tion of this brook is affigned by Adrichomius in the con- CHAP. III, fines of Ephraim and Benjamin. 16. As for Zarephath, (chap. xvii. ver. 9.) which belonged to Zidon, it is in the New Teftament (Luke iv. 26.) called Of Zarephath. Sarepta; and under that name I have spoken of it in Part I. chap. iv. fect. 6. of my Geography of the New Teftament. And in like manner, mount Carmel, the river Kifhon, and all the other places mentioned in the remaining part of this first Book of Kings, have been before spoken of in my Geography of the Old Teftament. CHAP. 1. Moab rebels against Ifrael. The Moab march of the place of battle. CHAP. IV. Places mentioned in the fecond Book of Kings, and not THE fecond Book of Kings begins with giving us an ac count, how Moab, that was before tributary to the King of Ifrael, rebelled against Ifrael; i. e. caft off their fubjection to the King of Ifrael, after the death of Ahab ; and how Ahaziah, the fon of Ahab, fent to enquire of Baalzebub, the God of Ekron, concerning his recovery from the disease he then lay under; and what was thereupon done by the prophet Elijah, of whose being taken up into heaven we have an account, chap. ii. The places mentioned in both these two first chapters have been all spoken of before. 2. From chap. ii. to chap. xiii. we have the history of Eliites are fub- fhah the prophet, from the death of Elijah, whom he fucdued; the ceeded, to his own death, intermixed with the history of the Ifrael- the Kings of Judah and Ifrael. In chap. iii. we are inites, and formed, how Jehoram, (another fon of Ahab, that fucceeded his brother Ahaziah, for want of iffue of his own,) being joined by Jehoshaphat King of Judah, went against Moab in order to reduce it to subjection again. And ver. 8, 9. we are particularly informed, that they went the way through the wilderness of Edom, and fetched a compass of feven days journey. Whereby is denoted, that they went not the most direct or nearest way to invade Moab, which lay over Jordan, and through the tribe of Reuben, or fouth part of the country beyond Jordan; but fetched a compass through the wilderness of Edom, which probably lay on the south-west of the Salt Sea, and fo invaded Moab on those parts which were most distant from Ifrael, and on which confequently they least expected to be invaded 3. upon. In chap. iv. ver. 42. we read of a man that came from Of Baalfha-Baalfhalisha, and brought Elisha twenty loaves of barley, lifha, where wherewith he fed an hundred men, fo that they left CHAP. IV. thereof. This place is in the Septuagint verfion written Bætharifa, which, Eufebius and Jerom tell us, was a town in the borders of Diofpolis, about fifteen miles diftant from it to the north, in the country of Thamna, whence it appears to have been fituated in mount Ephraim. And this description agrees well enough with what we read of the land of Shalisha, 1 Sam. ix. 4. wherein this Baalfhalisha probably was fituated. For the land of Shalisha probably lay in Ephraim: though Jerom will have Shalifha to be the fame with Zoar, otherwise called Belah, whither Lot fled; and hence fome have fancied that Baalfhalisha should rather be read Belashalifha, as a name compounded of Bela and Shalifha. The Chaldee Paraphrast and Arabick Interpreter render it the fouth country, which favours the latter opinion, rather than the former; inafinuch as Zoar lay indeed to the fouth of Gilgal, where Elisha then was, whereas Ephraim lay to the north and north-west. In chap. viii. ver. 20, 21. we read, that in the days of 4. Joram, fon of Jehoshaphat, Edom revolted from under the Of Zair. hand of Judah, and made a King over themselves. Whereupon Joram went over to Zair, and fmote the Edomites. From the circumstances of the story, this Zair appears to be near or in the land of Edom. It feems by fome interpreters to be taken for the fame as Seir, whereby the land of Edom is frequently denoted in Scripture; but it is differently written in the Hebrew tongue, and by the Seventy Interpreters it is rendered Sior. 5. In the following verfe of the fame chapter, we read, that then Libnah revolted at the fame time. This is conjectured Of Libnak. by fome to be a different place from the Libnah, lying in the tribe of Judah, and often mentioned in the facred Hiftory; and they will have it to be a city of Edom. But it seems most probable, that it was no other than the city of Judah, and which was one of the cities in that tribe affigned to the fons of Aaron; and that by the revolting thereof is to be understood, the inhabitants refufing to admit the idolatrous worship he would have set up there, as PART III. as well as in other places of his kingdom; and that, therefore, upon his death, or fome fhort time after, they opened their gates again. And this feems to be confirmed, not only by its being exprefsly faid, 2 Chron. xxi. 10. The fame time alfo did Libnah revolt from under his hand; because he had forfaken the Lord God of his fathers: but also by its being faid, both 2 Kings viii. 22. and 2 Chron. xxi. 10. only that Libnah revolted, without adding thereto what is just before faid of Edom, that it continued to revolt unto this day. The omiffion of which expreffion feems to imply, that Libnah had ceased fo to revolt before the time the facred Penman wrote. 6. Of Gur, and Ibleam. 7. In chap. ix. ver. 27. we read, that Jehu being anointed King of Ifrael by the appointment of God, and having flain Joram, the son of Ahab, he followed after Ahaziah, the King of Judah, that aided Joram; and that Jehu's men flew him at the going up to Gur, which is by Ibleam. Now Gur is no where elfe mentioned in Scripture; but Ibleam, by which it is faid to be, is mentioned in two other places; viz. Jofh. xvii. 11. and Judg. i. 27. In the former place we read, that Manaffeh had in Iffachar and Afher, Bethfhean and her towns, and Ibleam and her towns, &c. Where, by the expreffion, in Iffachar and Asher, is probably meant in the confines of those two tribes; where alfo Megiddo is faid to be fituated in the fame text. Some understand Gur (or, as it is in the vulgar Latin, Gaver) to be the name of an ascent or hill by Ibleam; and the Seventy Interpreters render the Hebrew text thus: In the going up to Gai, which is Ibleam; whereby they plainly understood Gai, or Gur, to be only another name for Ibleam. In chap. xii. ver. 20. we read, that the fervants of Of Selah, or Joash King of Judah made a confpiracy, and slew him in Joktheel. Bethmillo, or the house of Millo, which goes down to Silla; of which we have fpoken in the a description of the city of Jerufalem. In chap. xiv. ver. 7. we are informed, that a Page 27, chap. ii. sect. 10, 11. of this volume. Amaziah, Amáziah, the fon of Joash, slew of Edom in the valley of CHAP. IV. Salt ten thousand, and took Selah by war, and called the name of it Joktheel, unto this day. Of the valley of Salt I have before spoken. The word Selah does in the Hebrew tongue fignify a rock, and so exactly anfwers to the Greek word Petra; and therefore it is not without reafon agreed upon by commentators, that this Selah was the fame city with that called by the Greeks and Latins, Petra, lying in Arabia Petræa, thought to be fo named from this its chief city: though others rather think, that as this city had its name from its fituation on a rock, fo the adjacent tra&t was called Arabia Petræa, from its being overfpread with fuch rocks or rocky hills. b 8. fon of Joash, reftore the of Gath In ver. 25. of this fourteenth chapter, we are informed, that Jeroboam, the fon of Joafh King of Ifrael, restored the Jeroboam, coast of Ifrael from the entering in of Hamath, unto the fea how faid to of the plain, according to the word of the Lord, which he coaft of IfSpake by Jonah the prophet, who was of Gath-hepher. Ofrael. And, the entering in of Hamath I have before spoken; and that hepher. by the Sea of the Plain, is meant the Salt-Sea, (otherwise called by common writers, the Dead Sea, and the Afphaltite Lake,) is clear from Deut. iii. 17. Why this King is faid to restore these parts, may be gathered from 1 Kings xv. 20. and 2 Kings x. 33. For in the former place we have an account, that Benhadad the King of Syria had fmote Ijon, and Dan, and Abel-beth-maachah, and all Cinneroth, with all the land of Naphthali; and in the latter place we read, that Hazael, a fucceeding King of Syria, finote all the country beyond Jordan. The only place mentioned in the text we are speaking of, and not before described, is Gath-hepher, the birth-place, or at least dwelling-place, of Jonas the prophet. This is expressly said by Eufebius and Jerom to be fituated in the tribe of Zabulon; and the latter tells us in his preface to the prophecy of Jonah, that it was two miles diftant from Sephorim, or Diocefarea, in the way thence to Tiberias; that it was no great Compare 2 Chron. xxv. 12. place, |