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Solomon's temple, and other public buildings at Jerusalem, flourished, B. C. 1015.

JEROBOAM, son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, is often characterised in Scripture as the author of the schism and idolatry of the ten tribes. He was the son of Nebat, and of a widow named Zeruah, and was born at Zereda in Ephraim. Jeroboam was bold and enterprising; and Solomon gave him a commission to levy the taxes of Ephraim and Manasseh. As Jeroboam was going alone one day out of Jerusalem into the country, he was met by the prophet Ahijah wearing a new cloak, (1 Kings xi. 29.) Only these two were in the field. Ahijah rent his cloak in twelve pieces, and said to Jeroboam, take ten to thyself; for the Lord will rend the kingdom of Solomon, and give ten tribes to thee. Jeroboam, who was already disaffected, began to excite the people to revolt; but Solomon being informed of his designs, Jeroboam fled into Egypt, where he continued till the death of Solomon. Rehoboam, who succeeded, behaved in a haughty and menacing manner, and ten of the tribes separated from the house of David. Jeroboam returning from Egypt, these ten tribes invited him among them to a general assembly, in which they appointed him king over Israel. He fixed his residence at Shechem, and died after a reign of twenty-two years, and was succeeded by his son Nadab.

PHARAOH, or Shishak, who entertained Jeroboam in his dominions, when he fled from Solomon. He also declared war against Rehoboam, besieged and took Jerusalem, and carried away the king's treasures, and those of the house of God, particularly the golden bucklers which Solomon had made. Some think he was the brother of Solomon's queen, and that he did this to revenge the neglect of his sister by Solomon.

REHOBOAM, the son of Solomon, king of Israel, succeeded his father about B. C. 975. By his folly in totally refusing the people any redress of grievances, he occasioned the revolt of the ten tribes. (1 Kings xii. 1-24.) After an unfortunate reign of seventeen years, during which his capital was invaded and his temple plundered of its treasures by Shishak, king of Egypt, he died B. C. 958.

ABIJAH, the son of Jeroboam, who was the first king of the ten tribes of Israel. Abigail predicted, that he would be the only person of his family who should receive funeral honours. (1 Kings xiv. 13.)

ADORAM, or Hadoram, one of the principal tax-gatherers under king Rehoboam, who seems to have rendered himself very unpopular, by the vigorous exercise of his office, as he was stoned to death by the revolting tribes, when sent to treat with them; a fate from which, however much he might deserve it, VOL. I. L

otherwise his character, as an ambassador, ought to have preserved him.

AHIJAH, an inhabitant of Shiloh, and an inspired prophet of Israel, who tore Jeroboam's new garment in twelve pieces, and gave him ten of them, as an emblem that the ten tribes, over which he foretold that Jeroboam should reign, would be rent from the house of David. He also foretold the death of Jeroboam's son, and wrote a history of the reign of Solomon, which is lost. He flourished B. C. 958.

SHEMAIAH, an inspired prophet of Judah, in the reign of Rehoboam, who prevented a civil war between Israel and Judah, and prevailed on Rehoboam's new raised army of 180,000 warriors to disband, by assuring them that the division of the kingdom which had just taken place, was ordained by the Almighty. (1 Kings xii. 21-24.) He delivered other two messages to the king and to the people. Shemaiah was also an author, and wrote the History of Rehoboam, which is quoted in 2 Chron. xii. 5.7. 15.

ABIJAH, or Abijam, was the name of a king of Judah, who succeeded Rehoboam. After a reign of three years, during which he imitated the impiety and bad conduct of his father, he died B. C. 955.

ASA, king of Judah, succeeded his father Abijam. He abolished idolatry, restored the worship of the true God, and, with the assistance of Benhadad, king of Syria, took several towns from the king of Israel. He died B. C. 914, and was succeeded by his son Jehoshaphat.

HANANI, a prophet who came to Asa, king of Judah, and said (2 Chron. xvi. 7.) Because thou hast put thy trust in the king of Syria, and not in the Lord; the army of the king of Syria is escaped out of thine hands. We know not on what occasion the prophet spake thus; but Asa ordered him to be seized and imprisoned. Some suppose, that this Hanani was father to the prophet Jehu; but this does not appear clear from Scripture. Jehu prophesied in Israel; Hanani, in Judah. Jehu was put to death by Baasha, king of Israel, who died B. C. 929; and Hanani reproved Asa, king of Judah, who reigned from B. C. 955, to B. C. 914.

BENHADAD I., the son of Tabrimon, king of Syria, bribed by Asa, king of Judah, broke his league with Baasha, king of Israel, ravaged the northern parts of his kingdom, and built market places, or rather citadels in Samaria. 1 Kings xv. 18.

AMASA, the son of Hadai, one of the four princes of Ephraim, who seconded the human advice of the prophet Obed, to restore the 200,000 captive women and children, whom the troops of Pekah had carried off from Judah; and whose kind

ness and attention to these prisoners are to their honour recorded. 2 Kings xxviii. 15.

BAASHA, the son of Ahijah, and the third king of Israel, after its separation from Judah; one of the many monarchs who have waded through blood to a throne. His murder of his predecessor, Nadab, his extirpation of the whole family of Jeroboam, his wars with king Asa, his idolatries, and the judgments denounced and executed against his house, are recorded in 1 Kings xv. and xvi. He died in the twenty-fourth year of his reign.

ELAH, the son of Baasha, the fourth king of Israel after the separation of the ten tribes from Judah. He was murdered while he was in a state of intoxication by Zimri, when he had reigned only two years.

OMRI, was general of the army of Elah, king of Israel. Being at the siege of Gibbethon, and hearing that his master Elah was assassinated by Zimri, who had usurped his kingdom, he raised the siege of Gibbethon, and, being elected king by his army, marched against Zimri, attacked him at Tirzah, and forced him to burn himself and all his family in the palace in which he had shut himself up. Zimri reigned only seven days. 1 Kings xvi. 9.

After the death of Zimri, half of Israel acknowledged Omri for king; the other half adhered to Tibni, the son of Ginath. This division continued four years. When Tibni was dead, the people united again in acknowledging Omri as king of all Israel, who reigned twelve years; six years at Tirzah, and six at Samaria.

Till that time Tirzah had been the chief residence of the kings of Israel. But when Omri purchased the hill of Shemer (1 Kings xvi. 24.), B. C. 924, for two talents of silver (6847.); he there built a new city, which he called Samaria, from the name of the first possessor Shemer, and in which he fixed his royal seat. From this time Samaria was the capital of the kingdom of the ten tribes.

Ŏmri did evil before the Lord, and his crimes exceeded those of his predecessors. He walked in all the ways of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. He died at Samaria, B. C. 918.

ELIJAH, or ELIAS, was one of the most distinguished of the Jewish prophets. He commenced the exercise of the prophetic office about 920 years B. C. and his first commission was directed against Ahab, whose impious character and encouragement of idolatry merited reproof. The sovereign, however, was incensed, and the prophet was obliged to withdraw from the threatened effects of his indignation. During his retirement, providence miraculously afforded him the means of subsistence. In the mean time the country was visited with a famine, as a token of Divine displeasure; and at the termina

tion of this distress, which lasted three years, the prophet made another attempt, under Divine admonition, to reclaim Ahab from the profligacy of his conduct. The first interview produced mutual recrimination; but Elijah determined to evince to the full satisfaction of the assembled Israelites the absolute nullity of those Sidonian deities, in whom Ahab confided. The contest between the prophet and the priests of Baal is beautifully narrated in the Sacred Writings; the result, however, was the complete triumph of the former, and the ignominious defeat of the latter, who became victims to the indignation of the people whom they had deluded into the practice of idolatry, and the violation of the divine law. The dominion of Jehovah, as the only true God, was signally displayed; and Elijah manifested his divine commission, by the succeeding event. The country was delivered from the distress occasioned by a severe drought; for in answer to the prayers of the prophet, and in fulfilment of his promise, rain fell in great abundance. Jezebel, Ahab's wife, was enraged, and Elijah was obliged to withdraw into the kingdom of Judah, and to conceal himself for some time in the wilderness, depending for his support on the extraordinary interpositions of Providence. Such interpositions, in an age of miracles, were suitable to the character of one who stood almost alone against an empire.

"Among innumerable false, unmov'd,
Unshaken, unseduc'd, unterrified,

His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal!

Nor number, nor example, with him wrought

To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind,
Though single."-

Elijah was afterwards employed in various commissions, which he executed with a fidelity and fortitude very honourable to his character. His companion in the closing scenes of his life was Elisha, who was selected to be his successor in the prophetic office and who was permitted to be witness of his miraculous translation, by which he was exempted from the common lot of mortality. This event took place B. C. 896.

ELISHA, a Hebrew prophet, was the son of Shaphat, and selected by Elijah, from the pursuits of agriculture, to be his successor in the prophetic office. Many instances occur in the abstract of his history, contained in the sacred writings, which evince the miraculous powers with which he was endowed, and which served as testimonies to his prophetic commission. To the Scriptures we shall refer the reader for an account of them. Elisha's life and office were continued to a very advanced age, and terminated about the year 830 B. C. See 1 Kings xix. 2 Kings ii-ix. xiii.

GEHAZI, Elisha's servant, who almost continually attended

that prophet, and was concerned in whatever happened to him, till, being overcome by avarice, he went in the prophet's name, as if the prophet had sent him, and solicited from Naaman a talent of silver, and two changes of raiment; (2 Kings v. 20, &c.) Naaman gave him two talents. When Gehazi returned, Elisha demanded of him whence he came? Gehazi answered, he had been no where. Elisha said to him, Went not my heart with thee, when thou didst receive money and garments? The leprosy, therefore, of Naaman shall cleave unto thee, and unto thy seed for ever. Immediately, Gehazi was seized with a leprosy, and from that time quitted Elisha. The king of Israel would sometimes cause Gehazi to relate the wonders which God had wrought by Elisha (2 Kings viii. 4, 5, &c.)

We now proceed to prophane history.

BRUTUS or BRUTE, according to the ancient history of England by Geoffrey of Monmouth, was the first king of Britain, and reigned about eleven hundred years before the Christian era. He is said to have been the son of Sylvius, and grandson of Ascanius the son of Æneas, and born in Italy. Having accidentally killed his father, he fled into Greece, where he took king Pandarus prisoner, who kept the Trojans in slavery, whom he released on condition of providing ships, &c. for the Trojans to emigrate with them. Being advised by the oracle to sail west beyond Gaul, he after some adventures, landed at Totness in Devonshire. Albion was then inhabited by a remnant of giants, whom Brutus destroyed; and he called the island after his own name Britain. He built a city called Troja Nove, or Trognovant, now London; and having reigned twenty-four years, at his death divided the island among his three sons; Locrine had the middle, called Lægria, now England; Camber had Cambria, now Wales; and Albanact Albania, now Scotland. Brutus having thus determined and settled his worldly affairs, he died in his capital in the twenty-fourth year after his arrival in this island, and was there interred with great honours, and deplored by his people. The reader should be apprized that the history of Geoffrey has not obtained much credit.

CODRUS. The 17th and last king of Athens, is celebrated for the noble act of sacrificing his life for his country. He was the son of Melanthus, and had reigned twenty years, when the Heraclidæ made war against Athens. On this occasion the Delphic oracle was consulted, who declared that victory would decide for that people whose sovereign was slain in battle. The enemy gave strict charge to spare the life of Codrus; but the monarch, resolving to enrol his name among the benefactors of his people, disguised himself as a peasant, and was slain in combat. When this was known to the Heraclidæ, they, dreading the accomplishment of the prediction, broke up the camp and

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