plague will the Lord smite thy people, and thy children, and thy wives, and all thy goods; and thou shalt have great sickness by disease of thy bowels, until thy bowels fall out by reason of thy sickness day by day." Such was the tremendous malediction which even the long-suffering God was, so to speak, constrained to send to Jehoram. So far as we can judge from the event, it was productive of no amendment on the part of the king. Then the sentence proceeded to execution. "The Lord stirred up against Jehoram, the spirit of the Philistines, and of the Arabians that were near the Ethiopians." These hordes had been tributary to Jehoshaphat, but like Edom, they despised Jehoshaphat's effeminate son. They poured into Judah, and, if they did not actually take Jerusalem, they sacked the royal palace of its substance, slew all the king's sons except Ahaziah' the youngest, and carried his wives into captivity. Last stage of all, a lingering sickness, of the exact nature which had been foretold, fell upon himself. Two years he lingered in deep misery. At length "he departed," says the sacred annalist, "without being desired." "They buried him in the city of David, but not in the sepulchre of the kings." "And his people made no burning for him, like the burning of his fathers." His sins and his punishment are recorded, a mournful exemplification 1 Called in one place, Jehoahaz, by a mere transposition of the elements of his name, and in another, by a mistake of the copyists, Azariah. of the saying, "With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." He had killed his father's children; his own, save one, were killed. He had coveted and gained by violence his brethren's wealth and his brethren's cities; he lost his own substance, and a portion of his own dominions. He gave his body to be a servant to sin; in his body he was chastised for sin. He gave his heart to Baal; and seems in judicial requital to have lost the power of listening to warnings, how solemnly soever conveyed to him, from the true and living God. We are sometimes inclined to think that Abraham in the Parable deals harshly with the brethren of Dives-that if one had been sent them from the dead they might possibly have repented and have been saved. "They have Moses and the prophets" (is his reply to the pleading appeal addressed to him); "if they hear not them, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." Jehoram's case shall be his justification. Having Moses in the Law before him, having living prophets, perhaps in his court, certainly in his very neighbourhood, he refused to listen to them. So the Writing from Elijah himself, though sent to him from the world beyond the veil, had no power to arrest him in his sin. It is worth remarking that, did we not possess the Books of Chronicles, this incident, which thus points the moral of one of our Lord's most striking Parables, would have been altogether hidden from us. F NOTE ON THE "WRITING OF ELIJAH.”—It is obvious that Elijah's translation had occurred some years previously, for Elisha, not Elijah, was the prophet who was instrumental in Jehoshaphat's deliverance from the Moabites. The occurrence then of "the Writing" could not have taken place during the earthly life of Elijah. It is quite a gratuitous assumption to imagine, with some, that the name Elijah has been substituted by a transcriber's error for Elisha in the text of the passage from which our narrative is drawn. We must, therefore, either suppose that Elijah was divinely informed before his translation of what Jehoram would do, and what he would be (as Elisha was enabled to foresee Hazael's conduct), and that he left the denunciation in writing to be communicated to the king in due time—or, which I think is most natural, we must admit an intimation to have come, by God's operation, from Elijah himself, and to have been conveyed to Jehoram, as was a later warning to Belshazzar. AHAZIA H. See 2 Kings viii. 24-29; ix. 21-29; x. 12-14. AHAZIAH, the youngest and only surviving son of Jehoram, became king on the fatal termination of his father's illness. Scarcely anything is recorded of him except that he was in wickedness a true member of the house of Ahab. He was twenty-two years1 of age when he came to the throne, and he reigned one year. The spell of Athaliah was about him, as it was about his father Jehoram; and his connexion with his uncle Joram (or Jehoram), King of Israel, was his destruction. It appears that he associated himself with Joram in a war against Hazael and the Syrians, and was present at the siege of Ramoth-Gilead, the very place which, as we have seen already, had been fatal to Ahab. The present campaign was a successful one ; but Joram received a severe wound, which compelled 1 2 Kings viii. 26. Forty-two, in Chronicles xxii. 2, is obviously a transcriber's error, which would make him older than his father. So Azariah in 2 Chronicles xxii. 6 is an error for Ahaziah, him to quit his army and repair to Jezreel to be cured. Ahaziah soon paid him a visit, apparently an accidental one, to inquire after his health. But God had ordained that he should thus be involved in the overthrow of the house of Ahab. He had probably left the bulk of his forces at Ramoth-Gilead, where Jehu was high in command over the forces of Joram. If he had any retinue, it must have been a small one, consisting chiefly of his kinsmen. It thus happened, so to speak, that both the kings were almost defenceless, and quite unprepared to meet the rebellious captain in the field. This circumstance will serve to account for the little difficulty experienced by Jehu in carrying out his design. The uncle and nephew were taken quite unawares; for Jehu had, with his proverbial impetuosity, hurried on to Jezreel before tidings of his defection could arrive. His approach caused some surprise, but the two kings went out to meet him, either not suspecting his intentions, or, if they suspected them, hoping to overawe him by their presence. Jehu immediately despatched Joram, and commenced the pursuit of Ahaziah, who had betaken himself to flight. After a while he left the pursuit to his servants and entered into Jezreel. He had more important business on his hands. Whether by the connivance of his pursuers, or by the speed of his chariot, Ahaziah seems to have escaped for the time by the way of Beth-hag-gan (translated in our version, "the Garden-house "), or Engannim (Josh. xix. 21; xxi. |