XVIII.
FROM THE BOOK OF KINGS.
SAUL was the name of the first king who reigned over God's people.
He was raised to be king rather by the people's choice
than by God's counsel. Many other kings
had reigned before throughout the whole world over heathen nations;
but over the people of Israel, who believed in God,
there was no earthly king before that Saul
(as they had themselves chosen) assumed the dominion over them.
He turned quickly aside from the will of Almighty God,
and would not walk by His instruction and by the teaching of His prophets,
and the evil Spirit troubled him with diabolic instigations,
and turned his reason into madness.
Then at last Almighty God rejected this Saul,
and cast him out of his kingdom according to his own deserts,
and chose for Himself as king the brave David,
who without weapons had conquered the lion,
and had rent the bear's jaws with his hands,
and had delivered the captured sheep from his sharp teeth.
He likewise overthrew afterward the mighty giant,
Goliath the cruel, who blasphemed God's name,
and with threats cried shame upon God's people,
armed for single combat with exceeding great weapons.
Lo then! David went against the giant,
and with his sling struck the unbelieving giant
above the eyes, so that he bowed to the earth.
Then he took from the giant his own sword,
and struck off his huge head therewith,
and so won the victory for his people.
Concerning this David spake the Almighty Ruler
that He had chosen him, thus saying,
'I have found Me David, after Mine own heart,
that he will perform all My will by his works.'
This David was a prophet and a wonderful king,
and pleased God to his life's end,
and ever obeyed Him with all his heart.
He was therefore exalted to great honours,
because he ever sought how he might please God.
After him reigned over the kingdom of Israel
many kings, diversely disposed;
Some believed in the living God,
some in idols to their own destruction,
and those who worshipped God were exalted
and were always victorious in fight;
as for those who turned from God to shameful idolatry,
they were put to shame, and were ever unsuccessful.
One of these was Ahab the wicked king
who despised his Creator, and chose to him Baal,
the god of the heathen, who had no goodness,
but was a cruel devil, detected in heresy.
This king's queen was the most infamous of women,
called Jezebel, fiercely minded.
She incited her husband to every cruelty,
and they provoked God with hostile works.
In those days was Elijah, a holy prophet of God,
who besought God that He would withdraw rain-showers
from the evil king, for his cruelty;
so three years and a half passed by
without rain-showers and reeking dew,
and the prophet Elijah departed out of that land,
and God fed him by the ministrations of birds,
until He sent him to a certain widow
in the Sidonian country, and the prophet said to her;
'Thus saith the God of Israel, that oil shall not fail thee,
nor meal in thy barrel, until rain cometh to men
upon the earth, to make it fruitful unto you.'
Then the widow fed the prophet of God
with that little meal, and the scanty oil,
and found the vessels ever full afterward,
until God gave again the fruits of the earth.
In the meantime it befel that the widow's son
departed from life, and the prophet raised him
again from death, through his Lord's might.
After that the Almighty bade the prophet
go to his country, to the wicked king,
and said that He would send again rain-showers.
So Elijah departed, and behold there met him
the noble Obadiah; and the worthy servant of God
was fain at his coming, and spake to him thus,
' Earnestly have we enquired concerning thee everywhere,
and the king hath sent very many messengers
to every country, to enquire concerning thee.
Was it not told thee, lord, that I hid alive
one hundred and twenty prophets, and fed them with food,
when Jezebel killed all God's prophets
whom she could discover in all this nation? '
Then Elijah came to king Ahab,
and he straightway asked the righteous prophet,
'Art thou that Elijah, that troublest Israel?'
Then the prophet answered the cruel one and said,
'I have not troubled Israel, but thou hast troubled it thyself,
and thy father's house, ye who have forsaken God
and followed Baal with foul worship.
Now bid men call to me all the false prophets
who serve Baal, and eat with Jezebel.'
Then the king sent and told his nation,
and bade the people of Israel and the deceitful prophets
to come all together to have speech with Elijah.
Then said Elijah to all that multitude,
'How long will ye halt on two sides thus?
If our Lord is God, then follow Him,
If Baal is god, follow his service.'
Then the people were silent, and Elijah resumed,
'I only am left of all God's prophets,
and Baal has four-hundred and fifty prophets.
Let them take an ox, and offer to their god,
and I will offer another ox to my God,
and let them both be surrounded with wood beneath.
Let us afterward severally entreat of God,
I of my God, that He will burn up my sacrifice
with fire from heaven, and do ye also likewise;
then let Him be the true God that sendeth fire from above.'
Then said all the people that he had spoken excellently.
Then the idolaters took the dun ox,
surrounded it with wood, as was their wont with sacrifices,
and cried to Baal that he would hear their prayer.
They stood there from early morning, lamentably crying,
until over midday, exceeding troubled,
but no answer came to them, nor was the sacrifice consumed.
Then said Elijah to the false prophets,
'Cry ye yet louder, peradventure he sleepeth,
that he may at least awaken and answer unto you.'
They cried then the more, and afflicted themselves;
but the false Baal could not gladden them.
Then Elijah took the other ox,
and surrounded it with wood in the old manner.
Then he bade men water all the wood,
and cried with single mind to the Almighty God,
' Thou Almighty God, in whom Abraham believed,
and his son Isaac, and also Jacob,
manifest this day that Thou art the true God,
that this people may know assuredly by faith
that Thou art the Lord God who turnest their hearts.'
After this invocation came fire from Heaven
and burned up the ox, and all the wood,
and the twelve stones which stood under the ox.
Then fell down all the people, terrified, in prayer,
and cried with faith to the living God,
'The Lord Himself is God, the Lord Himself is God.'
Then Elijah said to them, ' Seize the prophets
who have served Baal, that none of them escape.'
So they were seized and brought to Elijah,
and he slew them, that none of them remained alive.
Then he went up quickly to a mountain,
and on bended knees besought the Almighty God,
That He would give rains to the inhabitants of the earth;
and bade his servant meanwhile look toward the sea,
if any mist were rising out of the great ocean.
Then the servant returned to him seven times,
and on the seventh return said to the prophet,
that, 'behold there ariseth one little cloud
out of the wide-reaching sea, in the stainless sky.'
Lo! then the wind arose, and the clouds grew dark,
and there came a very great shower from the sky.
Then the king went away, with the rain,
and told his wife the prophet's deeds,
and how he had slain the idolaters.
Then Jezebel sent [men] to meet Elijah,
and swore by her gods with treacherous mind,
that Elijah should die for this in the morning,
and become like one of her false prophets.
Then Elijah fled away from that wicked woman,
out into a wilderness, and there fell asleep;
but a shining angel of God quickly aroused him,
and bade him arise and refresh himself;
he saw there lying a snow-white cake (baked on the hearth),
and a little vessel full of water, when he awakened.
Then he ate and drank, and again fell asleep,
but the angel aroused him a second time, and said,
'Arise quickly and eat, thou hast a very long journey.'
He again ate and drank, and went by help of that meat
forty days together without any food.
There was a certain thane called Naboth, who had a vineyard
hard by the king's palace; then said the king to him,
'Give me thy vineyard for a herb-garden,
and I will at least find thee another farther off,
or I will acquire it for money, because it is handy to me.'
Then said Naboth to him that he could not let go
his ancestors' inheritance so lightly into his hands.
Then the king became angry, "and went to his bed
and turned him to the wall, madly enraged.
Then Jezebel went to him, and said,
'Why art thou sad and wilt not eat?'
Then said the wicked [one] to his evil wife,
how he longed for the vineyard, and Naboth refused him.
Then Jezebel soothed the unrighteous man, and said,
'Arise and refresh thyself with confident mind,
I will give thee the vineyard which thou desiredst.'
Then Jezebel straightway sent a letter
to Naboth's neighbours, with this proclamation,
'Hold ye a meeting and set Naboth in the midat,
even your neighbour, and bid false witnesses
accuse him in your assembly thus:
Naboth, to our knowledge, hath cursed God
and his royal lord; and kill him afterwards.'
Then the chief men did even as the hateful woman
had bidden them in the writ, and summoned him to a meeting,
and found the false witnesses who belied Naboth, [saying]
that he had impiously cursed God
and his royal lord; and killed him with stones,
and then told Jezebel that Naboth was not alive.
Lo! then Jezebel went joyously
to the unrighteous king, and said thus to him :
'Arise now and take to thee Naboth's vineyard,
though he granted it not to thee; he is now lifeless.'
Then the impious man arose, and sent
to Naboth's vineyard, desiring to take it.
Then came, meeting him, God's prophet Elijah,
sent from God, and said to him these words,
' Thus spake the Almighty God, " thou hast slain and taken possession;
even as dogs lapped Naboth's blood,
so shall they lap and lick thy blood;
I will consume thy family, and destroy thy offspring,
because thou hast wearied me, and misled my people;
and greedy dogs shall eat Jezebel." '
So then after some time Ahab the king marched
against the king of Syria with a very great army,
desiring by conquest to diminish his kingdom.
Then the king of Syria straightway bade his men take heed
that he [Ahab] alone should fall of all his people.
Then an archer presently bent his bow
and shot an arrow as if uncertainly,
and smote the king between the lungs,
that he died, being the first that fell in the fight.
Then his army turned away very speedily,
and brought the king in his chariot, thus dead,
and his blood flowed into the chariot,
so that the dogs licked it when they had come home.
Then his son straightway succeeded to his kingdom,
called Ahaziah, a very evil doer.
He walked even as his infamous father and his wicked mother
had set him the evil example, and within two years
he lost his life, and his fleeting kingdom.
He fell off a staircase, and so lay sick.
He sent to the idol-god, to enquire of him,
and Elijah met the men whom he sent,
and straightway said to them even as God's angel had told him,
'What, then! is not the Almighty God in the nation of Israel,
and ye go to an idol-god, to seek your healing?
Now therefore saith the Almighty, that the king shall not arise
from the bed whereon he lieth, but shall die.'
Then the messengers returned again to the king,
and showed him what the prophet had said to them by the way.
Then the king straightway sent fifty men
to the prophet of God, desiring to call him.
Then said the chief to the venerable prophet,
'Go now, man of God, from the grassy hill,
the king desireth thee to come to him.'
Then Elijah answered boldly, and said,
'If I am a man of God, let God's fire consume you.'
Lo then! with these words fire came down from Heaven,
and consumed the fifty men with all their company.
Then the king sent again other fifty
up to the hill where Elijah sat;
and it happened to them also even as to the other flock,
that they were all suddenly consumed
by the crackling flame of the heavenly fire.
Then sent the king yet a third time to him
fifty of his servants; these all fell on their knees,
entreating the prophet with trembling hearts
that he would not consume them, though they announced their errand,
like the others who had come to him before.
Then God's angel bade him go
forth with the men, fearlessly to the king.
Then Elijah went to the sick king,
and told [the king] himself that he should die,
because he had sent to the shameful idol
to enquire concerning his healing, as if God were not in Israel.
So the king died even as the prophet had said,
and his brother Jehoram succeeded to his kingdom,
and held it evilly for eleven years,
and his mother Jezebel lived wickedly
in foul whoredom, and in every iniquity,
until God's vengeance ended her cruelty.
In the meantime the prophet Elijah
was borne up to heaven hale, without death,
and liveth yet in the body with perpetual strength.
His disciple Elisha went with him before (his translation);
then said the master Elijah to his disciple,
'Ask me, lo! what thou wilt before I be taken up
away from thy sight, and from this toil.'
Then said Elisha to the venerable prophet,
'I pray thee, my father, that I may be filled
with the prophetic spirit which now dwelleth in thee.'
Then said Elijah to his disciple,
' Thou hast asked much, but thou shalt, nevertheless, be so,
if thou canst see how I journey hence;
if thou seest it not, verily it shall not be.'
Amidst their speaking came a heavenly chariot,
as if all of fire, with flying horses,
and Elijah departed in the fair chariot
up beyond the sky, and let fall his mantle.
Then Elisha saw how he went up,
and cried aloud after his master thus:
Pater mi, pater mi, Currus israhel et auriga eius;
that is in English, ' My father, my father, the chariot of Israel,
and its guider,' that is, charioteer.
He saw him not afterward, but straightway took his mantle,
which fell from the chariot, and went back,
and was God's prophet, as wise as was the other,
and wrought many miracles, and prophesied many things.
He raised a dead man through the Lord's might,
one during his life, and another after his death;
After the prophet's departure hence
a corpse was brought to the saint's tomb,
and robbers put the bearers suddenly to flight,
so that they left the dead man upon his sepulchre,
and ran away as soon as they saw the cruel flock.
Then the dead man arose when he touched the sepulchre,
and went home sound, for Elisha's merits.
Elisha also healed a nobleman
from the dreadful leprosy; he was called Naaman,
of the land of Syria, and he believed in God
through the great miracle which God wrought in him.
Many other signs God performed through him
among the nation of Israel, in that evil time.
Elisha then sent another prophet
with God's errand to a prince
called Jehu, bidding him hallow him as king.
So the young prophet went to the aforesaid prince,
poured oil on his head, even as the Almighty had commanded,
and boldly announced to him God's errand, saying,
'God Almighty hath said concerning thee,' I have anointed thee king
over the people of Israel, that thou mayest exterminate
the offspring of Ahab the wicked king,
that I may be avenged on the accursed Jezebel;
she shall be for meat to dogs, not buried in the earth.'"
Then Jehu, the newly hallowed king,
went with his forces, to accomplish those things
which God had commanded him, amongst his brethren.
Then came against him king Joram,
asked whether he came, thus boldly, in peace
Then answered Jehu and said to him fearlessly,
'Yet thy mother's wicked whoredoms
and many witchcrafts are going on.'
Then Joram turned instantly away and said,
'This is treachery; ' and Jehu shot him
behind his back, so that his heart burst.
Then he bade him be cast out of the way thus dead.
Then fled the king of Judah who came with the other,
but Jehu pursued him, and took his life from him;
then went he to Jezebel, who was in the city
and stood upon an upper floor magnificently adorned,
and had painted her eyes and her face with red,
to meet Jehu, and beheld his approach.
Then Jehu looked up to the shameful one,
and immediately commanded men to push her over from behind;
so she was thrown down before the horses,
and the horses trod her ignominiously under their feet.
Then Jehu went to sit at his banquet,
and after his feast said to his servants,
'Go to this witch whom I bade men throw down,
and bury her corpse, for her birth's sake.'
They went quickly, but she was all devoured,
save only the hands and the upper part of the head,
and the soles of her feet, by foul dogs.
Then the servants told that to the king,
and he said in answer, that it had been so prophesied beforehand.
There were in Samaria seventy princes,
sons of Ahab, the old king,
Joram's brethren. Then the bold Jehu commanded
the citizens that they should choose a prince
from among those seventy, to be their king,
and fight against him in defence of their lords.
Then the citizens sent to the renowned Jehu,
promising him obedience to all his commands.
Then Jehu ordered them to bring
all the heads of the princes on the morrow,
and he destroyed afterward every one of the race.
Then he returned to Samaria, the aforesaid city,
and bade men call to him the false idolaters,
who worshipped Baal, desiring [them] to speak with him.
Then he bade [call] the ministers of the devil's temple,
saying that he wished to worship him as God,
even as Ahab did, and. even yet more.
Then all the priests came: to the king,
and he bade them enter in unto the god Baal,
and offer to him their devout sacrifices.
Lo then! Jehu commanded men to slay them all,
and burn up Baal, and break down his temple.
They turned it into a draught-house, where the god Baal
before was wickedly worshipped until that time.
Then came God's word to the king thus,
'Because thou hast zealously executed my will
on Ahab's offspring, and hast destroyed them all,
thy sons shall sit on the throne of Israel
until the fourth generation, in lineal succession.'
Many kings were there, diversely disposed,
reigning after this one in the kingdom of Israel,
and also in the land of Judah, until the believing king,
called Hezekiah, turned with his whole heart
to the Almighty God, and raised up his worship,
and overthrew the idols which until then had been
erroneously venerated with wicked worship.
He reigned in the land of Judah thirty years save one,
and lived wisely, because he loved God;
and God shielded him against the Assyrian king,
called Sennacherib, who with slander fought against him,
and desired to destroy him with an immense army,
and sent his leader to him, who spoke shamefully concerning God,
and concerning Hezekiah, with great threatening*
So then Hezekiah cried with single mind
to the Almighty God, that He would deliver him.
Then God sent His angel to the Assyrian host,
and slew in one night one hundred and eighty
thousand men, and some more besides.
As soon as Sennacherib saw in the mornino;
that his host was slain by the heavenly sword,
he straightway went home, and his two sons
slew him with the edge of the sword.
Thus the Almighty God delivered the noble king
and also his people, for his faith.
After this Hezekiah fell sick unto death,
and God's prophet Isaiah came walking to him,
and announced to him God's errand thus boldly, and said,
'God saith concerning thee, O king, that thou must bequeath thy property,
because thou slialt die, and thou verily shalt not live.'
Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall,
and cried to God thus saying, with weeping,
'I beseech Thee, my Lord, that thou be mindful
how I have walked before thee with a perfect heart,
and in integrity have ever pleased Thee.'
Isaiah the prophet was going away,
but God caused him to return, thus saying to him again,
' Return to Hezekiah, and say to him these words,
The Lord God hath said, in whom David believed,
I have heard thy prayer, and I have beheld thy weeping,
and behold, I will heal thee that thou mayest go whole
now within about three days, to thy Lord's temple;
and I will allow thee a space of fifteen years
in addition to thy days, and I will also protect this city!'
Then the prophet Isaiah bade make a plaster
for the king's wound, and health came to him.
Then he lived afterward until the sixteenth year,
and with all goodness pleased God.
Hezekiah's son was called Manasses,
and he succeeded to the kingdom after his father's death,
and with many evil deeds provoked the Almighty God.
Then God sent him a severe chastisement,
so that the Chaldean people came to him,
and brought him bound to the city of Babylon,
and thrust him into prison, as a shame to his kingship.
Then Manasses greatly repented of his sins,
and with all his heart cried to the Almighty,
imploring mercy for all his wicked deeds,
and promised amendment, and he also performed it.
Lo then! the Almighty God heard the prayer
of the poor king, and brought him
again to his kingdom, out of the cruel prison,
and he afterward restored that which he had before broken in pieces.
He then acknowledged God's might, and his mercy towards him,
and turned his deeds to his Lord's will,
and ended well, although he had begun evilly.
His son Ammon very unhappily
succeeded to his kingdom, and ruled it unjustly,
so that he forsook the Almighty God,
and practised idolatry, and wrought not deeds of repentance.
Two years he reigned without prudence;
then his thanes agreed that they would kill him,
and Josiah his son straightway succeeded to the kingdom
in youthful age, and imitated David
in all goodness, and performed God's will.
He cast away evil, and the wrong (false) worships
of the false gods in which his father had believed,
and renewed God's law with all observances,
and destroyed the witches, and put the wizards to flight,
and cast down witchcraft, to please his Lord.
There was indeed no king who turned so zealously
with his whole heart to the Almighty God
before Josiah, neither afterward came there
any like to him, who so believed on God.
One and thirty years he reigned gloriously in Jerusalem,
and works of mercy according to the law of Moses
he ever practised, even as the scriptures tell us.
We cannot write the manifold histories
of all the Jewish kings in this little treatise,
or how the people of Israel all lived;
but we say in truth, that he who obeyeth sins
and despiseth God's commands, now in the gospel's age,
is like the kings who chose idolatry,
and despised their Creator; "Who is verily
One God Almighty, ever reigning ;
to Whom be glory to all ages of ages. Amen.