round the court, like our modern verandahs. The consequences of the fall were most serious, although not immediately

fatal. We cannot fail to recognize the paramount influence of the queen-mother Jezebel, when we find Ahaziah

applying to the oracle of Baal-zebub in Ekron to know whether he would recover of his disease. Baal, "lord," was the

common na me given by the Canaanites, the Phoenicians, the Syrians (Aramaeans), and Assyrians to their supreme

deity. Markedly it is never applied to God in the Old Testament, or by believing Israelites. Among the Canaanites (in

Palestine) and the Phoenicians the name was pronounced Ba'al (originally Ba'l); 110 in Aramaean it was Be'el; in

Babylono-Assyrian Bel (comp. Isaiah 46:1; Jeremiah 50:2).

The Baal-zebub, worshipped in Ekron111 - the modern Akir112 - and the most north-eastern of the five cities of the

Philistines, E.N.E. from Jerusalem, was the Fly God,113 who was supposed to send or to avert the plague of flies.114

Like the great Apollos, who similarly sent and removed diseases, he was also consulted as an oracle.

We should be greatly mistaken if we were to regard the proposed inquiry on the part of Ahaziah as only a personal, or

even as an ordinary national sin. The whole course of this history has taught us that the reign of Ahab formed a decisive

epoch in the development of Israel. The period between the murder of Nadab, the son of Jeroboam, and the accession

of Omri, the father of Ahab, was merely intermediate and preparatory, the throne being occupied by a succession of

adventurers, whose rule was only transitory. With Omri, or rather with his son Ahab, a new period of firm and stable

government began, and politically it was characterized by reconciliation and alliance with the neighboring kingdom of

Judah, and with such foreign enterprises as have been noticed in the course of this narrative. But even more important

was the religious crisis which marked the reign of Ahab. Although Jeroboam had separated himself and his people from

the Divinely ordered service of Jehovah, as practiced in Jerusalem, he had, at least in profession, not renounced the

national religion, but only worshipped the God of Israel under the symbol of the golden calf, and in places where

worship was not lawful. But Ahab had introduced the service of Baal and of Astarte as the religion of the State. True,

this progress in apostasy was in reality only the logical sequence of the sin of Jeroboam, and hence is frequently

mentioned in connection with it in the sacred narrative. Nevertheless, the difference between the two is marked, and

with Ahab began that apostasy which led to the final destruction of the northern kingdom, and to the trackless

dispersion of the ten tribes. In this light we can understand such exceptional mission and ministry as those of Elijah and

Elisha, such a scene as the call to decision on Mount Carmel, and such an event as that about to be related.

Viewed in this manner, the royal embassy sent to Ekron to consult "the fly god," was really a challenge to Jehovah,

whose prophet Elijah was in the land, and as such it must bring sharpest punishment to all involved in it. It was fitting,

so to speak, that, in contrast to the messengers of the earthly king, Jehovah should commission His angel,  115 and

through him bid His prophet defeat the object of Ahaziah's mission.

As directed, Elijah went to meet the king's messengers. His first words exposed - not for the sake of Ahaziah, but for

that of Israel - the real character of the act. Was it because there was no God in Israel that they went to inquire of the

"fly god" of Ekron? But the authority of Jehovah would be vindicated. Guilty messengers of an apostate king, they

were to bring back to him Jehovah's sentence of death. Whether or not they recognized the stern prophet of Jehovah,

the impression which his sudden, startling appearance and his words made on them was such that they at once returned

to Samaria, and bore to the astonished king the message they had received.

It is as difficult to believe that the king did not guess, as that his messengers had not recognized him who had spoken

such words. The man with the (black) hairy g arment, girt about with a leathern girdle, must have been a figure familiar

to the memory, or at least to the imagination, of every one in Israel, although it may not have suited these messengers -

true Orientals in this also - to name him to the king, just as by slightly altering the words of the prophet116 they now

sought to cast the whole responsibility of the mission on Ahaziah. But when in answer to the king's further inquiry,117

they gave him the well-known description of the Tishbite, Ahaziah at once recognized the prophet, and prepared such

measures as in his short -sightedness he supposed would meet what he regarded as the challenge of Elijah, or as would

at least enable him to punish the daring prophet.

We repeat, it was to be a contest, and that a public one, between the power of Israel's king and the might of Jehovah.

The first measure of the king was to send to Elijah "a captain of fifty with his fifty." There cannot be any reasonable

doubt that this was with hostile intent. This appears not only from the words of the angel in verse 15, but from the

simple facts of the case. For what other reason could Ahaziah have sent a military detachment of fifty under a captain,