Prophet had promised from the Lord which was the very next day to be accomplished One of the Kings servants hearing his Master make this construction of the departure of the Syrians replied let us I pray thee take some of the horses that yet remain in the City and go out and see whither the Syrians be indeed fled or no. It will be no great loss if these be taken by the enemy seeing they are already almost consumed by famine as most of the people of the City likewise are The King consenting hereunto they took two of the Kings Chariot-horses and setting riders on them sent them out these scouts rode as far as Jordan and found no enemy between Samaria and it but many evidences of the enemies flight for all the way was full of garments and other furniture which the Syrians had thrown away in their hasty flight So they return'd and brought this word to the King Then the people transported with joy rusht out of the City with all the hast they could make to spoil the Tents of the Syrians and in them they found such plenty of provisions that a measure of fine flower was sold for a shekel and two measures of barley for a shekel as the Prophet had foretold The King understanding that the people ran so violently out of the City he commanded the Lord on whose hand he leaned to take charge of the Gate to keep them from such a tumultuous running out and to see to it that they might not all run out and leave the City naked This Lord accordingly standing there to keep the people back they were so eagerly bent upon the spoil and to get some provisions for themselves that they ran him down and trode upon him so that he died and thus what the man of God prophesied of him exactly came to pass 2 King 6. from 24 to the end 2 King 7. wh Ch. The Shunamite the seven years famine being now ended returns with her family into her own Country and petitions the King for her house and land which in her absence was as it seems seized upon by the Officers of State for the Kings use * Mos hic fuit in decem tribubus qui alibi reperitur ut qui patria exirent eorum bona confiscarentur Grot. at the very time when she came to present her petition the Providence of God so ordered it that she found the King talking with Gehazi Elisha's servant about the miracles his Master had wrought It seems his Leprosie was not of that sort that did render him unclean or unfit to be conversed * Lex non vetabat leprosos adire alloquii consolari Naaman leprosus Regem accessit Alii volunt Gehazi act◠paenitentia sanatum fuisse with or else upon his repentance as some think God revers'd the sentence against him and had now healed him Whilst he was discoursing about his Masters raising one from the dead he sees this woman come to petition the King whereupon he crys out My Lord O King this is the very woman of whom I spake and this is her son that was restor'd to life by my Master The King asking the woman about it she fully confirm'd it and 't is like told him the several circumstances of it whereupon the King gave order that her lands should be restored to her again with all the profits that had arisen from them in her absence 2 King 8. from v. 3 to 7. Elisha now by some special instinct of Gods Spirit went into the Region †In Regionem Damascenam ut apparet ex versu nono Jun. of Damascus to confirm as 't is probable to Hazael by a second prediction what formerly upon Elijahs anointing of him he did not much believe namely that he should be King of Syria Benhadad the present King of Syria was at this time very sick Josephus thinks his sickness was occasion'd by the shameful flight of his Army from Samaria Ch. 7.6 especially understanding it happened through a causeless fear The King therefore hearing of the Prophets arrival in that Region whose fame was so spread among them by the cure of Naaman and other miracles he had wrought he sent Hazael who was now as it seems his chief Minister of State Naaman being either dead or put by his place for professing the true God of Israel with a present to him and to inquire of him whither he should recover of that sickness Hazael accordingly went to meet him with a noble and large present viz. forty Camels lading of the best provisions of the Country and when he came to him he said Thy Son Benhadad who honours thee as a Son doth his Father hath sent me to thee with this present which he desires thee to accept of and to acquaint him Whither he shall recover of his sickness Whither the Prophet accepted the present is not recorded but he return'd him this short answer That he might recover for any danger from his disease yet the Lord had shewed him that he should certainly die though by some other means and not by his sickness Then the Prophet fixt his eyes stedfastly on Hazael until he began to blush to see him look so earnestly on him and Elisha bursting out into tears Hazael said Why weepeth my Lord He answered Because I know the evil thou wilt do when thou art King of Syria to the people of Israel their strong bolds wilt thou set on fire and their young men wilt thou slay with the sword their young childrens brains wilt thou dash out and rip up their women with child Hazael replied Is thy servant a dog that I should ever be guilty of such great horrible barbarity and inhumane cruelty * Fortuna potestat etiam mores ingenium mutant 'T is like he did not think at this time that ever he should do such cruel acts But no man knows the depth of that corruption that is in his heart which will soon discover it self if God leave him to himself See what he afterwards did 2 King 10.32 33. and Ch. 13.3 Elisha replies The Lord hath shewed me that thou wilt be King over Syria and then thou wilt bear the same deadly hatred to the people of Israel which thy Predecessors have done before And the Lord as a just and righteous Judg will permit thee to come into that Throne that thou maist be a scourge to punish the Idolatrous and Rebellious Israelites So Hazael departed from the Prophet and coming to his Master Benhadad told him that the Prophet said He should certainly recover but therein he delivered not to him the true sense of the Prophet Then considering with himself what Elisha had told him viz. that he should be King of Syria and apprehending that if his Master did recover of this sickness it might be difficult for him to attain the Crown and being impatient of delay and unwilling to stay Gods time for the bringing about of that he had promised
residue of the Prophesie A third eminent Prophet whom the Lord raised up at the same time was AMOS The Prophesie of AMOS sent principally to the people of Israel He was an Herdsman and taken from following his herd in Judea and sent to Prophesie to the people of Israel Amos 1.1 The words of Amos who was among the herdsmen of Tekoa And Chap. 7.14 Then answered Amos and said to Amaziah I was no Prophet nor Prophets Son but I was an herdsman and a gatherer of Sycamore fruits And the Lord took me as I followed the flock and said unto me Go prophesie unto my people Israel Amaziah the Priest of Bethel would have stirred up Jeroboam against him for Prophecying against his house Amos 7.10 Then Amaziah the Priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam King of Israel saying Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel the land is not able to bear all his words For he saith Jeroboam shall die by the sword and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of their own land Also Amaziah said unto Amos O thou Seer go flee away into the land of Judah and there eat bread and prophesie there Amos being thus ill used by him pronounceth a heavy judgment from the Lord upon him ver 17. Thy wife shall play the whore and thy sons and daughters shall fall by the sword and thou shalt die in a polluted land viz. that of Assyria when Israel shall be carried away captive out of her own land Amos began to Prophesie two years before the Earthquake and foretold it before it came which happened as 't is thought about two years before Jeroboam's death He Prophesied against six Nations besides Israel and Judah First he declares Gods judgments against the neighbour Nations that were enemies to the Jews viz. 1. Damascus 2. Gaza and other adjacent places of the Philistines 3. Tyre 4. Edom. 5. Ammon 6. Moab Then he threatens the Jews for their sins speaking sometimes to Judah but principally to Israel against whom he Prophesies first in plain terms secondly in types and visions First in plain terms he threatneth them for their ingratitude and idolatry Ch. 3. Their violence and incorrigibleness Ch. 4. Their injustice and oppression of the poor their slighting Gods threatnings and their hypocritical worship Chap. 5. Their putting off the evil day and their wanton voluptuousness Ch. 6. Then his threatnings are delivered in visions and types 1. Of grashoppers and locusts signifying famine 2ly Of fire devouring the great deep signifying war 3ly Of a plum-line signifying the overthrow of the Kingdom and of the Kings house and that the Lord would deal with them according to the strict rule of justice and not in mercy as he had formerly done and he further denounces particular judgments against Amaziah the Priest and his family who accused him of conspiracy of which we have spoken before Ch. 7. 4ly Of a basket of Summer-fruits representing the ripeness of their sins and of Gods judgments * Poenae tempue maturum significat finem i. e. ultimam vindictam instare Significat populum qui velut fructus terrae est ab ea terra velut ab arbore auferendum 5ly Of smiting the lintel of the door of the Temple till the posts upholding it did shake signifying not only the destruction of the Temple but the cutting off of great and small of the people Lastly he sweetens and moderates these severe and hard Prophesies with a twofold promise 1. That God would spare a remnant in the midst of these calamities though he destroyed the prophane body of the Nation 2. That in due time he would recollect and restore the Church of Israel and would raise up a Gospel-Church from among them under Christ which he would enlarge by the addition of the believing Gentiles to it Jeroboam now dies and is buried with his predecessors 2 King 14.28 29. After Jeroboam's death under whom that Kingdom came to its full height of glory all things declined and those tumults arose which were the forerunners of the destruction not only of Jeroboams own house but also of the whole Kingdom as was foretold in Chap. 7 8. of Amos. In which troubled and tempestuous state of things they fell into a plain Anarchy which lasted about eleven years and an half For if we compare the times of these two Kingdoms together we must be forc'd to grant such an Interregnum or vacancy of a King in the land of Israel that the six months of Zachariah the Son of Jeroboam * For Jeroboam reigned 29 years in the days of Uzziah then add eleven years of vacancy till Zachariah began to reign and it will fall in with the 38 of Uzziah may fall even with the thirty eighth year and the one month of Shallum †In the space of one year viz. from 38 to the end of the 39 of Uzziah there were four Kings in Israel Jerâ—boam Zachariah Shallum Menahem who slew him with the thirty ninth year of Vzziah King of Iudah according to what we find recorded 2 King 15.8 In the thirty eighth year of Azariah King of Iudah did Zachariah the Son of Ieroboam reign over Israel in Samaria six months and v. 13. Shallum the Son of Iabesh began to reign in the nine and thirtieth year of Vzziah King of Iudah and he reigned a full month in Samaria The occasion of this Interregnum or vacancy * To this time Hosea seems to point Hos 10.3 For now they shall say we have no King because we feared not the Lord what then should a King do to us might possibly be the great dissentions and divisions in Israel upon the death of Ieroboam or some mislike of Zachariah his Son that was to succeed him THE Subjects of the Kingdom of Israel being wearied out as it seems with their dissentions at last setled Zachariah The 14th King of Israel ZACHARIAH the Son of Ieroboam the fourth and last of the race of Iehu in his Fathers Throne as God had promised 2 King 10.30 after eleven years vacancy as has been shewed before He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord and departed not from the Idolatry of Ieroboam who made Israel to sin and reigned only six months At the end of those six months Shallum who was as it seems some great Commander in the Army such an one as Omri 1 King 16.16 first secretly conspired against him but then having got many to side with him he slew him openly and publickly in the very sight of the people they not at all opposing it or endeavouring to hinder it After whose death followed those direful calamities which were foretold by Amos Ch. 7.9 And the high places of Isaac shall be desolate and the Sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword And thus Jehu's race ended In the continuance of it so long we may
must now for the better understanding this History of Hezekiah look a little into the neighbour Kingdom of Israel We shall find that in the days of Menahem the sixteenth King that there reigned who began to reign in the 39th year of Vzziah that God stirred up the spirit of Pul King of Assyria to invade the Kingdom of Israel 1 Chron. 5.26 and he made great spoil among them Then in the latter end of the reign of Pekah the eighteenth King of Israel who began to reign in the 52 year of Vzziah Tiglath-pileser Son of Pul carried away captive the people of Gilead and Peraea to wit the Reubenites Gadites and half the tribe of Manasseh unto Chabor and Haran and then passing over Jordan possessed himself of Galilee and carried away the inhabitants of Napthali into Assyria So that at this time he subdued in a manner five Tribes of Israel 2 King 15.29 Tiglath-pilesar dying Salmanassar his Son succeeded him who in the ninth year of Hoshea and sixth of Hezekiah after three years siege took Samaria and their King Hoshea and carried away the Israelites captives into his own Country as we shall see more in the life of Hoshea So that the Kingdom of Israel now came to an end Sometime after Salmanassar dies and his Son Sennacherib reigned in his stead whom Herodotus Lib. 2. calleth King both of Assyria and Arabia too Perchance for that the Assyrians at that time together with Peraea or the land of Gilead and Hamath or Ituraea had also under their power a part of Arabia either Petrea or Deserta For Ava or Ivah which Sennacherib so much boasteth of to have been conquered by him or his ancestors 2 King 18.34 and Ch. 19.13 was a Country lying in the desert of Arabia as Fran. Junius affirms upon 2 King 17.24 And the Prophet Isaiah foretelling the calamity which was to befall the Moabites under Salmanassar Isa 15.7 and Ch. 16.14 threatens them that whatever they had laid up in store the Assyrians should carry it away into the valley of the Arabians Sennacherib now about the eleventh or twelfth year of Hezekiah as 't is probable resolving to make war against the Egyptians perhaps because they had been so lately assistant to the Israelites against the Assyrians in the reign of Salmanassar and an occasion of their revolt see 2 King 17.4 and the Philistines as it seems joining with him therein he sends part of his Army under Tartan one of his Generals to besiege Ashdod or Azotus which City Hezekiah had sometime before recovered out of the hands of the Philistines Now that this war lasted three whole years may be gathered out of Isa 20. where the Prophet putting off his coat of hairy cloth belonging to his Prophetical function see Zach. 13.4 from his loins and his shoos from his feet was commanded to walk up and down naked and bare foot as some conceive three days a day being put for a year to signifie to the Egyptians and Ethiopians that when that time was once run out they should in like manner being stript of their clothes and barefoot be led away into captivity and bondage by the King of Assyria which command the Prophet is said to have received in the year when Tartan being sent by Sargon King of Assyria besieged Ashdod and took it Isa 20.1 where by Sargon we must understand Sennacherib himself among whose Commanders this Tartan is particularly named 2 King 18.17 And the King of Assyria sent Tartan and Rabsaris and Rabshakeh from Lachish c. Hezekiah whether provoked by Sennacherib's taking of Ashdod so injuriously from him or for other reasons resolves now to shake off the King of Assyria's yoke which his Father Ahaz had taken on him and would no longer pay him Tribute Hereupon Sennacherib in the fourteenth year * Eight years after Shalmanasser had taken Samaria of Hezekiah even after he had made so good an establishment of Religion see 2 Chron. 32.1 bringing his Army out of Egypt where he had made great havock of which calamity the Prophet Nahum seems to speak Ch. 3.10 Yet was she carried away she went into captivity her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets and they cast lots for her honourable men and all her great men were bound in chains invades the Kingdom of Judah and besieges many of their fenced Cities and took many of them Hezekiah bestirs himself with all diligence to defend himself and his Kingdom against him And to that end by the advice of his Captains and Council he fill'd up the fountains and springs that were without the City of Jerusalem and covered them with earth and carried the waters by pipes under ground into the City that so the Assyrians if they came to besiege the City might be distressed for want of water also the brook Gihon or Siloe which ran through the midst of the Country where Jerusalem stood and divided it self into two streams one of them he turned from the usual channel and brought it strait down into the west-side of the City of David 2 Chron. 32.30 and made a great pond to receive the water of it for the benefit of the besieged And the Princes and the people did much assist him therein Also he fortified Jerusalem and built up that part of the wall that was broken down by Joash King of Israel in Amaziah's time which breach it seems was not fully repaired till now and he made the wall strong and high and made also another wall without as an Antimural or outwork see 2 King 25.4 and repaired Millo in the City of David which some think was their Town-house where the people had their general assembly or else some fort in the City he also provided all sorts of arms offensive and defensive and set Officers and Commanders over his Souldiers and calling them together into the broad street that was by the City-gate he spake comfortably to them after this manner My good subjects and faithful souldiers be ye strong and courageous be not afraid of the King of Assyria nor of the great multitude that is with him For there be more with us than with him with him is only the arm of flesh but with us is the Lord our God to help us and to fight our battels And the people rested themselves on the words of Hezekiah 2 King 18.13 2 Chron. 32. from v. 1 to 9. Hezekiah seeing how soon the Assyrian had taken many of the fenced Cities of Judah and that proceeding on in his victories he had also laid siege to Lachish he began to entertain thoughts of buying his peace with him Hereupon he sent his Ambassadours to him to acknowledg his offence in denying the tribute and to intreat his favour yielding withal to pay whatever tribute he should impose upon him Sennacherib being puft up with his success requires of him three hundred Talents of Silver and thirty Talents of Gold * Which amounts to
first the particulars of his dream and then the interpretation thereof shewing him how the four Monarchies which were in their order to succeed one another was the thing signified by that great image made up of divers metals which he saw in his dream Whereupon the King enriched him presently with great gifts and made him Governour of all the Province of Babylon and chief over all the wisemen thereof And moreover at his request made his three Companions Shadrach Meshach and Abednego principal officers in all that Province Dan. 2. wh Chap. Jehoiakim for three years viz. the fifth sixth and seventh of his reign was Tributary to Nebuchadnezzar but the King of Egypt who had set him up could not bear this and therefore threatned as it seems to restore Jehoahaz his Brother whom he still held prisoner in Egypt And though Jeremy had Prophesied it should never come to pass as we find Jer. 22.11 Thus saith the Lord touching Shallum the Son of Josiah King of Judah which reigned instead of Josiah his Father and who went forth out of this place he shall not return hither any more but shall die in the place whither they have led him captive and shall see this land no more yet the fear of it did much perplex him so that he was now in a great straight he was in danger of the Egyptians if he kept faith with the Babylonians and of the Babylonians if he should revolt again to the Egyptians at length namely in the eighth year of his reign hearing perhaps of great preparations made by the Egyptians against the Babylonians he renounced his subjection to the Babylonians and sided with the Egyptians again 2 King 24.1 Nebuchadnezzar in the sixth year of his reign seems to have erected that huge golden image in the plains of Dura a Province of Babylon to be worshipped Daniel's three companions that were newly advanced are accused for not worshipping of it 'T is like out of envy to them and to entrap them some of the Babylonians got the King to erect this idolatrous image These three worthies being brought before Nebuchadnezzar make a stout profession of their resolution to own and serve only the true God Hereupon they are cast into a fiery furnace but are miraculously preserved and delivered by God The King seeing the miracle was exceedingly astonished at it and blessed and praised God Dan. 3. wh Ch. Nebuchadnezzar being detained for three years after Jehoiakim's revolt by other occasions at last in the seventh year of his reign and the eleventh of Jehoiakim's with an army consisting of several Nations he invades Judea and besieges Jerusalem and takes it and Jehoiakim in it and being enraged against him for his perfidiousness he caused him to be bound in chains intending to carry him captive to Babylon But Jehoiakim through grief as 't is probable suddenly after dying he caused his dead body to be dragged out of the Gate of Jerusalem and cast into the fields to be devoured by birds and beasts so that having no burial he may be said to be buried like an Ass as Jeremy had before prophesied of him Jer. 22.18 19 Ch. 36.30 though he dying of himself and not by violence he also may be said to have slept with his Fathers or to have fallen asleep and died as his fathers did Now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim and the abominations that he did viz. his killing of Vriah the Prophet and his perfidiousness to Nebuchadnezzar and other evils that were found in him behold they are written in the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah 2 King 24. from 1 to 7. 2 Chron. 36.6 Nebuchadnezzar carried away at this time three thousand twenty and three Jews prisoners in the latter end of the seventh year of his reign Jer. 52.28 JEhoiakin was called Jeconiah * In the Genealogy of Christ Jehoiakim the Son of Josiah seems quite to be left out Mat. 1.11 And Josias begat Jeconias and his brethren c. for the resolving of which doubt some conceive that Jehoiakim the Father was called Jeconiah as well as Jehoiakin the Son and so whereas it is said that Josias begat Jeconias and his brethren it must be understood of Jehoiakin the Son of Josias who had several brethren whereas Jehoiakim had none And then that which follows ver 12. And after they were brought to Babylon Jeconias begat Salathiel must be understood of Jehoiakin the Son some learned men viz. Beza and Pareus have been ready to think there is an errour in the generallty of the Greek copies crept in by some unadvised scribe leaving out Jehoiakim the father of Jeconias And Rob. Stephen in his Diversae Lectiones collected out of old Copies readeth that eleventh ver thus Josias begat Jakim which is the contract of Jehoiakim and Jakim begat Ieconias and his brethren and some colour there may seem to be for it because otherwise there is one wanting to make up the third or last fourteenth generation mentioned by the Evangelist which he intended as appears ver 18. So all the Generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen Generations and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen Generations 1 Chron. 3.16 and Coniah by way of contempt The 19th that reigned in Judah was JEHOIAKIN Son of JEHOIAKIM Jer. 22.24 As I live saith the Lord though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim King of Judah were as the signet upon my right hand yet would I pluck him thence This Jehoiakin was eighteen years old when he began to reign that is when he began to reign alone after his fathers death for in his fathers life-time as it seems he was crowned King ten-years before this when he was but eight years old as we have shewed before in the life of Jehoiakim He reigned only three months and ten days and did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord as his father had done before him Against him therefore a dreadful decree went out from the Lord dooming him childless that is as some interpret it that none of his race should succeed him in the Regality to sit on the throne of David though in a kind of Soveraignty Zerubbabel the son or Grandchild rather of Salathiel by Pedaiah did succeed him 2 King 24.8 9. 2 Chron. 36.9 Jer. 22. from 24 to the end 'T is not expressed whether Jehoiakin were made King by Nebuchadnezzar when he last took Jerusalem and bound his Father in chains or was set up by the people when the Babylonians were marched away from the City If he were set in the throne by Nebuchadnezzar it may well be as Josephus thinks that the King of Babylon shortly after his departure bethinking himself how dangerous it might be to leave the Son in the Throne whose Father he had lately taken and cast his dead body out unburied he changed his purpose and presently sent his Captains back with
the days of Manasses and Josiah for he forewarns the Jews of their approaching destruction by the Chaldeans 9. Zephany in the days of Josiah 10. Jeremy began to Prophesie in the 13th year of Josiah and continued Prophesying till the final captivity of Judah and two years after in Egypt The Lamentations seem to be written by him upon Judahs Captivity 11. Ezekiel began to Prophesie in Babylon in the fifth year of Jehoiakin's captivity and continued Prophecying about two and twenty years 12. Obadiah seems to have been Contemporary with Jeremy and Ezekiel for he Prophesies against the Idumeans in almost the same words and phrases that they did Compare his Prophesie with Jer. 49. and Ezek. 25. 13. Daniel in the first year of Belshazzar had the Vision of the four Beasts and in his third year the Vision of the Ram and He-goat And in the first year of Darius the Angel Gabriel informed him concerning the Seventy Weeks These three last Prophesied after the return from Captivity viz. Haggai Zachary Malachi Thus having given a short account of this my undertaking and humbly desiring that God may have glory and my Reader much benefit and advantage thereby I shall conclude this Preface with that short but fervent prayer which that excellent person Nehemiah put up for himself when he concluded his Book and therewith the History of the Old Testament Remember me O my God for Good May 5. 1683. THE CONTENTS OF THE CHAPTERS Chap. I. From the Creation to the Flood Sect. 1. OF the Creation of the World in six days and Gods resting on the seventh and instituting the Sabbath Sect. 2. Gods Covenant with man in the state of Innocence Mans fall The Covenant of Grace Sect. 3. Adam and Eve cast out of the Garden of Eden Sect. 4. Cain and Abel sacrifice Cain kills Abel Cains posterity Lamech brings in Polygamy Sect. 5. Seth born to Adam His race carried on to the Flood Sect. 6. Noah born Enoch's Translation Sect. 7. Giants on the Earth The wickedness of the old World God determines to send the Flood Noah's Character Sect. 8. Noah's three Sons born Japhet Sem and Ham. Noah is commanded to build an Ark. Sect. 9. Noah with his Family enter the Ark. The Flood comes Sect. 10. The Ark rests on Ararat Chap. II. From the Flood to the Promise made to Abram in Ur of the Chaldees Sect. 1. NOah his Family and all living Creatures leave the Ark. Sect. 2. Noah builds an Altar The Rainbow a pledg of Gods Covenant Sect. 3. Noah plants a Vineyard His drunkenness C ham cursed Sect. 4. The Tower of Babel Confusion of Languages Assyrian Monarchy begun A Catalogue of the Kings thereof Sect. 5. The Earth divided among the Sons and Grandchildren of Noah The Original of Nations Sect. 6. Mans life shortened Sem's posterity Sect. 7. Abram and Sarai born Sect. 8. Chedorlaomer subdues the Kings of Pentapolis Sect. 9. Abram called out of Vr of the Chaldees and the great promise that the Messiah should spring from his loyns made to him Chap. III. From the promise made to Abram to the departure of the Israelites out of Egypt Sect. 1. ABram's removal from Vr to Charran from thence to Canaan Two Altars there built by him A promise of that land made to his posterity Sect. 2. Abram goes into Egypt His danger there upon the account of Sarai whom he calls his sister from Pharaoh King of Egypt Sect. 3. Abram Sarai and Lot return into the Southern parts of Canaan Abram and Lot part A new promise of that land made to Abrams posterity Sect. 4. The King of Sodom with the petty Kings of Pentapolis shake off the yoke of Chedorlaomer he comes with an Army to chastise them vanquishes the forces of the Kings of Sodom and Gomorrah plunders those Cities and among other Prisoners carries away Lot who dwelt there Abram pursues Chedorlaomer defeats him rescues Lot and the rest of the Prisoners At his return he is met by Melchizedek and blessed by him Sect. 5. A Son promised to Abram he believes and is justified God makes a Covenant with him to give the land of Canaan to his posterity Confirms it by a sign and a vision Sect. 6. Abram takes Hagar Ishmael born Sect. 7. God appears again to Abram renews his Covenant with him changes his name into Abraham Institutes Circumcision Sect. 8. Abraham entertains three Angels Sarai's laughter Abraham intercedes for Sodom Sect. 9. Two Angels conveigh Lot out of Sodom His wife turned into a Pillar of salt Sodom destroyed Lot's Incest from whence issued Moab and Ammon Sect. 10. Abraham sojourns in Gerar is in danger there again upon the account of his wife from Abimelech King of the place He being punished by God restores Sarah to her husband Abraham prays for him whereupon he and his family are cured Abimelech dismisses him with presents Sect. 11. Isaac born Hagar and Ishmael cast out Abraham makes a Covenant with Abimelech Sect. 12. Abraham commanded to offer up Isaac The place called Jehovah-jireh The promise renewed to him Sect. 13. Sarah dies Abraham buys a burying place for her Sect. 14. Eliezer sent into Mesopotamia to provide a wife for Isaac His presents to Rebeckah Isaac's marriage Sect. 15. Abraham marries Keturah by whom he hath six Sons Sect. 16. Esau and Jacob born Sect. 17. Abraham dies Sect. 18. Heber dies Sect. 19. Esau sells his Birth-right Sect. 20. A famine in the land Isaac goes to Gerar. His danger there on the account of Rebeckah whom he also called his sister He and Abimelech make a Covenant Sect. 21. Esau's displeasing marriages Sect. 22. Ishmael's death Sect. 23. Isaac's dimness Jacob gets the blessing Esau's hating of him Jacob's vision and vow Sect. 24. Esau marries Mahalatha the daughter of Ishmael Sect. 25. Jacob meets Rachel Leah given him for a wife instead of Rachel Leah's four Sons Sect. 26. Rachels barrenness Jacob takes Bilhah and Zilpah Joseph born Sect. 27. Jacob's fourteen years service and great increase Sect. 28. Jacob leaves Laban Rachels Teraphim The Covenant between Jacob and Laban at Galeed Sect. 29. Jacob's vision of Angels His prayer and wrestling Sect. 30. He meets Esau They embrace each other Jacob builds an Altar at Sychar Sect. 31. Dinah ravished Simeon and Levi's revenge Sect. 32. Jacob goes to Bethel Deborah Rebeckahs nurse dies Rachel dies Reuben defiles his Fathers bed Sect. 33. Joseph's dream His Brethren sell him Jacob's mourning Sect. 34. Isaac's death Sect. 35. Judah's incest with Thamar Pharez and Zarah born Sect. 36. Joseph sold to Potiphar His Mistress's false accusation His Imprisonment Sect. 37. The chief Butler and Baker imprisoned Joseph interprets their dreams Sect. 38. Pharaoh's dreams Joseph's advancement and marriage The famine begins Sect. 39. Jacob sends his Sons into Egypt Simeon bound Sect. 40. Jacob sends his Sons into Egypt again Simeon released Benjamin's Mess Sect. 41. The Cup in Benjamin's Sack Judah's intercession for him Sect. 42. Joseph discovers himself
Nimrod See the Kings thereof pag. 15. of Chap. II. The dispersion of the children of Noah The Original of several Nations 1819 Serug born 1846 Nahor born 1878 Terah born 2008 Abraham born The King of Elam and his Allyes conquer the King of Sodom and his Confederates 2078 The Promise made to Abraham in Vr of the Chaldees The Third Age from the Promise made to Abraham in Ur of the Chaldees unto the departure of the Israelites out of Egypt 2094 ABraham's removal to Charran and from thence to Canaan Two Altars there built by him A Promise of that Land made unto his Posterity He goes into Egypt by reason of the Famine in Canaan His Danger there on the account of Sarah his Wife He returns into Canaan vanquishes Chedorlaomer rescues Lot is met by Melchizedec and blessed He takes Hagar Ismael Born 2107 Circumcision Instituted Abraham entertains Three Angels intercedes for Sodom Sodom and Gomorrha Consumed with Fire from Heaven Lots Incest 2108 Isaac Born Hagar and Ismael cast out Abraham's sacrificing Isaac Isaac marries Rebeccah 2168 Esau and Jacob Born Jacob's marriage with Leah and Rachel His hard Servâ—ce under 〈◊〉 2259 Joseph Born Joseph's Dream His Brethren sell him He is sold after to Potiphar His Mistriss 's false Accusation His Imprisonment Pharaoh's Dream Joseph's Interpretation thereof and Advancement The Famine begins Jacob sends his Sons into Egypt to buy Corn. Joseph makes himself known to his Brethren Jacob goes into Egypt He blesses his Sons and dies Joseph dies The History of Job Aaron Born 2418 Moses Born His Education by Pharaoh's Daughter He flies into Midian He is sent by the Lord to deliver Israel He works Miracles before Pharaoh The Ten Plagues 2508 The Israelites departure out of Egypt The Fourth Age from the Departure of the Israelites out of Egypt to the laying the Foundation of Solomon's Temple 2548 THe Paschal Lamb. The Fiery Pillar The Israelites pass through the Red Sea Manna Joshua fights with Amaleck The giving of the Law on Mount Sinai Moses 40 days in the Mount Directions concerning framing the Tabernacle The Golden Calf The History of the Israelites during their 40 years continuance in the Wilderness Moses having governed 40 years dies Joshua succeeds Conquers and divides the Land and governs in all 17 years The Judges 2565 Othniel 40 years 2605 Ehud 80 years The History of Ruth 2685 Deborah 40 y. 2725 Gideon 40 y. 2765 Abimelech 3 y. 2768 Tholah 23 y. 2791 Jair 22 y. 2813 Jephtha 6 y. 2819 Ibzan 7 y. 2826 Elon 10 y. 2836 Abdon 8. y. 2844 Samson 20 y. 2864 Eli 40. y. 2904 Samuel and King Saul 40 y. 2944 King David 40 y. 2985 King Solomon 4 y. 2988 The Foundation of the Temple laid in the 4th year of Solomon's Reign The Fifth Age from the laying the Foundation of Solomon 's Temple to the Destruction of it and the Captivity of Judah Solomon reigned over all Israel from the laying the Foundation of the Temple 36 years The Kingdom divided Kings of Judah 302â— REhoboam reigned 17 years 304â— Abijam 3 y. 3044 Asa 41 y. 3085 Jehoshaphat 25 y. 3106 Jehoram 8. y. 3113 Ahaziah 1 y. 3114 Athaliah 7 y. 3120 Jehoash 40 y. 31â—9 Amaziah 29 y. 31â—9 Vzziah 52 y. 32â—0 Jotham 16 y. 32â—6 Ahaz 16 y. 3271 Hezekiah 29 y. 3300 Manasseh 55 y. 3355 Amon 2 y. 335â— Josiah 31 y. 3387 Jehohaaz 3 mon. 3388 Jehoiakim 11 y. 3398 Jehoiakin or Jechoniah 3 mon. 3â—99 Zedekiah 11 y. Kings of Israel 302â— JEroboam reigned 22 years Nadab 2. y. 304â— Baasha 24 y. Elah 2 y. Zimri 7 days 3044 Omri 12 y. Ahab 22 y. 3085 Ahaziah 2 y. Jehoram 12 y. 3106 Jehu 28 y. 3113 Jehoahaz 17 y. Joah 16 y. 3114 Jeroboam 2d 41 y. 3120 An Interregnum of about Eleven years and an half Zachariah 6 months Shallum 1 month 31â—9 Menahem 10 y. 31â—9 Pekahiah 2 y. 32â—0 Pekah 20 y. 32â—6 Hoshea 9 y. 3271 The Israelites carried into Captivity by the Assyrians in the sixth year of Hezekiah The Jews carried into Captivity by the Babylonians in the 11th year of Zedekiah The Sixth Age from the Captivity of Judah to their Return out of Babylon 3408 JErusalem taken Zedekiah brought to Nebuchadnezzar sees his Children slain then hath his Eyes put out and in Chains is carried to Babylon The City and Temple burnt Seraiah the Chief Priest and other Principal men put to death at Riblah Gedaliah set over the Poor people left in the Land Jeremy upon his own choice stays with them Ismael Conspires against Gedaliah Johanan discovers it to him He believes it not and so is treacherously murder'd Johanan recovers from Ismael his Prisoners but himself escapes Johanan and his Captains and many of the people go into Egypt and carry Jeremy and Baruc with them 3409 Ezekiel utters several Prophesies in Babylon Jeremy about this time writes his Lamentations Tyre besieged by Nebuchadnezzar 3413 Nebuzaradan carries away the last Remainder of the Jews to the number of 745. Nebuchadnezzar invades Egypt and makes great Havock there Having finished his Conquests he returns unto Babylon and there has the Dream of the great Tree whose Destiny was to be cut down He new builds Babylon 3427 He falls distracted and so continues for 7 years He is recovered to his Understanding blesseth God and dies 3435 Evil Merodach succeeds him Jechoniah advanced Zedekiah dies and is honourably Buried Cyrus being made General of the Armies of the Medes and Persians obtains a great Victory over the Babylonians Belshazzar succeeds Evil Merodach In the first year of his Reign Daniel hath the Vision of the four Beasts 3465 Cyrus gives the Babylonians another great Defeat and with a vast Army besieges Babylon Belshazzar carousing with his Nobles sees the Hand-writing on the Wall Daniel interprets it to him and is thereupon advanc'd Belshazzar slain Darius takes on him the Kingdom Cyrus Marries his only Daughter Darius sets over the Provinces an 120 Governors and makes Daniel chief of them all The Princes out of Envy to him move the King to make an Edict That for 30 days no Petition should be made to any God or Man but himself Daniel thereupon cast into the Lyons Den. The 70 years of the Captivity of the Jews draw to an end Daniel Prays for the promised Deliverance The Angel Gabriel is sent to inform him not only concerning that but also the 70 Weeks Darius dies Cyrus is made thereupon Emperor of the East The Jews shew him the Prophesy of Isaiah That He should be their Deliverer with which he is much pleas'd The Seventh Age from the Return out of Babylon to the Death of Christ Or from the end of the Seventy years Captivity unto the end of the Seventy Weeks in Daniel 3478 THE 70 Weeks in Daniel containing 490 years The Persian or Second Monarchy See the Kings thereof in the Appendix Cyrus makes an Edict for the Return of the Jews and that they should go and build their
a Grove intending it for a place of Prayer and Religious Worship that under the shade of those Trees they might more commodiously call upon the Name of the Lord the everlasting God and perform all other publick Duties of His Worship and Service which within their Tents they could not so conveniently do So that at this time the use of Groves was not unlawful But afterwards when men began superstitiously to think that God was better worshipped in them than in other places and possibly did it in imitation of the Idolatrous Nations who set up their Idols in Groves and there sacrificed to false Gods the Lord did thereupon forbid his people all planting of Groves for Religious Vses Deut. 16.21 Thou shalt not plant thee a Grove of any Trees near the Altar c. And this planting of Groves was afterwards one of the Abominations for which God was angry with the Children of Israel 1 Kings 14.15 God will root up Israel out of his good Land which he gave to their Fathers because they have made their Groves (t) Gods people were hardly kept from planting Groves and placing their Idols in them and serving them even as the Canaanites and the other Heathens did Deut. 12.2 Thus it was in the times of the Judges Ch. 3.7 In the times of the Kings of Israel throughout 2 Kings 17.16 especially in the Reigns of Jeroboam 1 Kings 14.15 and of Ahab whose Queen Jezabel had 400 Prophets of the Groves that did eat meat at her Table Yea and in the Reigns of the Kings of Judah especially of Ahaz and Manasseh But the godly Kings of Judah cut them down and burnt them as Jehoshaphat Hezekiah and Josiah And Asa put down his Grandmother Maachah from being Queen because she had made an Idol in a Grove provoking him to anger Gen. 21. whole Chapter SECT XII SOme time after this when Isaac was well grown up but of what age is not certain God was pleas'd though he knew the heart of Abraham perfectly yet to manifest the strength of his Faith and the unfeignedness of his Obedience both for his own Glory and the benefit of his whole Church in after Ages to put Abraham upon an extraordinary trial Wherefore he commands him and in such a manner that he could not but be assur'd it was the Command of God and no Satanical illusion to take Isaac his only Son by Sarah his lawful Wife the Son whom he had so long expected whom he so dearly and tenderly loved the Son by whom God had promised to multiply his Seed as the Stars of Heaven and from whom the Messiah was to Spring in whom all the Nations of the Earth should be blessed which could not be if Isaac died without Issue yet notwithstanding God commands him to take this Son this dearly beloved Isaac and to go to the Land of Moriah and upon one of the Mountains there which he would point out to him viz. the very place where Jerusalem and the Temple were afterwards built 2 Chron. 3.1 to slay him first with his own hand and then to burn his dead body to ashes on the Altar as a Burnt-Offering unto Him See the Law of Burnt-Offerings Levit. 6.9 10. Here all that was in Abraham either as a Man or a Father or an Husband or a Believer or Professor of true Religion were put to it And he must not do it presently neither but must go three days journey with Isaac before he did it during all which time surely he found many strange struglings and workings of affection in himself However being well assured it was God that commanded him to do it and Grace in him having got the upper hand of Nature and firmly believing that God would raise him up from the dead if he did sacrifice him (u) Non haesitavit quia sibi reddi possit immolatus qui dari potuit non speratus Divino intonante praecepto obediendum est non disputandum August Heb. 11.17 19. I say Abraham beliving this rose up early in the morning without acquainting Sarah therewith who in all likelihood would have strove with all her might to divert him from it and taking Isaac and two Servants with him and as 't is probable some lesser quantity of dry Wood to begin the fire which was carried on the Ass resolving to furnish himself with the rest upon the Mountain they travailed three days and at last came within sight of the place At which nothing appall'd he bad the young Men his Servants stay with the Ass at the bottom of the Hill telling them that he and Isaac would go to the Mountain to worship and then return to them again (x) Abraham intended really to offer up his Son the special Issue of this work was unknown to him However He believed God was able to restore Him his Son again And thus without knowing what should be done He foretold what would come to pass Then laying the Wood of the Burnt-Offering on Isaac and taking fire in his hand and a knife they went towards the Mountain As they went along Isaac said to him My Father here is Fire and Wood but where is the Lamb for the Burnt-Offering Abraham answers My Son God will provide a Lamb. Hereupon it is likely Abraham by degrees began to acquaint him with Gods Command and shewed him the necessity of Obedience and submission thereunto and set before him the Promises and Power of God and whatever else might dispose him to yield Obedience Isaac meekly submits and suffered his Father to proceed without making any resistance and therein was an eminent Type of Christ who went forth bearing his Cross Joh. 19.17 Acts 8.32 When they were come to the top of the Mountain Abraham built an Altar probably of Turf and Stones which he found there and having laid the Wood in order he bound Isaac and laid him thereon Then stretching forth his hand to have slain and sacrific'd him Jam. 2.21 22 23. Christ the Angel of the Covenant (y) Who swears by himself and promises as God and is called Jehovah v. 16. calls to him and bids him hold his hand telling him Now I know (z) Cognovi i. e. certissimo experimento deprehendi vel cognosci seci scil a te aliis Nec propter se Deus sed propter alios tentat ut probat Vires enim dilectionis suae hominem latent nisi divino experimento eidem innotescant More hominum loquitur qui cujus rei periculum fecerunt id se novisse perfecte putant that thou truly fearest Me seeing thou hast not withholden thine only Son from me when I requir'd Him of thee As if He should have said Now I know this by a visible experiment though I know the integrity of thy heart before and by this extraordinary Trial have given occasion to have the same made manifest unto others Abraham hearing this Voice from Heaven look'd about him and behind him he espied a Ram caught
them again He was Joseph their Brother whom they had sold into Egypt He bids them not disquiet or be vex'd at themselves for what was done but look up to the Providence of God who had turn'd their Sin to so much good For says he God did send me hither before you that I might be a means in this sore Famine to preserve your lives and that you may be sav'd in this general Calamity and to preserve your Posterity that they may remain after you For there are five years more of the Famine to come wherein there shall be neither Ploughing nor Sowing Earing nor Harvest Therefore it was not you that sent me hither but God and He hath made me a Father to Pharaoh that is His Principal Councellour of State and I have the Supream guidance and direction of all his Affairs and by my Advice Pharaoh yields himself to be guided as a Son does by his Fathers having made me Ruler over all his House and over all the Land of Egypt under Himself Go up therefore to my Father and tell him That Joseph his Son is yet alive and that God hath made him Lord of all Egypt and tell him That I desire him to come down speedily to me both He and his Children and his Childrens Children with their Flocks and Herds and all that they have and they shall live in that fruitful part of Egypt call'd Goshen a Province abounding with Pastures and so most commodious for them that deal in Cattel (t) On that City whence he married and where he most resided was near to Goshen And so they shall be near me (u) This he says presuming on Pharaoh's consent and there I will maintain and nourish them that they perish not in the five succeding years of Famine A do not doubt but I will really perform what I say to you for the eyes of you all do see that it is my own mouth that speaketh these things to you in your own Language and not by an Interpreter And you shall go and tell my Father of all this Glory and Splendor you have seen Me to be in that He may hasten down to me Then He fell upon his Brother Benjamin's Neck and kiss'd him and wept (x) See Ch. 33.4 of Esau and Jacob and Ch. 46.29 Joseph's meeting with his Father Jacob over him and Benjamin wept upon his Neck through the exuberance of joy that they should see one another after so long an absence Then He kiss'd all the rest of his Brethren and wept upon them transported with the affection that so flowed in Him When his Brethren had a little recover'd themselves from their amazing astonishment and fear and were satisfi'd that This was indeed their Brother Joseph and that He had a cordial and hearty affection for them they began to chear up and to speak somewhat more freely and familiarly with him of all things that He ask'd them The News of this interview and meeting quickly spread it self in Pharaoh's Court see vers 2. and Pharaoh and his Courtiers were highly pleas'd with it his Nobles not envying but heartily honouring Joseph Then Pharaoh call'd for Joseph and commanded him to order his Brethren to lade their Beasts with Corn and to make hast home to their Father and to invite Him from Himself to come down speedily with his Family into Egypt and He would give them of the good things of the Land and they should eat of the fat of it Pharaoh further said unto Him Seeing thou hast full Authority and Commission from Me to do it Say to thy Brethren Take ye Waggons out of the Land of Egypt for your Father your Wives and your Children and come and dwell here And let it not be grievous to you to leave some of your Houshold-stuff or lumber behind you which you may not be able to put off in this time of dearth to the full value and worth for the best and most fruitful part of the Land should be yours Ch. 47.6 And Joseph's Brethren did as He had order'd them and He gave them Waggons as Pharaoh had commanded and Provisions for their Journey Then he gave to them all Changes of Raiment (y) Robes or upper Garments which they us'd in those hot Countries oft to change probably two a piece such as were us'd to be given for Honour or Reward see 2 Kings 5.23 Judg. 14.12 but unto his Brother Benjamin he gave 300 pieces of silver and five Changes of Raiment (z) These with other Gifts he gives them not only to shew his love but that they might confirm the truth of his Message and make both their Wives and others more willing to come down into Egypt And to his Father he sent a noble Present viz. Ten Asses laden with the good things of Egypt and ten She-Asses laden with Corn and such Provisions as would keep for his Fathers use in the Journey Then kindly dismissing his Brethen he gave them this solemn Charge See that ye fall not out by the way viz. about your selling of me or any thing else They return with all this Furniture to Canaan and when they came to their Father they tell him in a great transport of joy Our Brother Joseph is alive and Governour of all the Land of Egypt Jacob hearing them mention his Son Joseph who he thought had been dead above 20 years before with the sudden astonishing News of his being alive his heart fainted and he was ready to swoon away For he could not believe it to be true it seemed to him so incredible But when they had related matters more particularly to Him and the words Joseph Himself had spoken to them and when He saw the Waggons that were sent by Joseph to conveigh him into Egypt His spirits began to revive and He said It is enough abundantly enough for me that my Son Joseph is yet alive I will go down and see him before I die Ch. 45. whole Chapter SECT XLIII JAcob being at this time in the 130 year of his Age and having prepar'd himself for this great Journey He with his whole Family now set forth for Egypt And coming to Beersheba which was the South-border of the Land of Canaan Ch. 21.31 he there offers Sacrifices to God whom his Father Isaac did solemnly adore and worship thereby testifying his stedfast Faith in the Promises of God and his thankfulness for all his Mercies and particularly for the good tydings of his dear Son Joseph's being alive humbly praying unto the Lord for Counsel and Direction for his Blessing and Protection in this his Journey The Lord was pleased to answer him and to speak to him in the Visions of the Night viz. by some kind of Dream And calling him twice by his name Jacob (a) Here Jacob is mentioned twice for Israel once Therefore the name Jacob was but comparatively sorbidden to make him mind it the more He says I am God the God of thy Fathers fear (b)
Jacob might possibly have many grounds of fear 1. Because in the like necessity Isaac was forbidden to go thither Gen. 26.2 2. Because this removal with his whole Family was a kind of forsaking the Land of Promise which must needs be the more grievous because the Land of Canaan was a Sacramental Pledge of the heavenly Canaan 3. He might remember what God had foretold to Abraham Gen. 15.13 That his Seed should be afflicted in Egypt many years 4. He might fear his Children might be infected with the Idolatry or other Sins of Egypt However Gods bids him not to fear to go down thither not to go down into Egypt I will there make of thee which I have not promised thee before a great Nation (c) This was wonderfully fulfilled in that of 70 Souls that went down in the space of 210 years there came out 600000 men Exod. 12.37 Deut. 10.22 I will go down with thee and will guide and conduct thee and will assuredly bring thee up again that is thy dead body shall be brought out of Egypt and buried in the Land of Canaan and I will afterwards bring thy Posterity out of that Land (d) Viz. By the Hand of Moses Exod. 12.37 and by Joshua shall bring them into Canaan And he further tells him That his Son Joseph should close his eyes and so he should die in peace in Joseph's life time and presence and in the presence of his other Children Jacob having received this Encouragement from the Lord with his Sons and their Wives and their Children travailed towards Egypt They taking with them their Cattel and the Goods (e) No doubt but they had some Servants with them they had got in the Land of Canaan Their Names and number are carefully set down here and elsewhere by Moses 1. That he might shew God's wonderful Power and Mercy in multiplying the Seed of Abraham as he had promised 2. To distinguish the Tribes in regard of the Royal Dignity and Priesthood 3. To shew the descent of the Messiah according to the Flesh All the Souls that came with Jacob into Egypt viz. that came out of his Loins were 66 vers 26. But if we reckon in himself and Joseph and his two Sons they were altogether when in Egypt 70 Souls as we read Deut. 10.22 Thy Father went down into Egypt with threescore and ten Persons The Septuagint have added five more 1 Chron. 7.14 Namely the five Grandchildren that were born to Joseph * Hi hic numerantur propter honorem Josephi quia nati sunt vivente Josepho avo in Egypt to wit Shutelah and Tachon the Sons of his Son Ephraim and Hadan the Son of Shutelah Numb 26.36 And Machir the Son of Manasseh and Gilead Manasseh's Grandchild 1 Chron. 7.14 Which reckoning the Evangelist Luke follows and reckons them in all seventy five Persons (f) Compare the Names in this Genealogy with the Repetitions hereof Numb 26. 1 Chron. 6.7 8. Chapt. Jacob being now come into some part of the Land of Egypt he sent his Son Judah to Joseph to give him notice thereof and to intreat Him to direct his face that is to give him directions how he should set his face and whether he should next march Joseph hearing of his being come forthwith gave Command that his Chariot should be made ready and so he hasted to meet and wait upon his Father When he was come to the place where Jacob was with a lowly Reverence he presented himself to him Jacob fell on his Neck and kissed Him and wept with tears of Joy and Ravishment to see his dear Joseph alive who he thought had been dead many years before And now says the good old man I am willing to die having seen the face of my beloved Joseph in the Land of the living When these endearing Caresses were over and Joseph had stayed a convenient time with his Father and Brethren he told them he would go and acquaint Pharaoh that they were come and would intimate to Him that their Trade had been about Cattel and that they had brought their Flocks and their Herds along with them Thus we see that Joseph in all his height and greatness was not ashamed of his Kindred nor of their mean Trade and Condition Joseph also gave Instructions to his Brethren that when they came before Pharaoh and he should inquire What their Occupation was they should say Thy Servants Trade hath been about Cattel from our Youth to this day And this he intimates would be a means to dispose and incline Pharaoh to order their dwelling in the Land of Goshen which was a fruitful Pasture-Country And further 't is like he told them that by their living there together they would be less in danger of being corrupted with the Idolatry and Superstition of the Egyptians and less offensive to them by their Trade of Shepherdy Every Shepherd (g) See Notes on Gen. 43.32 It is evident the Egyptians had Flocks of Sheep both the King and People For Chap. 47.6 Pharaoh proffers Joseph to make his Brethren Rulers over his Cattel and among the rest over their Sheep But it seems they kept them rather for their Wooll and Milk than any thing else and haply those that kept them were Strangers rather than Egyptians as the Hebrews generally were being an abomination to the Egyptians on the account before mentioned Sect. 39. Gen. 46. whole Chapter SECT XLIV JOseph being come to Pharaoh he acquaints him That his Father and his Brethren were come into Egypt that their Occupation and Trade being about Cattel they had brought their Flocks and Herds with them and for the present they were ia the Land of Goshen and whether they should stay there or how they should be disposed of he humbly desires to know his Majesties Pleasure Then he presents five of his Brethren to Pharaoh who inquiring of what Profession they were They said Thy Servants are Shepherds both we and our Fathers and the Famine being sore in Canaan we had no Pasture there for our Flocks and so have brought them hither Wherefore we humbly beseech thee Let thy Servants dwell in the Land of Goshen Pharaoh turning unto Joseph told him That the Land of Egypt was before him In the best of the Land he might place his Father and his Brethren and if they liked the Land of Goshen better than any other they might freely dwell there And understanding they were Shepherds he gives order to Joseph that if any among them were men of activity he should make them Rulers over his own Cattel Shortly after Joseph brought his Father and presented him before Pharaoh The good old man having made his lowly Reverence to the King began to bless him praying the God of Heaven to accumulate all manner of Mercies and Blessings upon him who had been so munificently bountiful to his Son Joseph and so kind and gracious to him and the rest of his Children Pharaoh then asked Jacob
How old he was He humbly answered That the years of his Pilgrimage were an hundred and thirty (h) Abraham lived 175 years Isaac 180 Jacob died at the age of an 147. Few and evil says he have they days of the years of my life been and full of labour and toil trouble and vexation neither have I attained to the years of my Fathers And many more things 't is like He said to Him not here related and so humbly took his leave of Him And as He had blessed Pharaoh at his first coming to Him so He does now again at his departure from Him When Jacob was gone from the presence of Pharaoh Joseph gave to his Father and his Brethren Habitations in the best part of the Land of Egypt viz. in Goshen (i) Afterwards the Children of Israel multiplied and spread further and had Egyptian Families among them and about them so that their Doors were distinguished from the Doors of the Egpytians by the sprinkling of the blood Exod. 12.7 23. and vers 35 36. and being near them they soon borrowed Jewels of them where afterwards their Posterity built the City Rameses Exod. 1.11 And Joseph nourished his Father and all his Fathers Family with bread and other necessaries expressing all manner of love and kindness to them and a very great Care of them Gen. 47. from 1. to 13. SECT XLV THe Famine now grew very sore in the Land of Egypt and in the Land of Canaan also so that there was an extream want of all kind of sustenance especially among the common people who were forc'd generally to part with all the money they Had to buy Corn for themselves and their Families of Joseph These monies Joseph faithfully dispos'd into the Kings Treasury not inriching Himself thereby nor converting any part of them to his own use as some unfaithful Courtiers would have done When the Peoples money fail'd Joseph requir'd they should bring their Cattel to Him (k) Pecora alibant Aegyptii ut patet v. 16. Si non ad esum saltem ad utilitatem ex lacte lana labore venditione capiendam Janson and He would give them Corn for them And so for this year He fed them with Bread for their Cattel which He could maintain by the vast quantities of Straw and Chaff He had preserved When that year was ended which seems to be the sixth year of the Famine and second of their extremity they came to Him again viz. in the seventh and last year of the Famine and told Him they had parted with their Money and their Cattel they had now nothing left but their Persons and their Lands and why should they die and their Land become barren wast and desolate They desire him therefore to buy them and their Land for Food and for Seed to sow their Land with and they themselves would become Servants and their Lands should be tributary to Pharaoh So Joseph bought their Lands for Pharaoh's use Then he transplanted them from one Place or Town to another (l) Ut sese Pharaonis agnoscerent feudatarios not leaving them in that which was their own before to gain the right of Propriety and Possession from the People to Pharaoh The people mutiny not in all these Extremities nor break open the Granaries of Pharaoh but by Joseph's Prudence and God's over-ruling Providence keep themselves quiet But the Lands assigned for the maintenance of the Priests (m) Some by Priests understand Pharaoh's chief Officers of State See Ch. 41. 45. or such as were employed about their publick Heathenish Worship or were Professors or Teachers of Philosophy or of the Wisdom and natural Knowledge that then had the Vogue among them he bought not (n) Hinc elicit Bellarminus immunem a Vectigalibus esse clerum Exer. 7.24 Verum pro lege non est habenda Principum beneficentia For though those Lands in that extream Dearth fail'd of producing any thing as other Lands did yet those Priests having a Portion assigned to them out of the Kings Stores were not necessitated to sell their Lands as others were that had no such Provision Then Joseph told the People he had now bought them and their Land for Pharaoh But he would deal mercifully with them and not make his utmost Advantage of their Necessity He would therefore furnish them with Seed wherewith to sow their Land and of the increase they should pay only the fifth part to Pharaoh the other four parts should be their own And it is probable he restored to them their Cattel also else how could they have tilled their Land This being granted them with a great Acclamation they applaud his Generosity and Beneficence declaring That he had saved their lives and seeing they had found so much favour in his Eyes they would willingly serve Pharaoh and be his Farmers and Tenants on those conditions before mentioned Joseph hereupon setled it for a Law and Statute in Egypt which remained still in force among them when this was written That the Land should be all the King 's own excepting the Land of the Priests and that the People should pay a fifth part (o) Moderate quintam donat corporibus interim liberatio Regem prudenter locupletat ne Jacobi sumptus aegre ferat Anonym in loc of the yearly Increase constantly to him as a Tribute and Acknowledgment And thus Joseph shewed himself a Prudent Faithful and very profitable Servant to Pharaoh by so greatly increasing his Revenue and without the Regret or Murmuring of the People so that Pharaoh had no reason to think much of those Lands and Possessions he had given to Joseph's Brethren in Goshen Thus Jacob dwelt very comfortably in the Land of Goshen He and his Sons having Possessions therein and they grew and multiplied exceedingly And Jacob lived after his first settlement there seventeen years so that his whole Age was 147 years The time of his Death now drawing nigh which he perceived either by the decay of Nature in him or some Revelation from God he sent for his Son Joseph and desired him as he loved him to swear to him by putting his hand under his Thigh see Ch. 24. 2. that he would not bury him in Egypt but carry him and bury him in Canaan with his Fathers Abraham and Isaac in their burying place in the Cave of Macpelah in Hebron see Ch. 23. 19. and 25. 8. and 35 29. Whereby he testifi'd his Faith in God's Promises that his Seed should return thither and possess that Land (p) And for this reason Joseph also ordered his own bones to be carried thither Ch. 50.25 Joseph swears to him that he would perform his desire Then Jacob raising himself up and turning himself towards his Beds-head and to help himself herein possibly leaning upon the top of his Staff which he had in his hand see Heb. 11.21 (q) The LXX read it leaning upon the top of his Staff The Hebrew word without pricks may be read
either Mitteh a Bed or Matteh a Staff Scipione nixus Jacob ad spondae caput Deum moribundus adorat Anonym he bowed himself to God by way of Thankfulness both for those Promises of the Land of Cannaan in the expectation whereof he desired there to be buried as also because he was assured by Joseph he should be buried there Gen. 47. from vers 13. to the end SECT XLVI SOmetime after this Joseph heard that his Father was sick and he went to visit him taking his two Sons Manasseh and Ephraim along with him to receive the Blessing of their venerable Grandfather When Israel heard He was come he raised up himself and sat upon the Bed as if a new degree of strength had been added to him Then He spake to his Son Joseph after this manner God Almighty appeared to me some years since at Luz (r) Or Bethel and twice see Ch. 28. 13 19. Ch. 35.6 in the Land of Canaan and blessed me saying Behold I will make thee fruitful and multiply thee and will make of thee a multitude (s) Viz. 13 populous Tribes of People and will give this Land to thy Seed after thee for an everlasting Possession (t) See Sect. 3. and Gen. 13.15 and Ch. 17.8 Hac locutione significat Israelitas sore perpetuos terrae haeredes usque ad Christi adventum quo renovatus fuit mundus The Lord was pleased there to renew and confirm to me the Blessing promised to my Father and Grandfather which is to go on still and to descend on our Posterity And therefore thy two Sons Ephraim (u) Jacob here prefers Ephraim and Manasseh though by Birth they are only my Grandchildren yet by Adoption shall be my Sons and accordingly in the division of the Promised Land they shall have the Priviledge of my Sons Each of them shall have a Twelfth share and they shall be Heads of Tribes no less than Reuben and Simeon and in them Two thou shalt have a double portion (x) This giving to the First-born a double Portion as many other things before-mentioned See Ch. 38. being in practice among the Patriarchs before Moses's time was afterwards put into a Law Deut. 21.17 and so the Right and Priviledge of the First-born 1 Chron. 5.1 And if thou shalt beget any Sons after them they shall be thine that is they shall be counted thy Off-spring and accordingly shall be ingrafted into the Stock and Tribe of Ephraim or Manasseh as if they were their Sons and not their Brethren and shall not make peculiar Tribes by themselves as these Two shall do Neither will any of thy Brothers have cause to complain that I give thee this Priviledge of the First-born For had I been fairly dealt with thy dear Mother Rachel had been my only Wife and so thou being her eldest Son hadst had that Right unquestionably And now I have mentioned thy dear Mother I cannot but remember with grief how soon she was taken from me she dying in Child-bed of thy Brother Benjamin Ch. 35.16 19. in the Land of Canaan near Bethlem-Ephrata as we came from Padan-Aram And she dying in that manner Her body could not well be kept so that I was forced to bury her there and could not carry her to the Sepulchre of our Ancestors where I my self desire to be buried Then Israel whose Eyes were dim perceiving two young Youths to stand before him but not knowing them he asked Who these were Joseph answered They are my Sons whom God hath given me in this Place Jacob said Bring them to me and I will bless them that is I will in the Name and by the Authority of God declare how He will bless them and this Blessing I will confirm to them by laying my Hands upon them They being brought to him and kneeling down between his knees He kissed them and embraced them saying to Joseph I had not thought to see thy Face and loe God hath shewed me thy Seed also Then Joseph took his two Sons from between his Fathers knees that he might place them in that order wherein he desired the Blessing should be given them And taking Ephraim in his right hand opposite to his Fathers left hand and Manasseh in his left hand opposite to his Fathers right hand and bowing himself before him in token of Reverence and Thankfulness for adopting his Sons he presented them unto him Jacob thereupon stretched out his right hand (y) Here is the first express mention of the Imposition of â— Hands which was afterwards often used 1. In Benedictions Mat. 19.13 2. In extraordinary Collations of Gifts and Graces Acts 8.17 3. In miraculous Cures Mark 6.5 4. In Ordination of Magistrates and Church-Officers Numb 8.10 Deut. 34.9 Acts 6.6 and 13.3 1 Tim. 4.14 and laid it upon Ephraim's head who was the younger and his left hand upon Manasseh's head who was the elder and he did it wittingly not crossing his Arms by chance but purposely as a sign and intimation of that which afterwards should come to pass to wit that Ephraim though the younger should have the preheminence Joseph seeing this though he knew that his Father in this action was guided by a Prophetick Spirit yet supposing he might be mistaken in this Circumstance of laying his hands by reason of the dimness of his sight he sought to rectifie his supposed Errour by removing his right hand from Ephraim's head to Manasseh's being carried therein as 't is probable by that natural affection that Fathers use to bear to their eldest Sons and accordingly told him That Manasseh was the First-born and therefore he desired him to lay his right (z) The right hand is naturally more strong and so more honourable than the left Jacob accordingly giveth the strongest and most honourable blessing to Ephraim by this sign of the right hand put upon him hand on him But Jacob refused to do it telling him He knew very very well what he did For though Manasseh should be great yet his younger Brother should be greater than he (a) In Number Issue and Power Numb ch 1. Eight thousand and three hundred men more of Ephraim than Manasseh See Deut. 33.17 Of Ephraim came Joshua and the Kings of the ten Tribes The Tribe of Ephraim is called The Tribe of Joseph Numb 1.32 34. Apoc. 7.8 The name of Ephraim is taken for the whole Kingdom of Israel Isa 7.2 They both had a double lot Josh 17.17 and his Seed should become a multitude of Nations Then Jacob solemnly blessed Joseph and his Children saying The God before whom my Fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk in Uprightness and Integrity The God which fed me all my life long to this day The Angel of the Covenant the Son God who hath hitherto preserv'd and delivered me from all Evil Bless the Lads (b) This action of blessing Joseph's Children Jacob is said to have performed by Faith Heb. 11.21 and let my Name (c) H. e. Adopto
eos in filios meos ut mei dicantur non tui licet a te geniti be named on them and the Names of my Fathers Abraham and Isaac that is let them be accounted and called Abraham's Isaac's and Jacob's Children let them be esteemed among the Twelve Tribes of Israel as my own immediate Issue and let them grow into a Multitude (d) There were eighty five thousand two hundred men of War of these Two Tribes in Moses's time Numb 26.28.34.37 Thus Moses blesseth them Deut. 33.17 in the midst of the Earth Jacob having thus blessed these young Youths he addressed his Speech to Joseph saying In thee shall Israel bless that is when the Children of Israel shall bless their Children they shall look upon thee and thy Children as their Pattern and shall say to them God make thee as Ephraim and as (e) Hinc postea mos in Israele ut adducerentur putri ad viros conspicuos pietate ut iis benedicerent bene precarentur Hinc pueri illi ad Christum adducti Qui vero iis manus imponit benedicit dicit si filius est ponat te Deus sicut Ephraim sicut Manassen Si filia ponat te Deus sicut Saram Rebeccam Vide Ruth 4.11 Fagius Manasseh Then Israel said to Joseph Behold I die and am ready to go hence but God will be with you and will assuredly bring your Posterity into the Land promis'd to their Fathers and wherein they sometime dwelt And as a Sign and Token that I do firmly believe this I do give and bequeath to thee and therein do prefer thee above thy Brethren that piece of Land nigh unto Shechem which I bought of the Children of Hamor Shechem's Father see Sect. 30. and Gen. 33.19 which though it be little in it self yet was all I had by purchase in the Land of Canaan and therefore to thee I bequeath it as my Heir (f) And accordingly this portion of Land became afterwards the Inheritance of the Ephraimites Josh 16.1 20.7 And thither afterwards were Joseph s bones carried and buried Josh 24.1.25.32 This piece of Land was indeed seized upon among the rest by the Neighbouring Amorites * Hevaei cum Amoraeis ita permixti erant ut unam eandem gentem fecerint after the slaughter of the Shechemites and they would not by fair means restore it to me so that I was forced to recover it by the assistance of my Sons and Servants out of their hands by force of Arms. (g) This passage is not elsewhere mentioned in the Scripture Hoc clare dicitur licet alibi res gesta non narretur Menoch Therefore I do still account it as my own (h) Terram illam licet nunc abesset pro suâ habet ac ut suam dat Josepho Adeo certus est de terrae possessione divisione ut jam nunc assignet Mercer and do know assuredly that hereafter it shall become the Inheritance of the Off-spring of the Ephraimites Josh 16.10 Ch. 48. whole Chapter SECT XLVII JAcob now being hear his end commanded that his Sons should come all together to him that he might by the Spirit of Prophesie bless them and tell them what should be their future State and what should betide them in their succeeding Generations And first he speaks to Reuben He tells him he was his First-born and the beginning and first effort of his strength Deut. 21.17 Psal 105.36 and on that account in the ordinary course of Nature many honourable Priviledges belonged to him (i) Simpliciter sic accipiendum se in suo gradu stetisset Reuben privatus omnis excellentiae futurus esset penes eum Vatablus As headship of the Family and a double portion to maintain that Dignity and the Priesthood But it must now be otherwise with him by reason of his hainous Sin and detestable Incest in going up to his Fathers Bed and defiling Bilhah his Concubine Gen. 35.22 Now the Headship of the Family should be translated to Joseph who should have a double portion and his two Sons should be Heads of two Tribes The Priesthood should be conferred on Levi and the Kingdom principally on Judah and partly on Ephraim viz. the Kingdom of the ten Tribes He tells him His Lust had been like an impetuous stream of water that cannot easily be kept within its own bounds but violently breaks the banks that should restrain it and keep it in His Lust had broke through all restraints of duty and modesty and therefore he should not excel that is his Tribe should not excell either in number valour or any excellent Atchievements So that this wicked Fact done above forty years ago soon after the birth of Benjamin * Ch. 35.22 is here severely doomed and that to humble Reuben for his Sin and to teach his Brethren to take heed of all such high provoking Transgressions against God 2ly He comes to Simeon and Levi who he says are Brethren and that not only by Birth being Children of the same Father and Mother but in Manners Conditions and wicked Practices (k) Thus Moses impartially sets a brand of Infamy upon Levi his great Grandfather which shews that in writing this Story he was not guided by his own private spirit but the Spirit of God They were Instruments of great Cruelty in the Land of their Sojourning upon the Shechemites Gen. 34.13 25. where being Strangers they endangered the ruine of themselves and their Fathers House Then by a pathetical Apostrophe he shews his detestation of their outragious Fact and clears himself of all suspition of his favouring of it and prevents all Aspersions which otherwise after his death might possibly have been cast upon him for it O my Soul says he come not thou into their secret as if he should have said God forbid that ever my Soul should joyn in such a Villany They did it secretly without my knowledge and when they assembled together to contrive the execution of it I was not among them neither did my Soul or my Tongue (l) Q. d. Ex animo detestor hoc scelus nec ullum assensum lingua praebuit both which are mans glory ever give any consent or approbation to that barbarous Fact (m) The Author of the Apochryphal Book of Judith highly extols this Fact which shews that he wrote not by Inspiration of that Spirit of God that the Patriarch Jacob was acted by when he utter'd this Prophesie For in their wrath they slew Hamor and Shechem and the Citizens of their City and in their rage and wilfulness they digg'd (n) We read not of this before Ch. 34. yet it seems by this passage it was then done vers 6. They slew a man that is many men The Hebrews do frequently use an Enallage of a singular for a plural number Jun. Trem. Sic reddunt pro viâ suâ occiderunt viros pro arbitrio suo avulserunt vel diripuerunt
for seven days together who would then come to walk by the side of the River Nilus and to tell him That seeing he had refused to obey the Voice of the Lord he would bring a grievous Plague upon Him and his People They had shed the bloud of the Israelites Children and drowned them in that River Therefore God had commanded him to give order to Aaron with his Rod to smite the waters of the River and he accordingly stretched forth his Hand over the Rivers Streams and Ponds probably over some of them in the Name of the rest and striking those Waters they were immediately turned into bloud Yea by the influence of God's Almighty Power upon that percussion all their other Streams and Rivers Ponds and Pools yea Cisterns of water whether of Wood or Stone were turned into bloud for seven days together By which Plague the Fish that were in the River died whereby the Egyptians were deprived of that which was their chief Food (a) The Egyptians abstained from the flesh of many Beasts of Superstition especially such as the Hebrews used in Sacrifice as may be gathered from Numb 11.5 We remember the Fish that we did eat in Egypt freely and Isa 19.8 God threatens this as a great Judgment to Egypt The Fishers shall mourn and all that cast Angles into the Brooks shall lament and they that spread Nets upon the Waters shall languish So that this was a sore Plague on the Egyptians who fed much on Fish and traded much with them and maintained themselves by them And one great evil followed this also for hereupon the River stank so horribly that they could not drink of the waters of it which used to be their ordinary Beverage see Jer. 2.18 but were fain to dig Pits near the River that they might have some water to drink But all this did not work upon Pharaoh's obdurate heart For his Magicians and Sorcerers getting some water either from the Sea or out of the new-digged-Wells or from the houses of the Israelites dwelling here and there intermixed with them did by their Enchantments and the Devil's help get some blood whereby they tinctured the waters or else unperceiveably removed the water and substituted bloud in the place thereof Which when Pharaoh saw done by them he went away to his own house and heeded not nor laid to heart the foregoing Plague inflicted on him by Moses Exod. Ch. 7. from 14. to the end 2. God Commands Moses and Aaron to go to Pharaoh again Second Plague Frogs and to require him to let his People go and to tell Him That if he refused to do it He would smite all his Borders with Frogs They accordingly resolutely pursue their Commission and evidence their Courage and Fidelity in God's Cause notwithstanding the ill success they had had before But Pharaoh would not give ear to them Hereupon Aaron stretched forth his Rod (b) The Rod is called sometimes the Rod of Moses sometimes of Aaron sometimes of God to shew that it was the Instrument they all used in working these prodigious things over the Rivers (c) Non singulos adiit fluvios sed virga eminus eos intenta designavit extendit eam versus Nilum intentione versus omnes aqas Aegypti over the Streams and over the Ponds and the Frogs came up in great abundance upon the Land namely not only those that were in the Rivers before but an innumerable number of new ones were produced and they crawled into Pharaoh's house and into his Bed-Chamber (d) How easily can God cast contempt upon Princes and how favourable is he to men who by his ordinary Providence makes such Creatures loth to come where man hath to do which are so lothsome to him yea upon his Bed and into the Houses of his Courtiers and the rest of his people yea into their Ovens and Kneading-Troughs so that they were grievously annoyed with them Pharaoh calls for his Magicians to see if they could imitate this Miracle and they by stretching forth their Rods over the River did by the Power of the Devil (e) The Devil it seems much delights in their monstrous shape For we find in the Scripture three unclean Spirits like Frogs coming out of the mouth of the Dragon bring forth some true Frogs by unperceptible Conveyance to the place where the Contest was which possibly at this present was not covered with Frogs by Moses's Working though it is like they were but very few in comparison of those Moses and Aaron had produced And when they had brought them they could not remove them again Pharaoh and his people being thus grievously distressed with this Plague he began to stoop a little and to acknowledge God whom before he would not know and therefore desires Moses and Aaron to intreat the Lord to remove these Frogs and he would let the people go that they may Sacrifice unto the Lord their God Moses knowing that he was constituted as a God to Pharaoh Ch. 7. vers 1. to bring Judgments upon him and romove them at God's appointment and having in him the Faith of Miracles and being directed by the Spirit of God He told Pharaoh He would do him the honour (f) Honorem tibi sume ut des mihi tempus in quo orem pro te to let him appoint the time when he should pray to the Lord for him and by his power deliver him from this Plague And says he if my prayer take no effect then do thou glory over me and say I am no better than one of thy Magicians but if I do deliver thee then own and obey the great God of Heaven whose Servant I am Pharaoh desires the Frogs may be removed by the next Morning Moses Replies Be it according to thy word that thou mayst know that there is none like unto the Lord our God Moses then cried unto the Lord to remove this Plague from Pharaoh and the Lord heard him and immediately the Frogs died that were in the Houses Villages and Fields only some remained in the River and they gathered the dead Frogs together and cast them upon heaps so that the Land stank by reason of them But when this Plague was removed and Pharaoh saw there was some respite he hardened his heart and hearkened not to Moses and Aaron as the Lord had foretold Exod. Ch. 8. from vers 1. to 16. Third Plague Lice 3. Pharaoh having thus mocked God promising and not performing the Lord to manifest his Indignation against him Commands Moses now to strike him with a new Judgment without giving him any warning as at other times he had done Aaron therefore is commanded forthwith to stretch out his Rod and to strike the dust of the Land that it may become Lice through all the Land of Egypt Which Aaron accordingly doing abundance of Lice came on Men and Beasts the dust in very part of the Land that is a great deal of it turning into that
with the same degree of love As our Saviour prays Joh. 17.21 that all true Believers might be one with Him and his Father not with the same union but with a likeness of union Ch. 19. v. 18. 7. Com. we are forbidden Fornication with a Bond-Maid betrothed the punishment scourging the way of Expiation by bringing a Ram for a Trespass-Offering Ch. 19.20 21 22 29. Adultery The punishment Death by stoning as may be gathered from Deut. Ch. 22. v. 22 23 24. Joh. 8.4.5 Levit. 20.10 Incest as if a man lie with his Fathers wife or his Daughter-in-law or if he marry Mother and Daughter if all be guilty they shall be burnt or if a man lie with his Sister he shall be immediately put to death and that openly for a warning to others or if a man lie with his Aunt they shall die Childless that is shall be presently put to death that so the Land may not be filled with the Issue of so unclean a mixture Ch. 20.11 12 14 17 19 20 21. Sodomy or lying with Mankind Both are to be put to death Ch. 20.13 Bestiality or lying with Beasts Both Man and Beast to be put to death Ch. 20.15 16. Lying with a woman having her Sickness which if a man did knowingly and the woman consented both were to be put to death (r) Intelligendum est autem de casu quo vel publice constabat vel ad judices res deducta erat Nam pro casibus occultis decernitur supra Cap. 15. v. 24. immunditia semptem dierum post quos ab ea purificandus erat Jansenius But if he knew her not to be in that condition He was only rendred unclean thereby for seven days and to be purified according to the directions given Ch. 15. Levit. 20.18 8. Com. Ye shall not steal nor deal fasly nor lie one to another Ch. 19.11 Thou shall not defraud thy Neighbour nor rob him The wages of him that is hired shall not stay with thee all night till the morning The reason of which Law seems to be because they that work for hire are many times so poor that they have not provision for a day beforehand Ch. 19.13 See Jer. 22.13 Job 7.2 Ye shall do no unrighteousness in Judgment in Meteyard in Weight or in Measure but shall have just Ballances just Weights and a just Epha (s) An Epha answered to our Bushel and an Hin contained six of our Pints and a just Hin Ch. 19.35 36. 9. Com. Thou shalt no go up and down as a Talebearer among thy people Ch. 19.16 See Ezek. 22.9 In thee are men that carry tales to shed blood Some Injunctions are also added relating to the Judicial Law as particularly First That all Justice be impartially administred without respect of persons or considering whither they be Poor or Rich Strangers or of their own Country Ch. 19.15 Ch. 24.22 yea the Strangers sojourning with them were to be used as those born among them and they were to love them as themselves remembring that they themselves were once Strangers in the Land of Egypt Ch. 19.33 24. 2ly To leave the Corners of their Field when they reap and the gleanings thereof and of their Vineyards for the Poor and Stranger Ch. 19.9 10. See Ch. 23.22 3ly Not to permit promiscuous Ingendrings among Cattel nor sow their Fields with mingled seed nor wear Linsiewolsie Garments intimating possibly how all mixtures in Religion of mans devising with Gods Ordinances and all hypocrisie contrary to the sincerity and simplicity which God requires were abominable to Him Ch. 19.19 Deut. 22.11 4ly Fruits of Trees now planted to be accounted uncircumcised and for the first three years to be cast away as an unclean thing even as the Fore-skins of men in Circumcision were cut off and cast away as unclean In the fourth year they were to be holy to praise the Lord withall and given to the Priests as First-fruits who did eat the food prepared for and dedicated unto God Then on the fifth year they might gather the Fruits and eat of them themselves and by Gods blessing this their Obedience should tend to their profit For God would thereupon bless them with increase Ch. 19.23 24 25. 5ly Not to round (t) Radulphus asserit Gentiles cum se daemonibus consecrabant capita sua in rotundum totondisse censebant enim Deos gaudere figura rotundâ utpote perfectissima Hic Diis Templa rotunda extruebant Numa vestae Augustus omnibus Diis Bochartus Deus ut suos quam remotissime ab impiis profanis Gentilium ritibus abstraheret opposita praecepit ut in multis aliis ita ut in capillorum barbae figura Nam Nazaraeatus i. e. intonsio a Deo idcirco videtur probata Jansen the corners of their Heads and Beards after the superstitious manner and custom of the Heathen who offered to their Idol-gods not only their Locks but their Beards also especially the first down of them as Plutarch in Theseo and Sueton in Nerone relate Or possibly they were not to shave off the hair of their Heads and Beards when they were in mourning and extream heaviness as was the custom of the Heathen Isa 15.2 Jer. 48.37 Neither were they to make cuttings in their Flesh for the dead as the Heathens used to cut and lance themselves in their mourning Deut. 14.1 Jer. 16.6 1 King 18.28 Nor to imprint Marks upon their Flesh by cutting themselves and then filling up the place with black or some other colour that the Marks thereof might remain which were tokens of Idolatry and Superstition and desperate effects of immoderate mourning Ch. 19.27 28. Ch. 21.5 6ly Laws concerning the Priests mourning for the dead 1. The inferiour Priests were not to defile themselves by touching the dead (u) Which was an admonition of an especial purity required in the Priests as being Types of Christ or lamenting or being at their burial or within the place or Tent where any dead body lay by which was contracted a Ceremonial uncleanness for seven days see Numb 19.14 16. yet the Priest though he might not mourn for any of the people he might mourn for his Mother Father Son Daughter Brother Sister being a Virgin Nevertheless for these he was not to mourn after the Idolatrous manner of the Heathens by cutting his Hair Beard and Flesh as they used to do He being a chief man among his people and appointed to offer Sacrifices on the Altar and Shew-bread on the Table of the Lord therefore a more especial degree of holiness was required of him Chap. 21. from 1. to 7. 2ly They were not to marry a Whore or a profane Woman or one divorc'd from her Husband yea it seems they might not marry a Widow except it were a Priests Widow Ezek. 44.22 This was injoyned to maintain the dignity of the Priesthood that they might be fitter to be Types of Christ and the people accordingly are enjoyned to account and esteem
man see Exod. 33.20 And when he spake to him he did not make known his mind to him in obscure figurativ expressions as he did to some of the Prophets see Ezek. 17.3 but plainly and clearly and seeing he had manifested so great favour to Moses How comes it to pass says the Lord that ye were not afraid to speak against my Servant Moses And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them and the Cloud the sign of his presence removed from the door of the Tabernacle and possibly for some time disappeared God intending thereby to testifie his Indignation against them And immediately Miriam became Leprous and white as Snow * See Deut. 24.9 God was pleased to spare Aaron though Partner with his Sister in this Sin lest in his Dishonour the Priesthood should suffer Aaron intreats Moses to Intercede with the Lord for them that the punishment of this sin wherein they had done foolishly may not be laid upon them He begs that Miriam may not by the continuance of this white Leprosie upon her be as a Child dead in the Womb whose flesh when it comes into the World looks white and putrified as if it were sodden and half consumed And though says He she is for the present alive yet as one dead she is to be excluded from the Communion of the Church see Numb 5.2 and this fretting Plague if it continue upon her will in the end utterly consume and kill her Moses was prevailed with to pray for Her and upon his prayer the Lord was pleased to heal her of her Plague yet gives order that she should be carried out of the Camp for the present For says God if her earthly Father had in great displeasure spit in her face surely she would have been ashamed to shew her self for a time and therefore much more fit is it that in such a Case as this she should be secluded from the Congregation to instruct all the people to take heed of being corrupted with Her example The people upon this Sentence mourned for Her and journied not till she was brought into the Camp again which argued the great honour and respect they had for Her being a Prophetess and the Sister of Moses and Aaron After this the people removed from Hazeroth and pitched in another place in the Wilderness of Paran called Rithmath see Ch. 33.18 Numb 12. whole Chapter SECT LVII THe people being now come near to the Mountain of the Amorites upon the Borders of Canaan Moses encourages them to go up and take possession of the Land which God had promised them Deut. 1.20 21. but they fearing the Event desire that they may first send some Spies to search the Land Moses not knowing their distrustful hearts likes well their motion Deut. 1.23 and seeking Counsel of the Lord about it the Lord was pleased to permit it though in displeasure and accordingly Commands that at the time when Grapes first grew ripe they should send twelve Principal men such as were of authority and esteem among them of every Tribe one of which Caleb was for the Tribe of Judah being then forty years old see Joshua 14.7 and Hoshea (q) Hoshea signifies a Saviour but by adding Jah the Contract of Jehovah which is the proper Name of God Psal 68.4 thereby was signified that He should by the help and assistance of God be a Saviour of the people the Son of Nun whom Moses called Jehoshua or Joshua for the Tribe of Ephraim to discover and spy out the Land These men accordingly went entring into Canaan by the Desart of Zin lying on the South and so went quite thorow it to the very North part thereof even to Rehob 'T is probable they divided themselves else 't is like they would have been suspected neither could they otherwise have viewed the whole Country in so short a time Numb 13. from 1. to 23. SECT LVIII THese Spyes after forty days return from searching the Land and come to the Camp at Kadesh bringing with them one branch of a Vine with one Cluster or Bunch of Grapes upon it which was so big that they carried it between two of them upon a staff with some Pomegranates and Figgs of the Land Ten of these twelve Spies that were sent praised indeed the goodness of the Land but magnified also the strength of the Cities thereof and the Giant-like stature of the Inhabitants thereby disheartning the people from marching any further towards it At Hebron a City in the South-parts of it which was one of the ancientest Cities in the World being more ancient then Zoan the chief City of Egypt which vaunted it self to be of very great Antiquity see Isa 19.11 they tell them they met with Giants the Sons of Anak men of mighty stature in comparison of whom they seemed but like Grashoppers They tell them The Cities of the Canaanites were great and walled up to Heaven Deut. 1.28 They further tell them That the Amalekites dwelt in the South Country the Hittites Jebusites and Amorites in the Mountains nigh unto the Wilderness where the Israelites now lay so that there would be no entring the Land on the South because of those mighty Nations that would be there ready to oppose them And in case they should think to fetch a compass about and to enter in on the East-side there they would be kept out by the River Jordan which ran along on that side and the dead-Sea and by the Canaanites who dwelt by the Sea and by the Coast of Jordan and they being a valiant and a strong people would improve those advantages for the best defence of their Country Thus these ten Spies discouraged the people bringing an evil Report upon the Land telling them It was a Land that eateth up the Inhabitants thereof by reason of the Civil Wars and frequent intestine Commotions that arose among them and by reason of the Tyranny of the Gyants who oppressed those that were less powerful than themselves And if several of the Natives of the Land were expos'd to so much danger how much more had they need to fear that were Strangers and were held their Common Enemies and what could they expect but to be eaten up with continual Wars The people at this Relation being greatly terrified Caleb and Joshua rose up and contradicted this false Report and encouraged the people telling them they might easily by Gods assistance Conquer the Land see Ch. 14.6 7. They said all that they could to still and quiet them and to hearten them to go on but all in vain For they now fall into an high rage and discontent and murmur against Moses and Aaron and wish they had died in Egypt or the Wilderness Nay their discontent and impatience grew so high that they said Deut. 1.27 Because the Lord hated us he hath brought us out of the Land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorite to destroy us and that our selves our Wives and Children should
be a prey to their Sword And therefore like persons almost distracted they said one to another Come let us chose to our selves a Captain and under him let us march back again into Egypt see Nehem. 9.17 But they did not consider the difficulties they must needs meet with had they proceeded in such a resolution They could not reasonably expect to be fed with Manna from Heaven in their return being in Rebellion against God nor to have the Red-Sea divided for them again And if they should though very unlikely ever get back into Egypt what scorn and cruel Bondage must they there expect If the Egyptians oppress'd them before how much more hardly and severely would they deal with them now remembring the death of their First-born and the drowning of Pharaoh and his Army in the Red-Sea But men in passion usually lose all consideration Moses and Aaron seeing them in such a rage and mutiny fell down on their faces before them intreating them to desist from such a desperate purpose Moses earnestly perswaded them not to dread the Canaanites for God would go before them and fight for them Deut. 1.29 30 31. and Caleb and Joshua rent their Clothes testifying that their hearts were rent with Grief and Indignation at those blasphemous Speeches the people had uttered against God They tell them the Land they went to search was an exceeding good Land and if the Lord delighted in them He would bring them into it Therefore they should take heed lest by their Rebellion they provoked him to deprive them of it As for the people of the Land they tell them They need not be afraid of them for they were but as bread for them that is their Sword should easily eat and devour them for their defence was departed from them that is God who had hitherto preserved them from being destroyed because their Iniquity was not then full Gen. 15.16 had now upon their great Provocations withdrawn his defence from them and would certainly give them up to destruction And alas say they what are strong Cities or high Walls to defend a people whom God hath forsaken These Discourses of Caleb and Joshua though very rational nothing pacified the inraged multitude but instead thereof like mad men they cried out Stone them stone them see Exod. 17.4 The Lord seeing what danger his faithful Servants and Witnesses were in suddenly caused the Cloud the usual sign when He meant to speak to Moses concerning the people to descend upon the Tabernacle and possibly in a more glorious manner then ordinary thereby to astonish the people and to stop them in their furious attempt And the Lord said unto Moses How long will this people provoke me and how long will it be ere they believe me notwithstanding all the signs and wonders I have shewed among them I am even ready to smite them with the Pestilence and quite disinherit them and deprive them of this good Land I promised to their Fathers and in their stead to make of thee a greater Nation than they Moses humbly intercedes for them and makes use of several Arguments to prevail with the Lord for them First He says Lord if thou shouldest destroy all this people as if they were but one man the Egyptians will hear of it and will take occasion thereupon to reproach thy Name They will say because thou couldst not bring them into the Land which thou swarest to give them therefore thou hast slain them in the Wilderness though they know thou broughtest them by thine Almighty Power out from among them however they will talk insultingly thereof to the Nations who have heard the fame of thee and know that thou art among this people and hast manifested thy presence frequently and apparently among them and that thy Cloud standeth over them and that thou goest before them in the day-time in a Pillar of a Cloud and in a pillar of fire by night 2ly He humbly desires of the Lord that the greatness of his Power and Mercy may be manifested in pardoning this people who by so many and great sins had so highly provoked him according to what he himself had spoken Exod. 34.6 saying The Lord is long-suffering and of great mercy forgiving Iniquity and Transgression and by no means clearing the Guilty visiting the Iniquity of the Fathers upon the Children unto the third and fourth Generation By which words whilst Moses sues for mercy to many of them he seems to intimate an assent to the justice of God If He please to execute it upon some principal Offendors among them which if cut off there would be more safety for the rest Only he desires he would in the midst of Judgment remember Mercy and would manifest as great a willingness and readiness to pardon them now as He had done from Egypt until that time The Lord was pleased to give a gracious Answer to Moses's prayer and accordingly said to him I have pardoned them according to thy word I will not destroy them all as one man at this present I will not cut off the whole Nation as at first I threatned He further tells Moses That He intended to get unto his Name great Glory by the miraculous things that he would do for his people in carrying them into the Land of Canaan and yet withall He would magnifie his Justice and Severity in cutting off those who having seen the Miracles He did for them in Egypt and in the Wilderness had yet tempted Him ten times * 1. At the Red-Sea Exod. 14.11 2. At Marah Exod. 15.23 3. In the Wilderness of Sin Exod. 16.2 4. When they kept Manna till it stank Exod. 16.20 5. When they went out to gather Manna on the Sabbath day Exod. 16.27 6. At Rephidim for want of water Exod. 17.2 7. When they made the golden Calf Exod. 32.1 8. At Taborah Numb 11.1 9. At Kebroth-Hattaavah longing for Quails Numb 11.4 10. At this time after the return of the Spies and therefore they should not enter into the Land but all of them that were twenty years old and upward should die in the Wilderness excepting only Joshua and Caleb who were acted by a better spirit and had followed him fully and done what he required of them see Numb 32.12 These two should enter into the Land and their Seed should possess it but as for the rest of the Murmurers and Mutineers their Carkasses should fall in the Wilderness and their Children that they said would be a prey to the Amorites these He would bring in and they should know and enjoy the good Land which their Fathers had so reproachfully rejected Yet he tells them Their Children should wander in that Wilderness forty years that is till they have made up the years of their wandering in the Wilderness from their coming out of Egypt full forty years and he tells them that during this time These Children should bear their Fathers Whoredoms that is their Fathers Vnfaithfulness Disloyalty and Disobedience
to God should bring this punishment of forty years continuance in the Wilderness upon their Children And He says They shall know to their Cost what a dangerous thing it is to withdraw themselves or break off (r) V. 34. Scietis abruptionem meam i. e. abruptionem à me Pisc their Obedience to Him They shall find that it was their own Infidelity and Disobedience to him and not his breach of Promise with them that kept them out of that good Land to the borders of which he had now brought them They ought to have considered that his Promise was Conditional and the performance of it was to be expected only by those that performed the condition of it and towards them it shall never fail Numb 13. from 23. to the end Numb 14. from 1. to 36. Joshua 5.6 Numb 32. from 8. to 14. Deut. 1. from 26. to 40. Deut. 9.23 24. Psal 95. from 8. to the end Psal 106. from 23. to 27. SECT LIX THe ten Spies who had caused this meeting among the people were smitten by God with an extraordinary Plague and died presently see 1 Cor. 10.10 With this Judgment the people were grievously terrified and mourned exceedingly And in remembrance thereof the Jews keep a Feast upon the seventh day of the sixth month call'd Ebul Numb 14. from 36. to 40. SECT LX. THe people being much terrified with this Judgment and more especially with Gods Decree against them which Moses had acquainted them with and being very sensible that they had greatly provoked the Lord they would needs now in all hast gird on their Swords and go forward to take possession of the Land God had promised them resolving to fight all Enemies in the way But Moses charges them from the Lord that they should not stir see Deut. 1.42 He tells them that the Amalekites and Canaanites had pitched in the Valley beyond the Mountain at the foot whereof they were now encamped and lay there with their Forces to hinder their passage He tells them If they went up the Lord would not be with them but they would be smitten before their Enemies However some of them presumptuously would march up to the top of the hill though Moses and the Ark (s) The Ark removed not but at the removal of the Cloud Numb 9.15 which God not taking up now shewed thereby his dislike of their Enterprize staid behind And the Amalekites and Canaanites as had been foretold them came out against them and chased them as Bees which being angred use to come out in great Swarms and to fight with great eagerness and fury see Psal 118.12 and killing many of them pursued the rest even unto Hormah a place so called afterwards upon another occasion see Numb 21.3 And such of them as escaped cried and wept before the Lord but he regarded not their prayers and had as little respect to their tears as they had before to his Preceps And so they abode in the large Wilderness of Kadesh many days as the days they stayed there did sufficiently manifest For they were made to wander about 38 years longer in the Wilderness Numb 14. from 40. to the end Deut. 1. from 40. to the end SECT LXI UPon this Calamity and the continual dropping away of the Israelites in the Wilderness God having sentenced to death all above twenty years old but Joshua and Caleb as is before related Moses composed the 90th Psalm in which he sheweth that the ordinary age of man was reduc'd to 70 or 80 at the utmost Therefore the age of man was now a third time contracted and cut short a third part of what it was before SECT XLII THough the Lord had thus manifested his Wrath and Severity against those disobedient Israelites whom he had sentenced to die in the Wilderness yet that he might shew that He intended to bring their Children into the good Land he had promised he now enlarges and explains those Laws he had formerly given concerning the Sacrifices which he would have them offer to him when they came thither as particularly what Meat-Offerings and Drink-Offerings should be offered together with their Sacrifices whereof part was to be burnt upon the Altar as accessories and appurtenances thereunto And according as the Sacrifice was greater or less so must also the Meat and Drink-Offerings be more or less And He appoints particularly what shall be prepared for a Lamb or a Kid and what for a Ram or a Bullock that there might be a proportion observ'd betwixt them Numb 15. from vers 1. to 13. 2ly He injoyns that the Stranger that is brought to embrace the same Religion with them shall be under the same Laws and Ordinances that they were under One Law and one manner shall be for you and for the stranger that sojourneth with you from vers 13. to 17. 3ly He injoyns them to offer a Cake of the first of their Dough for an Heave-Offering that is about the same quantity that they offered of their first Corn they should offer of their Dough and both to be offered with the same Ceremonies These they were to offer to the Lord that is to the Priests the Lords Receivers for the First-fruits were their portion Ezek. 44.30 The first of all the Fruits of all things and every Oblation of all of every sort of your Oblations shall be the Priests from vers 17. to 22. 4ly Laws are given concerning Sacrifices to be offered when either the whole Congregation or a single person had sinned thorow ignorance Levit. 4.13 There is a Law given concerning Expiation of Sins ignorantly committed but that seems to be made in reference to Errors and Faults committed in common course of life and this to be meant of those only which are committed in things which belong to the external Worship and Service of God from vers 22. to 30. 5ly A Law is given for the cutting off those who sin not of ignorance inadvertency or infirmity but wilfully boldly and presumptuously in contempt of the Laws which God hath enacted concerning his publick Worship From vers 30. to the 31. 6ly To deter presumptuous Sinners a relation is made of a bold and presumptuous Sinner who refused to conform himself to the Law which God had made concerning his outward Worship and Service It seems whilst they were in the Wilderness one of the Congregation went out presumptuously to gather sticks on the Sabbath-day This being a direct violation of the Law given concerning the Sabbath they put the man inward till they had inquired of the Lord what should be done to him * See Levit. 24.12 That a Sabbath breaker was to be put to death they know see Exod. 31.14 35.2 but what kind of death he should die or whither this gathering of sticks made him obnoxious to that Sentence they were not fully resolved though it was evident enough to them he had done it presumptuously Moses not willing to take away his life without certain direction inquires
sin that is he died a natural death when his time was come as being by sin liable to death as all other men are They further urge that except this be granted them the Name of their Father wil be quite extinct Moses inquiring of the Lord concerning this Case it pleased the Lord to grant these Daughters of Zelophehad their desire which was afterwards punctually performed Joshua as we may read Josh 17.4 According to the Command of the Lord he gave them an Inheritance among the Brethren of their Father Yet withall there was afterwards a Caution added to wit that they might not marry out of their own Tribe * Hence some conclude that when a man died without Issue and his Brother married his Widow to raise up Seed unto his Brother whose Estate he inhetlted his first Son in their Genealogies was reckoned to be the Son of him that died without Issue So it was in this case The first Sons of those that married the Daughters of Zelophehad were accounted the Sons of Zelophehad and so under his Name did inherit his Land see Ch. 36.6 And upon this occasion was the Law for succession in Inheritances made and ordained Numb 27. from 1. to 12. SECT LXXXIV GOd now signifies to Moses that he should die and accordingly Commands him to go up to that Tract of the Mountains of Abarim * See Ch. 33.47 Deut. 32.49 34.1 which are in the Land of Moab over against Jerico and on one of the highest of them called Nebo whose top was called Pisgah he should see that good Land into which he might not enter And when he had seen it his Soul should be gathered unto the Souls of his pious Ancestors who died before him For He and Aaron had rebelled against his Commandment see Ch. 20.12 which was that they should by Faith sanctifie * We sanctifie the Lord when we conceive aright of his Nature and Attributes and when we speak so reverently of Him as to cause his Name to be praised and magnified among men him in the eyes of the people at the Wilderness of Zin but they sanctified him not Moses humbly and earnestly begs of the Lord that he might be permitted to go over and see that good Land Deut. 3.23 25. but the Lord was not pleased to grant his Request Humbly therefore submitting to his holy Will he now earnestly prays to God Who is the God of the Spirits of all flesh and not only the Creator but the Searcher and Trier of men spirits and knows what is in man and can frame and fashion mens spirits as he pleases and give them Gifts and Graces requisite for the Places he calls them unto to appoint a Successor to him that might as a good Shepheard go out and in before the Flock God upon his prayer appoints Joshua to succeed him a man in whom was the Spirit that is the Spirit of Wisdom and understanding the Spirit of Counsel and Might the Spirit of Knowledge and the fear of the Lord. God Commands him therefore to lay his hands * The like Ceremony was afterwards used in the days of the Gospel when men were separated and set apart to Preach the Gospel 1 Tim. 4.14 upon Joshua to intimate to Him by this Ceremony that the hand of God should be upon him to defend and prosper him in all his ways and that he would confer upon him a great measure of the Gifts of his Spirit answerable to the Dignity whereunto he had advanced Him and accordingly 'tis said Deut. 34.9 That Joshua the Son of Nun was full of Wisdom for Moses had laid his hands on him Moses was also to set him before Eleazar and the Congregation and to give him a Charge concerning what he was to do and what to forbear in the administration of his Office And Moses was further commanded to put some of his own honour upon him that is admit him into some Partnership of Authority and Dignity with himself and so cause the people to give him that Honour that was due unto Moses's Successor and the Judge Elect of Israel And Moses tells him further That upon occasion he shall present himself before Eleazar that he may inquire of the Lord for him after the Judgment of Vrim that is putting on the Ephod to which the Pectoral * See Pharaphrase on Exod. 28.30 was fastened wherein was the Vrim and Thummim And at Eleazar's word speaking from the Lord He and the people shall go out to War or return from it and so in all weighty Affairs which were extraordinary by his direction they should govern themselves And Moses did all these things which the Lord commanded him Numb 27. from 12. to the end SECT LXXXV THe Children of Israel having as it seems omitted their Sacrifices and solemn Feasts the most part of the 38 years last past by reason of their travels wherein the Sanctuary the Alar and other holy things were made up fit for removal from place to place And the most part of the Generation from twenty years old and upward that had been mustered in Sinai being now dead see Ch. 26.64 The Lord hereupon causeth the Law of sacrificing to be again here repeated thereby intimating to them that when they came into the Land which he promised them they must not any longer neglect his Ordinances as they had done in the Wilderness see Deut. 12.8 And therefore first in the general he charges them that they be sure to give Him all the Sacrifices and Offerings which he had at several times appointed them to offer And then 2ly He sets down particularly what they were to offer First For their daily Sacrifice from vers 3. to 9. Secondly For their weekly Sacrifice every Sabbath * The Sacrifices appointed for every Sabbath-day are full double to those appointed for every day And yet the daily Sacrifice the continual Burnt-Offering was not then to be omitted day from vers 9. to 10. Thirdly For their monthly Sacrifice every new Moon from 11. to 16. And fourthly For their yearly Sacrifices First At the Passover from vers 16. to 26. 2ly At Pentecost from 26. to the end 3ly He mentions the Offering appointed at the Feast of Trumpets Ch. 29. from 1. to 7. 4ly The Offering on the day of Expiation from 7. to 12. 5ly On the eight days of the Feast of Tabernacles from vers 12. to 39. Numb Ch. 28. whole Chapter Numb Ch. 29. from 1. to 39. SECT LXXXVI BEsides those set and solemn Sacrifices which God Himself had injoyned there were other Sacrifices which were to be offered to the Lord namely such as men voluntarily offered or upon a particular Vow Ch. 29. v. 39. And upon this occasion it seems several Precepts concerning Vows were added to shew who were necessarily obliged to perform their Vows and who not And Moses made known these Laws to the Heads of the Tribes because they were the men that according to these Laws were
their Gods also He had executed Judgment causing possibly some such notable accident to befal the Egyptian Idols as did the Philistines Dagon which fell down before the Ark see Exod. 12.12 Their second Station was Succoth their third Etham where the Lord began first to go before them by day in a Pillar of Cloud and by night in a Pillar of fire From Etham they turned unto Pihahiroth a narrow passage between two ledges of Mountains into which being entred Pharaoh overtook them with a great Army and thought they could not have escap'd him but God divided the Red-Sea which the Israelites passing thorow the Egyptians assayed to follow them and there were miserably drowned The Israelites having past thorow the Sea went three days journey in the Wilderness of Etham without any water and pitched in Marah Here they found the Waters very bitter insomuch that they began to murmur against Moses but God sweetened the Waters by the casting in of a Tree Exod. 15.23 From Marah they came to Elim where were twelve Fountains of Water From Elim they encamped by the Red-Sea †See Sect. 8. of this Book and from thence removed to the Wilderness of Sin so called from Sin a City in Egypt over against which this Wilderness lay Hither they came just a month after their departure from Rameses Here they murmur grievously for want of Food and God gave them Quails for one meal and Manna from Heaven which was continued till they came into Canaan From Sin they came to Dophkah and from thence to Alush and from thence to Rhepidim * See Sect. 10. of this Book where wanting water again they were ready to stone Moses but water was fetched for them miraculously out of a Rock in Horeb. Here they had a Victory over the Amalekites who set upon them From Rephidim they came to the Wilderness of Sinai Hither they came at the beginning of the third month Exod. 19.1 and stayed till the second day of the second month of the second year Numb 10.11 12. Here the Law was given and the Tabernacle framed and the people punished for making and worshipping a golden Calf and Nadab and Abihu smitten dead for offering strange fire Here the people were first numbred and then ordered as to their Encampings about the Tabernacle and in their Journeys towards the Land of Canaan From Sinai they marched by Taberah signifying a burning because there the fire of God till quenched by Moses's prayer consumed the hindermost in the Camp for their murmuring and so they came to Kibroth-Hattavah Here the people fell a lusting for Flesh again And God now gave them Quails for a whole month together in great abundance whereon they surfeited and died miserably with the flesh between their teeth Then they came to Hazeroth Here Aaron and Miriam murmured against Moses and she was smitten with Leprosie Numb 12. Then they came to Rithmath in the Wilderness of Paran near Kadesh-barnea whence Spies were sent to search the Land Upon the evil report of ten of them the people horribly murmur God was very wroth with them for it and appoints Moses to return again to the Red-Sea and declares That not one of that Generation save Caleb and Joshua should enter into Canaan Then they came to Rimmon-Parez and from thence to Libnah call'd Laban Deut. 1.1 and then to Rissah then to Kehelatha thence to Mount Shapher thence to Haradah and pitched in Makheloth signifying Assemblies so called as some think because of the mutinous Assemblies of Corah Dathan and Abiram in that place Thence to Tahath and pitched at Tarah thence to Mithcah and pitched at Hashmonah and encamped at Maseroth and then came to Bene-Jaakan and incamped at Hor-gidgad from thence to Jothathah a Land of Rivers of waters Deut. 10.7 Here the Rock Rephidim-water as it seems stopped its course * See Dr. Fuller's Pisgah-sight God suspending Miracles when he affords means and as 't is probable the Israelites drank of the water of the Country till they came to Kadesh Then they encamped at Ebronah from thence they marched to Eziongaber a place by the Red-Sea where was a Harbour for Ships in Edom's Land 1 Kings 9.26 From thence to Kadesh in the Wilderness of Zin Here Miriam died The people in this place wanting water murmur again and had water again given them out of a Rock Here God was very angry with Moses and Aaron for their unbelief and here they had the Sentence of Death passed on them though reprieved for a time and rendred uncapable of entring into Canaan They came hither in the beginning of the 40th year and hence they sent to crave a passage thorow Edoms Land but it was denied them God Commands them not to force it but to find another way From Kadesh they removed to Mount Hor in the edge of the Land of Edom where Aaron died Then they came to Zalmonah so called possibly of Zolom an Image For this is thought to be the place where the Israelites for murmuring again for want of water and loathing Manna were stung with fiery Serpents and the brasen Serpent was by God's direction erected for their Cure and help As for their five following Stages viz. Punon Oboth Jie-abarim and Dibon-Gad so called because it was repaired and possessed by the Tribe of Gad Ch. 32.34 and Almon-Diblathaim we find no memorable accident happening at them Thence they came to the Mountains of Abarim and then to the Plains of Moab And here God commanded Moses to charge the Israelites to drive out the Inhabitants of the Land viz. by destroying them Deut. 7.22 23. and to destroy their Pictures and molten Images and High Places and to divide their Land by lot among themselves But if they did not take care to drive them out then he declares The Canaanites should be pricks in their Eyes and thorns in their Sides and a continual Vexation to them and He would bring that destruction on them for their Disobedience which he thought to bring on the Canaanites viz. root them out of the Land Numb 33. whole Chapter SECT LXXXIX THe Lord now by Moses declareth unto Israel the Bounds (a) V. 3. The Wilderness of Zin lay at the very East-end of the South-border in the corner whereof it joyned with the East-border right against the South-end of the Salt-Sea that is the Lake of Sodom called also the Dead-Sea see Gen. 14.3 V. 7. This was not that Mount Hor where Aaron died which was South-wâ—rd in the edge of Edoms Land Ch. 33.37 38. but another Mountain on the North-side of Canaan by some supposed to be Libanus and by other Mount Hermon and Limits of the Land of Canaan lying within Jordan which he intended to give them that they might be assured they should possess it and might know how far they were to proceed in their Conquests and where to stay and according to these Bounds and Limits might make a division of the Land among the nine
hear and rightly consider these Statutes and they will say Surely this great Nation is a wise and understanding people For what other great Nation is there which hath God so nigh unto them and always dwelling among them as these Israelites have as is evident by the miraculous signs of his Presence among them and his readiness always to hear their prayers and to defend and protect them from all evils And indeed what other Nation is there that hath Statutes and Judgments so righteous * Ex legibus de populis fit juditium as is this Law which I am to set before you this day You ought therefore to take heed lest you forget the great things God hath done for you and that they may never be forgotten I exhort you to teach them your Sons and your Sons Sons And especially remember the day when you stood †Most of those that stood then at Horeb were dead see Ch. 2.14 15 16. But many that were then young were now alive before the Lord in Horeb when God commanded me to gather the people together to hear his words that they might learn to fear Him all the days of their life and might teach them unto their Children And ye came near and stood under the Mountain and the Mountain burnt with fire unto the midst of Heaven * Per hyperbolen significat quod vehementer altissime flammas evomeret and there were great Tempests and thick darkness And the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire Ye heard the voice of his words but saw no Similitude of Him at all And he declared unto you his Covenant viz. the Condition required on your part namely Obedience and Observance of his ten Commandments which He wrote upon two Tables of stone And besides those ten Commandments which the Lord himself gave you He not long after that time gave me other Statutes and Judgments viz. the Ceremonial and Judicial Laws which he commanded me to teach you Take heed therefore unto your selves lest you corrupt your selves by Idolatry or by making any Image of God for remember you saw no manner of similitude of Him at Horeb or any figure of Man Beasts Birds creeping things or Fishes to represent Him Take heed also of worshipping the Host of Heaven the Sun Moon and Stars which are so far from being Gods that God hath created them for the common use of man and the service of all Nations And you Israelites ought above all people to be careful not to dishonour God by such gross Idolatry because He hath brought you forth by an out-stretched Arm out of the Iron-Furnace of Egypt and hath taken you to Himself as his own peculiar people and as his own Possession as you see this day Furthermore the Lord was angry with me for your sakes and sware that I should not go over Jordan but should die in this Land However ye shall go over and possess †Moses being sure of Heaven envies not those that should inherit the earthly Canaan it Take heed therefore lest ye forget the Covenant of the Lord your God and especially take heed of Idolatry or making any graven Image to represent God which he hath so severely forbidden For God is a jealous God jealous of having the Worship due only to Himself given to any Creature He is a consuming fire to those that provoke him by their Rebellions Furthermore I advise you that when you are setled in the Land of Canaan and are mightily increased that you be not secure nor think it a small matter to corrupt your selves by Idolatry for if you do I call Heaven and Earth to witness against you this day that I faithfully admonish'd you of your danger and told you that upon such Provocations God would destroy many of you and drive the small remnant that shall be left out of the Land he hath given you to possess and would scatter you among Heathen Nations where you shall serve their Gods * Quod in patria fecistis ultro facietis attoniti pudore atque inviti exules or at lest those that did serve them viz. such Gods as are the work of mens hands and made of Wood or Stone which neither see nor hear eat nor smell But yet even then when you have thus transgressed and are thereupon under great tribulation if ye shall humble your selves before the Lord and shall seek his Face and turn to him with all your Heart †Some think those verses from 27. to 32. to be a Prophesie of the calling of the Jews and all your Soul He is so gracious and merciful that he will have pity upon you and will not forget the Covenant which he made with your Fathers And that you may remember the extraordinary engagements the Lord hath laid upon you look back upon ancient times and consult the Histories of all things that have happened since the Creation in any part of the world from the one side of the Heavens to the other and from the rising of the Sun to the going down thereof and inquire whither there was ever such a thing in the world before That a people should hear the Voice of God speaking unto them out of the midst of the fire and yet live and escape as ye did yea further inquire whither ever God assayed at any time in such a manner to take unto Himself a Nation from the midst of another Nation by Temptations (e) God propounding his Will to the Israelites tried their Obedience whither they would trust in Him They were also temptations to Pharaoh to try whither he would be won to yield to God and let the people go Signs Wonders by War (f) Against Pharaoh whom with his Host He destroyed in the Red-Sea and by a mighty Hand and out-stretched Arm and by great Terrours as he hath done you when he brought you out of Egypt Before your eyes were those great things done that you may know that the Lord he is God and there is no other besides him Out of the Air from on high he made you to hear his Voice to instruct you and upon Mount Sinai he made you see his great fire and you heard his words out of the midst of it And because of his own free Grace and Love and not for any desert of theirs he chose and loved your Fathers and chose their Seed after them for his peculiar people therefore he brought you by his Almighty Power out of Egypt in his sight that is the eye of his Providence being still fixed upon you even as a Father causes his Child to go before him that he may preserve him from danger Exod. 14.19 * Ante se in exitu ex Aegypto retro se posuit ut eos intueretur And he brought you out of Egypt that you might drive out other Nations greater and mightier than you and take their Land to your selves for an Inheritance as you
be made their Slaves and Vassals see Psal 31.7 8. And the Israelites may well say If our God had not done it the Idol gods of the Heathens could never have made them so Victorious over us For their Rock is not as our Rock Our God is of infinite Power and therefore able to make his people Victorious over their Enemies when He pleases but their Idol-gods on which they rely cannot make them to prevail over us except our God withdraw his help and give us up into their hands And this is so clear that our Enemies themselves cannot deny it But if any shall ask How came the Lord to be so incensed against Israel as to give them up into the hands of their Enemies The reason was because their Vine is the Vine of Sodom and of the Fields of Gomorrah their Grapes are Grapes of gall their Clusters are bitter that is they are of like nature and disposition and their lives and doings are like theirs of Sodom and Gomorrah and therefore no wonder if God be so highly offended with them their Wine is * This may have respect to their bitter and deadly malice against the Prophets and other faithful Servants of God in future times but especially against Christ and his Apostles the poyson of Dragons and the cruel venome of Asps that is their Works are distastful to God and deadly to themselves and others And says the Lord though for a time I forbear to punish these cursed Works of theirs yet let them not therefore think totally to escape For all their Transgressions are laid up in store with me and I keep them sealed up among my Treasures that is a Memorial of them is kept among the unsearchable Treasures of my Wisdom and Knowledge see Col. 2.3 To me belongeth Vengeance and Recompence that is the work of punishing wickedness they shall not stand stedfast in the prosperous Estate they now are in their foot shall slide in due time they shall certainly fall when my time is come and the day of their Calamity is at hand that is after they are grown thus desperately wicked it shall not be long ere this Calamity here threatned shall overtake them and the things that shall come upon them make hast But if they shall repent of their evil deeds and turn unto me I will take pity on them in the height of their misery and will change the course of my Administration towards them and will take Vengeance on their Oppressors and Adversaries And especially when I see their power is gone and there is none shut up or left viz. in Garrisons or Cities to defend themselves but all are in a manner overthrown and ruined then will I arise and help them for my great Name sake Then will I say to the Heathen Where are your gods your Rocks in whom ye trusted which did eat the fat of your Sacrifices and drank the Wine of you Drink-Offerings that is where are your Idols to whom ye burned the fat of your Sacrifices and poured out the Wine of your Drink-Offerings let them now rise up and help you and be your Protection if they can You shall know That I am the true God and there is none besides me I kill and I make alive I wound and I heal 1 Sam. 2.6 neither can any deliver out of my hands I lift up my hand to Heaven and sware by my Self As sure as I live for ever I will do what I now say If I whet my glittering Sword and my Hand take hold on the Weapons of Judgment I will render Vengeance to mine Enemies and will reward them that hate me I will make mine Arrows drunk with blood and that with the blood of the slain and of the Captives that is both with the blood of those that are slain in the field and of those that are hurt in battel and thereupon taken Captive and my Sword shall devour much flesh from the beginning of revenges upon the Enemy that is from the time that I begin to take Vengeance on mine and my peoples Enemies and I will revenge all the wrongs that my people have suffered from their Enemies even from their first beginning to oppress them And seeing it shall be so Rejoyce O ye Nations with this people that is both Jews and Gentiles rejoyce and praise God together for his great goodness to his people in taking Vengeance on their Enemies and being so propitious and favourable unto them and hereby possibly is intimated that the time should come when both Jews and Gentiles should joyn together in praising the Lord namely when they shall be both his Church and people and therefore the Apostle alledgeth this place to prove the calling of the Gentiles Rom. 15.10 This was the Song that Moses spake in the ears of the Children of Israel Joshua standing by and as it were assenting to what he spake Moses further said unto them Set your hearts to all the words which I testifie among you this day and command your Children also to observe all the Precepts of this Law for it is not a vain thing for you so to do it is your life that is 't is the best way and means to prolong your days in the Land which you are going to possess God now gives Moses a Charge to go up to Mount Nebo to view the Land of Canaan telling him That there he should die and be gathered unto his people that is his godly fore-Fathers and the society of the Souls of just men made perfect as Aaron his Brother died on Mount Hor. And he gives him a reason why they both were excluded the Land of Canaan namely because they trespassed against Him at the waters of Meribah-Kadesh and sanctified Him not in the midst of the people see Numb 20.11 12. that is they did not at that time publickly shew before the people such an affiance in Him nor did so glorifie his great Name as they should have done Moses the man of God * He is so stiled that the Isâ—aelites might assure themselves that what he spake to them in these Prohetical blessings he spake by the authority of God Samuel is so stiled 1 Sam. 9.6 7. see 1 Tim. 6.11 viz. the Prophet of the Lord having received that Charge Ch. XXXIII to go up to Mount Nebo where he was to die He now immediately before his death solemnly blesses the twelve Tribes pronouncing such Prophetical blessings upon them as might allay in good part the bitterness of the fore-going Predictions Indeed the Tribe of Simeon is not at all here mentioned but the reason of it seems to be because this Tribe was to have their Inheritance within the Inheritance of the Sons of Judah Jos 19.1 Whence it was that they went joyntly together to fight against the Canaanites Judg. 1.3 and consequently this Tribe was blessed with that of Judah among whom they were to dwell And first as an Introduction or Preface to his Prophetick Benediction he sets
should fall to them South-West in reference to Dan's Inheritance which was in the North. And their Inheritance reaching to the Sea of Tiberias this might also imply that besides the other rich Commodities of the Land they should enjoy the advantage of Merchandizing also Lastly He comes to Asher saying Let Asher be blessed with Children that is with many and good Children who for their amiable disposition should be exceedingly beloved of all about them and let him dip his foot in Oil that is let his Country exceedingly abound with Oil * Ita abundabit oleo ut eo pedem lavare possit Vide Gen. 49.20 Job 29.6 Jansen and other good things And under his shoes shall be Iron and Brass that is his portion should be full of Mines of Iron and Brass and other metals and as his days so should his strength be that is all his days his strength should continue Moses having thus blessed the several Tribes particularly He now in the close of his Speech sets forth the happiness of all the people and all the Tribes in general and that for the special Interest they have in God who hath all the Creatures at his Command for their help There is none says he like unto the God of Jeshurun who rideth upon the Heavens for thy help and in his Excellency on the Sky intimating that as a man turns and winds his Horse which way he pleaseth so doth the Lord rule the Heavens and all the Host of them making them serviceable to the good of his people For from thence he sendeth help unto them against their Enemies smiting and destroying them with terrible Tempests with Hail Lightning and Thunder see Psal 18. from vers 7. to 20. The eternal God is thy Refuge and underneath thee are the everlasting Arms of his Omnipotency to support thee and he shall thrust out the Enemy from before thee and shall give thee Commission and Power to destroy them Israel shall dwell alone in safety that is shall cast out the Cannanites and have the Land to themselves not living now as formerly in Egypt only as Sojourners and mixt with other Nations but they shall live as a Nation and people of themselves and in a Land of their own under their own Laws and Government and shall dwell in safety not fearing other people The fountain * Fountain is here used for a River or Stream issuing out of a Fountain Psal 104.10 Waters often signifie people Rev. 17.15 see Psal 68.26 of Jacob that is the people which flowed out of Jacob as out of a Well or Fountain viz. the Posterity of Jacob shall dwell upon a Land of Corn and Wine and the Heavens that are spread over their Land shall drop down dew and make it exceeding fruitful He concludes all with this Acclamation Happy art thou O Israel who is like unto thee O people saved by the Lord who is the Shield of thy help and not only a Shield or Buckler to defend thee but the Sword of thy Excellency to fight for thee against thy Enemies 'T is He that maketh thee famous and renowned above others for Marshal Exploits and thine Enemies who prophesied of their Victories over thee and how they should overcome thee by the help of their Idol-gods shall be found Liars unto thee for thou shalt tread upon their High Places that is triumphantly prevail over their fenced Cities whose Walls and Towers are raised very high SECT XCIII MOses now having spoken all that he intended to speak to the Children of Israel Ch. XXXIV and having pronounced his last blessing upon them This last Chapter of of Deuteronomy was written after Moses's death but whither by Joshua or Eleazar or what other holy man is uncertain So the conclusion of the Book of Jeremy was written after his death see Jer. 51.64 and as 't is like taken his solemn leave of them went up from the Plains of Moab to Mount Nebo the highest top whereof called Pisgah lay over against Jericho Joshua and Eleazar as some * Mos◠morituro adfuisse Joshuam Eleazaram traedit Josephus Antiq. lib. 4. Cumque post mutuos Complexus Eleazaro Joshuae ultimum vale diceret interloquendum repentina nube circundatus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ex oculis illorum in quandam vallem est ablatus think accompanying him And as a weary Labourer at night goes to his Chamber to take his rest so this holy man after all his great and wearisome Labours in the Governing this people at the Commandment of God went up to Mount Nebo there to die and so to rest from his Labours But before he died the Lord was pleased to give him a sight of the promised Land And first He shewed him all the Land of Gilead unto Dan. Gilead was on the outside of Jordan Dan †Formerly call'd Leshem Josh 19.47 or Laish Judg. 18.27 was a City in the furthest part of the Land within Jordan Northward Then He shewed him the portion of Naphtali which was near unto it Then the Land of Ephraim and Manasseh which was in the midst of Canaan Then the Land of Judah which was the Southern part of the Country and then the Plain and Valley of Jericho which was on the East-Coast and the Midland-Sea called the Outmost-Sea which was the Western-Coast This view therefore that Moses had of the whole Land was by the miraculous power of God strengthening his sight so wonderfully for by the ordinary power of Nature it was not possible that from one place he should have beheld so large a Country therefore vers 4. 't is said God caused him to see it with his eyes and told him This was the Land which he sware to Abraham Isaac and Jacob to give it unto their Seed Moses having had a full prospect of this earthly Canaan there died and his Soul went to the heavenly being an 120 years old his eyes not being dim nor his radical moisture abated Of this time he had spent near a full third part in his Government of this people departing this life in the last month of the Year called Adar and the seventh day * For Aaron dying in the 40th year 5th month first day of it Numb 33.38 and that compar'd with the months mourning for Moses Deut. 34.8 and three days preparation to pass over Jordan Ch. 3.2 and their coming out of Jordan on the first month tenth day Josh 4.19 do shew that Moses died in the twelfth month and seventh day of it and so seven months and seven days after Aaron of it Moses's Soul being gone to Heaven Jehovah or Michael the Son of God Jude v. 9. translated his body out of the place where he died into a Valley of the Land of Moab †That Land was so called because it did formerly belong to the Moabites and was lately taken from them by Sihon King of the Amorites as we shewed on Numb 21.26 and was now possessed by the
that they should forsake the Lord to follow them though it were left to their own choice He intimates to them that except they chose the Lord for their God and served Him out of judgment and their own choice V. 15. Eligite Tenta vita dictum ut Ruth 1.15 Joh. 6.67 and willingly and freely without any constraint God would not regard their outward compliance Well says he whatever you shall determine for your selves and your own practise I do declare to you That this is my firm Resolution That as for me and my house we will serve the Lord. The Elders of the people hearing these things said God forbid that ever we should forsake the Lord that brought us and our Fathers out of Egypt and has done such great things in our sight and has hitherto preserved us and driven out the Amorites and Canaanites for us God forbid that ever we should be so wicked as to forsake Him and serve Idols No the Lord is our God and Him we are resolved to serve Joshua advises them them to consider well what they said He tells them They cannot serve the Lord if they retained Idols in their Houses or in their Hearts and mingled false Worship with the true For God says he is an holy and jealous God and will no more admit of mixture of true and false Worship than a jealous Husband will of a Corrival in his love or that his Wife should divide her self between him and a stranger I tell you plainly God will not forgive your Transgressions nor your Sins if you continue in them and if you turn from Him and serve other gods He will turn from doing you good and will severely punish and chastise you The people answered Nay but we are firmly resolved to serve the Lord and Him only Then Joshua said You are â—itnesses against your selves this day if you do otherwise For ye have freely chosen the Lord to be your God and have faithfully promised to serve Him They said We do acknowledge it and if we do otherwise we are Witnesses against our selves and our own Consciences will convince and condemn us Well says he if ye be willing to renew your Covenant with God this day then let me in the first place strictly charge you if there be any Idols secretly kept and worshipped among you that they be put away presently and let them have no place in yours hearts and affections but incline your hearts faithfully to serve the Lord God of Israel The people answered The Lord God will we serve and his Voice alone will we obey Then Joshua as God's Servant and Minister caused the people to renew their Covenant with God and probably it was done in a very solemn manner being accompanied with Sacrifices and the usual Rites of that sacred Service and He established and confirmed it as a standing and perpetual Law for them and their Posterity that they should constantly continue in the Service of the Lord God alone as became his peculiar people and utterly renounce all Idols and all Idolatry whatsoever And Joshua either wrote himself or caused some of the Priests to write in the Book of the Law which was written by Moses and put on the side of the Ark these Promises of the people and the whole carriage of this business and how solemnly they renewed their Covenant with God that the people knowing there was such a Record kept of this matter and the circumstances thereof in God's Tabernacle might be the more careful to keep their Covenant Then Joshua took a great stone and set it up there under an Oak that was by the Sanctuary of the Lord as a Memorial of this Covenant now thus solemnly renewed between God and this people Some think this was the very Oak under which Jacob had many years since buried all the Idolatrous trash which he found among those of his Family Gen. 35.4 and that Joshua did purposely for that cause set up this Stone under that Oak * Hic Abrahamo Deuâ— apparuisse creditur Gen. 12.6 7. In future times this place where this Stone was set up was from hence called the Oak of the Pillar Judg. 9.6 And Joshua said This stone shall be a witness unto you for it hath heard (t) Hyperbolica Contestatio vide Deut. 4.26 all the words of the Lord that is of the Covenant between the Lord and you and it shall serve as a Witness to convince you of your Sin if you do not keep your Covenant seeing all men in future Ages will take notice that it was purposely erected to be a Monument and Memorial thereof and this stone when you see it shall represent to your Minds and Consciences the Covenant which ye have now made as if it could both hear and speak so that if in after-times you deny your God and fall into Idolatry this very stone will witness against you See a like expression to this Jer. 2.12 These things being done they now solemnly interred the bones of Joseph which they had brought with them out of Egypt (u) See Sect. 48. of Chap. 3. in that parcel of ground here at Shechem that Jacob * Whereas 't is said Acts 7.15 16. that the Fathers were laid in the Sepulchre that Abraham bought c. the meaning is which one of the Posterity of Abraham viz. Jacob bought of the Sons of Hamor See Apost Hist on the place bought of the Sons of Hamor see Gen. 33.19 and which He upon his death-bed gave to Joseph as a special Legacy Gen. 48.22 and was now within the lot of the Sons of Joseph And it seems from Acts 7.15 16. That the bodies of all the rest of the Patriarchs the Sons of Jacob were brought up also out of Egypt and here likewise buried When these things were done Joshua dismist the people to their own Inheritances Shortly after this the great Joshua dies aged an 110 about ten years as is conceived after the Conquest of the Land He had approved himself a faithful Servant of God all his days living in his Fear and dying in his Favour and was buried in his own Inheritance in Timnath-serah (x) Timnath-serah vox imaginem solis denotat quae Joshua Sepulchro erat imposita ob celebris illius solstitii Memoriam Josh 10.13 in Mount Ephraim Some say the Israelites placed upon his Monument the Figure of the Sun as a Memorial of the great Miracles of the Suns standing still at his prayer And Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua * Non autem multo diuitius ut patet ex Jud. 2.8 9 10. Hinc patet quantum sit in unius hominis probitate positum qui in republica dominatur Masius and of the Elders that out-lived Joshua who had known all the Works of the Lord which he had done for them Not long after Eleazar the High Priest died also and they buried him in an Hill in Mount Ephraim which by special and extraordinary Gift
these slain men with which he paid his forfeiture But being inwardly and heartily vexed at the fraud of his Companions and the treachery of his wife he left them both and return'd to his Fathers house Judges Ch. 14. from 1. to 20. SECT CXLIX SAmson thus going away from his wife and her friends in a great discontent though he intended not finally to forsake her it seems she was in his absence very injuriously given in marriage to one of those his thirty Companions or Bridemen and probably to him that was chosen to be the first and chief of them and to be nearest to the Bridegroom and therefore call'd the friend of the Bridegroom by way of eminency Joh. 3.25 Possibly she suffered her self to be given to him apprehending that Samson would never be reconciled to her for her treachery against him Samson sometime after knowing nothing of this but intending a reconciliation with her went to visit her and carried a Kid to present her with thereby to express his love and kindness to her Being come to the house and meeting his wifes Father he told him he would go into his wifes Chamber to see her But her Father would not suffer him telling him that he verily thought he had been irreconcileably angry with her and had forsaken her and therefore says he I have disposed her in Marriage to thy Companion But her younger sister is fairer than she I pray thee take her instead of her Samson being extreamly enrag'd that he should be thus used he said within himself Now shall I be more blameless than the Philistines if I do them a displeasure intimating that he had just cause to be revenged on them for so great an injury He contrives accordingly how to do it It seems it was at this time their Wheat-Harvest Samson therefore resolves to burn their Corn in order hereunto that Country being full of Foxes See Cant. 2.15 Neh. 4.3 't is probable he employed those of his own Tribe of Dan to assist him in catching all the Foxes they could and so three hundred were taken * Samson is said to have taken them because what a man doth by another whom he employs he may be said to do himself and brought to him Neither will it seem incredible that such a great number should be taken if we do but suppose that the Providence of God who suggested to Samson the taking this kind of revenge on the Philistines did remarkably concur hereunto For all the wild beasts of the field are his Psal 50.11 He by his over-ruling Providence caused all kinds of living creatures to come to Noah to be preserved in the Ark Gen 6.20 He brought a vast and unconceivable number of Quails to the Israelites all at one time Numb 11.31 He brought such a great multitude of Fishes to Peter's Net that the Net brake Luk 5.6 7. and therefore he could easily bring so many Foxes in a land that abounded with them to Samsons and his friends Nets These Foxes therefore being brought to him he tyed two of them together tayl by tayl and tyed a lighted Torch between their tayls parr of which 't is probable dragged on the ground and so let them loose into the standing corn now ripe and so burnt that and what was cut and shockt as also the Vineyards and Oliveyards 'T is true their corn might have been set on fire other ways but it pleased the Lord to direct Samson to do it this way that their punishment coming upon them in such a ridiculous way and by an act of such scorn and contempt might the more incense them And therefore we are more especially to look at the Providence of God in this matter who ordered and disposed it as was most fit for the effecting of his own will The Philistines whose corn was burnt understanding that Samson had done it in revenge because his wife was so unjustly taken from him by his Father-in-law and given to another they came up and in a rage burnt him and his daughter together and thus she brought on her self and her Fathers house that misery †Prov. 10.24 The sear of the wicked shall come upon them and mischief which she thought by her treacherous discovery of her husbands secret to prevent See Ch. 14.15 Samson understanding what they had done said that though they had done this yet because they had done it with a wicked mind and in an unjust and tumultuous manner having respect therein only to their own losses this should not serve their turn he would proceed further in executing vengeance upon them who were the enemies of God and his people and then he would cease for a time till he were further provoked by them All which shews that what Samson did he did not by way of private revenge but as one raised up by God on purpose to be a scourge to the Philistines So Samson fell upon them and smote them Hip and Thigh that is some in one part of the body and some in another but where ever his blows fell they mauled them and made them sure for stirring any more and so he made a great slaughter of them at this time and then went and dwelt on the Rock of Etam in the Tribe of Simeon which it seems was a place of strength and possibly he retired thither that he might not be suddenly surprized by the Philistines who he knew in all likelihood would seek to revenge themselves upon him and accordingly so it happened for the Philistines soon after invaded Judah with a great force and spread themselves in Lehi a place afterwards so called upon the Exploit there done by Samson with the jaw-bone of an Ass v. 17. The men of Judah sent to them to know why they were come up in such an hostile manner against them seeing they had not offended them but liv'd in quiet subjection to them and paid them tribute They tell them they came for Samson who had done them much wrong and requir'd he should be delivered bound into their hands that they might do unto him as he had done unto them viz. that they might put him to death as he had slain many of their people Then three thousand of the men of Judah went up to Samson at the Rock Etam and told him he could not but know that the Philistines were at this time their Rulers and had them under their power and therefore he could not be insensible what a great mischief he had brought upon them by thus provoking them He replied that as the Philistines had done to him so he had done to them They had done him great wrong and he had made them suffer for it Then the three thousand men of Judah told him that though they had no quarrel against him for any injury done to themselves yet he having thus provoked the Philistines which was like to tend to their great hurt they must needs take him and bind him and deliver him into their hands
old heavy and corpulent and falling down backward he broke his neck and died having judged Israel forty years Samuel the 14th Judg. His daughter-in-law Phinehas's wife was with child and ready to be delivered who when she heard those dismal tidings of the taking of the Ark the death of her father-in-law and husband she bowed her self and the pains of travel came upon her and being delivered yet so as she was ready to expire the women about her sought to comfort her telling her that she had borne a Son but she regarded it not only named the child Iehabod that is where is the glory (c) v. 22. Quod capta esset Arca Dei illud imprimis eam cruciabat nam domesticam calamitatem publicae postponebat Eliciamus hinc documentum lamentandi potius spiritualia dona quam temporalia Mendoz. intimating that the Ark being taken b which was the sign of Gods presence the glory was departed from Israel and so she gave up the Ghost 1 Sam. Ch. 4. whole Chapter SECT CLVI THE Philistines having taken the Ark they carried (a) Illa lex de non tangenda Area ad solos Israelitas spectavit unde Philistini Arcam tangentes non dederunt poenas quia culpam non contraxerunt Mendoz. it undoubtedly with great Triumph to Ashdod since call'd Azotus Act. 8.40 and placed it in the Temple of Dagon their God presenting it as a captive before their Idol by whose help possibly they perswaded themselves they had overcome the Hebrews and their God yet possibly they had some kind of reverence for it and therefore feared to offer any violence to it or to open it or take forth the Tables of the Law that were in it but however that was they placed it near unto Dagon The Priests of Dagon rising early the next morning and coming to see how the Ark and their Idol had agreed together they found that Dagon was fallen on his face to the earth before the Ark whereby the Lord did discover to them what a vain Idol their Dagon was and that the God of Israel was the only true Almighty God and that he had cast down their Idol-god in his own Temple The Priests took their Idol and set it up again and no doubt used all their skill to fasten it and make it sure from falling any more But coming again the next morning they found their Dagon fallen again upon his face to the ground before the Ark and his head and both the palmes of his hands (e) Gravius secunda vice mutilatur Dagon ut sic intelligerent Azotii veri Numinis potentiam Idoli sui vanitatem Fag cut off and cast at the threshold of the House only the stump and lower part of him was left intire Their Dagon being thus broken to pieces the Priests could not set him up again nor conceal his ruin from the people as possibly before they had done they might see now that it was not by any Casualty but by the will and power of God that he was thus thrown down But though God had cast the head and hands of Dagon to the threshold that so they might as it were be despised and trodden upon by those that came into that house yet the Priests and the people of Ashdod were so superstitious (d) Nulla Miracula satis magna sunt ad animum impium emendandum citra Dei spiritum P. Martyr even to the time when this History was written that they would not so much as tread on the threshold of that Temple accounting it sanctified by the touch of the head and hands of their Idol And thus by the over-ruling Providence of God even their superstition became a means to perpetuate the memory of this wonderful work of God in confounding their Idol which otherwise might in some short time have been forgotten The Lord having thus clearly discovered to the men of Ashdod that their Dagon was a vain Idol and that the God of Israel whose Ark they had boldly surprized was the only true God which he had sufficiently demonstrated first by casting down their Idol before his Ark and at last by breaking it in pieces yet notwithstanding they continued as superstitiously devoted to their Idol as they were before and were not afraid still to detain the Ark of God in captivity Therefore the Lord resolved to punish them severely for it and accordingly his hand was heavy upon the City of Ashdod and upon the Coasts thereof and he destroyed and wasted their land by sending multitudes of Mice among them Ch. 6.5 and smote them with the Emerods a disease not only painful but as the Psalmist intimates Psal 78.66 disgraceful also and to many of them mortal as appears from v. 10. The men of Ashdod seeing in what a sad condition they were they openly said the Ark of the God of Israel should not abide among them for they plainly saw that his hand was heavy upon themselves by inflicting this strange disease upon them and that it had been heavy also upon Dagon their God wherefore they convened the Lords of the Philistines to consult together what course was fit to be taken in this case These Lords agreed that the Ark should be carried from thence to Gath another of their five principal Cities situate upon an hill near unto the Sea see Amos 6.2 resolving thereby to try whither it was the presence of the Ark that had caused those plagues or whither they came by any other accident The Ark being brought to Gath God smote the inhabitants thereof both small and great with Emerods in their secret parts hereupon they sent away the Ark to Ekron another of the principal Cities of the Philistines when it was come thither the Ekronites cry'd out they have brought the Ark of the God of Israel to us to bring upon us the same plagues that they have been plagued with because of it And it fell out accordingly for immediately there was a deadly destruction throughout the City possibly some mortal contagion reigned among them and the men that died not of that plague were yet smitten with the Emerods so that the cry of the city went up to heaven hereupon they also convened the Lords of the Philistines and desired them to send away the Ark to its own place viz. to the land of the Israelites that they might not be destroyed by reason of it But these Lords being very loth to part with so glorious a Trophie of their victory desired yet to try a little further and therefore sent it after this to Gaza and Askelon as appears Ch. 6.4 17. which Cities felt the same plagues by reason of the Ark which the other had done Thus the Ark of the Lord was in the Country of the Philistines seven months (a) Miruâ— hic stupor quod tam diu in suo consilio pertinaces haereant tot hominum funere suam insaniam tueri vellent Sanctius but they being at last
as were not of the Tribe of Levi but of other Tribes Indeed the basest of the people were Priests good enough for his Golden Calves but because he pretended to have erected them for the worship of the true God this also is charged upon him as a provocation And he ordained a Feast to be kept in the eighth month in imitation of the Feast of Tabernacles which God ordained to be kept on the 15th day of the 7th month Levit. 23.34 he ordains it to be kept in another month that the people might not take it for the same Feast of Tabernacles and so think themselves obliged to go to Jerusalem to keep it And to grace this Idolatrous worship that he had set up even he himself did sacrifice upon the Altar that he had built to work in his peoples minds an higher esteem of it and also burnt incense to his Idols whereby he usurpt the Priests office * So did Uzziah 2 Chro. 26.16 intrude himself into the Priests office Whilst he was thus sacrificing at Bethel a certain Prophet sent by God out of Judah came unto him thus timely did the Lord give him warning and called him to repentance and in the zeal and fervency of his spirit he cried in the word of the Lord inventing nothing of his own head against this Altar saying O Altar Altar thus saith the Lord Behold a child shall be born unto the house of David Josiah †About 300 years after this Prophesie was fulfilled See 2 King 23.16 by name and upon thee shall he offer the bones of the Priests of the High-places that do now or shall hereafter burn incense upon thee so that this Altar shall one day have a goodly sacrifice burnt upon it viz. the bones of the Priests that sacrific'd upon it and the defiling and polluting of this Altar in this manner will be a sacrifice very pleasing unto God Possibly O Jeroboam says he thou wilt not believe this therefore I will give thee a sign from the Lord that this shall certainly come to pass Behold this Altar shall now be rent in sunder and the ashes upon it shall fall upon the ground to signifie the utter demolishing of it hereafter Jeroboam hearing this and being enraged at the Prophet put forth his hand from the Altar where he was burning incense and cried out lay hold on him and immediately his hand was dried up and the flesh withered and the sinnes shrank so that he was disabled from hurting the Prophet himself and the people were scared from obeying their King in what he required And immediately the Altar was rent and clave asunder The King then intreated the Prophet to pray * 1 King 13.6 To intreat the face of one that is offended is earnestly to desire the change of his countenance that his angry look may be turned into smiling for him that his hand might be restored which he accordingly did and it was upon his prayer restored and became whole as it was before The King was so taken with this kindness that he invited the Prophet to come home with him and to refresh himself and he would reward him for it The Prophet replied If thou wilt give me half thine house I will not go with thee neither will I eat bread or drink water in this City for so God hath commanded me intending I should shew my detestation of your Idolatry by avoiding all communion with such Idolaters And he hath commanded me also that I should not return the way I came but some other way as abhorring the very way that brought me to the sight of such abominations So he returned another way and not the way by which he came to Bethel Now there dwelt an old Prophet in Bethel whose Sons came to him and told him all that this Prophet had said to the King and what he had done to the Altar and in healing Jeroboams hand the old Prophet presently enquired which way this Prophet went and commanding his Asse to be presently sadled he rode thereon and following after him found him sitting under an oak and then invited him to come home with him to eat bread He told him could not do it for he was expresly forbidden it by the Lord. The old Prophet said I am a Prophet as well as thou art and an Angel spake unto me by the command of the Lord that I should bring thee back to my house to eat bread and drink water But he lyed unto him However the poor deluded Prophet upon this did go back with him and did eat bread and drunk water And as they sat at the Table the word of the Lord came to the Prophet that fetcht him back by some internal inspiration or Prophetick extasie whereby he was as it were constrained to denounce against his deluded guest the judgment that would fall upon him for coming back and eating and drinking with him and so consequently to condemn himself for the gross lye he had told He tells him thus saith the Lord seeing thou hast not kept my commandment but camest back and hast eaten and drunk in this place that I forbad thee behold thy carcass shall not come into the Sepulcher of thy Fathers and thou shalt not die among thy own kindred nor be buried with thy progenitors which intimated to him that he should die in his return before he gat home to his own land and this was a gracious warning to him that he might repent of his sin before his death So when they had eaten and drunken the old Prophet caused his own Ass to be sadled for the Prophet he had brought back and so dismissed him He was not gone far from the old Prophets house before a Lion met him and slew him and his body being fallen in the way the Ass stood by it as also the Lion That the Ass should not fly from the Lion nor the Lion prey upon the living Ass nor the dead body of the Prophet but that both of them should stand rather as a guard to preserve it from other creatures and that the Ass should stay there as it were on purpose to carry back the dead Prophets body to Bethel to be buried there these are strange passages of Providence and do shew that 't was not hunger that provoked the Lion to kill the Prophet but the over-ruling hand of God and that God had regard to the Prophets body and would preserve it for burial though he testified his displeasure against his sin for the warning of others And behold men passed by and saw the carcass cast in the way and the Lion standing by the carcass and they came and told it in the City where the old Prophet dwelt who thereupon said undoubtedly it is the man of God that was disobedient unto the word of the Lord therefore the Lord hath delivered him unto the Lion which hath slain him as the Lord threatned So he went immediately and found his carcass cast in the way
marrying a wife from thence did soon set up his wifes Idolatry in the land and the worship of the true God was in a manner neglected and disregarded and the Prophets and servants of God that would not bow to Baal were persecuted see Ch. 19.10 yet there were never more Prophets sent to them than at this time we see Ch. 18.13 that Obadiah had hid an hundred of them in caves nor never more eminent ones than now And of all the Prophets that God raised up in the Kingdom of Israel we find not any of whom so strange things are recorded both for courage and miracles as there are of Elijah And therefore at the Transfiguration of Christ Mat. 17. Elijah as chief of the Prophets appeared together with Moses talking with Christ to signifie that both Moses and the Prophets had in their several seasons given testimony of him This Prophet Elijah was at this time sent to the Israelites a man of transcendent courage and zeal as being fitted for those corrupt times whence 't is said of the Baptist who in his Ministry was very zealous and fervent Luk. 1.17 that he should go before our Saviour in the spirit and power of Elias Ahab and Jezebel were very zealous to promote Idolatry and now God raises up a Prophet as zealous to oppose it and to defend Gods own worship Elijah seeing how things went in the Kingdom of Israel and being exceedingly moved with the horrible wickedness of Ahab and Jezabel and particularly perhaps with the contempt and scorn they cast upon Gods Prophets did it seems by the instinct of Gods Spirit pray that the Lord would shut up the heavens for some years and not suffer it to rain till he sought unto him for it that so the wrath of God against the iniquity of that time might be discovered and the precious account he makes of his Prophets might be manifested And being by the same Spirit of God assured that his prayer was heard he came to Ahab and threatned him beforehand that he might see it was of God with an approaching drought for three years and an half and a great famine that should ensue thereupon As the Lord God of Israel liveth saith he whom I continually serve and in whose presence I now stand and who is a witness of the truth of what I say there shall not be dew or rain these ensuing years but according to my words and as I have declared to thee from God And according as he threatned so it came to pass For during the space of three years and six months it rained not See Jam. 5.17 * See Luk. 4.25 Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months The drought now beginning and Ahab seeing there was no rain for some time together as Elijah had threatned he was greatly enraged against him and being also stirred up as 't is probable by Jezabel his wife he sent presently out to take him that he might be revenged on him See Ch. 18.10 but the Lord foreseeing what would happen gave his Prophet warning of it and appointed him to withdraw and hide himself by the brook Cherith in Manasseh beyond Jordan that is in some solitary place or cave near the brook where he should be fed by Ravens with bread and flesh morning and evening and should drink of the brook Elijah did as the Lord commanded him and was accordingly fed by Ravens who being a very greedy and ravenous kind of bird so that they often neglect the feeding of their young ones to feed themselves it was the more miraculous that God should make them Caterers for Elijah and in such an orderly manner to bring him his provision morning and evening he directing them where they should have it possibly out of some rich mans pantry or storehouse Thus we see by what unlikely means God can provide for his servants when they are in their straits After some time possibly about six Months the brook quite dried up thus the Lord was pleased again to try the faith of his servant Elijah Then the Lord commands him to go to a widow of Sarepta in the Country of Sidon telling him that he would command her that is dispose her heart to entertain him Accordingly he went thither and when he came to the Gate of the City he found a widow-woman gathering sticks he desired her to fetch him a little water She going for it he desired her to bring him also a morsel of bread She knowing him by his habit to be a Prophet of the Lord she said to him As the Lord thy God liveth I have not a cake to give thee I have but an handful of meal in a barrel and a little oyl in a cruse and behold I am gathering two or three sticks that I may go and dress it for my self and my son that we may eat it and so die Hereby its manifest that the drought * There is not the least intimation of any want of rain that was in the land of Judah at this time and yet Elijah is sent to a stranger rather than to the widows of Israel or Judah such an one being very unlikely to relieve him especially the famine being there as well as in Israel but herein was shaddowed forth Gods further mercy intended to the Gentiles when the Jews should be rejected whence that of our Saviour Luk. 4.25 26. and famine was in the Country of Tyre and Sidon as well as among the Israelites and indeed it being sent among the Israelites for the Idolatry of Baal which Jezabel the daughter of the King of the Sidonians had brought in among them no marvel if the Sidonians were involv'd in the same judgment Elijah bids the woman not to fear but to do as she intended but only to make for him a little cake first for saith he thus saith the Lord God of Israel The barrel of meal which thou hast shall not wast nor the cruse of oyl fail until the day that the Lord sendeth rain on the earth The woman did as Elijah enjoined her and she and her house did eat thereof many days viz. for about three years neither the meal nor oyl failing but being miraculously supplied and renewed This recompence had this poor widow for entertaining the Lords Prophet she for giving unto him one meal hath many meals from him and by his procurement But great blessings are oftentimes mixed with some imbittering afflictions For some time after the Prophet had been with her the womans Son fell sick and died Upon this she comes to the Prophet and crys out What have I done to thee thou man of God wherein have I offended thee art thou come to bring my sins to remembrance †When God punisheth any for their sins whom for a while he did forbear he is said in the Scripture to remember
the twentieth of Jotham because according to them Jotham still had the title of King though he had resigned the Kingdom four years before 'T is said indeed in 2 King 17.1 that Hoshea began to reign in the twelfth year of Ahaz because though he thrust himself into the Kingdom before yet he was opposed as an usurper till the twelfth of Ahaz at which time it seems he had the Crown confirmed to him and afterwards reigned four years in Ahaz's time and five in Hezekiah's in all nine years 2 King 15.30 31. HOSHEA the Son of Ela having murdered Pekah got the Kingdom into his own hand The 19th King of Israel HOSHEA in the fourth year of Ahaz yet by reason of stirs and tumults that arose hereupon he could not quietly enjoy it but that State continued in confusion and a kind of Anarchy for the space of nine years Hoshea having at length composed all differences at home began now quietly to reign in the latter end of the twelfth year of Ahaz and reigned nine years He did evil in the sight of the Lord but not as the Kings of Israel that were before him for though he continued Jeroboam's Idolatry of the Golden Calves yet he abandoned the grosser Idolatries of many of his Predecessors And besides he suffered such of his subjects as had a mind to it to go up to Jerusalem to worship there which the former Kings of Israel would not permit For when Hezekiah had proclaimed a solemn Passover many of the Ten Tribes went up to keep their Passover in Jerusalem as we read 2 Chron. 30.11 Nevertheless divers of Asher and Manasseh and of Zebulon humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem 2 King 17.1 2. Tiglath-Pileser after he had reigned nineteen years dying Salmanasser his Son succeeded him This Salmanasser * This seemeth to be that Shalman who in the Prophesie of Hosea Chap. 10.14 is said to have laid waste the house of Arbeb to wit the Country of Arbela in the land of Assyria beneath Arpad either invited by the people or taking advantage of those late broils in the Kingdom of Israel came up now against Hoshea and at length prevailed so far that Hoshea was content to become his servant and pay him tribute 2 King 17.3 But sometime after Hoshea confederating with the King of Egypt resolved to cast off his yoke and refused to pay him tribute any longer Salmanasser understanding this resolved to revenge this injury Wherefore first of all making sure of all the land of the Moabites that he might have no enemy on his back to annoy him and rasing to the ground their two chief Cities Ar and Kirharaseth according to the Prophesie of Isaiah Chap. 15. he then went through and wasted all the land of Israel and at last marched to Samaria in the fourth year of Hezekiah and seventh of Hoshea and besieged it three years viz. in the seventh eighth and ninth year of Hoshea which were concurrent with the fourth fifth and sixth of Hezekiah Isa 15. whole Chapter 2 King 17.4 5. 2 King 18.9 10. Toward the end of the third year of the siege the sixth of the reign of Hezekiah and ninth of Hoshea Salmanasser took Samaria and their King Hoshea and then shut him up and bound him in prison †2 King 17. latter part of v. 4. those words are spoken by way of anticipation as Josephus says lib. 9. and carried away the Israelites captives into his own country and planted them in Chalachochabor and Nehar-Gozan cities of Assyria whither Tiglath-Pileser had before transported the inhabitants of Perea and in the Cities of Media If any such inquire why the Lord did thus deliver up the Israelites into the hands of their enemies the reason is here fully rendred because they obeyed not the voice of the Lord their God but transgressed his Covenant and all that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded and would not hear them nor do them 2 King 18.12 And 2 King 17.7 c. For so it was that the children of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharoah King of Egypt and they feared other gods and walked in the statutes of the heathen whom the Lord had cast out before them and of the Kings of Israel who made statutes for Idolatry And besides their open Idolatry they did secretly many things which were not right against the mind and will of the Lord their God and they built them high places in all their Cities from the tower of the watchmen †A Proverbial speech whereby the extent of their Idolatry is set forth to their fenced Cities And they set them up Images and groves in every high hill and under every green tree And there they burnt incense in all the high places as did the heathen whom the Lord carried away before them and wrought wicked things to provoke the Lord to anger Yea they served Idols whereof the Lord had said unto them ye shall not do this thing Notwithstanding the Lord testified against Israel and against Judah by all the Prophets and by all the Seers whom he sent unto them saying Turn ye from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes according to what I commanded your fathers in the wilderness and which I have often since inculcated upon you by my servants the Prophets time after time But they would not hear but hardened their necks as their fathers did who did not believe in the Lord their God And they rejected his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers and his testimonies †In which respect Ezek. 20.25 Gods statutes are said not to be good that is through the wickedness of the people they prov'd hurtful to them and sentenced them to death whereby he testified against their transgressions and they followed vanity and became vain and went after the heathen that were round about them concerning whom the Lord had charged them that they should not do like unto them And they left all the commandments of the Lord their God and made them molten images even two Calves and made a grove and worshipped all the host of heaven and served Baal And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire and used divination and inchantments and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight there was none left but the Tribe of Judah only And another cause of Israels ruin was they were an ill example to Judah and infected that Nation And hereupon Judah also kept not the commandments of the Lord their God but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made So the Lord rejected all the seed of Israel and afflicted them and delivered them into the hand of spoilers until he had cast them
the house of Ahab and compelled the people of Judah thereunto by force persecuting such as refused A Letter whilst he was going on in these abominable ways comes to him from Elijah who before his translation saw by the spirit of Prophesie what great wickedness this Jehoram would commit and what punishments the Lord would inflict upon him for it This Letter was written by Elijah * Probabile est Eliam hoc Scriptum commisisse Elisaeo quia certo aliud ei commisit post mortem peragendum nempe ut Hazaeli indicaret ipsum futurum Regem Syriae whilst he lived upon the earth neither need that seem strange seeing Isaiah wrote before hand concerning Cyrus Isa 45.1 and the Prophet that was sent to Jeroboam prophesied of Josiah many years before he was born 1 King 13.2 Elijah having written it committed it either to Elisha or some other of the Prophets and by them it was now sent to Jehoram whose insolent cruelty was such that he would hardly endure the reproof of a living Prophet In that Letter Elijah speaks thus to him Thus saith the Lord God of David thy Father because thou hast not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat †To degenerate from the example of pious Ancestors is a great provocation thy Father nor the ways of Asa thy Grandfather but hast walked in the ways of the Kings of Israel and hast made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to go a whoring and commit spiritual fornication like the house of Ahab and hast also slain thy brethren of thy Fathers house which were better than thy self behold with a great plague will the Lord smite thee and will punish thee in thy people and thy children and thy wives and all thy goods and thou shalt have great sickness by a disease of thy bowels who hast had no bowels towards thy own brethren and thou shalt day by day without intermission be tormented with it till thy bowels fall out This was the threatning of Elijah the Prophet against him and we shall now see how it was fulfilled 1. The Edomites who from Davids time had ever been in subjection to the Kingdom of Judah see 2 Sam. 8.14 and had been Tributaries thereunto and had been governed by a Viceroy set over them by them 1 King 22.47 now fell off and revolted from him and made a King over themselves Jehoram to reduce them went over to Zair a City in Idumea and took with him all the Chariots and Horsemen and Souldiers he could provide and he arose by night that he might come upon them suddenly and unexpectedly but the Edomites were so numerous and so well prepared that they compassed his army round about However his Souldiers so manfully stood to it that they put the Edomites to flight and slew many of them and thereupon the Captains of the Edomites Chariots and many of their Souldiers fled to their own houses But though Joram overthrew them at this time yet they retiring into places of advantage persisted resolutely in their revolt and so he was forced to return again into his own land without conquering of them And thus according to the Prophesie of Isaac Gen. 27.40 By thy sword thou shalt live and serve thy Brother and it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck They for ever after shook off his yoke 2. Whilst he was endeavouring to reduce the Edomites Libnah a great City within Judah one of the Royal Cities of Canaan Josh 10.29 30. and given to the Priests Josh 21.13 now rebelled against him possibly because he had made such innovations in Religion and forced the people to Idolatry and had forsaken the Lord God of his Fathers The revolt of this City was a matter of great moment it being a Frontier City and one of those which the King of Assyria set upon when he came with his huge host to have taken Jerusalem 2 Chron. 32.9 It is much indeed that one City alone should venture upon such an attempt but perhaps the Kings absence whilst he was in Edom and the discontent of the people yea perhaps some correspondence they might have with the Philistines who soon after invaded the land gave them hope of some abettors and how they sped in the conclusion the Scripture no where expresses 3ly God stirred up against him the spirit of the Philistines and Arabians who bordered upon the Ethiopians and had been Tributaries to the Kings of Judah and they ran through the land so far as to come up to Jerusalem and plundered and carried away all the substance they found in the Kings house and carried away all his sons * Here we ought to take notice of the righteous judgment of God against him He slew all his Brethren and all his Sons were slain by the Philistines and Arabians excepting his youngest Ahaziah and he was slain afterwards by Jehu 2 Chron. 22.9 And all the Sons of Ahaziah were slain by their Grandmother Athaliah excepting Joash who was hid from her and afterwards Crowned King And Joash himself was at last slain by his own servants but the youngest call'd Ahaziah †And herein appeared the Divine Providence for the accomplishment of the promise to David whom it seems they could not find and all his wives they could lay their hands on but it seems they unhappily mist Athaliah who remained to usurp the Crown and to be a scourge to the Nation afterwards 4ly After all this the Lord smote him in his bowels with an incurable disease his malady was very tormenting and after two years continuance a long time for a man to lye under such a sharp disease his torment was so great that at last it forced out his very guts and bowels from him and so he died under the heavy hand of God The great sins he had committed against God the great wrongs he had done to his subjects and the great judgments he had brought upon the land turned the hearts of his people from him so that they shewed him little respect when he was dead making no burning for him like the burning made for his Father See 2 Chron. 16.14 And so he departed without being desired or lamented Howbeit they buried him in the City of David but obscurely not in the Sepulchers of his Ancestors the Kings of Judah and without the lamentations and solemnities that had been used at the Funerals of other Kings He reigned eight years four in his Fathers life time and four after which though a short reign in its self yet seem'd undoubtedly long to the poor people that were so ill treated by him All the time of this Kings reign another King of the same name reigned in Israel to wit Joram the Son of Ahab his wives brother 2 King 8. v. from 16 to 25. 2 Chron. 21. wh Ch. The sixth that reign'd in Judah was AHAZIAH AHAZIAH call'd Jehoahaz 2 Chron. 21.17 and Azariah 2 Chron.
Son Shallum having his name changed into Iehoahaz perhaps because of the ill fate of Shallum the Son of Iabesh King of Israel who reigned but one month and was murdered by Menahem 2 King 15.13 was anointed King by the people though he was the youngest of Iosiah's Sons either because he was best affected to the King of Babylon or most warlike and valiant and so most likely to defend them against Necho King of Egypt He was twenty three years old when he began to reign and reigned only three months He quickly fell to do that which was evil in the sight of the Lord and presently set up the Idolatry that his Father Iosiah had suppressed It seems he also grievously oppressed the people and therefore he is compared to a young lion which devoureth men Ezek. 19.2 3 4. The Prophet Ieremy is sent by the Lord to the new Kings Palace earnestly to exhort him and his Courtiers and all the people to repentance and amendment of their lives foretelling them that Shallum or Iehoahaz should be carried away captive into Egypt and bidding the people not to weep for him that is departed meaning Iosiah but for him that is to depart meaning Iehoahaz because he shall return no more to see his native soil Ier. 22. from 1 to 13. Pharoah Necho returning with victory from Charchemish where he vanquished the Babylonians was desirous to revenge the opposition he had received from Iosiah who sought to stop him in his passage through his Country and therefore making use of the dissention that was between Iehoahaz and Eliakim his Elder Brother and getting Iehoahaz or Shallum into his power he presently deposed him as if the Kingdom of Iudea had been at his diposal and set up his Eldest Brother Eliakim changing his name into Iehoiakim and then imposing upon the land a Tribute of an hundred talents of silver and one talent of gold he put Shallum or Iehoahaz into fetters at Riblah and carried him away with him prisoner into Egypt where he ended his life 2 King 23. from 30 to 36. 2 Chron. 36. from 1 to 5. The 18th that reigned in Judah JEHOIAKIM JEHOIAKIM was twenty five years old when he began to reign and reigned eleven years in Ierusalem He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord being an Idolater and a cruel oppresser of the people and possibly the more out of revenge because they had preferred his younger brother before him his oppressions are notably set forth Ier. 22. from 13 to 20. and Ezek. 19. from 5 to 10. But herein he manifested the greatness of his impiety that when the Prophets denounced the judgments of God against him and his people for their evil ways he would not endure it but persecuted them for it as we shall shew afterwards He pays the King of Egypt the hundred talents of silver and one talent of gold which he had imposed upon him but he taxed the land for it and exacted it of the people 2 King 23.35 36 37. 2 Chron. 36. v. 5. In the beginning of his reign Ieremy was commanded by God to stand in the Court of the Temple and there to exhort the people assembled together out of all the Cities of Iudah to repentance it being then the Feast of Tabernacles Thus saith the Lord stand in the Court of the Lords house and speak unto all the Cities of Iudah which come to worship in the Lords house all the words that I command thee to speak unto them diminish not a word If so be they will hearken and turn every man from his evil way that I may repent me of the evil which I purpose to do unto them because of the evil of their doings and thou shalt say unto them Thus saith the Lord if ye will not hearken to me to walk in my Law which I have set before you to hearken to the words of my servants the Prophets whom I sent unto you rising up early and sending them * That is continually and carefully sending them a Metaphor taken from careful housholders who with the soonest seek to redress mischiefs causing their servants for that end to rise betimes then will I make this house like Shiloh and will make this City a curse to all the Nations of the earth So the Priests and the Prophets and all the people heard Ieremiah speaking these words in the house of the Lord. And it came to pass when Ieremiah had made an end of speaking all that the Lord had commanded him to speak unto the people the Priests and the Prophets and the people took him saying thou shalt surely die Why hast thou prophesied in the name of the Lord saying This house shall be like Shiloh and this City shall be desolate without an inhabitant And all the people were gathered against Jeremiah in the house of the Lord. When the Princes of Judah heard these things they came up from the Kings house unto the house of the Lord and sat down in the entry of the new gate of the Lords house to understand what the matter was Then spake the Priests and the Prophets unto the Princes and to all the people saying This man is worthy to die for he hath prophesied against this City and ye have heard it with your ears Then spake Jeremiah unto the Princes and to all the people saying The Lord sent me to prophesie against this house and against this City all the words that ye have heard Therefore now amend your ways and your doings and obey the voice of the Lord your God and the Lord will repent him of the evil he hath pronounced against you As for me behold I am in your hands do with me as seemeth good and meet unto you But know ye for certain that if ye put me to death ye shall surely bring innocent blood upon your selves and upon this City and upon the inhabitants thereof for of a truth the Lord hath sent me unto you to speak all these words in your ears Then said the Princes and the people unto the Priests and Prophets This man is not worthy to die for he hath spoken to us in the name of the Lord our God Then rose up certain of the Elders of the land and spake to all the assembly of the people saying Micah the Morasthite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah King of Judah and spake to all the people of Judah saying Thus saith the Lord of hosts Zion shall be plowed like a field and Jerusalem shall become heaps and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forrest Did Hezekiah King of Judah and all Judah put him at all to death did he not fear the Lord and besought the Lord and the Lord repented him of the evil which he had pronounced against them Therefore if we should proceed with that rigour you would have us against Jeremy we might procure great evil against our own souls Vriah also about the same time Prophesied against
And therefore God upbraiding the King of Tyre with his pride and arrogancy Behold saith he thou art wiser than Daniel no secret can be hid from thee therefore I will bring strangers upon thee the terrible of the Nations and they shall bring thee down c. Ezek. Ch. 26. Ch. 27. Ch. 28. In the same year also in the third month God revealed his will to Ezekiel of sending Nebuchadnezzar against Pharoah to the ruin of the Egyptians In the same month also God declared that the Egyptians could no more avoid his decree and determination than the Assyrians had done before Ezek. Ch. 30. Ch. 31. In the eleventh year of Zedekiah the ninth day of the fourth month when the famine grew extream in the City and the pestilence as 't is like very hot Jerusalem was broken up and the Caldeans entred it Ezek. 4. from 9 to the end Lament 4.10 2 King 25.2 3 4. Jer. 52.5 6 7. Jer. 39.2 3. The City being taken Zedekiah and all the men of war fled away by night by the way of the Gate between two walls which was by the Kings garden being it seems a secret way provided on purpose for escape in such a time of danger but the Caldeans pursuing after them took Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho and brought him prisoner to Riblah where Nebuchadnezzar lay where having judgment passed upon him for his perjury and having seen his children first slain before his eyes to his extream torment together with the Nobles of Judah he had then his own eyes put out and being clogged with chains and fetters he was carried away from thence to Babylon so the Prophesies before utter'd concerning him were fulfilled viz. that with his eyes he should see the King of Babylon and speak with him mouth to mouth Jer. 32.4 34.3 But Babylon he should not see though he should die there For so the Prophet Ezekiel foretold Ch. 12.13 My net also will I spread upon him and he shall be taken in my snare and I will bring him to Babylon to the land of the Caldeans yet shall he not see it though he shall die there 2 King 25. from 4 to 8. Jer. 39. from 4 to 8. Jer. 52. from 7 to 12. Upon the seventh day of the fifth month Nebuzaradan Captain of the Guard sent by Nebuchadnezzar made his entry into the City and on the tenth day he set fire on the Temple and on the Kings Palace and upon all the Noblemens houses in Jerusalem and burnt all down to the ground and brake down the walls of Jerusalem round about In remembrance of which dismal calamity the Fast of the fifth month was ordained to be kept Zach. 7.3 v. 5. Zach. 8.19 Thus was the glorious Temple destroyed in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzars reign and four hundred twenty four years three months and eight days after that Solomon laid the first stone thereof 2 King 25.8 9 10. Jer. 52.12 13 14. Jer. 39.8 In the same fifth month the walls of Jerusalem being broken down all that were left in the City and all that had before fled over to Nebuchadnezzar and all the common people of the City with all the treasure of the King and his Nobles and furniture of the Temple did Nebuzaradan carry away to Babylon and thus was Judah for their sins removed out of her own land four hundred sixty eight years after David began to reign over it From the division of the Ten Tribes from the Tribe of Judah three hundred eighty eight years and from the destruction of the Kingdom of Israel one hundred thirty four years If any shall enquire why the Lord gave up this his own people into the hands of their enemies you may find 2 Chron. 36. from v. 12 to 20. that the high provocations both of King and people were the cause thereof Zedekiah did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord his God and humbled not himself before Jeremiah the Prophet speaking to him from the mouth of the Lord and he also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar who had made him swear by God but he stiffned his neck and hardned his heart from turning unto the Lord God of Israel Moreover all the chief of the Priests and the people transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen and polluted the house of the Lord which he had hallowed in Jerusalem And the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers rising up betimes (a) That is continually and carefully sendding them a Metaphor taken from careful housholders who with the soonest seek to redress mischiefs causing their servants for that end to rise betimes and sending because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place but they mocked the messengers of God and despised his words and misused his Prophets until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people and there was no remedy * After that there remain'd nothing but expectation of judgment Therefore he brought upon them the King of the Caldees who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their Sanctuary (b) That is the Temple whither 't is like many of them fled for refuge and had no compassion upon young man or maiden old man or him that stooped for age he gave them all into his hand And all the vessels of the house of God great and small and the treasures of the house of the Lord and the treasures of the King and of his Princes all these he brought to Babylon And they burnt the house of God and brake down the walls of Jerusalem and burnt all the Palaces thereof with fire and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof Jer. 39.9 Jer. 52.15 2 King 25. from 11 to 18. 2 Chron. 36. from 14 to 22. The Scripture saith that they that were carried away captive to Babylon in the eleventh year of Zedekiah were to continue seventy years in their captivity 2 Chron. 36.20 21. And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the Kingdom of Persia To fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremy until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths for as long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath to fulfill threescore and ten years Where by those words until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths we are to understand that so long as the people were kept out of it the land rested there being none to plow or dig it up and so it continued for the most part till the expiration of seventy years as Jeremy had Prophesied Jer. 25.11 And this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment and these Nations shall serve the King of Babylon seventy years And Chap. 29.10 Thus saith the Lord after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you and perform my good word towards you in causing you to return to
5000 dead upon the place and had the chase of the rest a great way Among others who were thus vanquished were the Merchants who nothing doubting of the victory followed the Kings army in hope to get a good bargain of the captives and now became a prey themselves and the Jews seized on their money which they brought to buy them And when they had had a long pursuit of them but being prevented by time they sounded a retreat for the evening on which the Sabbath began drawing on after they had gathered up the Armes of the vanquished Host and taken the spoils from them they composed themselves for the celebration of the Sabbath magnifying the mercy of God for this so marvelous a victory 2 Mac. 8. Gorgias returning from his fruitless expedition and perceiving by the smoke of the Tents set on fire that that other division of their army was routed and seeing Judas on the plain standing in Battalia with his forces ready to receive them they all shifted for themselves The coast thus cleared Judas returned to the spoil where he found plenty of gold silk and purple which the Phoenician Merchants had left behind them and much wealth all which the Souldiers shared among themselves having first deducted a portion for the maimed Souldiers widows and orphans Then with joint supplication they desired the Lord to continue still to be gracious unto them After this Judas overthrew Timotheus and Bacchides both of the Kings party and killed above 20000 men and made themselves masters of many strong holds and divided among themselves much spoil always admitting the maimed orphans widows and aged persons into equal portions with themselves Lysias was exceedingly vext that things fell out so contrary to his expectation and therefore the next year invaded Judea with an Army of 60000 choice foot and 5000 horse Judas having first implored the Divine assistance meets him with an army of 10000 men Lysias received such a blow that with the loss of 5000 men he was glad to retreat to Antioch intending greater preparations for his next expedition Judas and his Brethren having now some respite from their enemies march with all their forces to Jerusalem and recover the Temple and all the City except Sion-fort The Altars and Chappels which the enemy had built in the open streets they demolished And by the assistance of the Priests they cleansed the Temple built a new Altar repaired the holy and Holy of Holies hallowed the Courts made new holy Vessels brought into the Temple the Candlestick the Altar of Incense and the Table of shew-bread and so they burnt Incense upon the Altar lighted the Lamps which were in the Candlestick and placed shew-bread upon the Table and spread the Vails and finished whatever they had taken in hand Then on the 15th of the ninth month called Casleu two years after he had succeeded his Father in the Government but three years compleat since the Gentiles first sacrificed in that place having furnished themselves with fire by striking stones one against another they offered sacrifice according to the Law upon their new Altar of Burnt-offerings so that on the very same day of the same month on which the Gentiles profaned the old Altar Judas consecrated this new one This Dedication was celebrated with Songs and Hymns and Instruments of Musick very joyfully and all the people fell prostrate on the ground and worshipped the God of Heaven who had so prospered them beseeching him that he would not suffer them to fall again into such calamities but that if they offended him he himself would punish them and not suffer them to fall into the hands of the barbarous Gentiles They kept this feast of Dedication eight days and ordained that it should be kept yearly for the same space of time and should begin the 25th of the same month Casleu In the Gospel Joh. 10.22 't is called the feast of Dedication Whilst these things were doing Antiochus Epiphanes prospers in his wars against Artaxias King of Armenia and in the upper Countries though in his attempt to plunder the Temple of Venus or Diana at Elemais in Persia he was repelled by the inhabitants and caused shamefully to retreat In his return homewards hearing first of the overthrow of Nicanor and Timotheus and then of the defeat of Lysias and the throwing down of the Idol of Jupiter Olympius and fortifying of the Sanctuary he fell into an extream rage and resolved to be revenged on the Jews proudly vaunting that he would make Jerusalem the common burying place of them when he should come thither Scarce had he made an end of threatning when he was stricken with an extream torment in his bowels but being brought thereby to no better a temper of mind he breathed out menaces against the Jews still and calling to his Chariot-driver to make hast it hapned that in this his so furious career he fell out of his Chariot and was much bruised by the fall and his limbs put out of joint and after that being carried to and fro in a horse-litter worms bred so fast in his body that his flesh rotted so that none could endure to carry him for the noisomeness of the stench being forced to stay at Taba a Town in Persia in this pitiful plight despairing of recovery he openly acknowledged all those miseries to have fallen upon him for the injuries he had done to the Jews When he could no longer endure his own smell he said It is meet to submit to God and for mortal man not to set himself in competition with God He vowed if God would restore him to grant to the Jews a free exercise of their Religion and of their own laws and customs and that he would beautifie the Temple with most rare gifts and restore all the holy vessels and that with advantage and defray the charges of the Sacrifices out of his own Exchequer and that he himself would turn Jew and go through the whole habitable world declaring the power of God But when he saw his end to draw nigh he caused most kind Letters to be written to the Jews desiring them to stand faithful to his Son Then constituting Philip the Guardian and Protector of his Son who was but nine years old till he should come to age he died and that a miserable death in a strange land after he had reigned twelve years Antiochus his Son Sirnamed Eupator succeeds him Lysias who had brought him up would not part with the Government of him whereupon Philip who was appointed his Guardian by his Father fled into Egypt Gorgias who had the command of those parts about Judea fomented a continual war with the Jews and with him joyned the Idumeans who entertained all the Jerusalem-runagadoes and infested the Jews and did what they could to keep the war on foot against those therefore Judas Maccabaeus marches takes divers places and puts 20000 of them to the sword After which setting upon the Ammonites he overthrew them
a great Marriage and bring the Bride from Medaba with great Pomp being the Daughter of one of their Noblest Princes they went and hiding themselves under the Covert of the Mountain when the Bridegroom and his Friends came forth with Timbrels and Instruments of Musick rose up out of the Ambush slew 400 of them and took the Spoil So having revenged the death of their Brother they returned again into the Marshes of Judea 1 Mac. 9. When Bacchides heard this he marched down and came thither with a great Army upon the Sabbath-day and Jonathan being beset behind and before by the enemy and on each side with the River and Marshes yet encouraged his men to fight and after having slain about a 1000 of them seeing himself too weak for the enemy He and his men leaped into Jordan and got over to the other side neither did the enemy attempt to follow him As for Bacchides he returned to Jerusalem and built fenced Cities in Judea and a Fort in Jericho and other places and garrison'd them all that by their Sallies and Incursions they might annoy the Israelites He fortifyed also the Cities of Bethsura and Gazara with the Castle at Jerusalem where he placed Soldiers and Provisions and taking the Sons of the chief of the Country for Hostages he put them in ward in the Tower of Jerusalem 1 Mac. 9. The Ambassadors sent from Judas Maccabaeus to Rome were kindly received and concluded a League of Association with the Romans the Tenor of which was That they should mutually assist and succour each other against the common Enemy And the Articles were written in Tables of Brass The Senate also wrote Letters to Demetrius That he should forbear to oppress the Jews any further being their Confederates otherwise they vvould vvage War upon him both by Land and Sea And this vvas the first League that vvas ever knovvn to be betvven the Romans and the Jews About this time as it should seem Alcimus commanded the wall in the Temple which severed the Court of the People from that of the Gentiles to be pulled down which had been built by Zerubbabel and the Prophets whose Monuments he began also to pull down and destroy But at the same time he was so smitten that he could not open his own mouth nor so much as give orders concerning his own House but died in great Torment the third year after he had usurped the High-Priesthood After his death Jerusalem was seven years without any High-Priest at all But then Jonathan put on the High-Priests Robes After Alcimus's death Bacchides returned to Demetrius For two years the land of Judea continued quiet but at the end thereof certain wicked Jews sent for Bacchides again acquainting him that he might easily apprehend Jonathan and his Company in one night Whereupon Bacchides made towards them with a great force and sent privily Letters to his Friends in Judea to assist him in this Enterprize But their Plot was discovered to Jonathan and his Company and he taking 50 of the Contrivers of that Villany put them all to death Then Jonathan and Simon and those that were with him removed to Bethbasin in the Wilderness and repaired the walls thereof and fortified it which Bacchides having notice of went down thither and besieged it But such was his Entertainment from the besieged who sallying out burnt his Engines and killed many of his men that having lain before the place a long time to no purpose and being thus disappointed in his hopes he turn'd his anger against those that had procur'd him to make this Expedition in so much that he slew many of them and purposed to return into his own Land Jonathan having notice thereof sent to him to treat of peace and to exchange Prisoners which he gladly accepted of protesting he would not any more disturb Jonathan all the days of his life So he returned home into his own land and never after entred into Judea with an Army The Wars thus composed in Judea Jonathan dwelt at Michmash in the Tribe of Benjamin and began to judge the people and to take away the Wicked out of Israel About this time Alexander Bala crying himself up for the Son of Antiochus Epiphanes seized upon Ptolemais a City in Phaenicia Demetrius hearing of this began to prepare to fight with him and sent Letters also to Jonathan whereby he renewed peace with him and gave him Authority to levy forces and provide Arms that he might assist him in his War against Alexander He commanded also that the Hostages which were kept in the Fort should be released which was accordingly done and he delivered them to their Parents Jonathan improving this opportunity began to re-edifie and repair Jerusalem and to build up the Walls And the Aliens that were in the Forts which Bacchides built quitted them and hasted away to their own land Alexander having notice of Demetrius's Message to Jonathan he courts him likewise and desires his Friendship and Association And among many other Priviledges and Immunities which he granted to that Nation he appointed him to be the High-Priest sending him Purple and a Crown of Gold and honoured him with the Title of being called the Kings Friend So in the seventh month of the 160th year of the Seleucides Jonathan put on the holy Robe in the nineth year after the death of his brother Judas the Priesthood having been vacant seven years from the death of Alcimus being the first of the Hasmoneans that arrived at this dignity as being descended from Jehojarib of the Priests family indeed but not from Jaddus the High-Priest whose Heir Onias now lived in Egypt with Ptol. Philometor The Jews now disclaiming Demetrius of whose hatred to them they had had sufficient experience stick close to Alexander and from that time forward continued his Confederates in the War Alexander Bala having gotten an Army together made up partly of the Soldiers that revolted to him from Demetrius and partly of the Auxiliaries of Attalus King of Pergamus Ariarathes King of Cappadocia and Jonathan and especially Ptol. Philometor encountred Demetrius and conquering his Army killed him in the Fight after he had reigned in Syria twelve years And so Alexander obtained the Kingdom Alexander shortly after remembring how much he was engaged to Ptol. Philometor for his assistance sent to him to desire his Daughter to make him a Wife which he willingly assented to and brought her to Ptolemais in Phoenicia and there married her to him with Royal and magnificent Solemnity Jonathan being by Alexander invited to this Wedding he brought with him great Presents of Gold and Silver and several other things which he presented to both the Kings and their Friends so that thereby he much wrought himself into their favour At the same time several vile male-contents came out of Judea to accuse Jonathan but Alexander was so far from listning to any Tales against him that he caused him to be clothed with Purple and to set next to