28. So Omri slept with his fathers, and was buried in Samaria: and Ahab his son reigned in his stead.

29. And in the thirty and eighth year of Asa king of Judah began Ahab the son of Omri to reign over Israel: and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty and two years.

30. And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD above all that were before him.

31. And it came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the 2 Zidonians, 3 and went and served Baal, and worshipped him.

And his might. Wicked men are not always weak. They have often a great deal of power in their way, and they dazzle the eyes of the foolish by the might which they show. Trumbull. His name is mentioned on the famous Moabite stone, and the Assyrian inscriptions prove that Omri's name was more widely and permanently known in the East than those of his predecessors or successors. - Pulpit Com. Book of the Chronicles. Not the Books of Chronicles in our Bible, but something of the nature of public annals, giving an account of the events of each reign. They were the materials of history.

28. Slept with his fathers. The customary formula in speaking of the death of the kings, whether good or bad (1 Kings 2: 10; 11:43; 14: 20; 15: 8, etc.). No conclusive inference can be drawn from it respecting the belief in a future state. Todd.

II. Ahab's Reign. — Vers. 29-33. This reign occupies all the rest of the First Book of Kings. It owes this distinction to the ministry of the great prophet Elijah. It may be that "every age thinks itself a crisis," but no one can fail to see that this was one of the veritable turning-points of Jewish history. One of the real “decisive battles of the world," - that between the Lord and Baal- was then fought out. No wonder that our historian felt constrained to chronicle at length the transactions of a reign so pregnant both with good and evil for the people of the Lord, and for the faith with which they had been put in trust. - Pulpit Com.

29. The thirty and eighth year of Asa. That is, about 918 B.C. The sister of Ahab, Athaliah, daughter of Omri, was married to Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah. By this alliance the two kingdoms were, for a time, drawn nearer together, and the idolatries of Samaria were introduced into Jerusalem. - Todd.

30. And Ahab ... did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him. The same words are used of his father in ver. 25. It is not difficult to see in what way Ahab's rule was worse even than Omri's. The latter had gone beyond his predecessors in the matter of the calf-worship. But the calf-worship, however it may have deteriorated in process of time, was nevertheless a cult, though corrupt and unauthorized, of the one true God. Under Ahab, however, positive idolatry was established and fostered, the worship of foreign and shameful deities. —Pulpit Com. In the long catalogue of royal transgressors, the name of AHAB stands unenviably pre-eminent. "There was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord." Moral weakness was his undoing. Green.

31. And he took to wife Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal. The weakness and the sin of Ahab is seen in his putting himself deliberately in the strongest temptation to forsake God, by marrying such a heathen as Jezebel. That person is already more than half fallen who deliberately rushes into temptation.-P. Jezebel, or chaste. It is the modern name Isabel. This woman came of a fierce and profligate family, and united in herself stern religious fanaticism with the luxurious dissoluteness of an oriental queen. Her father, Ethbaal, or "with Baal," was a priest of Astarte, who assassinated the reigning king of Sidon, and usurped the throne for fifty-two years. His kingdom embraced Tyre also. These two cities, Tyre and Sidon, were Phoenician cities on the seacoast of Syria, north of Palestine. They were powerful cities, but proverbially wicked (Matt. 11:21). Their wickedness seems to have been concentrated in Ethbaal and his family, and especially in Jezebel. Her strong and fierce character soon acquired resistless influence over the weak Ahab, and introduced untold mischief into the kingdom, and even into the kingdom of Judah, through the marriage of Athaliah to Jehoram. The name Jezebel became, and is to this day, the

32. And he reared up an altar for Baal in 1the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria.

2

33. And Ahab made a grove, and Ahab 3 did more to provoke the LORD God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him.

34. In his days did Hiel the Bethelite build Jericho: he laid the foundation thereof in Abiram his first-born, and set up the gates thereof in his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake by Joshua the son of Nun.

4

12 Kings 10: 21, 26, 27. 22 Kings 13:6. Jer. 17:2. 3 Ver. 30. 1 Kings 21: 25. 4 Josh. 6:26. synonym for female wickedness, especially that of a ferocious type. The marriage of Ahab and Jezebel took place before he ascended the throne, and was probably the work of Omri. Todd. Rawlinson reminds us that Jezebel was great aunt to Pygmalion and Dido. This statement helps to explain Jezebel's fierce and sanguinary character, and at the same time accounts for her great devotion to the gods of her country, and for her determined efforts to establish their impure rites in her husband's kingdom. — Pulpit Com. In Jezebel we vainly look for one womanly relenting, one gentle weakness, to soften the hard lines of more than masculine firmness. - Ashton. And went and served Baal and worshipped him. Baal and Ashtoreth, or Astarte, whence our word star, - were the chief Phoenician deities, male and female respectively. They correspond to the Assyrian Bel and Ishtar. The sun was regarded as the emblem of Baal, and the moon, or the planet Venus, as that of Ashtoreth. Hence the worship was connected with that of the heavenly bodies. Ashtoreth was to the Phoenicians what the goddess Venus was to the Greeks. Hence the worship of these imaginary deities was associated with fierce (1 Kings 18: 28), and at the same time the most licentious and infamous, rites. Consequently it was productive of the greatest profligacy and wickedness, and was especially abhorrent to the God of infinite purity and truth. —

Todd.

32. He reared up an altar for Baal. Besides this altar, Ahab erected a column or pillar (2 Kings 10: 27) in the temple of Baal, probably like the pillars in the great temple at Tyre (Menandr. Fr. 1; Herod. ii. 44). The house of Baal. A temple, we can hardly doubt, of considerable splendor. Jezebel would not be satisfied with less. Pulpit Com. It was large enough to contain an immense throng of worshippers. It stood apparently within a great walled enclosure, and rose in such strength as to seem like a castle. A huge image of the Sun-god, flanked by idolatrous symbols, was seen within, amidst a blaze of splendor, reflected from gilded and painted roofs, and walls, and columns. A staff of 450 priests in their vestments ministered at the altars, and Ahab himself attended the worship in state, presenting rich offerings; doubtless amidst all the wild excitement and license which marked the service of Baal.

Geikie.

33. And Ahab made a grove. Rather, a wooden pillar which represented the Phonician goddess Astarte. The original word is Asherah, the primary sense of which is fortune, happiness, prosperity, just as Fortuna is deified by the Romans. Etymologically, it is the goddess Astarte, so famous among all the people at the extremity of the Mediterranean. She was the eastern Venus, sometimes represented as the Stella Veneris, or Star of Venus. - Tayler Lewis. It is likely that this ashera, or pillar, was often set up in a grove, because thus would be given that seclusion necessary to the cruel and indecent rites, which marked, among oriental nations, the worship of false divinities. The worship of Astarte was simply licentiousness under the guise of religion.- Schaft's Bib. Dic. A temple to Asherah, the Canaanite Venus, was built, apparently in the precincts of Jezreel, 400 priests ministering in its courts and offering on its obscene altars. Of this Jezebel was the especial patroness, maintaining the whole establishment at her own cost. Geikie. III. The Rebuilding of Jericho. Ver. 34. The restoration of this city as a fortification upon which Joshua had pronounced a curse (Josh. 6:26), is mentioned as a proof how far ungodliness had progressed in Israel; whilst the fulfilment of the curse upon the builder shows how the Lord will not allow the word of his servants to be transgressed with impunity. - Keil.

34. In his days did Hiel the Bethelite (a native of Bethel). A few miles north-west of Jericho. He was, undoubtedly, a man of wealth and station, perhaps instigated by Ahab. Cook. Build Jericho. Jericho, on the border of the tribe of Ephraim (Josh. 16:7), which was allotted to the Benjamites (Josh. 18:21), had come into the possession of the kingdom of Israel, and formed a border city of that kingdom, through the fortification of

which Ahab hoped to secure to himself the passage across the Jordan. - Keil. He laid the foundation thereof in Abiram his first-born. In exact accordance with the words of Joshua's curse, he lost his first-born son when he began to lay anew the foundations of the walls, and his youngest when he completed his work by setting up the gates. We need not suppose that Jericho had been absolutely uninhabited up to this time. The contrary is implied in 2 Sam. 10: 5, and perhaps in Judges 3:13. But it was a ruined and desolate place, without the necessary protection of walls, and containing probably but few houses. Hiel re-established it as a city, and it soon became once more a place of some importance (see 2 Chron. 28: 15). — Cook.

LIBRARY REFERENCES.

Rawlinson's Historical Illustrations of the Old Test., chap. 5, pp. 122-127, and Appendix 2, for the history and translation of the Moabite Stone; for Moabite Stone, see also any good Bible Dictionary, and Dr. Ginsburg's Moabite Stone and Green's History of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah; Ancient History of Assyria from the Monuments, chap. 3, by George Smith; sermon on ver. 22 by Ray Palmer, in Formation of Religious Opinions; Kitto's Daily Bible Illustrations; Maurice's Prophets and Kings of the Old Test.; Stanley's Jewish Church, vol 11; Mill's Ancient Hebrews.

PRACTICAL.

I. The tendency of sin to grow worse and worse. He who once begins to sin never knows where it will lead him.

2. Frequently the sins of the parents are "visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of those who hate God."

3.

Vers. 24, 25. A man may be skilful and useful to himself and others in all material and worldly things, whilst in spiritual and divine things he works only mischief and destruction. What, without religion, is so-called civilization? — Bahr.

4. Architectural splendors and military victories are not proofs of national prosperity. Evil men are generally seducers of others to sin.

5.

6.

It is a terrible thing to sin against God. It is more awful to lead others into sin. 7. Ahab's whole life is a mournful illustration of resisted and scorned warnings, slighted messages of remonstrance and mercy. The God he rejected strove with him to the last. - Macduff.

8. Ver. 31. Ahab's marriage with Jezebel. Show from this (1) how one wrong step leads to another. This marriage to the establishment of idolatry. (2) How companionship influences character. The stronger moulding the weaker. "A companion of fools shall be destroyed." (3) How personal fascination may cause men to swerve from rectitude. Jezebel's fascinating power was regarded as witchery, and became proverbial (Rev. 2: 20). (4) How young people should be warned against unholy alliances. Marriage makes or mars character, hope, and blessedness (2 Cor. 6:14). "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.". Pulpit Com.

9. God is angry with the wicked every day. IO. Ver. 34. Hiel lived in Bethel, the city where one of Jeroboam's calves was set up. Like Lot in Sodom, men are contaminated by their surroundings and companions.

PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS.

Briefly glance at the INTERVENING HISTORY, and the differences in the kings of the two kingdoms, as illustrating the differences in the kingdoms themselves.

Present the HISTORICAL FRAMEWORK of the lesson, with a general view of the state of the kingdom.

SUBJECT, GROWING WORSE AND WORSE.

I. OMRI, outward splendor and increasing sin (vers. 23-28). Note the hints in the lesson of Omri's splendor of buildings, and his might as a warrior.

Illustration. The Moabite Stone. The Bible accuracy is confirmed, and Omri's worldly renown is revealed by this stone, three feet nine inches long, and two feet four inches wide, found in Dhiban of Moab in 1868, by Rev. F. Klein, a missionary. On it is an inscription of Mesha, king of Moab, who began to reign about B.C. 925, and gives an account of his wars with Israel. Nearly two-thirds of the inscription relate to the deliverance of his land from its vassalage to the house of Omri. But Omri was bad in God's sight. God saw through all this outward splendor a bad heart. Omri grew worse and worse, and so did his kingdom.

Illustrations. The increasing velocity of a falling body. The power of habit. The fable of the camel who asked permission to put his head in the window, and soon entered with his whole body.

Omri not only sinned, but led others into sin. Why do bad men wish to make others bad? (1) Because they love company in sin. (2) Those who refuse to sin with them are a reproof. (3) Each sinner sanctions the others with his approval. (4) Because people think it safer to sin in company. (5) Because they want others to be as bad and unhappy as they are. Newman Hall.

II. AHAB, - WORSE AND WORSE THROUGH BAD COMPANIONS (vers. 29-34). In what ways worse? (1) He repeated the sins of his fathers. (2) He went into bad company. (3) He cherished the basest and most immoral idolatries. (4) He tempted others into the most degrading sins. (5) Defiance of God's threatenings. (6) And the result, God's anger and punishment.

Dwell largely on the effects of bad companions. Jezebel was the ruin of Ahab. He was too weak to withstand her fascinations.

Illustration. Compare Jezebel with Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth.

Scriptures say of bad companionship.

David's warnings (Psalms 1:1; 26:4, 5; 101:7).

Note what the

Solomon's warnings (Prov. 1: 15; 4:14, 15; 12: 11; 13: 20; 22:24, 25).

Paul's warnings (1 Cor. 5: 11; 15: 33; 2 Cor. 6: 14-18).

Hiel lived in Bethel, the seat of the false worship of Jeroboam.

Illustration. Malarial atmosphere unconsciously bringing disease.

LESSON IV. — JULY 26.

ELIJAH THE TISHBITE. -1 KINGS 17:1-16.

GOLDEN TEXT.-So he went and did according unto the word of the Lord. -I KINGS 17:5.

TIME. - Elijah appeared to Ahab probably about 910 B.C., in the 10th year of Ahab's reign. Smith. He prophesied about 14 years, and was translated about 896 B.C.

PLACE. (1) Samaria, the capital of Israel. (2) The brook Cherith, a deep ravine, with a brook running into the Jordan. (3) Zarephath, a Phoenician town, between Tyre and Sidon, on the Mediterranean.

RULERS. Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, B.C. 914-889; Ahab, king of Israel, B.C. 918-896; Mesha, king of Moab, B.C. 925-885; Ethbaal, king of Tyre and Sidon; Benhadad II., king of Syria.

PRONUNCIATIONS. — A'hab; Ash'torĕth; Ba'alim; Benha'dad; Che'rith (ke'rith); Elijah; Eth'ba'al; Gil'ĕad; Me'sha; Tish'bite; Ză'rěphath.

THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH. Great and unusual prosperity and wealth prevailed in Judah; the people were specially instructed in the law of Moses; Jehoshaphat, their king, was both virtuous and pious, rich and happy, great and powerful, beloved by his subjects, revered by his enemies. - Mills.

THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL.It was the darkest night of Israel's spiritual declension. ·Smith. Clouds and thick darkness covered the whole land; the images of Baalim and Ashtoreth fearfully gleam everywhere; idolatrous temples and heathen altars occupy the sacred soil; every hill smokes with their sacrifices; every vale resounds with the blasphemous yells of cruel priestcraft. The people drink in iniquity like water, and sport in shameless rites around their idols.-Krummacher. Those who still worshipped Jehovah were bitterly persecuted; the schools of the prophets were closed, and many of the teachers put to death. - Mills. Elijah thought that every person had yielded to idolatry, and even God's eye saw only 7000 who had not bowed the knee to Baal (1 Kings 19: 18). The altars of God were everywhere thrown down, and his prophets were slain (1 Kings 19: 10). The whole nation seemed to be carried away with the fanaticism, or quelled by the fury, of the queen. Todd.

EXPLANATORY.

I. Elijah the Tishbite. — Ver. 1. (1) His name. The name Elijah is compounded of two divine names, and means, Jehovah, my God.- Taylor Lewis. (2) lis

1. And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the LORD God of Israel liveth, 2 before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.

native country. The Tishbite. This denotes the town or country of Elijah. He belonged to Tisbe or Thisbe, a place in Gilead. Of the inhabitants of Gilead. Gilead was the wild hill-country east of the Jordan, between Bashan on the north, and Moab on the south. It was a wild, mountainous region, on the borders of the desert. Its inhabitants were always a wild, vigorous, fierce, and lawless race, more barbarous than civilized, more Bedouin than Israelitish. Such are the people of this district to this day. Elijah was a fair type of these people. In his savage dress (2 Kings 1:8), in his fleetness and strength (1 Kings 18: 46), in his power of endurance (1 Kings 19: 8), in his rapidity of movement (1 Kings 18: 12), and in his fondness for wild and especially mountainous regions (1 Kings 18:19; 19:8). Todd. (3) His appearance. He was above the common height of man. He had long, wild hair. His language is brief, plain, rude. - Milman. His only clothing was a girdle of skin round his loins, and the "mantle," or cape, of sheepskin, the descent of which upon Elisha has passed into a proverb.- ·Smith. (4) His character. Elijah the Tishbite has been well called "the grandest and the most romantic character that Israel ever produced." He meets us with a suddenness as startling as the first appearance of John the Baptist preaching repentance in the wilderness of Judea.― Smith. All his acts show him, like a fire, consuming the ungodly; an embodiment of the avenging justice of Jehovah in an evil day. Glowing zeal, dauntlessness of soul, and unbending severity are his leading traits, though he showed the gentlest sympathy in the relations of private life. Elijah came to open the path for the kingdom of God, and bring about a state of things in which its gentle message of love could be proclaimed amongst men. - Geikie. The times were fit for Elijah, and Elijah for the times. The greatest prophet is reserved for the worst age Israel had never such an impious king as Ahab, nor such a miraculous prophet as Elijah. - Bishop Hall. (5) His early history. It is in the highest degree probable that Elijah lived, up to that moment, in retirement, that his prophetic activity first began with his encounter with Ahab. Lange. In this retirement, as to Moses during his 40 years' preparation in Midian, the Lord spoke to Elijah's soul. There was long and deep communion with God, and the state of the nation and its dangers burned in his soul like the fires in the heart of a volcano. P.

II. The Famine.- Ver. 1. Said unto Ahab. This is the first we know of the prophet. It must have required great courage, great faith in God, and a soul filled with the power and importance of his mission, to have enabled a poor, lone man, of uncouth speech and wilderness dress, to enter the splendid court of King Ahab, and announce the message God gave Elijah. -P. As the Lord God of Israel liveth is the usual form of an oath, which here at the same time places Jehovah, the only living God, in contrast with Baal, the dead idol. The God of Israel. The true living God is he also who had chosen Israel and made a covenant with them, which was now shamefully broken by idolatry. With the words before whom I stand (chap. 1:2; 10: 5, 8), Elijah designates himself to the king as the servant and ambassador of Jehovah, and that as such he stands before him and announces the impending punishment. — Lange. In the East, servants stood in the presence of their masters, and officials stood in the presence of their king. There shall not be dew nor rain. Drought was one of the punishments threatened by the law, if Israel forsook Jehovah and turned after other gods (see Deut. 11: 17; 28:23; Lev. 26:18, etc.).- Cook. The fertility of Palestine is entirely dependent upon the regularity and copiousness of the rains, and, during the long intervals between them, upon the heavy dews. Hence both dew and rain are frequently employed in the Scriptures as emblems of blessing (Deut. 33:28; Ps. 72: 6); and the cessation of them is treated as a great misfortune (2 Sam. 1:21; Isa. 5:6). - Todd. These years. An indefinite period. The drought lasted three and a half years (Luke 4:25; Jas. 5: 17). But according to my word. Not at his own caprice, but as directed by the Lord. And his word would depend penitence, etc., of the people. It was because of the obduracy of king and people that it lasted so long. -Pulpit Com.

on the

THE SOURCE OF ELIJAH'S POWER. An apostle takes us into the secret of Elijah's power. Elijah had asked for the supernatural powers which he here claims (Jas. 5: 17, 18). Pulpit Com. He had prayed amid the solitudes of his Gileadite home; pleading with Jehovah his own cause in those days of national guilt, imploring some sign that might

arouse