Questions on Kings and Chronicles 1 part 6/11

Using words, then, in a human manner, he said: ‘You have set the fulfillment upon what you spoke.’ For having promised to my father, your servant, both that you would appoint a king from him, and that through him you would build your temple, you have shown the truth of your words.

For, possessing a nature that cannot be comprehended, and being contained neither by the visible heaven nor by the heaven above it, you have made for yourself a temple made with hands—not being circumscribed by it, but making in it your own manifestation.

‘your eyes open toward this house day and night;’

so that both the one praying by himself, and your people entreating together, may enjoy (the fulfillment of) their petitions; and not only the native-born, but also those who come from elsewhere and entreat your goodness, may be overwhelmed with your gifts.

I entreat also that those who sin, but make use of repentance and pray earnestly, may be deemed worthy of sparing, and that the streams of your mercy may be supplied to them.

And if, being defeated in war on account of the transgressions they dared commit, your people should become captives taken by the spear, and then, being enslaved, should come to a perception of their offenses, and should entreat to obtain mercy while looking toward this temple—look down from heaven, from that undefiled temple of yours, and, when they pray, restore to them the freedom of their forefathers.

so that those who dwell in their homeland, and run together to the divine temple, and entreat fervently, may obtain forgiveness;

and that those who are far away, and who turn onto the road leading to this (temple), and entreat God, may both be delivered from their afflictions and obtain their heart’s desire.

‘And he mounted upon the cherubim, and flew;’

‘he flew upon the wings of the winds, and made darkness his hiding place.’ Now darkness and gloom hint at the invisibility of the divine essence.

Solomon, then, said that though God had set the sun in heaven so that men might enjoy the light, he himself said that he would dwell in thick darkness. I think that here he is alluding to the temple.

For it had very small skylights, since it also had other small chambers built around it.

‘Build me a house, a house becoming for yourself, to dwell in the midst of emptiness.’ For he himself had no need of such a building, but commanded it to be built for the sake of men’s need.

For the book of Chronicles also says these things:

‘and of the upper chambers, and of its inner storerooms, and of the mercy seat;’

‘and the pattern of all that he had in mind with him, and of the courts of the house of the Lord, and of all the surrounding chambers, for the storehouses of the house of the Lord, and the storehouses of the holy things;’

‘and the divisions of the courses of the priests and the Levites, for all the work of the service of the house of the Lord, and of the storehouses of the vessels used in the ministry of the worship of the house of the Lord;’

‘the gold, and the weight of its measure, for all the vessels.’ And next he lists also the lampstands, and the tables, and the firepans, and the flesh-hooks, and the bowls;

and that he showed him also the pattern of the form of the cherubim spreading out their wings and overshadowing the ark of the covenant of the Lord.

But he himself pointed this out to his servant.

It should be noted that he called the all-holy Spirit "Lord."

"every precious stone, and Parian stones in abundance." QUESTION

What is meant by, "Behold, this is written in the book of the song"? I have often said that there were many prophetic books;

and this, God willing, we shall explain more precisely when we come to interpret the book of Chronicles.

How is one to understand, "Rejoicing and praising before God for seven days, and fourteen days, and on the eighth day he sent the people away"? At the feast of Tabernacles he assembled the people.

They kept the festival, then, for fourteen days;

He calls "the eighth day," then, the day following the last seven.

For lest, once relieved of care, he should incline toward indolence, God of necessity reminded him also of the laws, and promised to make firm the promise given to his father, and threatened ruin upon those who transgressed the laws, and threatened that he would leave the sanctified temple desolate because of them;

"For if," he says, "you shall indeed turn away, you and your children, from me, and shall not keep my commandments which Moses set before you, but shall go and serve other gods, and worship them;"

then I will remove Israel from the land which I gave them, and this house, which I sanctified to my name, I will cast out of my sight;

and Jerusalem shall become a desolation, and a byword among all the nations;

and this house, exalted as it is, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and will hiss; and so on, which shows the reason for the hissing.

"For when," it says, "they inquire why in the world Israel has suffered these things, they shall learn that it is because they forsook the Lord God, who freed them from bondage to the Egyptians and gave them this land." QUESTION

What is Ezion-geber? As Josephus said, it is the place now called Berenice;

and this is a coastal city belonging to the Ethiopians who dwell near Egypt.

What is Sophera? It is a certain region of India, which the geographers call the Golden Land.

What nation is Sheba? An Ethiopian one.

They say that they lie on this side of the Indian Sea.

They call them the Homerites.

And they are situated opposite the Axumites;

and the sea lies between the one and the other.

For having heard the reports circulating about Solomon's wisdom, she completed a journey of very many days, and reckoned the toil as gain, and preferred it to the sustenance of royal courts, and through Solomon she sang the praises of the giver of wisdom.

"Blessed be the Lord your God," she said, "who was pleased to set you upon the throne of Israel, that it might be established forever;"

"and made you king over them, to execute judgment in righteousness and in his judgments." Now I was reminded of the apostolic teaching, which marveled at those justified apart from the law;

"For when," he says, "Gentiles who do not have the law do by nature what the law requires, these, not having the law, are a law to themselves." For she too, being of another race, and having received neither the divine law nor enjoyed the tillage of the prophets, was content with the law of nature, and marveled at righteousness, and extolled just judgment, and through him who had received the gift of wisdom, praised the great giver of the gift.

What difference is there between the nabla and the kinyra? Both the one and the other have ten notes/strings;

but they say that the nabla is played with the fingers, while the kinyra is struck with a plectrum.

What does he mean by "unhewn timbers"? I think smooth and straight wood, free of knots.

But Josephus called them pine woods, though by no means resembling the pine woods known among us.

For he said they were whiter, smoother, and firmer than fig wood.

What city is Tarshish? Here he named a certain region of India.

Solomon, however, so celebrated, who had been counted worthy of so many gifts from God, and who had made the neighboring kings his tributaries, and had imposed tribute on the peoples from the Euphrates to the Nile, forgot the divine gifts.

For having become extremely lustful, he consorted with very many women;

He was not content with women of his own land, but, contrary to the law, took foreign women also.

First Pharaoh's daughter, then Moabite women, Syrian, Idumean, and Amorite women, from among whom God had forbidden marriages to be contracted, lest love for them should compel him to serve their gods.

For this is exactly what happened to him too.

For he built a high place for Chemosh, the idol of Moab, and for Milcom, the idol of the sons of Ammon, and for Astarte, the abomination of the Sidonians.

And so he did for all his foreign wives.

But not even so was he free of blame.

"And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because he turned his heart away from the Lord God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, and had commanded him concerning this very matter, that he should on no account go after other gods, but should keep and do what the Lord commanded him."

For it was not even through another prophet, he says, that God indicated to him what he should do;

but he himself, above all else, forbade him the worship of the falsely named gods;

then he also commanded him to keep the other laws.

But since through licentiousness he turned aside into impiety, and lust became the procurer of the service of idols, God stripped him of his own providential care.

"I will take it out of the hand of your son. For you have your father to help you;"

but he, your son, is deprived of a father's help.

"Nevertheless, I will not take the whole kingdom."

And it was quite fitting that he joined the two tribes together;

for the tribe of Judah possessed the royal line, and the tribe of Benjamin possessed the divine temple.

For the allotted portion of Jerusalem belonged to the tribe of Benjamin.

From this point he speaks of the enemies who rose up against Solomon, noting that as long as he enjoyed divine providence, he lived in peace and tranquility, having everyone subject to him, and bringing tribute in the greatest abundance;

but once he was stripped of this providence, he became an easy target for his enemies.

Whom does he mean by "Satan"? The rebel, the one who stands against, the one who opposes.

For Ahijah the prophet, the Shilonite, having divided the garment into twelve pieces, ordered Jeroboam to take ten;

"and I have appointed him, and his line, to reign over Jerusalem, in which I desired my name to be honored."

But the historian, having completed the narrative concerning Solomon, then added:

"And the rest of the acts of Solomon, and all that he did, and all his wisdom, behold, are these not written in the book of the acts of the days of Solomon?" This the book of Chronicles also shows, indicating that these things are recorded in another book.

According to Scripture, he reigned forty years;

but according to Josephus, eighty;

and he died, as Josephus said, at the age of ninety-four.

When he had died, his son Rehoboam succeeded to the kingdom.

What is the meaning of, "My little finger is thicker than my father's loins"? The book of Chronicles shows this more clearly:

"For my smallest finger," he says, "is thicker than my father's loins." The Syriac version rendered it likewise;

How is one to understand, "And the king did not listen to the people, because the turn of events was from the Lord," and what follows? It is like the saying, "The Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart." For whenever, he says, God abandons someone, that person is carried along like a ship without a helmsman;

but nevertheless, by using those foolish words, he brought about the fulfillment of God's decree.

When these things had thus been said, the ten tribes revolted and appointed Jeroboam king;

but Rehoboam reigned over only the two tribes, together with the rest who dwelt among them though belonging to the other tribes.

Then, when he wished to make war against the ten tribes, God prevented him through Shemaiah the prophet;

"For his mother's name," it says, "was Naamah, daughter of Anan, son of Naas, king of the sons of Ammon." This is sufficient to rebuke the impudence of the Jews, who pride themselves on their nobility of birth, and call those from the nations who have believed in the Savior "foreigners."

For their royal family too is found to be of foreign stock;

But Rehoboam emulated his father's transgression of the law,

since he is writing about two kingdoms that have been divided;

and there are times when, having set down many narratives concerning the one, he then, passing over to the other, is compelled to take up again what has already been said before, so as to preserve the sequence.

Now the child's illness, and the sentence pronounced against him, evidently came about after the impious act.

For the prophet, having foretold the child's death, also pronounced the verdict against the whole family.

For Jeroboam sent his wife, together with gifts, to the prophet.

The old man, being dim of sight and sitting within, perceived her arriving from afar, and sending his servant, bade her come in quickly, since she was about to hear grievous news.

And first he finds fault with the gifts:

"Why have you brought me loaves, and grapes, and cakes, and a jar of honey?" Now his declaring what had been brought serves to make one believe what was about to be said.

Then, having announced the child's death, he went on to say, "Thus says the Lord:"

"Behold, I will utterly destroy of Jeroboam every one that pisses against the wall." And he foretold for them not only slaughter, but also that after the slaughter they would remain unburied, and be set forth as a feast and food for birds and beasts.

Then he adds the reason: "Because there was found in him no good word concerning the Lord." By "one that pisses against the wall" he means a person so feeble that he is utterly unable to stand without leaning on a wall.

For Ahijah, while Solomon was still alive, and Jeroboam was still a servant, tore his cloak.

Whence Jeroboam fled to Egypt with good hope.

Shemaiah the Elamite, after Solomon's death and Jeroboam's return, did this very same thing, reminding him of the divine prediction, so that he might learn that the kingdom was given by God, and might adorn his authority with the divine laws.

But that wretched and thrice-miserable man, having received his power from God, attempted to hold it by human and impious devices,

so that those hastening to it, and not being troubled by its nearness, might gladly welcome not having to run to the capital.

Now the boundary of the kingdom of the ten tribes, on the south, was Bethel;

But the foolish man ought to have understood that he who had granted the kingdom was able to establish it firmly.

And he drove out the priests and the Levites who dwelt among the ten tribes, and ordained as priests of the calves whomever he happened to find.

This alone he did in accordance with reason —

for it was not fitting that God's priests should serve gods that do not exist.

If Jeroboam kept the feast of Judah in Bethel, how then did the writer say, "In the feast which he devised out of his own heart"? They were accustomed, according to the law, to celebrate the feast of tabernacles on the fifteenth of the seventh month;

but this man kept the festival of the calves on the fifteenth of the eighth month.

But not even so did the loving Lord overlook him in his wandering error.

For he sent a prophet, charging him to say nothing to that man, but to address the sentence to the lifeless altar:

"Altar, altar, thus says the Lord:"

"and men's bones shall be burned upon you." Then he brings the wonder-working to its culmination, demonstrating the truthfulness of what had been said:

"For behold," he said, "the altar shall be torn apart, and the fatness that is upon it shall be poured out." But that utterly wicked man, though he ought to have been struck with astonishment at the prophet's wonder and to have feared the One who had sent him, stretched out his hand and ordered the prophet to be seized;

but his hand remained fixed in the very posture of its stretching-out, its muscles and sinews having been dissolved.

And the calamity that befell the altar did not overwhelm him;

but that of his hand distressed him exceedingly.

Being exceedingly foolish, he begged the prophet to ask on his behalf, from the One who had sent him, not forgiveness for his transgression, but healing for his withered hand.

The prophet showed his gentleness, and God his loving-kindness;

and God granted the healing.

But the prophet, having been deceived, fell into grievous troubles;

for although the king asked him to share his table, he did not persuade him.

For he said that the One who sent him had commanded him neither to partake of food nor of drink in that land.

But a certain other prophet, whom some consider a false prophet, deceived him with words and persuaded him to partake of food.

But I myself hold that this other prophet, too, was of God;

and that he used false words toward the man of God, not in order to harm him, but so that he himself might share in the blessing.

For this is what the narrative teaches.

For it did not say simply that a prophet, an old man, dwelt in Bethel;

his countenance astonished at the divine wonders;

then, having learned by which road he had made his journey, he saddled his donkey, and traversed the road as quickly as possible.

And he found him sitting in the shade of an oak;

and having asked who he was, and having learned what he wished to know, he begged him to turn back and partake of food with him.

But when that man again told him what had been commanded by God, and that it was not possible to transgress the divine law,

for he had been commanded neither to partake of food nor of drink in that land,

taking up the word, he said, "I too am a prophet like you, and an angel spoke to me by the word of the Lord, saying, 'Bring him back with you into your house, that he may eat bread and drink water.'" Then the writer of the history also adds:

"And he lied to him." I myself say that this is where the old man sinned in these matters, and it is only in this respect that he is a false prophet, in that he fabricated divine utterances.

Yet I do not think that the man acted out of any malice, but rather that, out of desire for the blessing, he misused his words in the falsehood.

Now when he had turned back and partaken of food, the word of the Lord, it says, came to the prophet who had brought him back, and he said to the man of God who had come from Judah:

"Thus says the Lord Almighty:"

"Because you have rebelled against the word of the Lord, and did not keep the commandment which the Lord your God commanded you, but turned back, and ate bread, and drank water in this place, in which I spoke to you, saying, 'Do not eat bread, and do not drink water' — your body shall not enter into the tomb of your fathers." Since, then, the divine Scripture both calls him a prophet, and teaches that through him God pronounced the sentence against the other, I think it rash to name him a false prophet.

For why then did God not punish him as He did that other man, if indeed He knew him to be a false prophet, and to have acted with malice against the divine prophet? For perhaps God, seeing also his intention, granted pardon even for the falsehood.

The man of God, having immediately set out, encountered a lion.

And the beast killed him, but did not dare to partake of his body;

but stood there, guarding both the donkey and the body, so that no other beast or bird dared to harm it.

Now when this was reported, the prophet ran out again.

For he said, it says, "This is the man of God who rebelled against the word of the Lord." Then, having run there, he found the prophet's body dead, but the donkey unharmed;

and the lion standing by like some kind of guard;

which, seeing him arrive, withdrew, since the body no longer needed guarding.

Then, having carried the body away, and having accorded it the customary rites, he charged his sons to place both bodies together in a single tomb, since the divine prediction had received its fulfillment.

From this narrative we are taught that the mighty shall be tested mightily.

For he who had heard the divine voice ought not to have believed a human voice saying the contrary, but ought to have waited for the One who had given the command to rescind what He had commanded to happen.

But I think that this punishment also came about for the confirmation of the prediction concerning the altar.

For it was not possible for the story of so great a man to remain unknown;

and for those who heard it, this was sufficient to instill fear.

For if the partaking of food that took place contrary to the divine command—arising not from pleasure but from deception—brought so great a punishment upon a righteous man, into what punishments will they fall who have forsaken the God who made them and worship the images of irrational beings? But God honored him even after his death.

For he set as his guard the very one who had slain him;

in this honoring him as a prophet, but in that punishing him as a transgressor;

and thereby striking fear into both those of that time and those of the present, so that they should not despise even the smallest of God's commandments.

The prophet's suffering signifies the resurrection of the dead.

He will not disregard it though it be dissolved and corrupted, but will raise it up, and will restore to the soul the instrument by which it served its Maker.

Not every prophet, however, is called "man of God," but those who possess perfect virtue, as Moses and Elijah, and whoever is like them.

"Whoever wished, filled his own hand"? What follows makes this plain:

"And he became a priest of the high places"; that is, he exercised the priesthood, and offered incense with his own hands.

Since God foreknew that the people would act impiously, why then did he permit the division to take place? For what benefit was it to Judah and Benjamin to have the divine temple? For they too dared the same transgression;

"For they built for themselves," it says, "high places and pillars and sacred groves, on every high hill and under every leafy tree."

"And there arose a conspiracy in the land." He has used the word "conspiracy" in place of "apostasy."

For indeed, when Jezebel learned of Joram's death, and that Jehu had received the appointment to the kingship, she cried out, "Conspiracy, conspiracy!"—that is, "Apostasy and tyranny!"

This is also made clear by what follows:

"And they did according to all the abominations of the nations whom the Lord drove out from before the children of Israel." It was not, then, on account of the division of the kingdom that the ten tribes ran aground upon impiety, but on account of their own transgression.

At any rate, the prophets level graver accusations against them than against the tribe of Judah.

For indeed Hosea was commanded to take a harlot, as a reproof of the manifest impiety of the ten tribes;

for the licentiousness of a harlot is manifest;

but he took her as an adulteress as a type of Judah, because although Judah seemed to be joined to God through the temple, she secretly served idols.

And the prophet Jeremiah says:

"The backsliding of Israel has shown her more righteous than treacherous Judah." And the prophet Ezekiel called not only Samaria, but even Sodom, the sister of Jerusalem.

Having fallen away from piety, they were stripped bare of the divine providence.

For Shishak, king of the Egyptians, took many cities of the Jews, as the book of Chronicles has taught;

and he even marched upon Jerusalem, and plundered not only the royal but also the sacred treasures.

They were deposited at the Thekoue of the runners;

In the interpretation of Hebrew names, I have found that "Thekoue" is set down as meaning "a striking" and "a trumpet-blast."

But the book of Chronicles teaches these things thus:

"And King Rehoboam made bronze shields in their place, and committed them to the hands of the captains of the guard who kept the doors of the king's house."

"And it came to pass regularly that, whenever the king went into the house of the Lord, the guards went in, and the runners;"

"and those who returned to meet the runners took the shields, and restored them to the guardroom of the runners." They were given, he says, to the spearmen and shield-bearers around the king, who, standing by the doors of the palace, guarded the entrances.

And when the king went forth, some went before him, while others ran alongside.

And when he arrived at the temple, "those who returned" (that is, the guards of the temple) met him, and received these shields from them; and they, holding these, stood before the gate of the temple, so that the weapons might remain before the doors, while those who carried them might worship God together with the king.

It is likely, too, that there was a chamber before the doors, so that, when the king arrived, the armed men might lay down their weapons there.

And it likewise brought accusation against the last ones as well.

But we shall show these things more clearly when we come to interpret that book, God willing.

Now the book of Kingdoms has praised the first part of Asa's reign.

"and he removed the pillars from the land, and took away all the practices that his fathers had made, and removed Ana his mother from being queen mother, because she had held a gathering in her sacred grove;"

"and Asa cut it down, and all its hiding-places, and burned it with fire at the Wadi of the Cedars."

"But he did not take away the high places." Here again he has shown that Asa destroyed the precincts of the idols, and cut down the sacred groves by the very roots;

yet he left standing the altars dedicated to God upon the high places.

And this we shall demonstrate more clearly, with the cooperation of divine grace, when we interpret the narrative concerning Hezekiah.

He showed, however, also his zeal for God, in that he stripped his mother of her authority because of the assembly and the festival which she had held in the sacred grove, and cut it down, and destroyed all its idolatrous places, and gave them over to fire.

"and very much other silver and gold, both coined and uncoined, and sacred and precious vessels;"

yet nevertheless he called him imperfect.

"Yet the heart of Asa was not perfect with the Lord all his days." And this the narrative of Chronicles teaches more clearly.

Having prayed in faith, he overcame the hundred myriads of Ethiopians, and utterly shot them all down.

But when Baasha, king of the ten tribes, attacked and attempted to fortify Ramah against him, he forsook God and embraced an alliance with the Syrians.

"In the time of his old age Asa did evil, and his feet became diseased"? This too the book of Chronicles has taught more clearly.

"For in his illness," it says, "he sought not the Lord, but the physicians." Now I suppose one of two things: either that those called "physicians" were practitioners of incantations and sorceries, or that he trusted in physicians alone, having no hope in God.

For those adorned with piety do make use of physicians, as ministers of God, knowing that He Himself gave the medical art to men, just as He gave the other arts as well, and Himself commanded the herbs to spring up from the earth.

Yet nevertheless they know that the art of physicians avails nothing unless God so wills;

but it can accomplish only so much as He Himself wills.

Now the house of Jeroboam underwent utter destruction, according to the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite.

"For Baasha king of Israel struck down," it says, "the whole house of Jeroboam;"

"and no breath belonging to Jeroboam was left, until he had utterly destroyed them all, according to the word of the Lord which He spoke by the hand of His servant Ahijah the Shilonite." And Baasha himself suffered the very same fate.

For he too embraced the same impiety and transgression.

But Elah his son received the fatal blow at the hand of Zimri.

And he in turn, in accordance with the prophecy that had been made, destroyed the entire house of Baasha.

And when the people had appointed Zimri king, Zimri, being besieged, set fire to the house in which he dwelt, and, being burned together with it, died.

And He hands over the wicked man to one more wicked than he, using them, as it were, as executioners.