the dramatic interest belonging to so many other parts of the sacred story, and which is told with a vividness of detail, implying its lasting significance, and contrasting remarkably with the scanty outlines of the earlier reigns. The friendly policy of the two royal houses had culminated in the marriage of Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat, with Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab.1 In her, the fierce determined energy which ran through the Phoenician princes and princesses of that generation -Jezebel, Dido, Pygmalion-was fully developed. Already in her husband's reign, the worship of Baal was restored; and when the tidings reached Jerusalem of the overthrow of her father's house, of the dreadful end of her mother, and of the fall of her ancestral religion in Samaria, instead of daunting her resolute spirit, it moved her to a still grander effort.2 It was a critical moment for the house of David. Once from a struggle within the royal household itself, a second time from an invasion of Arabs, a third time from the revolution in the massacres of Jehu's accession, the dynasty had been thinned and thinned, till all the outlying branches of those vast polygamous households had been reduced to the single family of Ahaziah.3 Ahaziah himself had perished with his uncle on the plain of Esdraelon, and now, "when Athaliah saw that "Ahaziah was dead, she arose and destroyed all the "seed-royal." The whole race of David seemed to be swept away. Whoever the princes were who were called "her sons," they joined with her in opposition 1 2 Kings viii. 18, 26; 2 Chr. xxi. $; xxii. 2. 2 2 Kings xi. 2; 2 Chr. xxii. 10. 3 2 Chr. xxi. 4, 17; 2 Kings x. 14 4 2 Kings xi. 1. 5 Joseph. Ant. ix. 7, § 1. to the fallen dynasty. The worship of Baal, uprooted by Jehu in Samaria, sprang up in Jerusalem with renewed vigor, as in its native soil. The adherents of Baal, exiled from the northern kingdom, no doubt took refuge in the south. The Temple became a quarry for the rival sanctuary. The stones and the sacred vessels were employed to build or to adorn the Temple of Baal, which rose, as it would seem, even within the Temple precincts, with its circle of statues, and its sacred altars, before which ministered the only priest of that religion whose name has been preserved to us, Mattan. But as, before, the Pagan worship had coexisted with the established worship in the Temple, so now the ancient worship continued side by side with that of the Pagan sanctuary. There was no persecution of the Priests in Judah corresponding to that of the Prophets in Israel; and at the head of the priesthood was a man of commanding position and character who, by a union without precedent, had (at least according to one account) intermarried with the royal family. His wife, Jehosheba, was the daughter of Joram. In the general massacre of the princes, one boy, still a babe in arms, had been rescued by Jehosheba. The child and nurse had first been concealed in the store-room of mattresses in the palace, and then in the Temple under the pro 1 2 Chr. xxiv. 7. By such a daring act the half-Jewish Queen of Abyssinia, Esther, secured her power (Harris, Ethiopian Highlands, iii. 6). 2 2 Kings xi. 18; 2 Chr. xxiii. 17, 18. 3 Jehosheba in 2 Kings xi. 2, Jehoshabeath in 2 Chr. xxii. 11. The same variation appears in the names of the two other celebrated priest esses, Elisheba the wife of Aaron (called in the LXX. Elisabeth), and Elisabeth the wife of Zechariah. Both have the same meaning, —" the oath of Jehovah" or "of God." Josephus, (Ant. ix. 7, § 2) makes her the daughter of Joram, not by Athaliah – ὁμοπάτρια Οχοσία. She is called the wife of Jehoiada in 2 Chr. xxii 11 only. tection of her husband Jehoiada and with her own children. He was known as "the king's son."1 The "light of David" was burnt down to its socket, but there it still flickered. The stem of Jesse was cut down to the very roots; one tender shoot was all that remained. On him rested the whole hope of carrying on the lineage of David. For six years they waited.2 In the seventh year of Athaliah's reign, Jehoiada prepared his measures for his great stroke. Every step was taken in accordance with the usages which had been gradually gaining head during the previous reigns, and all the means which his office placed at his disposal were freely employed. He placed himself first in direct communication with the five officers of the royal guard, now, as in David's time, consisting partly of foreigners, amongst whom the Carian mercenaries were conspicuous. These he bound over to his cause by a solemn oath. The Chronicler adds that a body of armed Levites was also introduced into the Temple. They were encouraged by an ancient prediction: "Behold the "king's son shall reign." 5 4 Revolution The High Priest thus arranged the operations. It was on the Sabbath-day apparently that the stroke was to be struck. The guards (or the of Jehoiada Levites) were divided into two great bodies. The first consisted of those who mounted guard on the Sabbath-day, as the Kings went to the Temple. These B. C. 877. ners," as in 1 Sam. xxii. 17; 2 Kings were to keep their usual position, in three detachments the first at the porch of the palace, the second at one of the Temple gates, called the gate of the foundation; the third at another, called, doubtless from its being the usual halting-place of the guards, the "gate1 of the runners." These were to keep their places to avoid suspicion. The second division consisted of those who attended the Kings to the Temple. These, on the present occasion, were to place themselves on the right and left hand of the young King, inside the Temple, in order to protect his person, and to put to death any one who came within the circle of rails which inclosed the royal seat or stand. As soon as they had effected their entrance, they were furnished by Jehoiada with the spears and shields that, as relics of David's time, hung somewhere within the sacred precincts, just as his pred ecessor Abimelech had furnished to David himself the sword of Goliath. Equipped with these weapons, by which the throne was once more to be won back to David's house, they took up their position. The little Prince then appeared on the royal platform, apparently raised on a pillar near the gate leading into the inner court. It is the first direct example of a coronation. The diadem, which was probably a band studded with jewels, was placed on his head by the High Priest, and upon it the sacred "Testimony," which in the reign of Jehoshaphat had been raised into new importance. It seems like the intimation of 1 2 Kings xi. 19. 2 Ibid. xi. 14; 2 Chr. xxiii. 13; Joseph. Ant. ix. 7, § 3; and comp. Ezek. xlvi. 2, 2 Kings xvi. 18, xxiii. 3. It is a different word from the "golden crown" of David and Sol omon. 4 2 Kings xi. 12; 2 Chr. xxiii. 11. Whatever this was, it was probably 3 2 Sam. i. 10; Ex. xxix. 16; Ps. the same as the Book of the Law a limitation in the King's despotic power, an indica tion that he was to be not, like David, above, but beneath the law of his country. He was then anointed with the sacred oil. The bystanders, whether guards or people, clapped their hands together and raised the national shout, "Long live the King!" The sound reached Athaliah in her palace. She came at once into the Temple, as it would seem, with the same high spirit that had marked the last days of her mother, unguarded and alone. Both accounts give us, in almost the same words, the scene that burst upon her. "Behold" the little child-now no longer the King's son or the unknown foundling, but "the King," stood on his platform, at the gate of the court. Beside him were the officers of the guard, the trumpeters whose office it was to announce the royal inaugu ration. The Temple court was crowded with spectators; they, too, took part in the celebration, and themselves prolonged the trumpet-blast, blended with the musical instruments of the Temple service. She saw in a moment that the fatal hour was come. She rent her royal robes, and cried out, in the words always applied to treason: "Conspiracy, conspiracy!" The voice of the High Priest was the first to be heard? ordering the officers to drag her out from the precincts. So strict was the reverence to the Temple, that she passed all through the long array of armed Levites and exulting multitudes, out through the eastern gate into the Kedron valley, before they fell upon her, and 1 By whom, is not clearly expressed; according to the present Hebrew text of Kings (xi. 12), by the people; according to the LXX. of the same, by Jehoiada; according to the Chronicler (2 Chr. xxiii. 11), by Jehoiada and his sons. 2 2 Kings xi. 14; 2 Chr. xxiii 13. 3 2 Kings xi. 15, 16; 2 Chr. xxiii 14, 15. 4 Joseph. Ant. ix. 7, § 4. |