The Legends of the Jews, Volume IV, Chapter 9, THE LATER KINGS OF JUDAH

THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS

VOLUME IV

BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS FROM JOSHUA TO ESTHER

BY LOUIS GINZBERG

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN MANUSCRIPT

9. THE LATER KINGS OF JUDAH

JOASH

When the prophet Jonah, doing the behest of his master Elisha, anointed Jehu
king over Israel, he poured the oil out of a pitcher, not out of a horn, to indicate
that the dynasty of Jehu would not occupy the throne long. At first Jehu, though
a somewhat foolish king, was at least pious, but he abandoned his God-fearing
ways from the moment he saw the document bearing the signature of the prophet
Ahijah of Shilo, which bound the signers to pay implicit obedience to Jeroboam.
The king took this as evidence that the prophet had approved the worship of the
golden calves. So it came to pass that Jehu, the destroyer of Baal worship, did
nothing to oppose the idolatrous service established by Jeroboam at Beth-el. The
successors of Jehu were not better; on the contrary, they were worse, and therefore
in the fifth generation an end was put to the dynasty of Jehu by the hand of the
assassin.

The kings of Judah differed in no essential particular from their colleagues
in the north. Ahaziah, whom Jehu killed, was a shameless sinner; he had the Name
of God expurged from every passage in which it occurred in the Holy Scriptures,
and the names of idols inserted in its place.

Upon the death of Ahaziah followed the reign of terror under the queen Athaliah,
when God exacted payment from the house of David for his trespass in connection
with the extermination of the priest at Nob. As Abiathar had been the only male
descendant of Abimelech to survive the persecution of Saul, so the sole representative
of the house of David to remain after the sword of Athaliah had raged was Joash,
the child kept in hiding, in the Holy of Holies in the Temple, by the high priest
Jehoiada and his wife Jehosheba. Later Jehoiada vindicated the right of Joash
upon the throne, and installed him as king of Judah. The very crown worn by the
rulers of the house of David testified to the legitimacy of the young prince,
for it possessed the peculiarity of fitting none but the rightful successors to
David.

At the instigation of Jehoiada, King Joash undertook the restoration of the
Temple. The work was completed so expeditiously that one living at the time the
Temple was erected by Solomon was permitted to see the new structure shortly before
his death. This good fortune befell Jehoiada himself, the son of Benaiah, commander-in-chief
of the army under Solomon. So long as Joash continued under the tutelage of Jehoiada,
he was a pious king. When Jehoiada departed this life, the courtiers came to Joash
and flattered him: “If thou wert not a god, thou hadst not been able to abide
for six years in the Holy of Holies, a spot which even the high priest is permitted
to enter but once a year.” The king lent ear to their blandishments, and permitted
the people to pay him Divine homage. But when the folly of the king went to the
extreme of prompting him to set up an idol in the Temple, Zechariah, the son of
Jehoiada, placed himself at the entrance, and barring the way said: “Thou shalt
not do it so long as I live.” High priest, prophet, and judge though Zechariah
was, and son-in-law of Joash to boot, the king still did not shrink from having
him killed for his presumptuous words, not was he deterred by the fact that it
happened on a Day of Atonement which fell on the Sabbath. The innocent blood crimsoning
the hall of the priests did not remain unavenged. For two hundred and fifty-two
years it did not leave off seething and pulsating, until, finally, Nebuzaradan,
captain of Nebuchadnezzar’s guard, ordered a great carnage among the Judeans,
to avenge the death of Zechariah.

Joash himself, the murderer of Zechariah, met with an evil end. He fell into
the hands of the Syrians, and they abused him in their barbarous, immoral way.
Before he could recover from the suffering inflicted upon him, his servants slew
him.

Amaziah, the son and successor of Joash, in many respects resembled his father.
At the beginning of his reign he was God-fearing, but when, through the aid of
God, he had gained a brilliant victory over the Edomites, he knew no better way
of manifesting his gratitude than to establish in Jerusalem the cult of the idol
worshipped by his conquered enemies. To compass his chastisement, God inspired
Amaziah with the idea of provoking a war with Joash, the ruler of the northern
kingdom. Amaziah demanded that Joash should either recognize the suzerainty of
the southern realm voluntarily, or let the fate of battle decide the question.
At first Joash sought to turn Amaziah aside from his purpose by a parable reminding
him of the fate of Shechem, which the sons of Jacob had visited upon him for having
done violence to their sister Dinah. Amaziah refused to be warned. He persisted
in his challenge, and a war ensued. The fortune of battle decided against Amaziah.
He suffered defeat, and later he was tortured to death by his own subjects.

THREE GREAT PROPHETS

The reign of Uzziah, who for a little while occupied the throne during his
father Amaziah’s lifetime, is notable particularly because it marks the beginning
of the activity of three of the prophets, Hosea, Amos, and Isaiah. The oldest
of the three was Hosea, the son of the prophet and prince Beeri, the Beeri who
later was carried away captive by Tiglath-pileser, the king of Assyria. Of Beeri’s
prophecies we have but two verses, preserved for us by Isaiah.

The peculiar marriage contracted by Hosea at the command of God Himself was
not without a good reason. When God spoke to the prophet about the sins of Israel,
expecting him to defend or excuse his people, Hosea said severely: “O Lord of
the world! Thine is the universe. In place of Israel choose another as Thy peculiar
people from among the nations of the earth.” To make the true relation between
God and Israel known to the prophet, he was commanded to take to wife a woman
with a dubious past. After she had borne him several children, God suddenly put
the question to him: “Why followest thou not the example of thy teacher Moses,
who denied himself the joys of family life after his call to prophecy?” Hosea
replied: “I can neither send my wife away nor divorce her, for she has borne me
children.” “If, now,” said God to him, “thou who hast a wife of whose honesty
thou art so uncertain that thou canst not even be sure that her children are thine,
and yet thou canst not separate from her, how, then can I separate Myself from
Israel, from My children, the children of My elect, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob!”
Hosea entreated God to pardon him. But God said: “Better were it that thou shouldst
pray for the welfare of Israel, for thou art the cause that I issued three fateful
decrees against them.” Hosea prayed as he was bidden, and his prayer averted the
impending threefold doom.

Hosea died at Babylon at a time in which a journey thence to Palestine was
beset with many perils. Desirous of having his earthly remains rest in sacred
ground, he requested before his death that his bier be loaded upon a camel, and
the animal permitted to make its way as it would. Wherever it stopped, there his
body was to be buried. As he commanded, so it was done. Without a single mishap
the camel arrived at Safed. In the Jewish cemetery of the town it stood still,
and there Hosea was buried in the presence of a large concourse.

The prophetical activity of Amos commenced after Hosea’s had closed, and before
Isaiah’s began. Though he had an impediment in his speech, he obeyed the call
of God, and betook himself to Beth-el to proclaim to the sinful inhabitants thereof
the Divine message with which he had been charged. The denunciation of the priest
Amaziah, of Beth-el, who informed against the prophet before King Jeroboam of
Israel, did him no harm, for the king, idolater though he was, entertained profound
respect for Amos. He said to himself: “God forbid I should think the prophet guilty
of cherishing traitorous plans, and if he were, it would surely be at the bidding
of God.” For this pious disposition Jeroboam was rewarded; never had the northern
kingdom attained to such power as under him.

However, the fearlessness of Amos finally caused his death. King Uzziah inflicted
a mortal blow upon his forehead with a red-hot iron.

Two years after Amos ceased to prophesy, Isaiah was favored with his first
Divine communication. It was the day on which King Uzziah, blinded by success
and prosperity, arrogated to himself the privileges of the priesthood. He tried
to offer sacrifices upon the altar, and when the high priest Azariah ventured
to restrain him, he threatened to slay him and any priest sympathizing with him
unless they kept silent. Suddenly the earth quaked so violently that a great breach
was torn in the Temple, through which a brilliant ray of sunlight pierced, falling
upon the forehead of the king and causing leprosy to break forth upon him. Nor
was that all the damage done by the earthquake. On the west side of Jerusalem,
half of the mountain was split off and hurled to the east, into a road, at a distance
of four stadia. And not heaven and earth alone were outraged by Uzziah’s atrocity
and sought to annihilate him; even the angels of fire, the seraphim, were on the
point of descending and consuming him, when a voice from on high proclaimed, that
the punishment appointed for Uzziah was unlike that meted out to Korah and his
company despite the similarity of their crimes.

When Isaiah beheld the august throne of God on this memorable day, he was sorely
affrighted, for he reproached himself with not having tried to turn the king away
from his impious desire. Enthralled he hearkened to the hymns of praise sung by
the angels, and lost in admiration he failed to join his voice with theirs. “Woe
is me,” he cried out, “that I was silent! Woe is me that I did not join the chorus
of the angels praising God! Had I done it, I, too, like the angels, would have
become immortal, seeing I was permitted to look upon sights to behold which had
brought death to other men.” Then he began to excuse himself: “I am a man of unclean
lips, and I dwell in the midst of people of unclean lips.” At once resounded the
voice of God in rebuke: “Of thyself thou art the master, and of thyself thou mayest
say what thou choosest, but who gave thee the right to calumniate My children
of Israel and call them ‘a people of unclean lips’?” And Isaiah heard God bid
one of the seraphim touch his lips with a live coal as a punishment for having
slandered Israel. Though the coal was so hot that the seraph needed tongs to hold
the tongs with which he had taken the coal from the altar, the prophet yet escaped
unscathed, but he learned the lesson, that it was his duty to defend Israel, not
traduce him. Thenceforth the championship of his people was the mainspring of
the prophet’s activity, and he was rewarded by having more revelations concerning
Israel and the other nations vouchsafed him than any other prophet before or after
him. Moreover God designated Isaiah to be “the prophet of consolation.” Thus it
happened that the very Isaiah whose early prophecies foretold the exile and the
destruction of the Temple, later described and proclaimed, in plainer terms than
any other prophet, the brilliant destiny in store for Israel.

THE TWO KINGDOMS CHASTISED

Afflicted with leprosy, Uzziah was unfit to reign as king, and Jotham administered
the affairs of Judah for twenty-five years before the death of his father. Jotham
possessed so much piety that his virtues added to those of two other very pious
men suffice to atone for all the sins of the whole of mankind committed from the
hour of creation until the end of all time.

Ahaz, the son of Jotham; was very unlike him. “From first to last he was a
sinner.” He abolished the true worship of God, forbade the study of the Torah,
set up an idol in the upper room of the Temple, and disregarded the Jewish laws
of marriage. His transgressions are the less pardonable, because he sinned against
God knowing His grandeur and power, as appears from his reply to the prophet.
Isaiah said to him: “Ask a sign of God, as, for instance, that the dead should
arise, Korah come up from Sheol, or Elijah descend from heaven.” The king’s answer
was: “I know thou hast the power to do any of these, but I do not wish the Name
of God to be glorified through me.”

The only good quality possessed by Ahaz was respect for Isaiah. To avoid his
reproaches, Ahaz would disguise himself when he went abroad, so that the prophet
might not recognize him. Only to this circumstance, joined to the fact he was
the father of a pious son and the son of an equally pious father, is it to be
ascribed that, in spite of his wickedness, Ahaz is not one of those who have forfeited
their portion in the world to come. But he did not escape punishment; on the contrary,
his chastisement was severe, not only as king but also as man. In the ill-starred
war against Pekah, the king of the northern kingdom, he lost his first-born son,
a great hero.

Pekah, however, was not permitted to enjoy the fruits of his victory, for the
king of Assyria invaded his empire, captured the golden calf at Dan, and led the
tribes on the east side of Jordan away into exile. The dismemberment of the Israelitish
kingdom went on apace for some years. Then the Assyrians, in the reign of Hoshea,
carried off the second golden calf together with the tribes of Asher, Issachar,
Zebulon, and Naphtali, leaving but one-eighth of the Israelites in their own land.
The larger portion of the exiles was taken to Damascus. After that Israel’s doom
overtook it with giant strides, and the last ruler of Israel actually hastened
the end of his kingdom by a pious deed. After the golden calves were removed by
the Assyrians, Hoshea, the king of the north, abolished the institution of stationing
the guards on the frontier between Judah and Israel to prevent pilgrimages to
Jerusalem. But the people made no use of the liberty granted them. They persisted
in their idolatrous cult, and this quickened their punishment. So long as their
kings had put obstacles in their path, they could excuse themselves before God
for not worshipping Him in the true way. The action taken by their king Hoshea
left them no defense. When the Assyrians made their third incursion into Israel,
the kingdom of the north was destroyed forever, and the people, one and all, were
carried away into exile.

The heathen nations settled in Samaria by the Assyrians instead of the deported
Ten Tribes were forced by God to accept the true religion of the Jews. Nevertheless
they continued to worship their olden idols: the Babylonians paid devotion to
a hen, the people of Cuthah to a cock, those of Hamath to a ram, the dog and the
ass were the gods of the Avvites, and the mule and the horse the gods of the Sepharvites.

HEZEKIAH

While the northern kingdom was rapidly descending into the pit of destruction,
a mighty upward impulse was given to Judah, both spiritually and materially, by
its king Hezekiah. In his infancy the king had been destined as a sacrifice to
Moloch. His mother had saved him from death only by rubbing him with the blood
of a salamander, which made him fire-proof. In every respect he was the opposite
of his father. As the latter is counted among the worst of sinners, so Hezekiah
is counted among the most pious of Israel. His first act as king is evidence that
he held the honor of God to be his chief concern, important beyond all else. He
refused to accord his father regal obsequies; his remains were buried as though
he had been poor and of plebeian rank. Impious as he was, Ahaz deserved nothing
more dignified. God had Himself made it known to Hezekiah, by a sign, that his
father was to have no consideration paid him. On the day of the dead king’s funeral
daylight lasted but two hours, and his body had to be interred when the earth
was enveloped in darkness.

Throughout his reign, Hezekiah devoted himself mainly to the task of dispelling
the ignorance of the Torah which his father had caused. While Ahaz had forbidden
the study of the law, Hezekiah’s orders read: “Who does not occupy himself with
the Torah, renders himself subject to the death penalty.” The academies closed
under Ahaz were kept open day and night under Hezekiah. The king himself supplied
the oil needed for illuminating purposes. Gradually, under this system, a generation
grew up so well trained that one could search the land from Dan even to Beer-sheba
and not find a single ignoramus. The very women and the children, both boys and
girls, knew the laws of “clean and unclean.” By way of rewarding his piety, God
granted Hezekiah a brilliant victory over Sennacherib.

This Assyrian king, who had conquered the whole world, equipped an army against
Hezekiah like unto which there is none, unless it be the army of the four kings
whom Abraham routed, or the army to be raised by God and Magog in the Messianic
time. Sennacherib’s army consisted of more than two millions and a half of horsemen,
among them forty-five thousand princes sitting in chariots and surrounded by their
paramours, by eighty thousand armor-clad soldiers, and sixty thousand swordsmen.
The camp extended over a space of four hundred parasangs, and the saddle-beasts
standing neck to neck formed a line forty parasangs long. The host was divided
into four divisions. After the first of them had passed the Jordan, it was well
nigh dry, for the soldiers had all slaked their thirst with water of the river.
The second division found nothing to quench their thirst except the water gathered
under the hoofs of the horses. The third division was forced to dig wells, and
when the fourth division crossed the Jordan, they kicked up great clouds of dust.

With this vast army Sennacherib hastened onward, in accordance with the disclosures
of the astrologers, who warned him that he would fail in his object of capturing
Jerusalem, if he arrived there later than the day set by them. His journey having
lasted but one day instead of ten, as he had expected, he rested at Nob. A raised
platform was there erected for Sennacherib, whence he could view Jerusalem. On
first beholding the Judean capital, the Assyrian king exclaimed: “What! Is this
Jerusalem, the city for whose sake I gathered together my whole army, for whose
sake I first conquered all other lands? Is it not smaller and weaker than all
the cities of the nations I subdued with my strong hand?” He stretched himself
and shook his head, and waved his hand contemptuously toward the Temple mount
and the sanctuary crowning it. When his warriors urged him to make his attack
upon Jerusalem, he bade them take their ease for one night, and be prepared to
storm the city the next day. It seemed no great undertaking. Each warrior would
but have to pick up as much mortar from the wall as is needed to seal a letter
and the whole city would disappear. But Sennacherib made the mistake of not proceeding
directly to the attack upon the city. If he had made the assault at once, it would
have been successful, for the sin of Saul against the priest at Nob had not yet
been wholly expiated; on that very day it was fully atoned for. In the following
night, which was the Passover night, when Hezekiah and the people began to sing
the Hallel Psalms, the giant host was annihilated. The archangel Gabriel sent
by God to ripen the fruits of the field, was charged to address himself to the
task of making away with the Assyrians, and he fulfilled his mission so well that
of all the millions of the army, Sennacherib alone was saved with his two sons,
his son-in-law Nebuchadnezzar, and Nebuzaradan. The death of the Assyrians happened
when the angel permitted them to hear the “song of the celestials.” Their souls
were burnt, though their garments remained intact. Such an end was too good for
Sennacherib. To him a disgraceful death was apportioned. On his flight away from
Jerusalem, he met a Divine apparition in the guise of an old man. He questioned
Sennacherib as to what he would say to the kings allied with him, in reply to
their inquiry about the fate of their sons at Jerusalem. Sennacherib confessed
his dread of a meeting with those kings. The old man advised him to have his hair
cut off, which would change his appearance beyond recognition. Sennacherib assented,
and his advisor sent him to a house in the vicinity to fetch a pair of shears.
Here he found some people angels in disguise busying themselves with a hand-mill.
They promised to give him the shears, provided he ground a measure of grain for
them. So it grew late and dark by the time Sennacherib returned to the old man,
and he had to procure a light before his hair could be cut. As he fanned the fire
into a flame, a spark flew into his beard and singed it, and he had to sacrifice
his beard as well as his hair. On his return to Assyria, Sennacherib found a plank,
which he worshipped as an idol, because it was part of the ark which had saved
Noah from the deluge. He vowed that he would sacrifice his sons to this idol if
he prospered in his next ventures. But his sons heard his vows, and they killed
their father, and fled to Kardu where they released the Jewish captives confined
there in great numbers. With these they marched to Jerusalem, and became proselytes
there. The famous scholars Shemaiah and Abtalion were the descendants of these
two sons of Sennacherib.

MIRACLES WROUGHT FOR HEZEKIAH

The destruction of the Assyrian host delivered Hezekiah from an inner as well
as an outer enemy, for he had opponents in Jerusalem, among them the high priest
Shebnah. Shebnah had a more numerous following in the city than the king himself,
and they and their leader had favored peace with Sennacherib. Supported by Joah,
another influential personage, Shebnah had fastened a letter to a dart, and shot
the dart into the Assyrian camp. The contents of the letter were: “We and the
whole people of Israel wish to conclude peace with thee, but Hezekiah and Isaiah
will not permit it.” Shebnah’s influence was so powerful that Hezekiah began to
show signs of yielding. Had it not been for the prophet Isaiah, the king would
have submitted to Sennacherib’s demands.

Shebnah’s treachery and his other sins did not go unpunished. When he and his
band of adherents left Jerusalem to join the Assyrians, the angel Gabriel closed
the gate as soon as Shebnah had passed beyond it, and so he was separated from
his followers. To the inquiry of Sennacherib about the many sympathizers he had
written of, he could give no reply but that they had changed their mind. The Assyrian
king thought Shebnah had made sport of him. He, therefore, ordered his attendants
to bore a hole through his heels, tie him to the tail of a horse by them, and
spur the horse on to run until Shebnah was dragged to death.

The unexpected victory won by Hezekiah over the Assyrians, to whom the kingdom
of Samaria had fallen a prey but a short time before, showed how wrong they had
been who had mocked at Hezekiah for his frugal ways. A king whose meal consisted
of a handful of vegetables could hardly be called a dignified ruler, they had
said. These critics would gladly have seen his kingdom pass into the hands of
Pekah, the king of Samaria, whose dessert, to speak of nothing else, consisted
of forty seim of young pigeons.

In view of all the wonders God had done for him, it was unpardonable that Hezekiah
did not feel himself prompted at least to sing a song of praise to God. Indeed,
when the prophet Isaiah urged him to it, he refused, saying that the study of
the Torah, to which he devoted himself with assiduous zeal, was a substitute for
direct expressions of gratitude. Besides, he thought God’s miracles would become
known to the world without action on his part, in such ways as these: After the
destruction of the Assyrian army, when the Jews searched the abandoned camps,
they found Pharaoh the king of Egypt and the Ethiopian king Tirhakah. These kings
had hastened to the aid of Hezekiah, and the Assyrians had taken them captive
and clapped them in irons, in which they were languishing when the Jews came upon
them. Liberated by Hezekiah, the two rulers returned to their respective realms,
spreading the report of the greatness of God everywhere. And again, all the vassal
troops in Sennacherib’s army, set free by Hezekiah, accepted the Jewish faith,
and on their way home they proclaimed the kingdom of God in Egypt and in many
other lands.

By failing in gratitude Hezekiah lost a great opportunity. The Divine plan
had been to make Hezekiah the Messiah, and Sennacherib was to be God and Magog.
Justice opposed this plan, addressing God thus: “O Lord of the world! David, king
of Israel, who sang so many songs and hymns of praise to Thee, him Thou didst
not make the Messiah, and now Thou wouldst confer the distinction upon Hezekiah,
who has no word of praise for Thee in spite of the manifold wonders Thou hast
wrought for him?” Then the earth appeared before God, and said: “Lord of the world!
I will song Thee a song in place of this righteous man; make him to be the Messiah,”
and the earth forthwith intoned a song of praise. Likewise spake the Prince of
the World: “Lord of the world! Do the will of this righteous man.” But a voice
from heaven announced: “This is my secret, this is my secret.” And again, when
the prophet exclaimed sorrowfully, “Woe is me! How long, O Lord, how long!” the
voice replied: “The time of the Messiah will arrive when the ‘treacherous dealers
and the treacherous dealers’ shall have come.”

The sin committed by Hezekiah asleep, he had to atone for awake. If he refused
to devote a song of praise to God for his escape from the Assyrian peril, he could
not refrain from doing it after his recovery from the dangerous sickness that
befell him. This sickness was a punishment for another sin beside ingratitude.
He had “peeled off” the gold from the Temple, and sent it to the king of the Assyrians;
therefore the disease that afflicted him caused his skin to “peel off.” Moreover,
this malady of Hezekiah’s was brought upon him by God, to afford an opportunity
for the king and the prophet Isaiah to come close to each other. The two had had
a dispute on a point of etiquette. The king adduced as a precedent the action
of Elijah, who “went to show himself unto Ahab,” and demanded that Isaiah, too,
should appear before him. The prophet, on the other hand, modelled his conduct
after Elisha’s, who permitted the kings of Israel, and Judah, and Edom, to come
to him. But God settled the dispute by afflicting Hezekiah with sickness, and
then He bade Isaiah go to the king and pay the visit due to the sick. The prophet
did the bidding of God. When he appeared in the presence of the ailing king, he
said: “Set thine house in order, for thou wilt die in this world and not live
in the next” a fate which Hezekiah incurred because he had failed to take unto
himself a wife and bring forth posterity. The king’s defense, that he had preferred
a celibate’s life because he had seen in the holy spirit that he was destined
to have impious children, the prophet did not consider valid. He rebutted it with
the words: “Why does thou concern thyself with the secrets of the All-Merciful?
Thou hast but to do thy duty. God will do whatsoever it pleases Him.” Thereupon
Hezekiah asked the daughter of the prophet in marriage, saying: “Perchance my
merits joined to thine will cause my children to be virtuous.” But Isaiah rejected
the proposal of marriage, because he knew that the decree of God ordaining the
king’s death was unalterable. Whereupon the king: “Thou son of thus has it been
transmitted to me from the house of my ancestor: Even if a sharp sword rests at
the very throat of a man, he may yet not refrain from uttering a prayer for mercy.”

And the king was right. Though death had been decreed against him, his prayer
averted it. In his prayer he supplicated God to keep him alive for the sake of
the merits of his ancestors, who had built the Temple and brought many proselytes
into the Jewish fold, and for the sake of his own merits, for, he said, “I searched
out all the two hundred and forty-eight members of my body which Thou didst give
me, and I found none which I had used in a manner contrary to Thy will.”

His prayer was heard. God added fifteen years to his life, but He made him
understand very clearly, that he owed the mercy solely to the merits of David,
not at all to his own, as Hezekiah fondly believed. Before Isaiah left the court
of the palace, God instructed him to return to the king, and announce his recovery
to him. Isaiah feared lest Hezekiah should place little trust in his words, as
he had but a short while before predicted his swiftly approaching end. But God
reassured the prophet. In his modesty and piety, the king would harbor no doubt
derogatory to the prophet’s trustworthiness. The remedy employed by Isaiah, a
cake of figs applied to the boil, increased the wonder of Hezekiah’s recovery,
for it was apt to aggravate the malady rather than alleviate it.

A number of miracles besides were connected with the recovery of Hezekiah.
In itself it was remarkable, as being the first case of a recovery on record.
Previously illness had been inevitably followed by death. Before he had fallen
sick, Hezekiah himself had implored God to change this order of nature. He held
that sickness followed by restoration to health would induce men to do penance.
God had replied: “Thou art right, and the new order shall be begun with thee.”
Furthermore, the day of Hezekiah’s recovery was marked by the great miracle that
the sun shone ten hours longer than its wonted time. The remotest lands were amazed
thereat, and Baladan, the ruler of Babylon, was prompted by it to send an embassy
to Hezekiah, which was to carry his felicitations to the Jewish king upon his
recovery. Baladan, it should be said by the way, was not the real king of Babylon.
The throne was occupied by his father, whose face had changed into that of a dog.
Therefore the son had to administer the affairs of state, and he was known by
his father’s name as well as his own. This Baladan was in the habit of dining
at noon, and then he took a nap until three o’clock of the afternoon. On the day
of Hezekiah’s recovery, when he awoke from his sleep, and saw the sun overhead,
he was on the point of having his guards executed, because he thought they had
permitted him to sleep a whole afternoon and the night following it. He desisted
only when he was informed of Hezekiah’s miraculous recovery, and realised that
the God of Hezekiah was greater than his own god, the sun. He at once set about
sending greetings to the Jewish king. His letter read as follows: “Peace be with
Hezekiah, peace with his great God, and peace with Jerusalem.” After the letter
was dispatched, it occurred to Baladan that it had not been composed properly.
Mention of Hezekiah had been made before mention of God. He had the messengers
called back, and ordered another letter to be written, in which the oversight
was made good. As a reward for his punctiliousness, three of his descendants,
Nebuchadnezzar, Evil-merodach, and Belshazzar, were appointed by God to be world
monarchs. God said: “Thou didst arise from thy throne, and didst take three steps
to do Me honor, by having thy letter re-written, therefore will I grant thee three
descendants who shall be known from one end of the world to the other.”

The embassy sent by the Babylonian monarch was an act of homage to God for
his miracle-working power. Hezekiah, however, took it to be an act of homage toward
himself, and it had the effect of making him arrogant. Not only did he eat and
drink with the heathen who made up the embassy, but also, in his haughtiness of
mind, he displayed before them all the treasures which he had captured from Sennacherib,
and many other curiosities besides, among them magnetic iron, a peculiar sort
of ivory, and honey as solid as stone.

What was worse, he had his wife partake of the meal in honor of the embassy,
and, most heinous crime of all, he opened the holy Ark, and pointing to the tables
of law within it, said to the heathen: “With the help of these we undertake wars
and win victories.” God sent Isaiah to reproach Hezekiah for these acts. The king,
instead of confessing his wrong at once, answered the prophet haughtily. Then
Isaiah announced to him that the treasures taken from Sennacherib would revert
to Babylon some time in the future, and his descendants, Daniel and the three
companions of Daniel, would serve the Babylonia ruler as eunuchs.

Despite his pride in this case, Hezekiah was one of the most pious kings of
Judah. Especially he is deserving of praise for his efforts to have Hebrew literature
put into writing, for it was Hezekiah who had copies made of the books of Isaiah,
Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, and Proverbs. On the other hand, he had concealed
the books containing medical remedies.

Great was the mourning over him at his death. No less than thirty-six thousand
men with bared shoulders marched before his bier, and, rarer distinction still,
a scroll of the law was laid upon his bier, for it was said: “He who rests in
this bier, has fulfilled all ordained in this book.” He was buried next to David
and Solomon.

MANASSEH

Hezekiah had finally yielded to the admonitions of Isaiah, and had taken a
wife unto himself, the daughter of the prophet. But he entered upon marriage with
a heavy heart. His prophetic spirit foretold to him that the impiousness of the
sons he would beget would make their death to be preferable to their life. These
fears were confirmed all too soon. His two sons, Rabshakeh and Manasseh, showed
their complete unlikeness to their parents in early childhood. Once, when Hezekiah
was carrying his two little ones on his shoulders to the Bet ha-Midrash, he overheard
their conversation. The one said: “Our father’s bald head might do for frying
fish.” The other rejoined: “It would do well for offering sacrifices to idols.”
Enraged by these words, Hezekiah let his sons slip from his shoulders. Rabshakeh
was killed by the fall, but Manasseh escaped unhurt. Better had it been if Manasseh
had shared his brother’s untimely fate. He was spared for naught but murder, idolatry,
and other abominable atrocities.

After Hezekiah had departed this life, Manasseh ceased to serve the God of
his father. He did whatever his evil imagination prompted. The altar was destroyed,
and in the inner space of the Temple he set up an idol with four faces, copied
from the four figures on the throne of God. It was so placed that from whatever
direction one entered the Temple, a face of the idol confronted him.

As Manasseh was sacrilegious toward God, he was malevolent toward his fellows.
He had fashioned an image so large that it required a thousand men to carry it.
Daily a new force was employed on this task, because Manasseh had each set of
porters killed off at the end of the day’s work. All his acts were calculated
to cast contempt upon Judaism and its tenets. It did not satisfy his evil desire
to obliterate the name of God from the Holy Scriptures; he went so far as to deliver
public lectures whose burden was to ridicule the Torah. Isaiah and the other prophets,
Micah, Joel, and Habakkuk, left Jerusalem and repaired to a mountain in the desert,
that they might be spared the sight of the abominations practiced by the king.
Their abiding-place was disclosed to the king. A Samaritan, a descendant of the
false prophet Zedekiah, had taken refuge in Jerusalem after the destruction of
the Temple. But he did not remain there long; charges were made against him before
the pious king Hezekiah, and he withdrew to Bethlehem, where he gathered hangers-on
about him. This Samaritan it was who traced the prophets to their retreat, and
lodged accusations against them before Manasseh. The impious king sat in judgment
on Isaiah, and condemned him to death. The indictment against him was that his
prophecies contained teachings in contradiction with the law of Moses. God said
unto Moses: “Thou canst not see My face; for man shall not see Me and live”; while
Isaiah said: “I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up.” Again,
Isaiah compared the princes of Israel and the people with the impious inhabitants
of Sodom and Gomorrah, and he prophesied the downfall of Jerusalem and the destruction
of the Temple. The prophet offered no explanation. He was convinced of the uselessness
of defending himself, and he preferred Manasseh should act from ignorance rather
than from wickedness. However, he fled for safety. When he heard the royal bailiffs
in pursuit of him, he pronounced the Name of God, and a cedar-tree swallowed him
up. The king ordered the tree to be sawn in pieces. When the saw was applied to
the portion of the bark under which the mouth of Isaiah lay concealed, he died.
His mouth was the only vulnerable part of his body, because at the time when he
was called to his prophetical mission, it had made use of the contemptuous words
“a people of unclean lips,” regarding Israel. Isaiah died at the age of one hundred
and twenty years, by the hands of his own grandchild.

God is long-suffering, but in the end Manasseh received the deserved punishment
for his sins and crimes. In the twenty-second year of his rulership, the Assyrians
came and carried him off to Babylon in fetters, him together with the old Danite
idol, Micah’s image. In Babylonia, the king was put into an oven which was heated
from below. Finding himself in this extremity, Manasseh began to call upon god
after god to help him out of his straits. As this proved inefficacious, he resorted
to other means. “I remember,” he said, “my father taught me the verse: ‘When thou
art in tribulation, if in the latter days thou shalt return to the Lord thy God,
and hearken unto His voice, He will not fail thee.’ Now I cry to God. If He inclines
His ear unto me, well and good; if not, then all kinds of god are alike.” The
angels stopped up the windows of heaven, that the prayer of Manasseh might not
ascend to God, and they said: “Lord of the world! Art Thou willing to give gracious
hearing to one who has paid worship to idols, and set up an idol in the Temple?”
“If I did not accept the penance of this man,” replied God, “I should be closing
the door in the face of all repentant sinners.” God made a small opening under
the Throne of His Glory, and received the prayer of Manasseh through it. Suddenly
a wind arose, and carried Manasseh back to Jerusalem. His return to God not only
helped him in his distress, but also brought him pardon for all his sins, so that
not even his share in the future world was withdrawn from him.

The people of this time were attracted to idolatry with so irresistible a force
that the vast learning of Manasseh, who knew fifty-two different interpretations
of the Book of Leviticus, did not give him enough moral strength to withstand
its influence. Rab Ashi, the famous compiler of the Talmud, once announced a lecture
on Manasseh with the words: “To-morrow I shall speak about our colleague Manasseh.”
At night the king appeared to Ashi in a dreams, and put a ritual question to him,
which the Rabbi could not answer. Manasseh told him the solution, and Ashi, in
amazement at the king’s scholarship, asked why one so erudite had served idols.
Manasseh’s reply was: “Hadst thou lived at my time, thou wouldst have caught hold
of the hem of my garment and run after me.”

Amon, the son of Manasseh, surpassed his father in wickedness. He was in the
habit of saying: “My father was a sinner from early childhood, and in his old
age he did penance. I shall do the same. First I shall satisfy the desires of
my heart, and afterward I shall return to God.” Indeed, he was guilty of more
grievous sins than his predecessor; he burned the Torah; under him the place of
the altar was covered with spiderwebs; and, as though of purpose to set at naught
the Jewish religion, he committed the worst sort of incest, a degree more heinous
than his father’s crime of a similar nature. Thus he executed the first half of
his maxim literally. For repentance, however, he was given no time; death cut
him off in the fulness of his sinful ways.

JOSIAH AND HIS SUCCESSORS

That the full measure of punishment was not meted out to Amon his evil deeds
were such that he should have forfeited his share in the world to come was due
to the circumstance that he had a pious and righteous son. Josiah offers a shining
model of true, sincere repentance. Though at first he followed in the footsteps
of his father Amon, he soon gave up the ways of wickedness, and became one of
the most pious kings of Israel, whose chief undertaking was the effort to bring
the whole people back to the true faith. It dates from the time when a copy of
the Torah was found in the Temple, a copy that had escaped the holocaust kindled
by his father and predecessor Amon for the purpose of exterminating the Holy Scriptures.
When he opened the Scriptures, the first verse to strike his eye was the one in
Deuteronomy: “The Lord shall bring thee and thy king into exile, unto a nation
which thou hast not known.” Josiah feared this doom of exile was impending, and
he sought to conciliate God through the reform of his people.

His first step was to enlist the intercession of the prophets in his behalf.
He addressed his request, not to Jeremiah, but to the prophetess Huldah, knowing
that women are more easily moved to compassion. As Jeremiah was a kinsman of the
prophetess their common ancestors were Joshua and Rahab the king felt no apprehension
that the prophet take his preference for Huldah amiss. The proud, dignified answer
of the prophetess was, that the misfortune could not be averted from Israel, but
the destruction of the Temple, she continued consolingly, would not happen until
after the death of Josiah. In view of the imminent destruction of the Temple,
Josiah hid the holy Ark and all its appurtenances, in order to guard them against
desecration at the hands of the enemy.

The efforts of the king in behalf of God and His law found no echo with the
great majority of the people. Though the king was successful in preventing the
worship of idols in public, his subjects knew how to deceive him. Josiah sent
out his pious sympathizers to inspect the houses of the people, and he was satisfied
with their report, that they had found no idols, not suspecting that the recreant
people has fastened half an image on each wing of the doors, so that the inmates
faced their household idols as they closed the door upon Josiah’s inspectors.

This godless generation contemporaneous with Josiah was to blame for his death.
When King Pharaoh, in his campaign against the Assyrians, wanted to travel through
Palestine, Jeremiah advised the king not to deny the Egyptians the passage through
his land. He cited a prophecy by his teacher Isaiah, who had foreseen the war
between Assyria and Egypt. But Josiah retorted: “Moses, thy teacher’s teacher,
spake: ‘I will give peace in the land, and no sword shall go through your land,’
not even the sword that is not raised against Israel with hostile intent.” The
king, innocent of the deception practiced by the people, knew not that they were
idol worshippers, to whom the promises of the Torah have no application. In the
engagement that ensued between the Jews and the Egyptians, no less than three
hundred darts struck the king. In his death agony he uttered no word of complaint;
he only said: “The Lord is righteous, for I have rebelled against His commandment,”
thus admitting his guilt in not having heeded the advice of the prophet.

So ended the days of this just king after a brilliant career, the only king
since Solomon to rule over both Judah and Israel, for Jeremiah had brought back
to Palestine the ten exiled tribes of the north, and made them subject to Josiah.
The mourning for him was profound. Even Jeremiah perpetuated his memory in his
Lamentations.

Pharaoh of Egypt was not permitted to enjoy the results of his victory to the
full, for it was soon after this that, in attempting to ascend the wondrous throne
of Solomon, he was stuck down by the lions and rendered lame by the blow.

The people put Jehoahaz on the throne of Judah to succeed Josiah, though his
brother Jehoiakim was the older by two years. To silence the legitimate claims
of Jehoiakim, the new king underwent the ceremony of anointing. But his reign
was very brief. At the end of three months Pharaoh carried him off into exile
in Egypt, and Jehoiakim ruled in his stead.

Jehoiakim was another of the sinful monarchs of the Jews, uncharitable toward
men and disobedient to God and the laws of God. His garments were of two kinds
of stuff mingled together, his body was tattooed with the names of idols, and
in order that he might appear as a non-Jew, he performed the operation of an epipost
upon himself. Various forms of incest were committed by him, and, besides, he
was in the habit of putting men to death that he might violate their wives, and
confiscate their possessions. Blasphemous as he was, he spoke: “My predecessors
did not know how to provoke the wrath of God. As for me, I say frankly, we have
no need whatsoever of Him; the very light He gives us we can dispense with, for
the gold of Parvaim can well replace it.”

Seeing such abominations, God desired to resolve the world into its original
chaos. If He desisted from His purpose, it was only because the people led a God-fearing
life during the time of Jehoiakim. After he had reigned eleven years, Nebuchadnezzar
put an end to his dominion. Advancing with his army, the Babylonian king halted
at Daphne, a suburb of Antioch. Here he was met by the Sanhedrin of Jerusalem,
who desired to know whether he was coming with the purpose of destroying the Temple.
Nebuchadnezzar assured them, that all he wanted was the surrender of Jehoiakim,
who had rebelled against his authority. Returned to Jerusalem, the Sanhedrin informed
Jehoiakim of Nebuchadnezzar’s intention. The king asked the elders, whether it
was ethical to purchase their lives by sacrificing his. For answer they referred
him to the story of the way Joab dealt with the city of Abel of Beth-maacah, which
had saved itself by surrendering the rebel Sheba, the son of Bichri. The king’s
objections did not deter the Sanhedrin from following the example of Joab acting
under the direction of David. They made Jehoiakim glide down from the city walls
of Jerusalem by a chain. Below, the Babylonians stood ready to receive him. Nebuchadnezzar
took Jehoiakim in fetters to all the cities of Judah, then he slew him, and, his
rage still unabated, threw his corpse to the dogs after having stuck it into the
carcass of an ass. The dogs left nothing of Jehoiakim’s body over except his skull,
on which were written the words: “This and something besides.” Many centuries
later it was found by a Rabbi near the gates of Jerusalem. He tried in vain to
give it burial; the earth refused to retain it, and the Rabbi concluded therefrom
that it belonged to the corpse of Jehoiakim. He wrapped the skull in a cloth,
and laid it in a closet. One day the wife of the Rabbi discovered it there, and
she burnt it, thinking the skull belonged to a former wife of her husband, so
dear to him even after her death that he could not separate himself from this
relic.

When Nebuchadnezzar returned to Babylonia from his Palestinian expedition,
the people received him with great pomp and solemnity. He announced to them that
in place of Jehoiakim, whom he had slain, he had installed Mattaniah, the rebel’s
son, called Jehoiachin, as king over Judah, and the people uttered the warning:
“One cannot educate a well-behaved puppy whose dam was ill-conditioned; let alone
an ill-conditioned puppy whose dam was ill-conditioned.”

Nebuchadnezzar returned to Daphne, and informed the Sanhedrin, who hastened
from Jerusalem to meet him, that he desired the surrender of Jehoiachin. If they
refused to satisfy his demand, he would destroy the Temple. When the Jewish king
was told the threat of his Babylonian adversary, he mounted upon the roof of the
Temple, and, holding all the keys of its chambers in his hand, he spoke thus to
God: “Until now Thou didst consider us worthy of confidence, and Thou didst entrust
Thy keys to us. Since Thou no longer dost esteem us trustworthy, here, take back
Thy keys.” He was held to his word: a hand was stretched forth from heaven, and
it received the keys.

Jehoiachin, good and pious, did not desire the city of Jerusalem to be exposed
to peril for his sake. So he delivered himself to the Babylonian leaders, after
they swore that neither city nor people should suffer harm. But the Babylonians
did not keep their oath. A short while thereafter they carried into exile, not
only the king, but also his mother, and ten thousand of the Jewish nobility and
of the great scholars. This was the second attempt made by Nebuchadnezzar to deport
the Jews. On taking the former king Jehoiakim captive, he had exiled three hundred
of the noblest of the people, among them the prophet Ezekiel.

The king Jehoiachin was incarcerated for life, a solitary prisoner, separated
from his wife and his family. The Sanhedrin, who were among those deported with
the king, feared that the house of David die out. They therefore besought Nebuchadnezzar
not to separate Jehoiachin from his wife. They succeeded in enlisting the sympathy
of the queen’s hairdresser, and through her of the queen herself, Semiramis, the
wife of Nebuchadnezzar, who in turn prevailed upon the king to accord mild treatment
to the unfortunate prince exiled from Judea. Suffering had completely changed
the once sinful king, so that, in spite of his great joy over his reunion with
his wife, he still paid regard to the prescriptions of the Jewish law regulating
conjugal life. He was prepared to deny himself every indulgence, when the purchase
price was an infringement of the word of God. Such steadfastness pleaded with
God to pardon the king for his sins, and the heavenly Sanhedrin absolved God from
His oath, to crush Jehoiachin and deprive his house of sovereignty. By way of
reward for his continence he was blessed with distinguished posterity. Not only
was Zerubbabel, the first governor of Palestine after the destruction of the Temple,
a grandson of Jehoiachin’s, but also the Messiah himself will be a descendant
of his.