The Expositor's Bible Part 51

It was the richest fruit which sprang from the long Divine discipline of the nation,--the knowledge that outward things are of no avail to save any man; that G.o.d requires righteousness, that G.o.d looketh at the heart.

And the prophets themselves had to learn by the irony of events that no suppression of local sanctuaries under Hezekiah, no multiplication of ceremonies and acceptance of Deuteronomic Codes under Josiah, were deep enough to change men's hearts. Isaiah, like Amos, dwells with anger on the reliance upon vain ritual, which is so cheap a subst.i.tute for genuine holiness; and Jeremiah, despairing utterly of that reformation under Josiah of which he had once felt hopeful, had to denounce the new reliance on the Temple and its sacrifices. He ultimately felt no confidence in anything except in a new covenant in which G.o.d Himself would write His law upon men's hearts, and all should know Him from the least even to the greatest.

But the History of Prophecy also in this epoch is marked by events of world-wide importance. In the days of Isaiah we see the change of Israel from a nation into a church of the faithful, for which alone he has any permanent hope. In him, too, we hear the first distinct utterances of the final form in which should be fulfilled the Messianic hope. Under Jeremiah there was still further advance. He points, as Joel does, to the epoch of the gift of the Holy Spirit, and shows that G.o.d does not only deal with men as nations, or as churches, or even as families, but as beings with individual souls.

This and much besides we have seen in the foregoing pages, in which we have endeavoured to point the lessons of the Books of Kings. The one main lesson which the narrative is meant to teach is absolute faith and trust in G.o.d, as an anchor which holds amid the wildest storms of ruin, and of apparently final failure. Not until we have realised that truth can we hear the words of G.o.d, or see the vision of the Almighty.

When we have learnt it, we shall not fear, though the hills be moved and carried into the midst of the sea. It is the lesson which gets behind the meaning of failure, and raises us to a height from which we can look down on prosperity as a thing which--except in fatally delusive semblance--cannot exist apart from righteousness and faith.

This is the lesson of life, the lesson of lessons. If it does not solve all problems on their intellectual side, it scatters all perplexities in the spiritual sphere. It shows us that duty is the reward of duty, and that there can be no happiness save for those who have learnt that duty and blessedness are one. And thus even by this book of annals--annals of wild deeds and troubled times--we may be taught the truths which find their perfect ill.u.s.tration and proof in the life and teaching of the Son of G.o.d. When those truths are our real possession, the work of life is done. Then

"Vigour may fail the towering fantasy, But yet the Will rolls onward, like a wheel In even motion by the love impelled That moves the sun in heaven and all the stars."

FOOTNOTES:

[916] T. Hodgkin, _Friends' Quarterly_, September 1893, p. 401.

[917] Jer. xxix. 25-27.

APPENDIX I

_THE KINGS OF a.s.sYRIA, AND SOME OF THEIR INSCRIPTIONS._

Dates from the _Eponym Canon_ and the a.s.syrian Monuments; Schrader, _Cuneiform Inscriptions, and the Old Testament_, E. Tr., 1888, pp.

167-187.

B.C.

860.--Shalmaneser II.

854.--Battle of Karkar. War with _Ahab_ and _Benhadad_.

842.--War with Hazael. Tribute of _Jehu_.

825.--Samsi-Ramman.[918]

812.--Ramman-Nirari.

783.--Shalmaneser III.

773.--a.s.sur-dan III.

763.--June 15th. Eclipse of the sun.

755.--a.s.sur-Nirari.

745.--Tiglath-Pileser II.

742.--Azariah (Uzziah) heads a league of nineteen Hamathite districts against a.s.syria (?).

740.--Death of Uzziah (?).

738.--Tribute of Menahem, Rezin, and Hiram.

734.--Expedition to Palestine against Pekah. Tribute of Ahaz.

732.--Capture of Damascus. Death of Rezin. First actual collision between Israel and a.s.syria.

728.--Hoshea refuses tribute.

727.--Shalmaneser IV.

724.--Siege of Samaria begun.

722.--Sargon. Fall of Samaria.

721.--Defeat of Merodach-Baladan.

720.--Battle of Raphia. Defeat of Sabaco, King of Egypt.

715.--Subjugated people deported to Samaria. Accession of Hezekiah.

711.--Capture of Ashdod.

707.--Building of great palace of Dur-Sarrukin.

709.--Sargon expels Merodach-Baladan, and becomes King of Babylon.

705.--a.s.sa.s.sination (?) of Sargon.

705.--Sennacherib.

704.--Emba.s.sy of Merodach-Baladan to Hezekiah.

703.--Belibus made King of Babylon.

702.--Construction of the Bellino Cylinder.

721.--Siege of Ekron. Defeat of Egypt at Altaqu. Siege of Jerusalem. Campaign against Hezekiah and Tirhakah disastrously concluded at Pelusium and Jerusalem.

681.--Murder of Sennacherib.

681.--Esar-haddon.

676.--Mana.s.seh pays tribute.

668.--a.s.sur-bani-pal (Sardanapalus).