Page:02.BCOT.KD.HistoricalBooks.A.vol.2.EarlyProphets.djvu/1465

entrance of the king he turned (i.e., removed) into the house of Jehovah before the king of Assyria.” השּׁבּת מיסך (Keri מוּסך, from סכך, to cover) is no doubt a covered place, stand or hall in the court of the temple, to be used by the king whenever he visited the temple with his retinue on the Sabbath or on feast-days; and “the outer entrance of the king” is probably the special ascent into the temple for the king mentioned in 1Ki 10:5. In what the removal of it consisted it is impossible to determine, from the want of information as to its original character. According to Ewald (Gesch. iii. p. 621) and Thenius, יהוה בּית הסב means, “he altered (these places), i.e., he robbed them of their ornaments, in the house of Jehovah.” This is quite arbitrary. For even if יהוה בּית could mean “in the house of Jehovah” in this connection, הסב does not mean to disfigure, and still less “to deprive of ornaments.” In 2Ki 23:34 and 2Ki 24:17 it signifies to alter the name, not to disfigure it. Again, אשּׁוּר מלך מפּני, “for fear of the king of Assyria,” cannot mean, in this connection, “to make presents to the king of Assyria.” And with this explanation, which is grammatically impossible, the inference drawn from it, namely, that Ahaz sent the ornaments of the king’s stand and king’s ascent to the king of Assyria along with the vessels mentioned in 2Ki 16:17, also falls to the ground. If the alterations which Ahaz made in the stands and the brazen sea had any close connection with his relation to Tiglath-pileser, which cannot be proved, Ahaz must have been impelled by fear to make them, not that he might send them as presents to him, but that he might hide them from him if he came to Jerusalem, to which 2Ch 28:20-21 seems to refer. It is also perfectly conceivable, as Züllich (Die Cherubimwagen, p. 56) conjectures, that Ahaz merely broke off the panels from the stands and removed the oxen from the brazen sea, that he might use these artistic works to decorate some other place, possibly his palace. - Whether these artistic works were restored or not at the time of Hezekiah’s reformation or in that of Josiah, we have no accounts to show. All that can be gathered from 2Ki 25:13-14; Jer 52:17, and Jer 27:19, is, that the stands and the brazen sea were still in existence in the time of Nebuchadnezzar, and that on the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldaeans they were broken in pieces and carried away to Babylonia as brass. The brazen oxen are also specially mentioned in Jer 52:20,