Armenia in Comments -- Author: (KAD) Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch (Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament) 1857-78

Searched terms: arar

Genesis

tGen 7:17Gen 7:17-24 contain a description of the flood: how the water increased more and more, till it was 15 cubits above all the lofty mountains of the earth, and how, on the one hand, it raised the ark above the earth and above the mountains, and, on the other, destroyed every living being upon the dry land, from man to cattle, creeping things, and birds. "The description is simple and majestic; the almighty judgment of God, and the love manifest in the midst of the wrath, hold the historian fast. The tautologies depict the fearful monotony of the immeasurable expanse of water: omnia pontus erant et deerant litera ponto." The words of Gen 7:17, "and the flood was (came) upon the earth for forty days," relate to the 40 days' rain combined with the bursting forth of the foundations beneath the earth. By these the water was eventually raised to the height given, at which it remained 150 days (Gen 7:24). But if the water covered "all the high hills under the whole heaven," this clearly indicates the universality of the flood. The statement, indeed, that it rose 15 cubits above the mountains, is probably founded upon the fact, that the ark drew 15 feet of water, and that when the waters subsided, it rested upon the top of Ararat, from which the conclusion would very naturally be drawn as to the greatest height attained. Now as Ararat, according to the measurement of Perrot, is only 16,254 feet high, whereas the loftiest peaks of the Himalaya and Cordilleras are as much as 26,843, the submersion of these mountains has been thought impossible, and the statement in Gen 7:19 has been regarded as a rhetorical expression, like Deu 2:25 and Deu 4:19, which is not of universal application. But even if those peaks, which are higher than Ararat, were not covered by water, we cannot therefore pronounce the flood merely partial in its extent, but must regard it as universal, as extending over every part of the world, since the few peaks uncovered would not only sink into vanishing points in comparison with the surface covered, but would form an exception not worth mentioning, for the simple reason that no living beings could exist upon these mountains, covered with perpetual snow and ice; so that everything that lived upon the dry land, in whose nostrils there was a breath of life, would inevitably die, and, with the exception of those shut up in the ark, neither man nor beast would be able to rescue itself, and escape destruction. A flood which rose 15 cubits above the top of Ararat could not remain partial, if it only continued a few days, to say nothing of the fact that the water was rising for 40 days, and remained at the highest elevation for 150 days. To speak of such a flood as partial is absurd, even if it broke out at only one spot, it would spread over the earth from one end to the other, and reach everywhere to the same elevation. However impossible, therefore, scientific men may declare it to be for them to conceive of a universal flood of such a height and duration in accordance with the known laws of nature, this inability on their part does not justify any one in questioning the possibility of such an event being produced by the omnipotence of God. It has been justly remarked, too, that the proportion of such a quantity of water to the entire mass of the earth, in relation to which the mountains are but like the scratches of a needle on a globe, is no greater than that of a profuse perspiration to the body of a man. And to this must be added, that, apart from the legend of a flood, which is found in nearly every nation, the earth presents unquestionable traces of submersion in the fossil remains of animals and plants, which are found upon the Cordilleras and Himalaya even beyond the limit of perpetual snow.
(Note: The geological facts which testify to the submersion of the entire globe are collected in Buckland's reliquiae diluv., Schubert's Gesch. der Natur, and C. v. Raumer's Geography, and are of such importance that even Cuvier acknowledged "Je pense donc, avec MM. Deluc et Dolomieu, que s'il y a quelque chose de constat en gologie; c'est que la surface de notre globe a t victime d'une grande et subite rvolution, dont la date ne peut remonter beaucoup au del de cinq ou six mille ans" (Discours sur les rvol. de la surface du globe, p. 190, ed. 6). The latest phase of geology, however, denies that these facts furnish any testimony to the historical character of the flood, and substitutes the hypothesis of a submersion of the entire globe before the creation of man: 1. because the animals found are very different from those at present in existence; and 2. because no certain traces have hitherto been found of fossil human bones. We have already shown that there is no force in these arguments. Vid., Keerl, pp. 489ff.)
In Gen 7:23, instead of ויּמּח (imperf. Niphal) read ויּמח (imperf. Kal): "and He (Jehovah) destroyed every existing thing," as He had said in Gen 7:4. Next: Genesis Chapter 8

Genesis

tGen 8:1With the words, "then God remembered Noah and all the animals...in the ark," the narrative turns to the description of the gradual decrease of the water until the ground was perfectly dry. The fall of the water is described in the same pictorial style as its rapid rise. God's "remembering" was a manifestation of Himself, an effective restraint of the force of the raging element. He caused a wind to blow over the earth, so that the waters sank, and shut up the fountains of the deep, and the sluices of heaven, so that the rain from heaven was restrained. "Then the waters turned (ישׁבוּ i.e., flowed off) from the earth, flowing continuously (the inf. absol. ושׁוב הלוך expresses continuation), and decreased at the end of 150 days." The decrease first became perceptible when the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat on the 17th day of the seventh month; i.e.,, reckoning 30 days to a month, exactly 150 days after the flood commenced. From that time forth it continued without intermission, so that on the first day of the tenth month, probably 73 days after the resting of the ark, the tops of the mountains were seen, viz., the tops of the Armenian highlands, by which the ark was surrounded. Ararat was the name of a province (Kg2 19:37), which is mentioned along with Minni (Armenia) as a kingdom in Jer 51:27, probably the central province of the country of Armenia, which Moses v. Chorene calls Arairad, Araratia. The mountains of Ararat are, no doubt, the group of mountains which rise from the plain of the Araxes in two lofty peaks, the greater and lesser Ararat, the former 16,254 feet above the level of the sea, the latter about 12,000. This landing-place of the ark is extremely interesting in connection with the development of the human race as renewed after the flood. Armenia, the source of the rivers of paradise, has been called "a cool, airy, well-watered mountain-island in the midst of the old continent;" but Mount Ararat especially is situated almost in the middle, not only of the great desert route of Africa and Asia, but also of the range of inland waters from Gibraltar to the Baikal Sea-in the centre, too, of the longest line that can be drawn through the settlements of the Caucasian race and the Indo-Germanic tribes; and, as the central point of the longest land-line of the ancient world, from the Cape of Good Hope to the Behring Straits, it was the most suitable spot in the world, for the tribes and nations that sprang from the sons of Noah to descend from its heights and spread into every land (vid., K. v. Raumer, Palst. pp. 456ff.).
Genesis 8:6

Genesis

tGen 11:2As men multiplied they moved from the land of Ararat "eastward," or more strictly to the south-east, and settled in a plain. בּקעה does not denote a valley between mountain ranges, but a broad plain, πεδίον μέγα, as Herodotus calls the neighbourhood of Babylon. There they resolved to build an immense tower; and for this purpose they made bricks and burned them thoroughly (לשׂרפה "to burning" serves to intensify the verb like the inf. absol.), so that they became stone; whereas in the East ordinary buildings are constructed of bricks of clay, simply dried in the sun. For mortar they used asphalt, in which the neighbourhood of Babylon abounds. From this material, which may still be seen in the ruins of Babylon, they intended to build a city and a tower, whose top should be in heaven, i.e., reach to the sky, to make to themselves a name, that they might not be scattered over the whole earth. שׁם לו עשׂה denotes, here and everywhere else, to establish a name, or reputation, to set up a memorial (Isa 63:12, Isa 63:14; Jer 32:20, etc.). The real motive therefore was the desire for renown, and the object was to establish a noted central point, which might serve to maintain their unity. The one was just as ungodly as the other. For, according to the divine purpose, men were to fill the earth, i.e., to spread over the whole earth, not indeed to separate, but to maintain their inward unity notwithstanding their dispersion. But the fact that they were afraid of dispersion is a proof that the inward spiritual bond of unity and fellowship, not only "the oneness of their God and their worship," but also the unity of brotherly love, was already broken by sin. Consequently the undertaking, dictated by pride, to preserve and consolidate by outward means the unity which was inwardly lost, could not be successful, but could only bring down the judgment of dispersion. Genesis 11:5

Numbers

tNum 10:11After all the preparations were completed for the journey of the Israelites from Sinai to Canaan, on the 20th day of the second month, in the second year, the cloud rose up from the tent of witness, and the children of Israel broke up out of the desert of Sinai, למסעיהם, "according to their journeys" (lit., breaking up; see at Gen 13:3 and Exo 40:36, Exo 40:38), i.e., in the order prescribed in Num 2:9, Num 2:16, Num 2:24, Num 2:31, and described in Num 10:14. of this chapter. "And the cloud rested in the desert of Paran." In these words, the whole journey from the desert of Sinai to the desert of Paran is given summarily, or as a heading; and the more minute description follows from Num 10:14 to Num 12:16. The "desert of Paran" was not the first station, but the third; and the Israelites did not arrive at it till after they had left Hazeroth (Num 12:16). The desert of Sinai is mentioned as the starting-point of the journey through the desert, in contrast with the desert of Paran, in the neighbourhood of Kadesh, whence the spies were sent out to Canaan (Num 13:2, Num 13:21), the goal and termination of their journey through the desert. That the words, "the cloud rested in the desert of Paran" (Num 10:12), contain a preliminary statement (like Gen 27:23; Gen 37:5, as compared with Num 10:8, and Kg1 6:9 as compared with Num 10:14, etc.), is unmistakeably apparent, from the fact that Moses' negotiations with Hobab, respecting his accompanying the Israelites to Canaan, as a guide who knew the road, are noticed for the first time in Num 10:29., although they took place before the departure from Sinai, and that after this the account of the breaking-up is resumed in Num 10:33, and the journey itself described, Hence, although Kurtz (iii. 220) rejects this explanation of Num 10:12 as "forced," and regards the desert of Paran as a place of encampment between Tabeerah and Kibroth-hattaavah, even he cannot help identifying the breaking-up described in Num 10:33 with that mentioned in Num 10:12; that is to say, regarding Num 10:12 as a summary of the events which are afterwards more fully described.
The desert of Paran is the large desert plateau which is bounded on the east by the Arabah, the deep valley running from the southern point of the Dead Sea to the Elanitic Gulf, and stretches westwards to the desert of Shur (Jifar; see Gen 16:7; Exo 15:22), that separates Egypt from Philistia: it reaches southwards to Jebel et Tih, the foremost spur of the Horeb mountains, and northwards to the mountains of the Amorites, the southern border of Canaan. The origin and etymology of the name are obscure. The opinion that it was derived from פאר, to open wide, and originally denoted the broad valley of Wady Murreh, between the Hebrew Negeb and the desert of Tih, and was then transferred to the whole district, has very little probability in it (Knobel). All that can be regarded as certain is, that the El-paran of Gen 14:6 is a proof that in the very earliest times the name was applied to the whole of the desert of Tih down to the Elanitic Gulf, and that the Paran of the Bible had no historical connection either with the ́ ̀ and tribe of Φαρανῖται mentioned by Ptol. (v. 17, i. 3), or with the town of Φαράν, of which the remains are still to be seen in the Wady Feiran at Serbal, or with the tower of Faran Ahrun of Edrisi, the modern Hammn Faraun, on the Red Sea, to the south of the Wady Gharandel. By the Arabian geographers, Isztachri, Kazwini, and others, and also by the Bedouins, it is called et Tih, i.e., the wandering of the children of Israel, as being the ground upon which the children of Israel wandered about in the wilderness for forty years (or more accurately, thirty-eight). This desert plateau, which is thirty German miles (150 English) long from south to north, and almost as broad, consists, according to Arabian geographers, partly of sand and partly of firm soil, and is intersected through almost its entire length by the Wady el Arish, which commences at a short distance from the northern extremity of the southern border mountains of et Tih, and runs in nearly a straight line from south to north, only turning in a north-westerly direction towards the Mediterranean Sea, on the north-east of the Jebel el Helal. This wady divides the desert of Paran into a western and an eastern half. The western half lies lower than the eastern, and slopes off gradually, without any perceptible natural boundary, into the flat desert of Shur (Jifar), on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. The eastern half (between the Arabah and the Wady el Arish) consists throughout of a lofty mountainous country, intersected by larger and smaller wadys, and with extensive table-land between the loftier ranges, which slopes off somewhat in a northerly direction, its southern edge being formed by the eastern spurs of the Jebel et Tih. It is intersected by the Wady el Jerafeh, which commences at the foot of the northern slope of the mountains of Tih, and after proceeding at first in a northerly direction, turns higher up in a north-easterly direction towards the Arabah, but rises in its northern portion to a strong mountain fortress, which is called, from its present inhabitants, the highlands of the Azazimeh, and is bounded on both south and north by steep and lofty mountain ranges. The southern boundary is formed by the range which connects the Araif en Nakba with the Jebel el Mukrah on the east; the northern boundary, by the mountain barrier which stretches along the Wady Murreh from west to east, and rises precipitously from it, and of which the following description has been given by Rowland and Williams, the first of modern travellers to visit this district, who entered the terra incognita by proceeding directly south from Hebron, past Arara or Aror, and surveyed it from the border of the Rachmah plateau, i.e., of the mountains of the Amorites (Deu 1:7, Deu 1:20, Deu 1:44), or the southernmost plateau of the mountains of Judah (see at Num 14:45): - "A gigantic mountain towered above us in savage grandeur, with masses of naked rock, resembling the bastions of some Cyclopean architecture, the end of which it was impossible for the eye to reach, towards either the west or the east. It extended also a long way towards the south; and with its rugged, broken, and dazzling masses of chalk, which reflected the burning rays of the sun, it looked like an unapproachable furnace, a most fearful desert, without the slightest trace of vegetation. A broad defile, called Wady Murreh, ran at the foot of this bulwark, towards the east; and after a course of several miles, on reaching the strangely formed mountain of Moddera (Madurah), it is divided into two parts, the southern branch still retaining the same name, and running eastwards to the Arabah, whilst the other was called Wady Fikreh, and ran in a north-easterly direction to the Dead Sea. This mountain barrier proved to us beyond a doubt that we were now standing on the southern boundary of the promised land; and we were confirmed in this opinion by the statement of the guide, that Kadesh was only a few hours distant from the point where we were standing" (Ritter, xiv. p. 1084). The place of encampment in the desert of Paran is to be sought for at the north-west corner of this lofty mountain range (see at Num 12:16). Numbers 10:13

1 Kings (1 Samuel)

t1Kings 30:21When David came back to the two hundred men whom he had left by the brook Besor (יושׁיבם, they made them sit, remain), they went to meet him and his warriors, and were heartily greeted by David.
Sa1 30:22
Then all kinds of evil and worthless men of those who had gone with David to the battle replied: "Because they have not gone with us (lit. with me, the person speaking), we will not give them any of the booty that we have seized, except to every one his wife and his children: they may lead them away, and go."
Sa1 30:23-24
David opposed this selfish and envious proposal, saying, "Do not so, my brethren, with that (את, the sign of the accusative, not the preposition; see Ewald, 329, a.: lit. with regard to that) which Jehovah hath done to us, and He hath guarded us (since He hath guarded us), and given this troop which came upon us into our hand. And who will hearken to you in this matter? But (כּי, according to the negation involved in the question) as the portion of him that went into the battle, so be the portion of him that stayed by the things; they shall share together." הורד is a copyist's error for היּרד.
Sa1 30:25
So was it from that day and forward; and he (David) made it (this regulation as to the booty) "the law and right for Israel unto this day."
Sa1 30:26-29
When David returned to Ziklag, he sent portions of the booty to the elders of Judah, to his friends, with this message: "Behold, here ye have a blessing of the booty of the enemies of Jehovah" (which we took from the enemies of Jehovah); and this he did, according to Sa1 30:31, to all the places in which he had wandered with his men, i.e., where he had wandered about during his flight from Saul, and in which he had no doubt received assistance. Sending these gifts could not fail to make the elders of these cities well disposed towards him, and so to facilitate his recognition as king after the death of Saul, which occurred immediately afterwards. Some of these places may have been plundered by the Amalekites, since they had invaded the Negeb of Judah (Sa1 30:14). The cities referred to were Bethel, - not the Bethel so often mentioned, the present Beitin, in the tribe of Benjamin, but Betheul (Ch1 4:30) or Bethul, in the tribe of Simeon (Jos 19:4), which Knobel supposes to be Elusa or el Khalasa (see at Jos 15:30). The reading Βαιθσούρ in the lxx is a worthless conjecture. Ramah of the south, which was allotted to the tribe of Simeon, has not yet been discovered (see at Jos 19:8). Jattir has been preserved in the ruins of Attir, on the southern portion of the Mountains of Judah (see at Jos 15:48). Aror is still to be seen in ruins, viz., in the foundations of walls built in enormous stones in Wady Arara, where there are many cavities for holding water, about three hours E.S.E. of Bersaba, and twenty miles to the south of Hebron (vid., Rob. Pal. ii. p. 620, and v. de Velde, Mem. p. 288). Siphmoth (or Shiphmoth, according to several MSS) is altogether unknown. It may probably be referred to again in Ch1 27:27, where Zabdi is called the Shiphmite; but it is certainly not to be identified with Sepham, on the north-east of the sea of Galilee (Num 34:10-11), as Thenius supposes. Eshtemoa has been preserved in the village of Semua, with ancient ruins, on the south-western portion of the mountains of Judah (see at Jos 15:50). Racal is never mentioned again, and is entirely unknown. The lxx have five different names instead of this, the last being Carmel, into which Thenius proposes to alter Racal. But this can hardly be done with propriety, as the lxx also introduced the Philistian Gath, which certainly does not belong here; whilst in Sa1 30:30 they have totally different names, some of which are decidedly wrong. The cities of the Jerahmeelites and Kenites were situated in the Negeb of Judah (Sa1 27:10), but their names cannot be traced.
Sa1 30:30-31
Hormah in the Negeb (Jos 15:30) is Zephath, the present Zepta, on the western slope of the Rakhma plateau (see at Jos 12:14). Cor-ashan, probably the same place as Ashan in the shephelah, upon the border of the Negeb, has not yet been discovered (see at Jos 15:42). Athach is only mentioned here, and quite unknown. According to Thenius, it is probably a mistaken spelling for Ether in the tribe of Simeon (Jos 19:7; Jos 15:43). Hebron, the present el Khulil, Abraham's city (see at Jos 10:3; Gen 23:17). Next: 1 Kings (1 Samuel) Chapter 31

2 Kings (2 Samuel)

t2Kings 23:8The following list of David's heroes we also find in 1 Chron 11:10-47, and expanded at the end by sixteen names (Ch1 11:41-47), and attached in Ch1 11:10 to the account of the conquest of the fortress of Zion by the introduction of a special heading. According to this heading, the heroes named assisted David greatly in his kingdom, along with all Israel, to make him king, from which it is evident that the chronicler intended by this heading to justify his appending the list to the account of the election of David as king over all the tribes of Israel (Ch1 11:1), and of the conquest of Zion, which followed immediately afterwards. In every other respect the two lists agree with one another, except that there are a considerable number of errors of the text, more especially in the names, which are frequently corrupt in both texts, to that the true reading cannot be determined with certainty. The heroes enumerated are divided into three classes. The first class consists of three, viz., Jashobeam, Eleazar, and Shammah, of whom certain brave deeds are related, by which they reached the first rank among David's heroes (Sa2 23:8-12). They were followed by Abishai and Benaiah, who were in the second class, and who had also distinguished themselves above the rest by their brave deeds, though they did not come up to the first three (Sa2 23:18-23). The others all belonged to the third class, which consisted of thirty-two men, of whom no particular heroic deeds are mentioned (vv. 24-39). Twelve of these, viz., the five belonging to the first two classes and seven of the third, were appointed by David commanders of the twelve detachments into which he divided the army, each detachment to serve for one month in the year (1 Chron 27). These heroes, among whom we do not find Joab the commander-in-chief of the whole of the forces, were the king's aides-de-camp, and are called in this respect השּׁלשׁי (Sa2 23:8), though the term השּׁלשׁים (the thirty, Sa2 23:13, Sa2 23:23, Sa2 23:24) was also a very customary one, as their number amounted to thirty in a round sum. It is possible that at first they may have numbered exactly thirty; for, from the very nature of the case, we may be sure than in the many wars in which David was engaged, other heroes must have arisen at different times, who would be received into the corps already formed. This will explain the addition of sixteen names in the Chronicles, whether the chronicler made us of a different list from that employed by the author of the books before us, and one belonging to a later age, or whether the author of our books merely restricted himself to a description of the corps in its earlier condition.
Sa2 23:8-12
Heroes of the first class. - The short heading to our text, with which the list in the Chronicles also beings (Ch1 11:11), simply gives the name of these heroes. But instead of "the names of the mighty men," we have in the Chronicles "the number of the mighty men." This variation is all the more striking, from the fact that in the Chronicles the total number is not given at the close of the list as it is in our text. At the same time, it can hardly be a copyist's error for מבחר (selection), as Bertheau supposes, but must be attributable to the fact that, according to Sa2 23:13, Sa2 23:23, and Sa2 23:24, these heroes constituted a corps which was named from the number of which it originally consisted. The first, Jashobeam, is called "the chief of the thirty" in the Chronicles. Instead of ישׁבעם (Jashobeam), the reading in the Chronicles, we have here בּשּׁבת ישׁב (Josheb-basshebeth), unquestionably a spurious reading, which probably arose, according to Kennicott's conjecture, from the circumstance that the last two letters of ישׁבעם were written in one MS under בּשּׁבת in the line above (Sa2 23:7), and a copyist took בשׁבת from that line by mistake for עם. The correctness of the reading Jashobeam is established by Ch1 27:2. The word תּחכּמני is also faulty, and should be corrected, according to the Chronicles, into בּן־חכמוני (Ben-hachmoni); for the statement that Jashobeam was a son (or descendant) of the family of Hachmon (Ch1 27:32) can easily be reconciled with that in Ch1 27:2, to the effect that he was a son of Zabdiel. Instead of השּׁלשׁים ראשׁ (head of the thirty), the reading in the Chronicles, we have here השּׁלשׁי ראשׁ (head of the three). Bertheau would alter our text in accordance with the Chronicles, whilst Thenius proposes to bring the text of the Chronicles into accordance with ours. But although the many unquestionable corruptions in the verse before us may appear to favour Bertheau's assumption, we cannot regard either of the emendations as necessary, or even warrantable. The proposed alteration of השּׁלשׁי is decidedly precluded by the recurrence of השּׁלשׁי ראשׁ in Sa2 23:18, and the alteration of השּׁלשׁים in the Chronicles by the repeated allusion to the שׁלשׁים, not only in Sa2 23:15, 42; Sa2 12:4, and Ch1 27:6 of the Chronicles, but also in Sa2 23:13, Sa2 23:23, and Sa2 23:24 of the chapter before us. The explanation given of שׁלשׁי and שׁלשׁים, as signifying chariot-warriors, is decidedly erroneous;
(Note: This explanation, which we find in Gesenius (Thes. and Lex.) and Bertheau, rests upon no other authority than the testimony of Origen, to the effect that an obscure writer gives this interpretation of τριστάτης, the rendering of שׁלישׁ, an authority which is completely overthrown by the writer of the gloss in Octateuch. (Schleussner, Lex. in lxx t. v. p. 338), who gives this explanation of τριστάτας: τοὺς παρὰ χεῖρα τοῦ βασιλέως ἀριστερὰν τρίτης μοίρας ἄρχοντας. Suidas and Hesychius give the same explanation (s. v. τριστάται). Jerome also observes (ad Ezek 23): "It is the name of the second rank next to the king.")
for the singular השּׁלישׁ is used in all the passages in which the word occurs to signify the royal aide-de-camp (Kg2 7:2, Kg2 7:17, Kg2 7:19; Kg2 9:25; Kg2 15:25), and the plural שׁלישׁים the royal body-guard, not only in Kg2 15:25, but even in Kg1 9:22, and Exo 14:7; Exo 15:4, from which the meaning chariot-warriors has been derived. Consequently השּׁלשׁי ראשׁ is the head of the king's aides-de-camp, and the interchange of השּׁלשׁי with the השּׁלשׁים of the Chronicles may be explained on the simple ground that David's thirty heroes formed his whole body of adjutants. The singular שׁלשׁי is to be explained in the same manner as הכּרתי (see at Sa2 8:18). Luther expresses the following opinion in his marginal gloss with regard to the words which follow (העצנו עדינו הוּא עדינו): "We believe the text to have been corrupted by a writer, probably from some book in an unknown character and bad writing, so that orer should be substituted for adino, and ha-eznib for eth hanitho:" that is to say, the reading in the Chronicles, "he swung his spear," should be adopted (cf. Sa2 23:18). This supposition is certainly to be preferred to the attempt made by Gesenius (Lex.) and v. Dietrich (s. v. עדין) to find some sense in the words by assuming the existence of a verb עדּן and a noun עצן, a spear, since these words do not occur anywhere else in Hebrew; and in order to obtain any appropriate sense, it is still necessary to resort to alterations of the text. "He swung his spear over eight hundred slain at once." This is not to be understood as signifying that he killed eight hundred men at one blow, but that in a battle he threw his spear again and again at the foe, until eight hundred men had been slain. The Chronicles give three hundred instead of eight hundred; and as that number occurs again in Sa2 23:18, in the case of Abishai, it probably found its way from that verse into this in the book of Chronicles.
Sa2 23:9-10
"After him (i.e., next to him in rank) was Eleazar the son of Dodai the Ahohite, among the three heroes with David when they defied the Philistines, who had assembled there, and the Israelites drew near." The Chethib דדי is to be read דּודי, Dodai, according to Ch1 27:4, and the form דּודו (Dodo) in the parallel text (Ch1 11:12) is only a variation in the form of the name. Instead of בּן־אחחי (the son of Ahohi) we find העחחי (the Ahohite) in the Chronicles; but the בּן must not be struck out on that account as spurious, for "the son of an Ahohite" is the same as "the Ahohite." For גּבּרים בּשׁלשׁה we must read הגּבּרים בּשׁלשׁה, according to the Keri and the Chronicles. שׁלשׁה is not to be altered, since the numerals are sometimes attached to substantives in the absolute state (see Ges. 120, 1). "The three heroes" are Jashobeam, Eleazar, and Shammah (Sa2 23:11), who reached the first rank, according to Sa2 23:19, among the heroes of David. Instead of בּפּלשׁתּים בּחרפם (when they defied the Philistines), we find in the Chronicles והפּלשׁתּים דּמּים בּפּס, "at Pas-dammim," i.e., most probably Ephes-dammim (Sa1 17:1), where the Philistines were encamped when Goliath defied the Israelites. Thenius, Bertheau, and Bttcher therefore propose to alter our text so as to make it correspond to that of the Chronicles, and adduce as the reason the fact that in other passages חרף is construed with the accusative, and that שׁם, which follows, presupposes the previous mention of the place referred to. But the reasons are neither of them decisive. חרף .evisiced is not construed with the accusative alone, but also with ל (Ch2 32:17), so that the construction with ב is quite a possible one, and is not at variance with the idea of the word. שׁם again may also be understood as referring to the place, not named, where the Philistines fought with the Israelites. The omission of אשׁר before נעספוּ is more difficult to explain; and והפּלשׁתּים, which we find in the Chronicles, has probably dropped out after בּפּלשׁתּים. The reading in the Chronicles דּמּים בּפּס (בּאפס) is probably only a more exact description of the locality, which is but obscurely indicated in our text by בּפּלשׁתּים בּחרפם; for these words affirm that the battle took place where the Israelites had once been defied by the Philistines (Sa1 17:10), and where they repaid them for this defiance in a subsequent conflict. The Philistines are at any rate to be regarded as the subject to נעספוּ, and these words are a circumstantial clause: the Philistines had assembled together there to battle, and the Israelites had advanced to the attack. The heroic act of Eleazar is introduced with "he arose." He arose and smote the Philistines till his hand was weary and clave to his sword, i.e., was so cramped as to be stiffened to the sword. Through this Jehovah wrought a great salvation for Israel on that day, "and the people (the soldiers) turned after him only to plunder," sc., because he had put the enemy to flight by himself. אחריו שׁוּב does not mean to turn back from flight after him, but is the opposite of מאחרי שׁוּב, to turn away from a person (Sa1 15:11, etc.), so that it signifies "to turn to a person and follow behind him." Three lines have dropped out from the parallel text of the Chronicles, in consequence of the eye of a copyist having wandered from נעספוּ פלשׁתּים in Sa2 23:9 to פלשׁתּים ויּעספוּ in Sa2 23:11.
Sa2 23:11-12
The third leading hero was Shammah, the son of Age the Hararite (הררי is probably contracted from ההררי, Sa2 23:33). He also made himself renowned by a great victory over the Philistines. The enemy had gathered together לחיּה, "as a troop," or in a crowd. This meaning of היּה (here and Sa2 23:13, and possibly also in Psa 68:11) is thoroughly established by the Arabic (see Ges. Thes. p. 470). But it seems to have fallen into disuse afterwards, and in the Chronicles it is explained in Sa2 23:13 by מלחמה, and in Sa2 23:15 by מחנה. "On a portion of a field of lentils there," sc., where the Philistines had gathered together, the people (of Israel) were smitten. Then Shammah stationed himself in the midst of the field, and יצּילה, "wrested it," from the foe, and smote the Philistines. Instead of עדשׁים, lentils, we find in the Chronicles שׁלעורים, barley, a very inconsiderable difference.
Sa2 23:13-15
To this deed there is appended a similar heroic feat performed by three of the thirty heroes whose names are not given. The Chethib שׁלשׁים is evidently a slip of the pen for שׁלשׁה (Keri and Chronicles). The thirty chiefs are the heroes named afterwards. As שׁלשׁה has no article either in our text or the Chronicles, the three intended are not the three already mentioned (Jashobeam, Eleazar, and Shammah), but three others out of the number mentioned in Sa2 23:24. These three came to David in the harvest time unto the cave of Adullam (see at Sa1 22:1), when a troop of the Philistines was encamped in the valley of Rephaim, and David was on the mountain fortress, and a Philistian post was then in Bethlehem. And David longed for water, and said, "Oh that one would bring me water to drink out of the well of Bethlehem at the gate!" The encampment of the Philistines in the valley of Rephaim, and the position of David on the mountain fortress (בּמּצוּדה), render it probable that the feat mentioned here took place in the war with the Philistines described in Sa2 5:17. Robinson could not discover any well in Bethlehem, "especially none 'by the gate,' except one connected with the aqueduct on the south" (Palestine, vol. ii. p. 158). בּשּׁער need not be understood, however, as signifying that the well was in or under the gate; but the well referred to may have been at the gate outside the city. The well to which tradition has given the name of "David's well" (cisterna David), is about a quarter of an hour's walk to the north-east of Bethlehem, and, according to Robinson's description, is "merely a deep and wide cistern or cavern now dry, with three or four narrow openings cut in the rock." But Ritter (Erdk. xvi. p. 286) describes it as "deep with clear cool water, into which there are three openings from above, which Tobler speaks of as bored;" and again as a cistern "built with peculiar beauty, from seventeen to twenty-one feet deep, whilst a house close by is pointed out to pilgrims as Jesse's house."
Sa2 23:16-17
The three heroes then broke through the camp of the Philistines at Bethlehem, i.e., the outpost that occupied the space before the gate, fetched water out of the well, and brought it to David. He would not drink it, however, but poured it out upon the ground to the Lord, as a drink-offering for Jehovah. "He poured it out upon the earth, rendering Him thanks for the return of the three brave men" (Clericus). And he said, "Far be it from me, O Jehovah, to do this! The blood of the men who went with their lives (i.e., at the risk of their lives)," sc., should I drink it? The verb אשׁתּה is wanting in our text, but is not to be inserted according to the Chronicles as though it had fallen out; the sentence is rather to be regarded as an aposiopesis. יהוה after לי חלילה is a vocative, and is not to be altered into מיהוה according to the מאלחי of the Chronicles. The fact that the vocative does not occur in other passages after לי חלילה proves nothing. It is equivalent to the oath יהוה חי (Sa1 14:45). The chronicler has endeavoured to simplify David's exclamation by completing the sentence. בּנפשׁותם, "for the price of their souls," i.e., at the risk of their lives. The water drawn and fetched at the risk of their lives is compared to the soul itself, and the soul is in the blood (Lev 17:11). Drinking this water, therefore, would be nothing else than drinking their blood.
Sa2 23:18-19
Heroes of the second class. - Sa2 23:18, Sa2 23:19. Abishai, Joab's brother (see Sa1 26:6), was also chief of the body-guard, like Jashobeam (Sa2 23:8 : the Chethib השּׁלשׁי is correct; see at Sa2 23:8). He swung his spear over three hundred slain. "He had a name among the three," i.e., the three principal heroes, Jashobeam, Eleazar, and Shammah. The following words, מן־השּׁלשׁה, make no sense. השּׁלשׁה is an error in writing for השּׁלשׁים, as Sa2 23:23 shows in both the texts (Sa2 23:25 of the Chronicles): an error the origin of which may easily be explained from the word שׁלשׁה, which stands immediately before. "He was certainly honoured before the thirty (heroes of David), and became their chief, but he did not come to the three," i.e., he was not equal to Jashobeam, Eleazar, and Shammah. הכי has the force of an energetic assurance: "Is it so that," i.e., it is certainly so (as in Sa2 9:1; Gen 27:36; Gen 29:15).
Sa2 23:20-23
Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, "Jehoiada the priest" according to Ch1 27:5, possibly the one who was "prince for Aaron," i.e., of the family of Aaron, according to Ch1 12:27, was captain of the Crethi and Plethi according to Sa2 8:18 and Sa2 20:23. He was the son of a brave man, rich in deeds (חי is evidently an error for חיל in the Chronicles), of Kabzeel in the south of Judah (Jos 15:21). "He smote the two Ariels of Moab." The Arabs and Persians call every remarkably brave man Ariel, or lion of God (vid., Bochart, Hieroz. ii. pp. 7, 63). They were therefore two celebrated Moabitish heroes. The supposition that they were sons of the king of the Moabites is merely founded upon the conjecture of Thenius and Bertheau, that the word בּני (sons of) has dropped out before Ariel. "He also slew the lion in the well on the day of the snow," i.e., a lion which had been driven into the neighbourhood of human habitations by a heavy fall of snow, and had taken refuge in a cistern. The Chethib האריה and בּאר are the earlier forms for the Keris substituted by the Masoretes הארי and הבּור, and consequently are not to be altered. He also slew an Egyptian of distinguished size. According to the Keri we should read מראה אישׁ (instead of מראה fo daetsni( א אשׁר), "a man of appearance," i.e., a distinguished man, or a man of great size, ἄνδρα ὀρατόν (lxx); in the Chronicles it is simplified as מדּה אישׁ, a man of measure, i.e., of great height. This man was armed with a spear or javelin, whereas Benaiah was only armed with a stick; nevertheless the latter smote him, took away his spear, and slew him with his own weapon. According to the Chronicles the Egyptian was five cubits high, and his spear like a weaver's beam. Through these feats Benaiah acquired a name among the three, though he did not equal them (Sa2 23:22, Sa2 23:23, as in Sa2 23:18, Sa2 23:19); and David made him a member of his privy council (see at Sa1 22:14).
Sa2 23:24-25
Heroes of the third class. - Sa2 23:24. "Asahel, the brother of Joab, among the thirty," i.e., belonging to them. This definition also applies to the following names; we therefore find at the head of the list in the Chronicles, החילים וגבּורי, "and brave heroes (were)." The names which follow are for the most part not further known. Elhanan, the son of Dodo of Bethlehem, is a different man from the Bethlehemite of that name mentioned in Sa2 21:19. Shammah the Harodite also must not be confounded with the Shammahs mentioned in Sa2 23:11 and Sa2 23:33. In the Chronicles we find Shammoth, a different form of the name; whilst ההרורי is an error in writing for החרדי, i.e., sprung from Harod (Jdg 7:1). This man is called Shamhut in Ch1 27:8; he was the leader of the fifth division of David's army. Elika or Harod is omitted in the Chronicles; it was probably dropped out in consequence of the homoioteleuton החרדי.
Sa2 23:26
Helez the Paltite; i.e., sprung from Beth-pelet in the south of Judah (Jos 15:27). He was chief of the seventh division of the army (compare Ch1 27:10 with Ch1 11:27, though in both passages הפּלטי is misspelt הפּלני). Ira the son of Ikkesh of Tekoah in the desert of Judah (Sa2 14:2), chief of the sixth division of the army (Ch1 27:9).
Sa2 23:27
Abiezer of Anathoth (Anata) in Benjamin (see at Jos 18:24), chief of the ninth division of the army (Ch1 27:12). Mebunnai is a mistake in spelling for Sibbechai the Hushathite (compare Sa2 21:18 and Ch1 11:29). According to Ch1 27:11, he was chief of the eighth division of the army.
Sa2 23:28
Zalmon the Ahohite, i.e., sprung from the Benjaminite family of Ahoah, is not further known. Instead of Zalmon we find Ilai in the Chronicles (Sa2 23:29); but which of the two names is the correct one it is impossible to decide. Maharai of Netophah: according to Ezr 2:22 and Neh 7:26, Netophah was a place in the neighbourhood of Bethlehem, but it has not yet been discovered, as Beit Nattif, which might be thought of, is too far from Bethlehem (vid., Rob. Pal. ii. p. 344, and Tobler, Dritte Wanderung, pp. 117-8). According to Ch1 27:13, Maharai belonged to the Judahite family of Serah, and was chief of the tenth division of the army.
Sa2 23:29
Cheleb, more correctly Cheled (Ch1 11:30; or Cheldai, Ch1 27:15), also of Netophah, was chief of the twelfth division of the army. Ittai (Ithai in the Chronicles), the son of Ribai of Gibeah of Benjamin, must be distinguished from Ittai the Gathite (Sa2 15:19). Like all that follow, with the exception of Uriah, he is not further known.
Sa2 23:30
Benaiah of Phir'aton in the tribe of Ephraim, a place which has been preserved in the village of Fer'ata, to the south-west of Nablus (see at Jdg 12:13). Hiddai (wrongly spelt Hudai in the Chronicles), out of the valleys of Gaash, in the tribe of Ephraim by the mountain of Gaash, the situation of which has not yet been discovered (see at Jos 24:30).
Sa2 23:31
Abi-Albon (written incorrectly Abiel in the Chronicles) the Arbathite, i.e., from the place called Beth-haarabah or Arabah (Jos 15:61 and Jos 18:18, Jos 18:22) in the desert of Judah, on the site of the present Kasr Hajla (see at Jos 15:6). Azmaveth of Bahurim: see at Sa2 16:5.
Sa2 23:32-33
Eliahba of Shaalbon or Shaalbin, which may possibly have been preserved in the present Selbit (see at Jos 19:42). The next two names, יהונתן ישׁן בּני and ההררי שׁמּה (Bneyashen Jehonathan and Shammah the Hararite), are written thus in the Chronicles (Sa2 23:34), ההררי בּן־שׁגא יונתן הגּזוני השׁם בּני: "Bnehashem the Gizonite, Jonathan the son of Sage the Hararite," The text of the Chronicles is evidently the more correct of the two, as Bne Jashen Jehonathan does not make any sense. The only question is whether the form השׁם בּני is correct, or whether בּני has not arisen merely through a misspelling. As the name does not occur again, all that can be said is that Bne hashem must at any rate be written as one word, and therefore should be pointed differently. The place mentioned, Gizon, is unknown. שׁמּה for בּן־שׁגא probably arose from Sa2 23:11. Ahiam the son of Sharar or Sacar (Chron.) the Ararite (in the Chronicles the Hararite).
Sa2 23:34
The names in Sa2 23:34, Eliphelet ben-Ahasbai ben-Hammaacathi, read thus in the Chronicles (Sa2 23:35, Sa2 23:36): Eliphal ben-Ur; Hepher hammecerathi. We see from this that in ben-Ahasbai ben two names have been fused together; for the text as it lies before us is rendered suspicious partly by the fact that the names of both father and grandfather are given, which does not occur in connection with any other name in the whole list, and partly by the circumstance that בּן cannot properly be written with המּעכתי, which is a Gentile noun. Consequently the following is probably the correct way of restoring the text, המּעכתי חפר בּן־אוּר אליפלט, Eliphelet (a name which frequently occurs) the son of Ur; Hepher the Maachathite, i.e., of Maacah in the north-east of Gilead (see at Sa2 10:6 and Deu 3:14). Eliam the son of Ahithophel the Gilonite, the clever but treacherous counsellor of David (see at Sa2 15:12). This name is quite corrupt in the Chronicles.
Sa2 23:35
Hezro the Carmelite, i.e., of Carmel in the mountains of Judah (Sa1 25:2). Paarai the Arbite, i.e., of Arab, also in the mountains of Judah (Jos 15:52). In the Chronicles we find Naarai ben-Ezbi: the latter is evidently an error in writing for ha-Arbi; but it is impossible to decide which of the two forms, Paarai and Naarai, is the correct one.
Sa2 23:36
Jigal the son of Nathan of Zoba (see at Sa2 8:3): in the Chronicles, Joel the brother of Nathan. Bani the Gadite: in the Chronicles we have Mibhar the son of Hagri. In all probability the names inf the Chronicles are corrupt in this instance also.
Sa2 23:37
Zelek the Ammonite, Nacharai the Beerothite (of Beeroth: see at Sa2 4:2), the armour-bearer of Joab. Instead of נשׂאי, the Keri and the Chronicles have נשׂא: the latter reading is favoured by the circumstance, that if more than one of the persons named had been Joab's armour-bearers, their names would most probably have been linked together by a copulative vav.
Sa2 23:38
Ira and Gareb, both of them Jithrites, i.e., sprung from a family in Kirjath-jearim (Ch1 2:53). Ira is of course a different man from the cohen of that name (Sa2 20:26).
Sa2 23:39
Uriah the Hittite is well known from Sa2 11:3. "Thirty and seven in all." This number is correct, as there were three in the first class (Sa2 23:8-12), two in the second (Sa2 23:18-23), and thirty-two in the third (vv. 24-39), since Sa2 23:34 contains three names according to the amended text. Next: 2 Kings (2 Samuel) Chapter 24

4 Kings (2 Kings)

t4Kings 19:35The fulfilment of the divine promise. - Kg2 19:35. "It came to pass in that night, that the angel of the Lord went out and smote in the army of the Assyrian 185,000 men; and when they (those that were left, including the king) rose up in the morning, behold there were they all (i.e., all who had perished) dead corpses," i.e., they had died in their sleep. מתים is added to strengthen פּגרים: lifeless corpses. ההוּא בּלּילה is in all probability the night following the day on which Isaiah had foretold to Hezekiah the deliverance of Jerusalem. Where the Assyrian army was posted at the time when this terrible stroke fell upon it is not stated, since the account is restricted to the principal fact. One portion of it was probably still before Jerusalem; the remainder were either in front of Libnah (Kg2 19:8), or marching against Jerusalem. From the fact that Sennacherib's second embassy (Kg2 19:9.) was not accompanied by a body of troops, it by no means follows that the large army which had come with the first embassy (Kg2 18:17) had withdrawn again, or had even removed to Libnah on the return of Rabshakeh to his king (Kg2 19:8). The very opposite may be inferred with much greater justice from Kg2 19:32. And the smiting of 185,000 men by an angel of the Lord by no means presupposes that the whole of Sennacherib's army was concentrated at one spot. The blow could certainly fall upon the Assyrians wherever they were standing or were encamped. The "angel of the Lord" is the same angel that smote as המּשׁחית the first-born of Egypt (Exo 12:23, compared with Exo 12:12 and Exo 12:13), and inflicted the pestilence upon Israel after the numbering of the people by David (Sa2 24:15-16). The last passage renders the conjecture a very probable one, that the slaying of the Assyrians was also effected by a terrible pestilence. But the number of the persons slain - 185,000 in a single night - so immensely surpasses the effects even of the most terrible plagues, that this fact cannot be interpreted naturally; and the deniers of miracle have therefore felt obliged to do violence to the text, and to pronounce either the statement that it was "the same night" or the number of the slain a mythical exaggeration.
(Note: The assertion of Thenius, that Kg2 19:35-37 are borrowed from a different source from Kg2 18:13-19, Kg2 18:34 and 20:1-19, rests upon purely arbitrary suppositions and groundless assumptions, and is only made in the interest of the mythical interpretation of the miracle. And his conclusion, that "since the catastrophe was evidently (?) occasioned by the sudden breaking out of a pestilence, the scene of it was no doubt the pestilential Egypt," is just as unfounded, - as if Egypt were the only land in which a pestilence could suddenly have broken out. - The account given by Herodotus (ii. 141), that on the prayer of king Sethon, a priest of Vulcan, the deity promised him victory over the great advancing army of Sennacherib, and that during the night mice spread among the enemy (i.e., in the Assyrian camp at Pelusium), and ate up the quivers and bows, and the leather straps of the shields, so that the next morning they were obliged to flee without their weapons, and many were cut down, is imply a legendary imitation of our account, i.e., an Egyptian variation of the defeat of Sennacherib in Judah. The eating up of the Assyrian weapons by mice is merely the explanation given to Herodotus by the Egyptian priests of the hieroglyphical legend on the standing figure of Sethos at Memphis, from which we cannot even gather the historical fact that Sennacherib really advanced as far as Pelusium.)
Kg2 19:36
This divine judgment compelled Sennacherib to retreat without delay, and to return to Nineveh, as Isaiah 28 and 32, had predicted. The heaping up of the verbs: "he decamped, departed, and returned," expresses the hurry of the march home. בּנינוה ויּשׁב, "he sat, i.e., remained, in Nineveh," implies not merely that Sennacherib lived for some time after his return, but also that he did not undertake any fresh expedition against Judah. On Nineveh see at Gen 10:11.
Kg2 19:37
Kg2 19:37 contains an account of Sennacherib's death. When he was worshipping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer slew him, and fled into the land of Ararat, and his son Esarhaddon became king in his stead. With regard to נסרך, Nisroch, all that seems to be firmly established is that he was an eagle-deity, and represented by the eagle-or vulture-headed human figure with wings, which is frequently depicted upon the Assyrian monuments, "not only in colossal proportions upon the walls and watching the portals of the rooms, but also constantly in the groups upon the embroidered robes. When it is introduced in this way, we see it constantly fighting with other mythical animals, such as human-headed oxen or lions; and in these conflicts it always appears to be victorious," from which we may infer that it was a type of the supreme deity (see Layard's Nineveh and its Remains). The eagle was worshipped as a god by the Arabs (Pococke, Specim. pp. 94, 199), was regarded as sacred to Melkarth by the Phoenicians (Nonnus, Dionys. xl. 495,528), and, according to a statement of Philo. Bybl. (in Euseb. Praepar. evang. i. 10), that Zoroaster taught that the supreme deity was represented with an eagle's head, it was also a symbol of Ormuzd among the Persians; consequently Movers (Phniz. i. pp. 68, 506, 507) regards Nisroch as the supreme deity of the Assyrians. It is not improbable that it was also connected with the constellation of the eagle (see Ideler, Ursprung der Sternnamen, p. 416). On the other hand, the current interpretation of the name from נשׁר (נשׁר, Chald.; nsr, Arab.), eagle, vulture, with the Persian adjective termination ok or ach, is very doubtful, not merely on account of the ס in נסרך, but chiefly because this name does not occur in Assyrian, but simply Asar, Assar, and Asarak as the name of a deity which is met with in many Assyrian proper names. The last is also adopted by the lxx, who (ed. Aldin. Compl.) have rendered נסרך by Ἀσαράχ in Isaiah, and Ἐσοράχ (cod. Vatic.) in 2 Kings, by the side of which the various readings Μεσεράχ in our text (cod. Vat.) and Νασαράχ in Isaiah are evidently secondary readings emended from the Hebrew, since Josephus (Ant. x. 1, 5) has the form Ἀρασκής, which is merely somewhat "Graecized." The meaning of these names is still in obscurity, even if there should be some foundation for the assumption that Assar belongs to the same root as the name of the people and land, Asshur. The connection between the form Nisroch and Asarak is also still obscure. Compare the collection which J. G. Mller has made of the different conjectures concerning this deity in the Art. Nisroch in Herzog's Cycl. - Adrammelech, according to Kg2 17:31, was the name of a deity of Sepharvaim, which was here borne by the king's son. שׁראצר, Sharezer, is said to mean "prince of fire," and was probably also borrowed from a deity. בּנין (Isa.) is wanting in our text, but is supplied by the Masora in the Keri. The "land of Ararat" was a portion of the high land of Armenia; according to Moses v. Chorene, the central portion of it with the mountains of the same name (see at Gen 8:4). The slaying of Sennacherib is also confirmed by Alex. Polyhistor, or rather Berosus (in Euseb. Chr. Armen. i. p. 43), who simply names, however, a son Ardumusanus as having committed the murder, and merely mentions a second Asordanius as viceroy of Babylon.
(Note: With regard to the statement of Abydenus in Euseb. l. c. p. 53, that Sennacherib was followed by Nergilus, who was slain by his son Adrameles, who again was murdered by his brother Axerdis, and its connection with Berosus and the biblical account, see M. v. Niebuhr, Geschichte Assurs, pp. 361ff. Nergilus is probably the same person as Sharezer, and Axerdis as Esarhaddon.)
The identity of the latter with Esarhaddon is beyond all doubt. The name אסר־חדּן, Esar-cha-don, consisting of two parts with the guttural inserted, the usual termination in Assyrian and Babylonian, Assar-ach, is spelt Ἀσορδάν in the lxx, Σαχερδονός in Tobit - probably formed from Ἀσερ-χ-δονοσορ by a transposition of the letters, - by Josephus Ἀσσαραχόδδας, by Berosus (in the armen. Euseb.) Asordanes, by Abyden. ibid. Axerdis, in the Canon Ptol. Ἀσαράδινος, and lastly in Ezr 4:10 mutilated into אסנפּר, Osnappar (Chald.), and in the lxx Ἀσσεναφάρ; upon the Assyrian monuments, according to Oppert, Assur-akh-iddin (cf. M. v. Niebuhr, Gesch. Ass. p. 38). The length of his reign is uncertain. The statements of Berosus, that he was first of all viceroy of Babylon, and then for eight years king of Assyria, and that of the Canon Ptol., that he reigned for thirteen years in Babylon, are decidedly incorrect. Brandis (Rerum Assyr. tempora emend. p. 41) conjectures that he reigned twenty-eight years, but in his work Ueber den histor. Gewinn, pp. 73, 74, he suggests seventeen years. M. v. Niebuhr (ut sup. p. 77), on the other hand, reckons his reign at twenty-four years. Next: 4 Kings (2 Kings) Chapter 20

Proverbs

tProv 3:29A second illustration of neighbourly love is harmlessness:
Devise not evil against thy neighbour,
While he dwelleth securely by thee.
The verb חרשׁ, χαράσσειν, signifies to cut into, and is used of the faber ferrarius as well as of the τιγναριυς (Isaiah, p. 463), who with a cutting instrument (חרשׁ, Gen 4:22) works with metal or wood, and from his profession is called חרשׁ. But the word means as commonly to plough, i.e., to cut with the plough, and חרשׁ is used also of a ploughman, and, without any addition to it, it always has this meaning. It is then a question whether the metaphorical phrase רעה חרשׁ signifies to fabricate evil, cf. dolorum faber, mendacia procudere, ψευδῶν καὶ ἀπατῶν τέκτων, and the Homeric κακὰ φρεὶ βυσσοδομεύειν (Fleischer and most others), or to plough evil (Rashi, Ewald, etc.). The Targ., Syriac, and Jerome translate חשׁב, without deciding the point, by moliri; but the lxx and Graecus Venet. by τεκταίνειν. The correctness of these renderings is not supported by Ezek. 21:36, where חרשׁי משׁחית are not such as fabricate destruction, but smiths who cause destruction; also מחרישׁ, Sa1 23:9, proves nothing, and probably does not at all appertain to חרשׁ incidere (Keil), but to חרשׁ silere, in the sense of dolose moliri. On the one hand, it is to be observed from Job 4:8; Hos 10:13, cf. Psa 129:3, that the meaning arare malum might connect itself with חרשׁ רעה; and the proverb of Sirach 7:12, μὴ ἀροτρία ψεῦδος ἐπ ̓ ἀδελφῷ σου, places this beyond a doubt. Therefore in this phrase, if one keeps before him a clear perception of the figure, at one time the idea of fabricating, at another that of ploughing, is presented before us. The usage of the language in the case before us is more in favour of the latter than of the former. Whether ישׁב את means to dwell together with, or as Bttcher, to sit together with, after Psa 1:1; Psa 26:4., need not be a matter of dispute. It means in general a continued being together, whether as sitting, Job 2:13, or as dwelling, Jdg 17:11.
(Note: Accentuate והוא־יושׁב לבטח. It is thus in correct texts. The Rebia Mugrash is transformed, according to the Accentuationssystem, xviii. 2.)
To take advantage of the regardlessness of him who imparts to us his confidence is unamiable. Love is doubly owing to him who resigns himself to it because he believes in it. Proverbs 3:30

Proverbs

tProv 21:44 Loftiness of eyes and swelling of heart -
The husbandry of the godless is sin.
If נר, in the sense of light, gives a satisfactory meaning, then one might appeal to Kg1 11:36 (cf. Sa2 21:17), where ניר appears to signify lamp, in which meaning it is once (Sa2 22:29) written ניר (like חיק); or since ניר = נר (ground-form, nawir, lightening) is as yet certainly established neither in the Heb. nor Syr., one might punctuate נר instead of נר, according to which the Greeks, Aram., and Luther, with Jerome, translate. But of the lamp of the godless we read at Pro 13:9 and elsewhere, that it goeth out. We must here understand by נר the brilliant prosperity (Bertheau and others) of the wicked, or their "proud spirit flaming and flaring like a bright light" (Zckler), which is contrary to the use of the metaphor as found elsewhere, which does not extend to a prosperous condition. We must then try another meaning for נר; but not that of yoke, for this is not Heb., but Aram.-Arab., and the interpretation thence derived by Lagarde: "Haughtiness and pride; but the godless for all that bear their yoke, viz., sin," seeks in vain to hide behind the "for all that" the breaking asunder of the two lines of the verse. In Heb. נר means that which lightens (burning) = lamp, נוּר, the shining (that which burns) = fire, and ניר, Pro 13:23, from ניר, to plough up (Targ. Sa1 8:12, למנר = לחרשׁ) the fresh land, i.e., the breaking up of the fallow land; according to which the Venet. as Kimchi: νέωμα ἀσεβῶν ἁμαρτία, which as Ewald and Elster explain: "where a disposition of wicked haughtiness, of unbridled pride, prevails, there will also sin be the first-fruit on the field of action; נר, novale, the field turned up for the first time, denotes here the first-fruits of sin." But why just the first-fruits, and not the fruit in general? We are better to abide by the field itself, which is here styled נר, not שׂדה (or as once in Jer 39:10, יגב); because with this word, more even than with שׂדה, is connected the idea of agricultural work, of arable land gained by the digging up or the breaking up of one or more years' fallow ground (cf. Pea ii. 1, ניר, Arab. siḳâḳ, opp. בור, Arab. bûr, Menachoth 85a, שׂדות מניּרות, a fresh broken-up field, Erachin 29b, נר ,, opp. הביר, to let lie fallow), so that נר רשׁעים may mean the cultivation of the fields, and generally the husbandry, i.e., the whole conduct and life of the godless. נר is here ethically metaph., but not like Hos 10:12; Jer 4:3, where it means a new moral commencement of life; but like חרשׁ, arare, Job 4:8; Hos 10:13; cf. Pro 3:29. רחב is not adj. like Pro 28:25, Psa 101:5, but infin. like חסר, Pro 10:21; and accordingly also רוּם is not adj. like חוּם, or past like סוּג, but infin. like Isa 10:12. And חטּאת is the pred. of the complex subject, which consists of רוּם עינים, a haughty looking down with the eyes, רחב־לב, breadth of heart, i.e., excess of self-consciousness, and נר רשׁעים taken as an asyndeton summativum: pride of look, and making oneself large of heart, in short, the whole husbandry of the godless, or the whole of the field cultivated by them, with all that grows thereon, is sin. Proverbs 21:5

Song of Solomon (Canticles)

tSong 5:1She gives herself to him, and he has accepted her, and now celebrates the delight of possession and enjoyment.
1 I am come into my garden, my sister-bride;
Have plucked my myrrh with my balsam;
Have eaten my honeycomb with my honey;
Have drunk my wine with my milk -
Eat, drink, and be drunken, ye friends!
If the exclamation of Solomon, 1a, is immediately connected with the words of Shulamith, Sol 4:16, then we must suppose that, influenced by these words, in which the ardour of love and humility express themselves, he thus in triumph exclaims, after he has embraced her in his arms as his own inalienable possession. But the exclamation denotes more than this. It supposes a union of love, such as is the conclusion of marriage following the betrothal, the God-ordained aim of sexual love within the limits fixed by morality. The poetic expression בּאתי לגנּי points to the אל eht ot בּוא, used of the entrance of a man into the woman's chamber, to which the expression (Arab.) dakhal bihā (he went in with her), used of the introduction into the bride's chamber, is compared. The road by which Solomon reached this full and entire possession was not short, and especially for his longing it was a lengthened one. He now triumphs in the final enjoyment which his ardent desire had found. A pleasant enjoyment which is reached in the way and within the limits of the divine order, and which therefore leaves no bitter fruits of self-reproach, is pleasant even in the retrospect. His words, beginning with "I am come into my garden," breathe this pleasure in the retrospect. Ginsburg and others render incorrectly, "I am coming," which would require the words to have been בּא אני (הנּה). The series of perfects beginning with באתי cannot be meant otherwise than retrospectively. The "garden" is Shulamith herself, Sol 4:12, in the fulness of her personal and spiritual attractions, Sol 4:16; cf. כּרמי, Sol 1:6. He may call her "my sister-bride;" the garden is then his by virtue of divine and human right, he has obtained possession of this garden, he has broken its costly rare flowers.
ארה (in the Mishna dialect the word used of plucking figs) signifies to pluck; the Aethiop. trans. ararku karbê, I have plucked myrrh; for the Aethiop. has arara instead of simply ארה. בּשׂמי is here שׂבּם deflected. While בּשׂם, with its plur. besâmim, denotes fragrance in general, and only balsam specially, bāsām = (Arab.) bashâm is the proper name of the balsam-tree (the Mecca balsam), amyris opobalsamum, which, according to Forskal, is indigenous in the central mountain region of Jemen (S. Arabia); it is also called (Arab.) balsaman; the word found its way in this enlarged form into the West, and then returned in the forms בּלסמון, אפּופלסמון, אפּלרלסמא (Syr. afrusomo), into the East. Balsam and other spices were brought in abundance to King Solomon as a present by the Queen of Sheba, Kg1 10:10; the celebrated balsam plantations of Jericho (vid., Winer's Real-W.), which continued to be productive till the Roman period, might owe their origin to the friendly relations which Solomon sustained to the south Arab. princess. Instead of the Indian aloe, Sol 4:14, the Jamanic balsam is here connected with myrrh as a figure of Shulamith's excellences. The plucking, eating, and drinking are only interchangeable figurative descriptions of the enjoyment of love.
"Honey and milk," says Solomon, Sol 4:11, "is under thy tongue." יער is like יערה, Sa1 14:27, the comb (favus) or cells containing the honey, - a designation which has perhaps been borrowed from porous lava.
(Note: Vid., Wetstein in the Zeitsch. fr allgem. Erdkunde, 1859, p. 123.)
With honey and milk "under the tongue" wine is connected, to which, and that of the noblest kind, Sol 7:10, Shulamith's palate is compared. Wine and milk together are οἰνόγαλα, which Chloe presents to Daphnis (Longus, i. 23). Solomon and his Song here hover on the pinnacle of full enjoyment; but if one understands his figurative language as it interprets itself, it here also expresses that delight of satisfaction which the author of Psa 19:6 transfers to the countenance of the rising sun, in words of a chaste purity which sexual love never abandons, in so far as it is connected with esteem for a beloved wife, and with the preservation of mutual personal dignity. For this very reason the words of Solomon, 1a, cannot be thought of as spoken to the guests. Between Sol 4:16 and Sol 5:1 the bridal night intervenes. The words used in 1a are Solomon's morning salutation to her who has now wholly become his own. The call addressed to the guests at the feast is given forth on the second day of the marriage, which, according to ancient custom, Gen 29:28; Jdg 14:12, was wont to be celebrated for seven days, Tob. 11:18. The dramatical character of the Song leads to this result, that the pauses are passed over, the scenes are quickly changed, and the times appear to be continuous.
The plur. דּודים Hengst. thinks always designates "love" (Liebe); thus, after Pro 7:18, also here: Eat, friends, drink and intoxicate yourselves in love. But the summons, inebriamini amoribus, has a meaning if regarded as directed by the guests to the married pair, but not as directed to the guests. And while we may say רוה דדים, yet not שׁכר דו, for shakar has always only the accus. of a spirituous liquor after it. Therefore none of the old translators (except only the Venet.: μεθύσθητε ἔρωσιν) understood dodim, notwithstanding that elsewhere in the Song it means love, in another than a personal sense; רעים and דח are here the plur. of the elsewhere parallels רע and דּוד, e.g., Sol 5:16, according to which also (cf. on the contrary, Sol 4:16) they are accentuated. Those who are assembled are, as sympathizing friends, to participate in the pleasures of the feast. The Song of Songs has here reached its climax. A Paul would not hesitate, after Eph 5:31., to extend the mystical interpretation even to this. Of the antitype of the marriage pair it is said: "For the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready" (Rev 19:7); and of the antitype of the marriage guests: "Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb" (Rev 19:9). Song of Solomon (Canticles) 5:2

Isaiah

tIs 37:36To this culminating prophecy there is now appended an account of the catastrophe itself. "Then (K. And it came to pass that night, that) the angel of Jehovah went forth and smote (vayyakkeh, K. vayyakh) in the camp of Asshur a hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when men rose up in the morning, behold, they were all lifeless corpses. Then Sennacherib king of Asshur decamped, and went forth and returned, and settled down in Nineveh. And it cam to pass, as he was worshipping in the temple of Misroch, his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons (L. chethib omits 'his sons') smote him with the sword; and when they escaped to the land of Ararat, Esarhaddon ascended the throne in his stead." The first pair of histories closes here with a short account of the result of the Assyrian drama, in which Isaiah's prophecies were most gloriously fulfilled: not only the prophecies immediately preceding, but all the prophecies of the Assyrian era since the time of Ahaz, which pointed to the destruction of the Assyrian forces (e.g., Isa 10:33-34), and to the flight and death of the king of Assyrian (Isa 31:9; Isa 30:33). If we look still further forward to the second pair of histories (chapters 38-39), we see from Isa 38:6 that it is only by anticipation that the account of these closing events is finished here; for the third history carries us back to the period before the final catastrophe. We may account in some measure for the haste and brevity of this closing historical fragment, from the prophet's evident wish to finish up the history of the Assyrian complications, and the prophecy bearing upon it. But if we look back, there is a gap between Isa 37:36 and the event narrated here. For, according to Isa 37:30, there was to be an entire year of trouble between the prophecy and the fulfilment, during which the cultivation of the land would be suspended. What took place during that year? There can be no doubt that Sennacherib was engaged with Egypt; for (1.) when he made his second attempt to get Jerusalem into his power, he had received intelligence of the advance of Tirhakah, and therefore had withdrawn the centre of his army from Lachish, and encamped before Libnah (Isa 37:8-9); (2.) according to Josephus (Ant. x. 1, 4), there was a passage of Berosus, which has been lost, in which he stated that Sennacherib "made an expedition against all Asia and Egypt;" (3.) Herodotus relates (ii. 141) that, after Anysis the blind, who lost his throne for fifty years in consequence of an invasion of Egypt by the Ethiopians under Sabakoa, but who recovered it again, Sethon the priest of Hephaestus ascended the throne. The priestly caste was so oppressed by him, that when Sanacharibos, the king of the Arabians and Assyrians, led a great army against Egypt, they refused to perform their priestly functions. but the priest-king went into the temple to pray, and his God promised to help him. He experienced the fulfilment of this prophecy before Pelusium, where the invasion was to take place, and where he awaited the foe with such as continued true to him. "Immediately after the arrival of Sanacharibos, an army of field-mice swarmed throughout the camp of the foe, and devoured their quivers, bows, and shield-straps, so that when morning came on they had to flee without arms, and lost many men in consequence. This is the origin of the stone of Sethon in the temple of Hephaestus (at Memphis), which is standing there still, with a mouse in one hand, and with this inscription: Whosoever looks at me, let him fear the gods!" This Σέθως (possibly the Zet whose name occurs in the lists at the close of the twenty-third dynasty, and therefore in the wrong place) is to be regarded as one of the Saitic princes of the twenty-sixth dynasty, who seem to have ruled in Lower Egypt contemporaneously with the Ethiopians
(Note: A seal of Pharaoh Sabakon has been found among the ruins of the palace of Kuyunjik. The colossal image of Tarakos is found among the bas-reliefs of Mediet-Habu. He is holding firmly a number of Asiatic prisoners by the hair of their head, and threatening them with a club. There are several other stately monuments in imitation of the Egyptian style in the ruins of Nepata, the northern capital of the Meriotic state, which belong to him (Lepsius, Denkmler, p. 10 of the programme).)
(as, in fact, is stated in a passage of the Armenian Eusebius, Aethiopas et Saitas regnasse aiunt eodem tempore), until they succeeded at length in ridding themselves of the hateful supremacy. Herodotus evidently depended in this instance upon the hearsay of Lower Egypt, which transferred the central point of the Assyrian history to their own native princely house. The question, whether the disarming of the Assyrian army in front of Pelusium merely rested upon a legendary interpretation of the mouse in Sethon's hand,
(Note: This Sethos monument has not yet been discovered (Brugsch, Reiseberichte, p. 79). The temple of Phta was on the south side of Memphis; the site is marked by the ruins at Mitrahenni.)
which may possibly have been originally intended as a symbol of destruction; or whether it was really founded upon an actual occurrence which was exaggerated in the legend,
(Note: The inhabitants of Troas worshipped mice, "because they gnawed the strings of the enemies' bows" (see Wesseling on Il. i. 39).)
may be left undecided.
But it is a real insult to Isaiah, when Thenius and G. Rawlinson place the scene of Isa 37:36 at Pelusium, and thus give the preference to Herodotus. Has not Isaiah up to this point constantly prophesied that the power of Asshur was to be broken in the holy mountain land of Jehovah (Isa 14:25), that the Lebanon forest of the Assyrian army would break to pieces before Jerusalem (Isa 10:32-34), and that there the Assyrian camp would become the booty of the inhabitants of the city, and that without a conflict? And is not the catastrophe that would befal Assyria described in Isa 18:1-7 as an act of Jehovah, which would determine the Ethiopians to do homage to God who was enthroned upon Zion? We need neither cite Ch2 32:21 nor Psa 76:1-12 (lxx ὠδὴ πρὸς τὸν Ἀσσύριον), according to which the weapons of Asshur break to pieces upon Jerusalem; Isaiah's prophecies are quite sufficient to prove, that to force this Pelusiac disaster
(Note: G. Rawlinson, Monarchies, ii. 445.)
into Isa 37:36 is a most thoughtless concession to Herodotus. The final catastrophe occurred before Jerusalem, and the account in Herodotus gives us no certain information even as to the issue of the Egyptian campaign, which took place in the intervening year. Such a gap as the one which occurs before Isa 37:36 is not without analogy in the historical writings of the Bible; see, for example, Num 20:1, where an abrupt leap is made over the thirty-seven years of the wanderings in the desert. The abruptness is not affected by the addition of the clause in the book of Kings, "It came to pass that night." For, in the face of the "sign" mentioned in Isa 37:30, this cannot mean "in that very night" (viz., the night following the answer given by Isaiah); but (unless it is a careless interpolation) it must refer to Isa 37:33, Isa 37:34, and mean illa nocte, viz., the night in which the Assyrian had encamped before Jerusalem. The account before us reads just like that of the slaying of the first-born in Egypt (Exo 12:12; Exo 11:4). The plague of Egypt is marked as a pestilence by the use of the word nâgaph in connection with hikkâh in Exo 12:23, Exo 12:13 (compare Amo 4:10, where it seems to be alluded to under the name דּבר); and in the case before us also we cannot think of anything else than a divine judgment of this kind, which even to the present day defies all attempts at an aetiological solution, and which is described in 2 Sam as effected through the medium of angels, just as it is here. Moreover, the concise brevity of the narrative leaves it quite open to assume, as Hensler and others do, that the ravages of the pestilence in the Assyrian army, which carried off thousands in the night (Psa 91:6), even to the number of 185,000, may have continued for a considerable time.
(Note: The pestilence in Mailand in 1629 carried off, according to Tadino, 160,000 men; that in Vienna, in 1679, 122,849; that in Moscow, at the end of the last century, according to Martens, 670,000; but this was during the whole time that the ravages of the pestilence lasted.)
The main thing is the fact that the prophecy in Isa 31:8 was actually fulfilled. According to Josephus (Ant. x. 1, 5), when Sennacherib returned from his unsuccessful Egyptian expedition, he found the detachment of his army, which he had left behind in Palestine, in front of Jerusalem, where a pestilential disease sent by God was making great havoc among the soldiers, and that on the very first night of the siege. The three verses, "he broke up, and went away, and returned home," depict the hurried character of the retreat, like "abiit excessit evasit erupit" (Cic. ii. Catil. init.). The form of the sentence in Isa 37:38 places Sennacherib's act of worship and the murderous act of his sons side by side, as though they had occurred simultaneously. The connection would be somewhat different if the reading had been ויּכּהוּ (cf., Ewald, 341, a).
Nisroch apparently signifies the eagle-like, or hawk-like (from nisr, nesher), possibly like "Arioch from 'ărı̄. (The lxx transcribe it νασαραχ, A. ασαραχ, א ασαρακ (K. ἐσθραχ, where B. has μεσεραχ), and explorers of the monuments imagined at one time that they had discovered this god as Asarak;
(Note: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, xii. 2, pp. 426-7.)
but they have more recently retracted this, although there really is a hawk-headed figure among the images of the Assyrian deities or genii.
(Note: Rawlinson, Monarchies, ii. 265.)
The name has nothing to do with that of the supreme Assyrian deity, Asur, Asshur. A better derivation of Nisroch would be from סרך, שׂרך, שׂרג; and this is confirmed by Oppert, who has discovered among the inscriptions in the harem of Khorsabad a prayer of Sargon to Nisroch, who appears there, like the Hymen of Greece, as the patron of marriage, and therefore as a "uniter."
(Note: Expdition Scientifique en Mesopotamie, t. ii. p. 339.)
The name 'Adrammelekh (a god in Kg2 17:31) signifies, as we now known, gloriosus ('addı̄r) est rex;" and Sharetser (for which we should expect to find Saretser), dominator tuebitur. The Armenian form of the latter name (in Moses Chroen. i. 23), San-asar (by the side of Adramel, who is also called Arcamozan), probably yields the original sense of "Lunus (the moon-god Sin) tuebitur." Polyhistorus (in Euseb. chron. arm. p. 19), on the authority of Berosus, mentions only the former, Ardumuzan, as the murderer, and gives eighteen years as the length of Sennacherib's reign. The murder did not take place immediately after his return, as Josephus says (Ant. x. 1, 5; cf., Tobit i. 21-25, Vulg.); and the expression used by Isaiah, he "dwelt (settled down) in Nineveh," suggests the idea of a considerable interval. This interval embraced the suppression of the rebellion in Babylon, where Sennacherib made his son Asordan king, and the campaign in Cilicia (both from Polyhistorus),
(Note: Vid., Richter, Berosi quae supersunt (1825), p. 62; Mller, Fragmenta Hist. Gr. ii. 504.)
and also, according to the monuments, wars both by sea and land with Susiana, which supported the Babylonian thirst for independence. The Asordan of Polyhistorus is Esar-haddon (also written without the makkeph, Esarhaddon), which is generally supposed to be the Assyrian form of אשׁור־ח־ידן, Assur fratrem dedit. It is so difficult to make the chronology tally here, that Oppert, on Isa 36:1, proposes to alter the fourteenth year into the twenty-ninth, and Rawlinson would alter it into the twenty-seventh.
(Note: Sargonides, p. 10, and Monarchies, ii. 434.)
They both of them assign to king Sargon a reign of seventeen (eighteen) years, and to Sennacherib (in opposition to Polyhistorus) a reign of twenty-three (twenty-four) years; and they both agree in giving 680 as the year of Sennacherib's death. This brings us down below the first decade of Manasseh's reign, and would require a different author from Isaiah for Isa 37:37, Isa 37:38. But the accounts given by Polyhistorus, Abydenus, and the astronomical canon, however we may reconcile them among themselves, do not extend the reign of Sennacherib beyond 693.
(Note: See Duncker, Gesch. des Alterthums. i. pp. 708-9.)
It is true that even then Isaiah would have been at least about ninety years old. But the tradition which represents him as dying a martyr's death in the reign of Manasseh, does really assign him a most unusual old age. Nevertheless, Isa 37:37, Isa 37:38 may possibly have been added by a later hand. The two parricides fled to the "land of Ararat," i.e., to Central Armenia. The Armenian history describes them as the founders of the tribes of the Sassunians and Arzerunians. From the princely house of the latter, among whom the name of Sennacherib was a very common one, sprang Leo the Armenian, whom Genesios describes as of Assyrio-Armenian blood. If this were the case, there would be no less than ten Byzantine emperors who were descendants of Sennacherib, and consequently it would not be till a very late period that the prophecy of Nahum was fulfilled.
(Note: Duncker, on the contrary (p. 709), speaks of the parricides as falling very shortly afterwards by their brother's hand, and overlooks the Armenian tradition (cf., Rawlinson, Monarchies, ii. 465), which transfers the flight of the two, who were to have been sacrificed, as is reported by their own father, to the year of the world 4494, i.e., b.c. 705 (see the historical survey of Prince Hubbof in the Miscellaneous Translations, vol. ii. 1834). The Armenian historian Thomas (at the end of the ninth century) expressly states that he himself had sprung from the Arzerunians, and therefore from Sennacherib; and for this reason his historical work is chiefly devoted to Assyrian affairs (see Aucher on Euseb. chron. i. p. xv.).) Next: Isaiah Chapter 38

Jeremiah

tJer 51:27A summons addressed to the nations to fight against Babylon, in order that, by reducing the city, vengeance may be taken for the offence committed against Israel by Babylon. Jer 51:27. "Lift up a standard on the earth, sound a trumpet among the nations, prepare the nations against her, call the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz against her; appoint troops against her; bring up horses lie horrid locusts. Jer 51:28. Prepare nations against her, the kings of the Medes and her governors, and all her lieutenant-governors, and all the land of his dominion. Jer 51:29. Then the earth quakes and trembles: for the purposes of Jahveh against Babylon are being performed, to make the land of Babylon a desolation, without an inhabitant. Jer 51:30. The heroes of Babylon have ceased to fight, they sit in the strongholds: their strength is dried up; they have become women; they have set her habitations on fire; her bars are broken. Jer 51:31. One runner runs against another, and one messenger against another, to tell the king of Babylon that his city is wholly taken. Jer 51:32. And the crossing-places have been seized, and the marches have they burned up with fire, and the men of war are confounded. Jer 51:33. For thus saith Jahveh of hosts, the God of Israel: The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing-floor at the time when it is trodden; yet a little, and the time of harvest will come to her. Jer 51:34. Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon hath devoured us, and ground us down; he hath set us down [like] an empty vessel, he hath swallowed us like a dragon, he hath filled his belly with my dainties; he hath thrust me out. Jer 51:35. Let the inhabitress of Zion say, 'My wrong and my flesh [be] upon Babylon;' and let Jerusalem say, 'My blood be upon the inhabitants of Chaldea.' Jer 51:36. Therefore thus saith Jahveh: Behold, I will plead thy cause, and execute vengeance for thee; ad I will dry up her sea, and make her fountain dry. Jer 51:37. And Babylon shall become heaps [of ruins], a dwelling-place of dragons, an astonishment, and a hissing, without an inhabitant."
The lifting up of the standard (Jer 51:27) serves as a signal for the nations to assemble for the struggle against Babylon. בּארץ does not mean "in the land," but, as the parallel "among the nations" shows, "on the earth." קדּשׁוּ, "consecrate prepare against her (Babylon) nations" for the war; cf. Jer 6:4; Jer 22:7. השׁמיעוּ, as in Jer 50:29. The kingdoms summoned are: Ararat, i.e., the middle (or eastern) province of Armenia, in the plain of Araxes, which Moses of Chorene calls Arairad, Araratia (see on Gen 8:4); Minni, which, according to the Syriac and Chaldee, is also a name of Armenia, probably its western province (see Gesenius' Thesaurus, p. 807); and Ashkenaz, which the Jews take to be Germany, although only this much is certain, that it is a province in the neighbourhood of Armenia. For Askên is an Armenian proper name, and az an Armenian termination; cf. Lagarde's Gesammelte Abhandll. S. 254, and Delitzsch on Gen 10:3, Gen 10:4 ed. פּקדוּ, "appoint, order against her." טפסר does not mean "captains" or leaders, for this meaning of the foreign word (supposed to be Assyrian) rests on a very uncertain etymology; it means some peculiar kind of troops, but nothing more definite can be affirmed regarding it. This meaning is required by the context both here and in Nah 3:17, the only other place where the word occurs: see on that passage. The sing. טפסר corresponds with the sing. סוּס, and is therefore to be taken collectively, "troops and horses." Whether the simile כּילק ס belongs merely to "horses," or to the combination "troops and horses," depends on the meaning attached to the expression. Modern expositors render it "bristly locusts;" and by that they understand, like Credner (Joel, S. 298), the young grasshopper after it has laid aside its third skin, when the wings are still enveloped in rough horny sheaths, and stick straight up from the back of the animal. But this explanation rests on an erroneous interpretation of Nah 3:17. סמר means to shudder, and is used of the shivering or quivering of the body (Psa 119:120), and of the hair (Job 4:15); and ילק does not mean a particular kind of locusts, through Jerome, on Nah 3:17, renders it attelabus (parva locusta est inter locustam et bruchum, et modicis pennis reptans potius quam volans, semperque subsiliens), but is a poetic epithet of the locust, "the devourer." If any one prefers to view סמר as referring to the nature of the locusts, he may with Bochart and Rosenmller, think of the locustarum species, quae habet caput hirsutum. But the epithet "horrid" is probably intended merely to point out the locusts as a fearful scourge of the country. On this view, the comparison refers to both clauses, and is meant to set forth not merely the enormous multitude of the soldiery, but also the devastation they make of the country. In Jer 51:28 mention is further made of the kings of the Medes (see on Jer 51:11), together with their governors and lieutenant-governors (see on Jer 51:23), and, in order to give prominence to the immense strength of the army, of "all the land of his dominion;" on these expressions, cf. Jer 34:1 and Kg1 9:19. The suffix refers to the king of Media, as the leader of the whole army; while those in "her governors, and all her lieutenant-governors," refer to the country of Media. Jeremiah 51:29

Nahum

tNahum 3:18Such an end will come to the Assyrian kingdom on the overthrow of Nineveh. Nah 3:18. "The shepherds have fallen asleep, king Asshur: thy glorious ones are lying there: thy people have scattered themselves upon the mountains, and no one gathers them. Nah 3:19. No alleviation to thy fracture, thy stroke is grievous: all who hear tidings of thee clap the hand over thee: for over whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually?" The king of Asshur addressed in Nah 3:18 is not the last historical king of that kingdom, but a rhetorical personification of the holder of the imperial power of Assyria. His shepherds and glorious ones ('addı̄rı̄m, as in Nah 2:6) are the princes and great men, upon whom the government and defence of the kingdom devolved, the royal counsellors, deputies, and generals. Mâmū, from nūm, to slumber, to sleep, is not a figurative expression for carelessness and inactivity here; for the thought that the people would be scattered, and the kingdom perish, through the carelessness of the rulers (Hitzig), neither suits the context, where the destruction of the army and the laying of the capital in ashes are predicted, nor the object of the whole prophecy, which does not threaten the fall of the kingdom through the carelessness of its rulers, but the destruction of the kingdom by a hostile army. Nūm denotes here, as in Psa 76:6, the sleep of death (cf. Psa 13:4; Jer 51:39, Jer 51:57 : Theodoret, Hesselb., Str., and others). Shâkhan, a synonym of shâkhabh, to have lain down, to lie quietly (Jdg 5:17), used here of the rest of death. As the shepherds have fallen asleep, the flock (i.e., the Assyrian people) is scattered upon the mountains and perishes, because no one gathers it together. Being scattered upon the mountains, is easily explained from the figure of the flock (cf. Num 27:17; Kg1 22:17; Zac 13:7), and implies destruction. The mountains are mentioned with evident reference to the fact that Nineveh is shut in towards the north by impassable mountains. Kēhâh, a noun formed from the adjective, the extinction of the wound (cf. Lev 13:6), i.e., the softening or anointing of it. Shebher, the fracture of a limb, is frequently applied to the collapse or destruction of a state or kingdom (e.g., Psa 60:4; Lam 2:11). נחלה מכּתך, i.e., dangerously bad, incurable is the stroke which has fallen upon thee (cf. Jer 10:19; Jer 14:17; Jer 30:12). Over thy destruction will all rejoice who hear thereof. שׁמעך, the tidings of thee, i.e., of that which has befallen thee. Clapping the hands is a gesture expressive of joy (cf. Psa 47:2; Isa 55:12). All: because they all had to suffer from the malice of Asshur. רעה, malice, is the tyranny and cruelty which Assyria displayed towards the subjugated lands and nations.
Thus was Nineveh to perish. If we inquire now how the prophecy was fulfilled, the view already expressed by Josephus (Ant. x. 2), that the fall of the Assyrian empire commenced with the overthrow of Sennacherib in Judah, is not confirmed by the results of the more recent examinations of the Assyrian monuments. For according to the inscriptions, so far as they have been correctly deciphered, Sennacherib carried out several more campaigns in Susiana and Babylonia after that disaster, whilst ancient writers also speak of an expedition of his to Cilicia. His successor, Esarhaddon, also carried on wars against the cities of Phoenicia, against Armenia and Cilicia, attacked the Edomites, and transported some of them to Assyria, and is said to have brought a small and otherwise unknown people, the Bikni, into subjection; whilst we also know from the Old Testament (Ch2 33:11) that his generals led king Manasseh in chains to Babylon. Like many of his predecessors, he built himself a palace at Kalah or Nimrud; but before the internal decorations were completely finished, it was destroyed by so fierce a fire, that the few monuments preserved have suffered very considerably. His successor is the last king of whom we have any inscriptions, with his name still legible upon them (viz., Assur-bani-pal). He carried on wars not only in Susiana, but also in Egypt, viz., against Tirhaka, who had conquered Memphis, Thebes, and other Egyptian cities, during the illness of Esarhaddon; also on the coast of Syria, and in Cilicia and Arabia; and completed different buildings which bear his name, including a palace in Kouyunjik, in which a room has been found with a library in it, consisting of clay tablets. Assur-bani-pal had a son, whose name was written Asur-emid-ilin, and who is regarded as the Sarakos of the ancients, under whom the Assyrian empire perished, with the conquest and destruction of Nineveh (see Spiegel in Herzog's Cycl.). But if, according to these testimonies, the might of the Assyrian empire was not so weakened by Sennacherib's overthrow in Judah, that any hope could be drawn from that, according to human conjecture, of the speedy destruction of that empire; the prophecy of Nahum concerning Nineveh, which was uttered in consequence of that catastrophe, cannot be taken as the production of any human combination: still less can it be taken, as Ewald supposes, as referring to "the first important siege of Nineveh, under the Median king Phraortes (Herod. i. 102)." For Herodotus says nothing about any siege of Nineveh, but simply speaks of a war between Phraortes and the Assyrians, in which the former lost his life. Nineveh was not really besieged till the time of Cyaxares (Uwakhshatra), who carried on the war with an increased army, to avenge the death of his father, and forced his way to Nineveh, to destroy that city, but was compelled, by the invasion of his own land by the Scythians, to relinquish the siege, and hasten to meet that foe (Her. i. 103). On the extension of his sway, the same Cyaxares commenced a war with the Lydian king Alyattes, which was carried on for five years with alternating success and failure on both sides, and was terminated in the sixth year by the fact, that when the two armies were standing opposite to one another, drawn up in battle array, the day suddenly darkened into night, which alarmed the armies, and rendered the kings disposed for peace. This was brought about by the mediation of the Cilician viceroy Syennesis and the Babylonian viceroy Labynetus, and sealed by the establishment of a marriage relationship between the royal families of Lydia and Media (Her. i. 74). And if this Labynetus was the same person as the Babylonian king Nabopolassar, which there is no reason to doubt, it was not till after the conclusion of this peace that Cyaxares formed an alliance with Nabopolassar to make war upon Nineveh; and this alliance was strengthened by his giving his daughter Amuhea in marriage to Nabopolassar's son Nebuchadnezzar (Nabukudrossor). The combined forces of these two kings now advanced to the attack upon Nineveh, and conquered it, after a siege of three years, the Assyrian king Saracus burning himself in his palace as the besiegers were entering the city. This is the historical kernel of the capture and destruction of Nineveh, which may be taken as undoubted fact from the accounts of Herodotus (i. 106) and Diod. Sic. (ii. 24-28), as compared with the extract from Abydenus in Euseb. Chron. Armen. i. p. 54; whereas it is impossible to separate the historical portions from the legendary and in part mythical decorations contained in the elaborate account given by Diodorus (vid., M. v. Niebuhr, Geschichte Assurs, p. 200ff.; Duncker, Geschichte des Alterthums. i. p. 793ff.; and Bumller, Gesch. d. Alterth. i. p. 316ff.).
The year of the conquest and destruction of Nineveh has been greatly disputed, and cannot be exactly determined. As it is certain that Nabopolassar took part in the war against Nineveh, and this is indirectly intimated even by Herodotus, who attributes the conquest of it to Cyaxares and the Medes (vid., i. 106), Nineveh must have fallen between the years 625 and 606 b.c. For according to the canon of Ptolemy, Nabopolassar was king of Babylon from 625 to 606; and this date is astronomically established by an eclipse of the moon, which took place in the fifth year of his reign, and which actually occurred in the year 621 b.c. (vid., Niebuhr, p. 47). Attempts have been made to determine the year of the taking of Nineveh, partly with reference to the termination of the Lydio-Median war, and partly from the account given by Herodotus of the twenty-eight years' duration of the Scythian rule in Asia. Starting from the fact, that the eclipse of the sun, which put an end to the war between Cyaxares and Alyattes, took place, according to the calculation of Altmann, on the 30th September b.c. 610 (see Ideler, Handbuch der Chronologie, i. p. 209ff.), M. v. Niebuhr (pp. 197-8) has assumed that, at the same time as the mediation of peace between the Lydians and Medes, an alliance was formed between Cyaxares and Nabopolassar for the destruction of Nineveh; and as this treaty could not possibly be kept secret, the war against Assyria was commenced at once, according to agreement, with their united forces. But as it was impossible to carry out extensive operations in winter, the siege of Nineveh may not have commenced till the spring of 609; and as it lasted three years according to Ctesias, the capture may not have been effected before the spring of 606 b.c. It is true that this combination is apparently confirmed by the fact, that during that time the Egyptian king Necho forced his way into Palestine and Syria, and after subduing all Syria, advanced to the Euphrates; since this advance of the Egyptian is most easily explained on the supposition that Nabopolassar was so occupied with the war against Nineveh, that he could not offer any resistance to the enterprise of Necho. And the statement in Kg2 23:29, that Necho had come up to fight against the king of Asshur on the Euphrates, appears to favour the conclusion, that at that time (i.e., in the year of Josiah's death, 610 b.c.) the Assyrian empire was not yet destroyed. Nevertheless there are serious objections to this combination. In the first place, there is the double difficulty, that Cyaxares would hardly have been in condition to undertake the war against Nineveh in alliance with Nabopolassar, directly after the conclusion of peace with Alyattes, especially after he had carried on a war for five years, without being able to defeat his enemy; and secondly, that even Nabopolassar, after a fierce three years' conflict with Nineveh, the conquest of which was only effected in consequence of the wall of the city having been thrown down for the length of twenty stadia, would hardly possess the power to take the field at once against Pharoah Necho, who had advanced as far as the Euphrates, and not only defeat him at Carchemish, but pursue him to the frontier of Egypt, and wrest from him all the conquests that he had effected, as would necessarily be the case, since the battle at Carchemish was fought in the year 606; and the pursuit of the defeated foe by Nebuchadnezzar, to whom his father had transferred the command of the army because of his own age an infirmity, even to the very border of Egypt, is so distinctly attested by the biblical accounts (Kg2 24:1 and Kg2 24:7; Jer 46:2), and by the testimony of Berosus in Josephus (Ant. x. 11, 1, and c. Ap. i. 19), that these occurrences are placed beyond the reach of doubt (see comm. on Kg2 24:1). These difficulties would not indeed be sufficient in themselves to overthrow the combination mentioned, provided that the year 610 could be fixed upon with certainty as the time when the Lydio-Median war was brought to a close. But that is not the case; and this circumstance is decisive. The eclipse of the sun, which alarmed Cyaxares and Alyattes, and made them disposed for peace, must have been total, or nearly total, in Central Asia and Cappadocia, to produce the effect described. But it has been proved by exact astronomical calculations, that on the 30th September 610 b.c., the shadow of the moon did not fall upon those portions of Asia Minor, whereas it did so on the 18th May 622, after eight o'clock in the morning, and on the 28th May 585 (vid., Bumll. p. 315, and M. v. Niebuhr, pp. 48, 49). Of these two dates the latter cannot come into consideration at all, because Cyaxares only reigned till the year 594; and therefore, provided that peace had not been concluded with Alyattes before 595, he would not have been able to carry on the war with Nineveh and conquer that city. On the other hand, there is no valid objection that can be offered to our transferring the conclusion of peace with the Lydian king to the year 622 b.c. Since, for example, Cyaxares became king as early as the year 634, he might commence the war with the Lydians as early as the year 627 or 628; and inasmuch as Nabopolassar was king of Babylon from 625 to 605, he might very well help to bring about the peace between Cyaxares and Alyattes in the year 622. In this way we obtain the whole space between 622 and 605 b.c. for the war with Nineveh; so that the city may have been taken and destroyed as early as the years 615-610.
Even the twenty-eight years' duration of the Scythian supremacy in Asia, which is recorded by Herodotus (i. 104, 106, cf. iv. 1), cannot be adduced as a well-founded objection. For if the Scythians invaded Media in the year 633, so as to compel Cyaxares to relinquish the siege of Nineveh, and if their rule in Upper Asia lasted for twenty-eight years, the expedition against Nineveh, which led to the fall of that city, cannot have taken place after the expulsion of the Scythians in the year 605, because the Assyrian empire had passed into the hands of the Chaldaeans before that time, and Nebuchadnezzar had already defeated Necho on the Euphrates, and was standing at the frontier of Egypt, when he received the intelligence of his father's death, which led him to return with all speed to Babylon. There is no other alternative left, therefore, than either to assume, as M. v. Niebuhr does (pp. 119, 120), that the war of Cyaxares with the Lydians, and also the last war against Nineveh, and probably also the capture of Nineveh, and the greatest portion of the Median conquests between Ararat and Halys, fell within the period of the Scythian sway, so that Cyaxares extended his power as a vassal of the Scythian Great Khan as soon as he had recovered from the first blow received from these wild hordes, inasmuch as that sovereign allowed his dependent to do just as he liked, provided that he paid the tribute, and did not disturb the hordes in their pasture grounds; or else to suppose that Cyaxares drove out the Scythian hordes from Media at a much earlier period, and liberated his own country from their sway; in which case the twenty-eight years of Herodotus would not indicate the period of their sway over Media and Upper Asia, but simply the length of time that they remained in Hither Asia generally, or the period that intervened between their first invasion and the complete disappearance of their hordes. If Cyaxares had driven the Scythians out of his own land at a much earlier period, he might extend his dominion even while they still kept their position in Hither Asia, and might commence the war with the Lydians as early as the year 628 or 627, especially as his wrath is said to have been kindled because Alyattes refused to deliver up to him a Scythian horde, which had first of all submitted to Cyaxares, and then fled into Lydia to Alyattes (Herod. i. 73). Now, whichever of these two combinations be the correct one, they both show that the period of the war commenced by Cyaxares against Nineveh, in alliance with Nabopolassar, cannot be determined by the statement made by Herodotus with regard to the twenty-eight years of the Scythian rule in Asia; and this Scythian rule, generally, does not compel us to place the taking and destruction of Nineveh, and the dissolution of the Assyrian empire, as late as the year 605 b.c., or even later.
At this conquest Nineveh was so utterly destroyed, that, as Strabo (xvi. 1, 3) attests, the city entirely disappeared immediately after the dissolution of the Assyrian kingdom (ἡ μὲν οὖν Νῖνος πόλις ἠφανίσθη παραχρῆμα μετὰ τὴν τῶν Σύρων κατάλυσιν). When Xenophon entered the plain of Nineveh, in the year 401, on the retreat of the ten thousand Greeks, he found the ruins of two large cities, which he calls Larissa and Mespila, and by the side of the first a stone pyramid of 200 feet in height and 100 feet in breadth, upon which many of the inhabitants of the nearest villages had taken refuge, and heard from the inhabitants that it was only by a miracle that it had been possible for the Persians to conquer those cities with their strong walls (Xenoph. Anab. iii. 4, 7ff.). These ruined cities had been portions of the ancient Nineveh: Larissa was Calah; and Mespila, Kouyunjik. Thus Xenophon passed by the walls of Nineveh without even learning its name. Four hundred years after (according to Tacitus, Annal. xii. 13), a small fortress stood on this very spot, to guard the crossing of the Tigris; and the same fortress is mentioned by Abul-Pharaj in the thirteenth century (Hist. Dynast. pp. 266, 289, 353). Opposite to this, on the western side of the Tigris, Mosul had risen into one of the first cities of Asia, and the ruins of Nineveh served as quarries for the building of the new city, so that nothing remained but heaps of rubbish, which even Niebuhr took to be natural heights in the year 1766, when he was told, as he stood by the Tigris bridge, that he was in the neighbourhood of ancient Nineveh. So completely had this mighty city vanished from the face of the earth; until, in the most recent times, viz., from 1842 onwards, Botta the French consul, and the two Englishmen Layard and Rawlinson, instituted excavations in the heaps, and brought to light numerous remains of the palaces and state-buildings of the Assyrian rulers of the world. Compare the general survey of these researches, and their results, in Herm. J. C. Weissenborn's Ninive u. sein Gebiet., Erfurt 1851, and 56, 4.
But if Nahum's prophecy was thus fulfilled in the destruction of Nineveh, even to the disappearance of every trace of its existence, we must not restrict it to this one historical event, but must bear in mind that, as the prophet simply saw in Nineveh the representative for the time of the power of the world in its hostility to God, so the destruction predicted to Nineveh applied to all the kingdoms of the world which have risen up against God since the destruction of Asshur, and which will still continue to do so to the end of the world.
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