, he conducted himself uprightly, and showed his zeal for religion in repairing the temple; but when the high priest died he turned to idolatry, and being reproved by Zechariah, the son A.M. 3164. and successor of his aged benefactor, he forgot his obligations, and B.C. 840. commanded him to be stoned to death. This cruel act was followed by exemplary punishment. Hazael advanced upon Jerusalem with A.M. 3148. a small, but successful army, and Joash was obliged to purchase his B.C. 856. forbearance at the expense of the treasures of the temple and of the palace. He then languished under a complication of diseases, and was soon after slain by a conspiracy of his own servants.

Elisha,

Jehu was succeeded by JEHOAHAZ in the government of Israel, Jehoahaz, who, adhering to the vices of his father, was punished by the king of oppressions exercised by Hazael, king of Syria, and the kingdom A.M. 3165. was greatly reduced. His reign lasted seventeen years, and he was B.C. 839. succeeded by his son JEHOASH. In his reign Elisha was seized with Jehoash. his mortal sickness, and the king visited him with much affection. The dying prophet instructed him to " take bow and arrows," and Sickness of open the windows eastward, and shoot. He obeyed, and was told that he should smite the Syrians at Aphek. He then directed him to take the arrows and smite upon the ground; and the king smote thrice. The prophet was grieved that he had not struck it more repeatedly, and foretold that he should only prevail against Syria three times. Soon after Elisha died, and before the year closed, as and death. they were proceeding to bury a man, they discerned a band of Moabites, and in their haste and terror cast the dead body into the sepulchre of the prophet; "and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood upon his feet." His bones Hazael dying, was succeeded by Benhadad his son, from whom recover a Jehoash recovered the cities which his father had seized, and thrice Benhadad. defeated him, according to the dying prediction of Elisha.

dead man.

A.M. 3178.
B.C. 826.

Amaziah.

AMAZIAH succeeded his father Joash on the throne of Judah, and reigned well for a season. He punished his father's murderers with death, but spared their children, according to the law of Moses. He raised a prodigious army of his own, and increased it by hiring 100,000 Israelites. This alliance being forbidden by a prophet, he incurred the loss of the money which he had given them, and their displeasure, when he separated himself from them. He defeated the Edomites; but, among the spoil which he took, brought home their idols, and suffered himself to be betrayed by them into idolatry. Then began his disasters. A prophet was sent to reprove him, and he resented his faithful admonition. He challenged the king of Israel, by whom he was defeated, taken prisoner, and brought to Jerusalem, his own metropolis, which the conqueror stripped of its A.M. 3194. treasures, as a ransom, and demolished a considerable part of its B.C. 810. wall, before he departed to Samaria. A conspiracy was finally formed against Amaziah at Jerusalem, from which he fled to Lachish, whither he was followed and slain; the people of Judah choosing his son Azariah, otherwise called Uzziah, as his successor, at the age of sixteen.

Slain at
Lachish.

A.M. 3179. JEROBOAM, the second of the name, was the son of Jehoash, the B.C. 825. king of Israel, and succeeded his father, in the fifteenth year of the Jeroboam II reign of Amaziah, king of Judah. He is charged with the prevailing sins of his house; yet his reign was prosperous, and he was distinguished for his courage, and for his enterprising spirit. He Defeats the followed up the advantages which his father had gained over the Syrians. Syrians, and, encouraged by the prophet Jonah, pressed on until he A.M. 3220. had restored the entire coast of Israel, "from the entering of B.C. 784. Hamath to the sea of the plain," or the Dead Sea. He captured also Damascus, the Syrian capital, and reigned forty-one years.

A.M. 3194.
B.C. 810.
Uzziah.

AZARIAH, the son of Joash, better known by the name UZZIAH, was at that time king of Judah. The early part of his sway, and so long as he was under the counsels of a prophet of the name of Zachariah, (not the person who stands upon the list of the prophetical books,) was distinguished for his personal piety, and the prosperity of his empire. He defeated the Arabians, Philistines, and Mehunims, and received tribute from the Ammonites. His army cousisted of A M. 3239. more than three hundred thousand men; he fortified Jerusalem, B.C. 765. invented instruments of war, built fortresses, founded magazines, and

particularly applied himself to agriculture; an attachment not often felt to home interests by princes of military genius. Prosperity produced in him, however, as in other affecting instances which have presented themselves in this chain of history, that presumption His offence. which led to lamentable reverses. He invaded the sacerdotal office, which, however blended with the regal in other nations, was expressly and carefully kept separate in the Jewish economy; he entered the temple to burn incense, and, notwithstanding the expostulations of the high priest, he persisted in his transgression, until he was sud

denly smitten with a leprosy, which not only drove him from the a.м. 3246. sanctuary, but from his throne, and devolved the regency upon his B.C. 758. son Jotham. He quitted the city, and lived in a house by himself, His leprosy. the leprosy cleaving to him until his death, which happened about The regency. seven years afterwards, and in the fifty-second of his reign.

Zachariah, who had succeeded Jeroboam, followed the idolatries A.M. 3231. of his ancestors, and reigned but six months, when he was slain by B.C. 773. the conspiracy of Shallum. Thus the dynasty of Jehu terminated

in the fourth generation, as had been foretold. As ZACHARIAH did Zachariah. not come to the throne until the thirty-eighth year of Uzziah's reign, Archbishop Usher supposes there must have been an inter-regnum of eleven years, a chronological difficulty which it is not easy to settle, and which this is not the place to determine. The ill-gotten crown of Shallum remained on his head only a month; for, at the expiration Shallum of that period, he was put to death by Menahem, who held the scep- Menahem. tre which he had thus wrested ten years. Nothing is recorded of his stormy reign but acts of cruelty, briefly expressed, but full of horror. Israel was invaded by Pul, king of Assyria, and her tyrant was compelled to purchase his forbearance and assistance at an enormous expense, which led to further exactions upon his subjects, in order to raise the sum required. He died in the fiftieth year of the reign of Uzziah, and was succeeded by his son Pekahiah. The kingdom of Israel was now fast verging to ruin; it had been long declining, A.M. 3243. and from the reign of the last branch of the house of Jehu, had в.c. 761. presented only a succession of conspiracies and bloodshed, to its utter desolation. Pekahiah reigned but two years, when the cup of blood Pekahiah. of which his father had caused his predecessor to drink, was transferred to his own hand. He died by the conspiracy of PEKAH, the Pekah. son of Remaliah, one of his captains, who seized his authority, and followed his transgressions. He reigned, however, twenty years; in the second of which commenced the reign of JOTHAM Over Judah.

The son of Uzziah walked uprightly, after the example of his A.M. 3246. father, in the earliest and happiest days of his sovereignty. During B.C. 758. sixteen years he supported the regal dignity with distinction, and exercised its authority for the welfare of his people. In this, and the latter part of the preceding reign, Isaiah, the prophet, flourished, and held on his illustrious career until the days of Manasseh.-(See the article ISAIAH.) Jotham repaired the sanctuary, and built cities Jotham. and fortresses in Judah. He defeated the Ammonites and rendered them tributary; and found an honourable sepulchre with his fathers, in the 41st year of his age; a short, but not inglorious life!

He was succeeded by his son AHAZ, who, unhappily for his country, A.M. 3263. was of a far different character. He also reigned sixteen years; but B.C. 741. they were years of vice and misery. Israel had formed an unnatural Ahaz. alliance with Syria against Judah; and Pekah and Rezin were confederates against Ahaz. His affliction on this occasion touched Isaiah, who was sent to announce to him the speedy destruction of

vices of Ahaz

Syria.

Israel.

A.M. 3263. the allied monarchs: the particulars of which prediction will be found B.C. 741. in the life of that prophet. Notwithstanding this encouraging assurance, (and it was eventually accomplished in all its particulars,) he looked abroad for that assistance which he knew he had forfeited Idolatry and at home. He plunged into the grossest idolatries of the heathens, and practised, with their impure rites, their most cruel superstitions -causing one of his sons "to pass through the fire." As a punishment, his enemies were suffered cruelly to lay waste his dominions, although they were not permitted wholly to vanquish him. The Spoiled by king of Syria, who had not succeeded in his expedition against Jerusalem, stripped him of some of his remoter possessions, and particularly deprived him of Elath, a seaport on the Red Sea, where, from the reigns of David and Solomon, a most important trade had been conducted with the East. Zichri, an Ephraimite, also slew one of his sons, the governor of his house, and his prime minister. And Defeated by the king of Israel obtained still more considerable advantages over him: 120,000 men were killed in battle, and 200,000 of his people were made captive; but as these were being transported to Samaria, the prophet Obed met the triumphant army, and commanded them to restore the prisoners, and content themselves with the spoil. His remonstrances being seconded by some princes of Ephraim, they not only gave the prisoners their liberty, but clothed them from the booty, and safely conducted them so far as Jericho, in their own country. In this desperate condition of the affairs of Ahaz, he learned, to his further dismay, that the Edomites and Philistines were successfully invading his territories; and in his extremity he sent to TiglathPhilistines. pileser for assistance, in the most humble terms, at the same time plundering the temple to add to the present which he had drained from his own treasury for the king of Assyria. The present was accepted; but the aid was not so complete as the king of Judah had hoped. His ally, however, caused a diversion in his favour, by attacking the king of Syria, whom he slew, and captured Damascus, transporting its inhabitants to Kir. Upon this success, Ahaz went to Damascus to compliment Tiglath-pileser; and while he was there, his idolatrous propensities induced him to take the pattern of a heathen altar, which he sent to Jerusalem, commanding one to be constructed exactly like it. Upon his return, he was pleased with the execution of his orders-offering upon this altar-shutting up the temple, the sacred utensils of which he displaced; rearing shrines to heathen deities every where, and resigning himself to the most vicious courses. He died unlamented in the thirty-sixth year of his age, but was not deposited in the royal sepulchres.

Invaded by

Edom and

the

A.M. 3278.

B.C. 726.

Increasing

idolatry and

death.

A.M. 3274.
B.C. 730.

Hoshea.

In the twelfth year of Ahaz, HOSHEA, having conspired against Pekah, and slain him, reigned over Israel. This transaction is said to have taken place in the twentieth year of Jotham, king of Judah; but as Jotham only reigned sixteen years, the calculation made from the time when that monarch began to reign falls upon the fourth