Armenia in comments -- Book: 3 Kings (1 Kings) (t3Kings) Թագաւորութիւններ Գ
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t3Kings 15::13 She had made an idol in a grove - The original word, מפלצת miphletseth, is variously understood. I shall give its different views in the versions: -
"Besides, he removed his mother Maacha from being chief in the sacred rites of Priapus, and in his grove which she had consecrated."
- Vulgate.
"And Ana, [other copies Maacha], he removed from being governess, because she had made an assembly in her grove."
- Septuagint.
"Moreover, he deprived Maacha, his mother, of her own magnificence, because she had celebrated a solemnity to her own worship."
- Syriac.
"And even Maacha, his mother, he removed from the kingdom, because she had made an idol in a grove."
- Chald:ee.
"Besides, he removed Maacha, his mother, from her kingdom, because she had made a high tree into an idol."
- Arabic.
"Also he removed Maacha, his mother, from the kingdom, because she had made a horrible statue; and our rabbins say that it was called מפלצת miphletseth, because מפליא ליצנותא maphli leytsanutha, it produced wonderful ridicule; for she made it ad instar membri virilis, and she used it daily."
- Rabbi Solomon Jarchi.
From the whole, it is pretty evident that the image was a mere Priapus, or something of the same nature, and that Maachah had an assembly in the grove where this image was set up, and doubtless worshipped it with the most impure rites. What the Roman Priapus was I need not tell the learned reader; and as to the unlearned, it would not profit him to know. Maachah was most likely another Messalina; and Asa probably did for his mother what Claudius did for his wife. 3 Kings (1 Kings) 15:14
t3Kings 15::9 Reign of Asa (cf., 2 Chron 14-16). - As Asa ascended the throne in the twentieth year of the reign of Jeroboam, his father Abijam, who began to reign in the eighteenth year of Jeroboam (Kg1 15:1), can only have reigned two years and a few months, and not three full years.
Kg1 15:10
Asa reigned forty-one years. "The name of his mother was Maacah, the daughter of Absalom." This notice, which agrees verbatim with Kg1 15:2, cannot mean that Abijam had his own mother for a wife; though Thenius finds this meaning in the passage, and then proceeds to build up conjectures concerning emendations of the text. We must rather explain it, as Ephr. Syr., the Rabbins, and others have done, as signifying that Maacah, the mother of Abijam, continued during Asa's reign to retain the post of queen-mother or הגּבירה, i.e., sultana valide, till Asa deposed her on account of her idolatry (Kg1 15:13), probably because Asa's own mother had died at an early age.
Kg1 15:11-14
As ruler Asa walked in the ways of his pious ancestor David: he banished the male prostitutes out of the land, abolished all the abominations of idolatry, which his fathers (Abijam and Rehoboam) had introduced, deposed his grandmother Maacah from the rank of a queen, because she had made herself an idol for the Ashera, and had the idol hewn in pieces and burned in the valley of the Kidron. גּלּלים is a contemptuous epithet applied to idols (Lev 26:30); it does not mean stercorei, however, as the Rabbins affirm, but logs, from גּלל, to roll, or masses of stone, after the Chald:ee גּלל (Ezr 5:8; Ezr 6:4), generally connected with שׁקּצים. It is so in Deu 29:16. מפלצת, formido, from פּלץ, terrere, timere, hence an idol as an object of fear, and not pudendum, a shameful image, as Movers (Phniz. i. p. 571), who follows the Rabbins, explains it, understanding thereby a Phallus as a symbol of the generative and fructifying power of nature. With regard to the character of this idol, nothing further can be determined than that it was of wood, and possibly a wooden column like the אשׁרים (see at Kg1 14:23). "But the high places departed not," i.e., were not abolished. By the בּמות we are not to understand, according to Kg1 15:12, altars of high places dedicated to idols, but unlawful altars to Jehovah. It is so in the other passages in which this formula recurs (Kg1 22:24; Kg2 12:4; Kg2 14:4; Kg2 15:4; and the parallel passages Ch2 15:17; Ch2 20:33). The apparent discrepancy between the last-mentioned passages and Ch2 14:2, Ch2 14:4, and Ch2 17:6, may be solved very simply on the supposition that the kings (Asa and Jehoshaphat) did indeed abolish the altars on the high places, but did not carry their reforms in the nation thoroughly out; and not by distinguishing between the bamoth dedicated to Jehovah and those dedicated to idols, as Thenius, Bertheau, and Caspari, with many of the earlier commentators, suppose. For although Ch2 14:2 is very favourable to this solution, since both בּמות and הגּכר dna בּמו מזבּחות are mentioned there, it does not accord with Ch2 17:6, where הבּמות cannot be merely idolatrous altars dedicated to the Canaanitish Baal, but unquestionably refer to the unlawful altars of Jehovah, or at any rate include them. Moreover, the next clause in the passage before us, "nevertheless Asa's heart was wholly given to the Lord," shows that the expression סרוּ לא סרוּ nois does not mean that the king allowed the unlawful Jehovah-bamoth to remain, but simply that, notwithstanding his fidelity to Jehovah, the bamoth did not depart, so that he was unable to carry the abolition of them thoroughly out.
Kg1 15:15
He brought the sacred offerings of his father and his own sacred offerings into the house of Jehovah; probably the booty, in silver, gold, and vessels, which his father Abijam had gathered in the war with Jeroboam (Ch2 13:16-17), and he himself on the conquest of the Cushites (Ch2 14:12-13). The Keri וקדשׁי is a bad emendation of the correct reading in the Chethb קדשׁו, i.e., קדשׁו (קדשׁיו); for יהוה בּית is an accusative, and is to be connected with ויּבא.
Kg1 15:16-17
The state of hostility between Judah and Israel continued during the reign of Asa; and Baasha the king of Israel advanced, etc. These statements are completed and elucidated by the Chronicles. After the great victory obtained by Abijam over Jeroboam, the kingdom of Judah enjoyed rest for ten years (Ch2 14:1). Asa employed this time in exterminating idolatry, fortifying different cities, and equipping his army (Ch2 14:1-7). Then the Cushite Zerah invaded the land of Judah with an innumerable army (in the eleventh year of Asa), but was totally defeated by the help of the Lord (Ch2 14:8-14); whereupon Asa, encouraged by the prophet Azariah, the son of Oded, proceeded with fresh zeal to the extermination of such traces of idolatry as still remained in the kingdom, then renewed the altar of burnt-offering in front of the temple-hall, and in the fifteenth year of his reign held, with the whole nation, a great festival of thanksgiving and rejoicing to the Lord at Jerusalem (Ch2 15:1-15). The next year, the sixteenth of his reign and the thirty-sixth from the division of the kingdom (Ch2 16:1), Baasha commenced hostilities, by advancing against Judah, taking possession of Ramah, the present er Rm (see at Jos 18:25), which was only two hours and a quarter from Jerusalem, and fortifying it. The occupation of Ramah is not expressly mentioned indeed, but it is implied in יהוּדה על ויּעל על יה, which affirms the hostile invasion of Judah. For Ramah, from its very situation in the heart of the tribe of Benjamin and the immediate neighbourhood of Jerusalem, can neither have been a border city nor have belonged to the kingdom of Israel. The intention of Baasha, therefore, in fortifying Ramah cannot have been merely to restrain his own subjects from passing over into the kingdom of Judah, but was evidently to cut off from the kingdom of Judah all free communication with the north. וגו תּת לבלתּי, "that they might not give one going out or one coming in to Asa;" i.e., to cut off from the others all connection with Asa, and at the same time to cut off from those with Asa all connection with this side. The main road from Jerusalem to the north passed by Ramah, so that by shutting up this road the line of communication of the kingdom of Judah was of necessity greatly disturbed. Moreover, the fortification of Ramah by Baasha presupposes the reconquest of the cities which Abijam had taken from the kingdom of Israel (Ch2 13:19), and which, according to Ch2 13:19, were still in the possession of Asa.
Kg1 15:18-19
In order to avert the danger with which his kingdom was threatened, Asa endeavoured to induce the Syrian king, Benhadad of Damascus, to break the treaty which he had concluded with Baasha and to become his ally, by sending him such treasures as were left in the temple and palace.
(Note: Asa had sought help from the Lord and obtained it, when the powerful army of the Cushites invaded the land; but when an invasion of the Israelites took place, he sought help from the Syrians. This alteration in his conduct may probably be explained in part from the fact, that notwithstanding the victory, his army had been considerably weakened by the battle which he fought with the Cushites (Ch2 14:9), although this by no means justified his want of confidence in the power of the Lord, and still less his harsh and unjust treatment of the prophet Hanani, whom he caused to be put in the house of the stocks on account of his condemnation of the confidence which he placed in the Syrians instead of Jehovah (Ch2 16:7-10).)
הגּותרים may be explained from the face that the temple and palace treasures had been plundered by Shishak in the reign of Rehoboam (Kg1 14:26); and therefore what Asa had replaced in the temple treasury (Kg1 15:15), and had collected together for his palace, was only a remnant in comparison with the former state of these treasures. The name בּן־הדד, i.e., son of Hadad, the sun-god (according to Macrobius, i. 23; cf., Movers, Phniz. i. p. 196), was borne by three kings of Damascus: the one here named, his son in the time of Ahab (Kg1 20:1, Kg1 20:34), and the son of Hazael (Kg2 13:24). The first was a son of Tabrimmon and grandson of Hezyon. According to Kg1 15:19, his father Tabrimmon (good is Rimmon; see at Kg2 5:18) had also been king, and was the contemporary of Abijam. But that his grandfather Hezyon was also king, and the same person as the Rezon mentioned in Kg1 11:23, cannot be shown to be even probable, since there is no ground for the assumption that Hezyon also bore the name Rezon, and is called by the latter name here and by the former in Kg1 11:23.
Kg1 15:20
Benhadad consented to Asa's request, and directed his captains to advance into the kingdom of Israel: they took several cities in the north of the land, whereby Baasha was compelled to give up fortifying Ramah and withdraw to Thirza. Ijon (עיּון) is to be sought for in all probability in Tell Dibbin, on the eastern border of Merj Ayun; and in Ajun, although Ajun is written with Aleph, the name Ijon is probably preserved, since the situation of this Tell seems thoroughly adapted for a fortress on the northern border of Israel (vid., Robinson, Bibl. Res. p. 375, and Van de Velde, Mem. p. 322). Dan is the present Tell el Kadi; see at Jos 19:47. Abel-Beth-Maachah, the present Abil el Kamh, to the north-west of Lake Huleh (see at Sa2 20:14). "All Chinneroth" is the district of Chinnereth, the tract of land on the western shore of the Lake of Gennesareth (see at Jos 19:35). כּל־ארץ נ על, together with all the land of Naphtali (for this meaning of על fo gninaem compare the Comm. on Gen 32:12). The cities named were the principal fortresses of the land of Naphtali, with which the whole of the country round was also smitten, i.e., laid waste.
Kg1 15:21
ויּשׁב, and remained at Thirza, his place of residence (see at Kg1 14:17).
Kg1 15:22
Asa thereupon summoned all Judah נקי אין, nemine immuni, i.e., excepto, no one being free (cf., Ewald, 286, a.), and had the stones and the wood carried away from Ramah, and Geba and Mizpah in Benjamin built, i.e., fortified, with them. Geba must not be confounded with Gibeah of Benjamin or Saul, but is the present Jeba, three-quarters of an hour to the north-east of Ramah (see at Jos 18:24). Mizpah, the present Nebi Samwil, about three-quarters of a geographical mile to the south-west of Ramah (see at Jos 18:26).
Kg1 15:23-24
Of the other acts of Asa, the building of cities refers to the building of fortifications mentioned in Ch2 14:5-6. The disease in his feet in the time of his old age commenced, according to Ch2 16:12, in the thirty-ninth year of his reign; and he sought help from the physicians, but not from the Lord; from which we may see, that the longer he lived the more he turned his heart away from the Lord (compare Ch2 16:10). 3 Kings (1 Kings) 15:25