Jehoshaphat acceded in the fourth year of Ahab, the figures will be seen to agree.

The only exception to this general agreement in the numbers is 2 Kings 1:17, where we read that Joram acceded to the

throne of Israel in the second year of Jehoram, king of Judah. But in that case Jehoshaphat could only have reigned

seventeen, not twenty-five years; nor could Joram have become king of Israel in the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat, as

we read in 2 Kings 3:1; while Jehoram of Judah would have reigned not eight years (2 Kings 8:17), but fourteen; nor

would he have acceded in the fifth year of Joram (2 Kings 8:16), but a year earlier than he. Accordingly, most writers

have supposed a co-regency of Jehoram with his father Jehoshaphat. But as the text gives no hint of any such co-

regency,297 and there are many and strong reasons against this supposition,298 Bahr has argued that the clause in 2 Kings

1:17, "in the second year of Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah," is spurious. The usual chronological

notice which, as always, appears in the account of a reign, follows in 2 Kings 3:1, and there correctly.

As regards the comparison between the Biblical chronology and that based on the Assyrian monuments, we may note.

1. That there are differences between the two from the reign of Ahab to that of Manasseh, but that these differences

strangely vary, for, whereas the differences amount in one reign perhaps\ to forty-three years and more, they amount in

another reign to nine years, and even less. This varying divergence leads us to suppose that the differences may depend

on something as yet to us unknown, and which, if known, might establish a harmony between the two chronologies.

2. As regard s the capture of Samaria in 722, the two chronologies absolutely agree; and substantially also as regards the

reign of Manasseh.

3. It is admitted that, taken as a whole, the record in the Bible of persons and events which were contemporaneous

accords with the record on the Assyrian monuments, so that (despite any minor discrepancies) "the Bible receives, as

regards chronology also, a happy vindication and confirmation" from the Assyrian monuments.299

--- end of volume 6 ---

Not only the New Testament writers (as above quoted), but the Rabbis fix the period of rainlessness at three years and

a half, and every explanation which attempts to date this period as beginning before the appearance of Elijah is forced

and unnatural. Accordingly the expression " the third year" in 1 Kings 18:1 must refer to Elijah's stay at Sarepta - about

two years and a half after his arrival there.

I have given this the primary meaning of the Hebrew word ("this," "that one"), and not, as interpreters generally, the

rare derivation "here."

For these measurements and other interesting notices I am indebted to Conder's Tent-work in Palestine, vol. 1., pp.

168, etc. See also Dean Stanley's description in his Sinai and Palestine, Mr. Grove's article in Smith's Bible Dict., and

other accounts.

The word is used in verse 26 of the wild dance or leaping of the priests of Baal.

It is not easy to render the Hebrew word exactly. It occurs in Psalm 119:113 ("I hate divided thoughts"); Isaiah 2:21;

57:5 ("clefts"); Ezekiel 31:6 (" boughs," divided branches). The expression was probably proverbial.

The others being hid in caves, were for all practical purposes for the present as non -existing.

It deserves more than passing notice, that the modern denial of God may be reduced t o the same ultimate principle as

the worship of Baal. For, if the great First Cause - God as the Creator - be denied, then the only mode of accounting for

the origin of all things is to trace it to the operation of forces in matter. And what really is this but a deification of