The history mentions, but without naming them individually, that prophets from the LORD protested in this strain:

"Behold, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whosoever heareth of it both his ears shall tingle. And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria and the plummet of the house of Ahab: and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down." (2 Kings xxi. 12, 13.)

The book of Chronicles makes an important addition, of which there is no vestige in the Kings, namely, that Manasseh (at what period of his reign is not said) was carried away prisoner to Babylon by "the king of Assyria," and that "when he was in affliction he humbled himself before the God of his fathers;" that he was restored to his own country, and that he thereupon reestablished the temple worship. In reference to this questionable incident, the "Prayer of Manasses" in the Apocrypha, was written long afterwards, in the Greek period of the Jewish literature.

AMON, the son of Manasseh, succeeded, B.C. 644, aged twenty-two* (query, thirty-two?), and "did evil in the sight of the LORD, as his father Manasseh did." He was slain, after two years, through a conspiracy of his servants.

JOSIAH, his youthful son, succeeded him, B. C. 642, at eight* (query, eighteen?) years old. We know nothing about the management of affairs during his minority; but in his eighteenth year (query, of his age, or of

* There seems something hopelessly wrong with the numbers here, when taken also in connection with the age of Josiah's son at his accession; making Amon only fourteen, and Josiah only sixteen, on the birth of their respective sons. It has been conjectured that Manasseh's age should be thirty-two, and Josiah's eighteen. Such a correction would smooth part of the difficulty, without incurring any

new one.

his reign?), according to the book of Kings,-in the twelfth of his reign, according to the Chronicles,—he set earnestly about the work of religious reformation. He repaired the Temple and restored its worship; caused the people and their chiefs solemnly to renew their covenant of obedience to the Law; celebrated a Passover with great magnificence, inviting all Israel as well as Judah to it; and destroyed the places and symbols of idolatrous worship, not merely throughout Judah, but some at least in Samaria. The last two facts shew that some kind of religious allegiance was felt by the Jewish part of the mixed Samaritan people, and that Josiah, as was very natural, aimed at the re-union of the whole land under the sceptre of Judah and the authority of the Law of Moses.

The discovery of a copy of the "book of the Law' in the process of repairing the temple in this reign, and the public reading of its contents after their long neglect under Manasseh and Amon (see p. 267) greatly promoted the desired work of reformation. Yet the expostulations and denunciations of Jeremiah during this reign shew how deeply rooted idolatry was.

Josiah died in battle, after a reign of thirty-one years. The king of Egypt, Pharaoh-Necho (Psammitichus), about to invade the Assyrian dominions, landing, no doubt, at Acco (Acre), prepared to pass through Samaria, on his way to Carchemish, on the Euphrates. Josiah, whether thinking he had designs against Judah, or feeling himself bound in honour to the Assyrian king, without whose sanction, express or tacit, he could hardly have wielded the influence he evidently did over Samaria, gave him battle at Megiddo, near Mount Carmel, and fell, B. C. 611. With him the last hope of Judah tottered.

JEHOAHAZ (or Shallum), a son of Josiah, aged twenty

three, was hereupon made king "by the people of the land." But after three months (occupied no doubt with the Assyrian expedition), the king of Egypt returning sends for Jehoahaz to Riblah (in Cole-Syria), deposes him and carries him prisoner to Egypt, lays Judah under tribute, and makes his brother Eliakim vassal-king under the name JEHOIAKIM. Palestine is now again the bone of contention between the great rival powers of Egypt and Assyria (or Babylon, now the ascendant city).

In JEHOIAKIM's reign (B. C. 611-600) occurs the first invasion of the kingdom of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king, with his "bands of Chaldees and bands of Syrians," assisted by Moabites and Ammonites. (This was probably B. C. 607.) The Jewish monarch pays tribute to Babylon for three years, and then turns to Egypt for help. But the Babylonians recover the territory on the Euphrates lately taken from them by the Egyptians, and the fate of Judah becomes certain and imminent.

JEHOIACHIN, or Jeconiah, the juvenile son of the previous king, having reigned for three months (600 B. C.), is carried off to Babylon, with his court and soldiers and craftsmen,-in short, with all the strength of the land, "none remaining save the poorest sort of the people."

Mattaniah, another son of Josiah, is then made vassalking by Nebuchadnezzar under the name of ZEDEKIAH. On his rebelling-not from any Jewish religious zeal, for he “did evil in the sight of the LORD" (apparently, he sought alliance with Egypt*)—the final catastrophe takes place. Jerusalem is besieged by Nebuchadnezzar, and after desperately holding out for seventeen months, is taken in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, B. C. 588. The Babylonish captivity is now complete.

*See Jeremiah xxxvii. 5.

X

The prophets next following, and one or two perhaps last preceding, fill up this melancholy history with many additional details and with all the feeling of the period. Jeremiah is quite a history from Jehoiakim to the end.

ZEPHANIAH

(Between 642 and 611)

Prophesied in Josiah's reign. His opening verses, in which he deplores and denounces idolatry, and proclaims the "day of the Lord" to be near and "his sacrifice" ready, seem not inappropriate to the time of Josiah's great passover:

"I will utterly consume all things from off the land, saith the LORD.

I will consume man and beast;

I will consume the fowls of heaven and the fishes of the

sea;

And the stumbling-blocks with the wicked;

And I will cut off man from off the land, saith the LORD.
I will stretch out mine hand upon Judah,

And upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem,

And I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place,
And the name of the idol-sacrificers with the priests;
And them that worship the host of heaven upon the house-
tops,

And them that worship and swear by the LORD,

While they also swear by their Moloch;

And them that have turned back from the LORD,

And those that have not sought the LORD nor inquired for him.

Hold thy peace at the presence of the LORD God,

For the day of the LORD is at hand;

For the LORD hath prepared a sacrifice,
He hath bidden his guests."

(i. 2-7.)

The prophet exhorts earnestly to repentance and reformation:

"Search yourselves; yea, search,

O nation not desired!

Before the decree bring forth,

Before the day come upon you like chaff;

Before the fierce anger of the Lord come upon you,
Before the day of the LORD's anger come upon you.
Seek ye the Lord, all ye meek of the land,

Ye which have wrought his judgment!

Seek righteousness; seek meekness;

It

may

be ye

shall be hid in the day of the LORD's anger." (ii. 1-3.)

He denounces divine judgment against the cities of Philistia, against the Moabites and Ammonites, the Ethiopians and the Ninevites. In the third chapter he resumes his remonstrances against the wickedness of Jerusalem

("Woe to her that is filthy and polluted," &c.),

yet anticipates that she shall still become the joy of all nations, and see her own dispersed children gathered around her:

"From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia my suppliants, Even the daughter of my dispersed, shall bring mine

In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear not;

And to Zion, Let not thine hands hang down!

The LORD thy God is in the midst of thee;