Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

LESSON XI.

JEHOSHAPHAT IN JUDAH.

B.C. 914.-2 CHRON. xvi. 11-14; xvii. 1—13.

And, behold, the acts of Asa, first and last, lo, they are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel.

And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the LORD, but to the physicians.

And Asa slept with his fathers, and died in the one and fortieth year of his reign.

And they buried him in his own sepulchres, which he had made for himself in the city of David, and laid him in the bed which was filled with sweet odours and divers kinds of spices prepared by the apothecaries' art: and they made a very great burning for him.

And Jehoshaphat his son reigned in his stead, and strengthened himself against Israel.

And he placed forces in all the fenced cities of Judah, and set garrisons in the land of Judah, and in the cities of Ephraim, which Asa his father had taken.

And the LORD was with Jehoshaphat, because he walked in the first ways of his father David, and sought not unto Baalim.*

But sought to the LORD God of his father, and walked in his commandments, and not after the doings of Israel.

Therefore the LORD stablished the kingdom in his hand; and all Judah brought to Jehoshaphat presents; and he had riches and honour in abundance.

And his heart was lifted up in the ways of the LORD: moreover he took away the high places and groves out of Judah.

Also in the third year of his reign he sent to his princes to teach in the cities of Judah.

And with them he sent Levites; and with them Elishama and Jehoram, priests.

And they taught in Judah, and had the book of the law of the LORD with them, and went about throughout all the cities of Judah, and taught the people.

And the fear of the LORD fell upon all the kingdoms of the lands that were round about Judah, so that they made no war against Jehoshaphat.

Also some of the Philistines brought Jehoshaphat presents, and tribute silver; and the Arabians brought him flocks, seven thousand and seven hundred rams, and seven thousand and seven hundred he-goats.

*Not the Baal of Jezebel, but many gods.

And Jehoshaphat waxed great exceedingly; and he built in Judah castles, and cities of store.

And he had much business in the cities of Judah: and the men of war, mighty men of valour, were in Jerusalem.

COMMENT. In the end of his long reign Asa suffered from a severe disease in his feet, and again showed his want of trust in God, solely trusting to physicians, instead of also praying. He died, and was laid in an embalmed resting-place that he had prepared for himself outside the walls of Jerusalem, with a great burning of fragrant odours by way of incense.

His son Jehoshaphat was by far the best king who had reigned since the schism. He had much of the character of both David and Solomon, and was thoroughly pious and devout, as well as wise, large-hearted, and valiant. He took away all that was idolatrous-images and wooden pillars, and mountain shrines-which had sprung up in those latter days of his father's forgetfulness of God. This was a work that every good king did again and again. The truth seems to have been that the people of Judah were so fond of their forbidden high places and pillars of Ashtoreth, that after every great clearance by a zealous king they gradually restored and crept back to them. Jehoshaphat, however, deprived them of the excuse of ignorance by sending priests and Levites, carrying the Book of the Law, namely the books of Moses, to teach them throughout their cities. There was at this time a great outpouring of the Spirit of prophecy, and while great prophets were rebuking sinful Israel, many fresh psalms were added to the existing store by the descendants of Asaph, who mark them as psalms of Asaph, and also as by the " sons of Korah,” the other musical Levites of the Temple.

Jehoshaphat was a great and prosperous monarch. His Judæan mountains were inhabited by a brave, industrious, happy people, cultivating to the very utmost the terraces on the mountains; his army was always ready to be called out, and had captains of name and fame, who are recorded in the Chronicles as David's had been ; he fortified his cities, and had the Philistines and Arabs tributary to him, as well as the Edomites; so that the glorious days of Solomon had returned, even to the shorn and diminished kingdom. What a contrast were the two kings!

LESSON XII.

ELIJAH AND THE WIDOW OF ZAREPHATH.

B.C. 910.-1 KINGS Xvii.

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

And the word of the LORD came unto him, saying,

Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan.

And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there.

So he went and did according unto the word of the LORD: for he went and dwelt by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan.

And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook.

And it came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.

And the word of the LORD came unto him, saying,

Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there: behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.

So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering of sticks: and he called to her, and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.

And as she was going to fetch it, he called to her, and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand.

And she said, As the LORD thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die.

And Elijah said unto her, Fear not; go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son.

For thus saith the LORD God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the LORD sendeth rain upon the earth.

And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house did eat many days.

And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake by Elijah.

And it came to pass after these things, that the son of the woman, the

mistress of the house, fell sick; and his sickness was so sore that there was no breath left in him.

And she said unto Elijah, What have I to do with thee, O thou man of God? art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son?

And he said unto her, Give me thy son. And he took him out of her bosom, and carried him up into a loft, where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed.

And he cried unto the LORD, and said, O LORD my God, hast thou also brought evil upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by slaying her

son?

And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried unto the LORD, and said, O LORD my God, I pray thee, let this child's soul come into him again.

And the LORD heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived.

And Elijah took the child, and brought him down out of the chamber into the house, and delivered him unto his mother: and Elijah said, See, thy son liveth.

And the woman said to Elijah, Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in thy mouth is truth.

COMMENT.-God left not Himself without a witness. There had been idolatries, His worship had been conducted so against His commands as to be a mere mockery, and shrines of false deities had been adored; but never till Ahab brought the proud Jezebel from Samaria had His own chosen people attempted to give themselves away from Him and choose another national god. Miracles had ceased almost entirely since the days of the Judges, for they are signs not to those grounded in faith, but to unbelievers ; and miserable Israel had lapsed into such a state of ignorance that they were ready to fall away to a new power, a rival to, or even greater than, JEHOVAH, as they thought,-Baal, the lord, the Sun or power of Nature; and therefore it had become needful to prove that Nature was only the servant of JEHOVAH, the Lord of heaven and earth.

66

And as His messenger, He sent the greatest and most wondrous of all the prophets, Elijah, whose parents' name we do not know. He came from among the people of Gilead, but the word Tishbite seems to mean a stranger," and we hear of him suddenly and awfully. A man of the desert, with long hair, bare feet, and rough camel's-hair garment, he stood before Ahab in the midst of the palace inlaid with ivory, and with couches covered with cushions VOL. III.

D

of Tyrian purple, and announced that for three years the Lord would withhold all rain or dew.

Then he withdrew himself to the place God had appointed for him during the terrible famine that must needs ensue. The brook Cherith, one of the streams flowing into the Jordan, gave him drink, and God caused the birds of the air-the ravens-to provide him with food. Then, when the brook dried up, he was sent-let us mark and wonder-not to pious Jehoshaphat, but into a village belonging to Jezebel's own father, Ethbaal, and suffering under the same famine; for the drought under Ithobal was recorded by Phoenician historians. There was the poor widow, gathering sticks to dress her last food for herself and her child. What wonderful charity it was to share that last morsel with the stranger! What wonderful faith to trust his word! Thus was she the great example that to give freely, even to the last, is the sure way to receive freely and be sustained; and no doubt it was because God saw in her this power of loving faith that He sent the prophet to her. For our Lord Himself says

But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land;

But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow.-(LUKE iv. 25, 26.)

Israelite women would not thus have acted, and so the blessing went away to the Gentile, as it was to go in after-times.

Nor was the never failing of the food the only wonder worked in that Zidonian household. There for the first time did God permit man to recall life to a dead body, showing Himself to be Lord of life and death. But observe how unlike our Lord's miracles of raising the dead to life was this. He had but to speak the word, and the dead revived in full health and vigour. Here Elijah stretched himself on the child, and prayed long and earnestly, before he won from God the restoration of the soul. It was not by power of his own, but yet through his touch, through his prayer, God permitted the work to be done, even as He still works through the ministry of His Church in calling back the dead soul to life.

« AnteriorContinuar »