Ahijah

“ But in order that not only Jeroboam, but also the people who had joined in his idolatry, might perceive the severity of the divine judgment, Ahijah also announced to the nation its banishment into exile beyond the Euphrates. “Jehovah will smite Israel, as the reed shakes in the water,” is an abbreviated phrase for: Jehovah will smite Israel in such a manner that it will sway to and fro like a reed in the water moved by a strong wind, which has not a sufficiently firm hold to resist the violence of the storm. ”

“ The part played by Ahijah at the time of the disruption of the kingdom, by Elijah in the great struggle between Baal and Jehovah worship, by Elisha during the Aramean assaults upon Israel, by Isaiah at the invasion of Sennacherib—these and similar episodes are dealt with so fully as to suggest that biographies of the prophets, written possibly by literary members of the prophetic order, were at the disposal of the redactors of the book of Kings. Temple affairs are also discussed, from the days of Solomon to Josiah (I Kings vi. vii., 2 Kings xi., xii., xvi., xxii., xxiii.) ”

“ And when Hanani is cast into prison on account of his denunciation of Asa; is not this a prelude, as it were, to the subsequent fate of Micah ben-Imlah (1Ki. 22) and Jeremiah (Jer. 32) ? And so, again, Ahijah’s confirmation and symbolical representation of what he predicted, by the rending in pieces of a new garment (the symbol of the kingdom in its unity and strength) , has its analoga in the history of the earlier prophets (1Sa. 15:26-29) as well as in that of the latest (e.g., Jer. 22) . ”

“ Yet such was the strange syncretism of religion in Jerusalem, of which Solomon had set the fatal example, that (as we learn quite incidentally) Abijah seems to have dedicated certain vessels—part of his warlike spoils—to the service of the Temple. [543] They were perhaps intended to supply the gaps left by the plundering raid of Shishak.
After this brief and perplexing, but apparently eventful reign, Abijah was succeeded by his son Asa, whose long reign of forty-one years was contemporary with the reigns of no less than seven kings of Israel—Nadab, Baasha, Elah, Zimri, Omri, Tibni, and Ahab. ”

“ The Lord, who usually brings forth the rod before he lifts the axe, sent sickness into his house: his son Abijah was sore sick. Then the parents bethought them of an old prophet of God, and desired to know through him what would happen to the child. Fearful lest the prophet should denounce plagues upon him and his child if he knew that the enquirer was the wife of Jeroboam, the king begged the Egyptian princess whom he had married to disguise herself as a farmer's wife, and so get from the man of God a more favorable answer. ”

“ So the house of Ahaziah had no power to keep still the kingdom.
10 But when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the seed royal of the house of Judah.
11 But Jehoshabeath, the daughter of the king, took Joash the son of Ahaziah, and stole him from among the king's sons that were slain, and put him and his nurse in a bedchamber. So Jehoshabeath, the daughter of king Jehoram, the wife of Jehoiada the priest, (for she was the sister of Ahaziah,) hid him from Athaliah, so that she slew him not. ”

“ Ahab went one way by himself, and Obadiah went another way by himself.
7 And as Obadiah was in the way, behold, Elijah met him: and he knew him, and fell on his face, and said, Art thou that my lord Elijah?
8 And he answered him, I am: go, tell thy lord, Behold, Elijah is here.
9 And he said, What have I sinned, that thou wouldest deliver thy servant into the hand of Ahab, to slay me?
10 As the LORD thy God liveth, there is no nation or kingdom, whither my lord hath not sent to seek thee: and when they said, He is not there; he took an oath of the kingdom and nation, that they found thee not. ”

“ Now Abijah says, as a kind of climax:
“And, behold, God himself is with us for our captain, and His priests with sounding trumpets to cry alarm against you. O children of Israel, fight ye not against the Lord God of your fathers; for ye shall not prosper.”
How steadfastly Abijah abides by the altar! He can not be tempted one step from the throne of God. His appeal is sublime because it is religious. It is historically religious. “The Lord God of your fathers.” It would seem to be a solemn thing to cut off oneself from all the currents of history—to bury our fathers over again in a deeper grave ”

“ I know thy tribe for even in my day the colleges of Alexandria echoed with their wranglings and already the winds blew thick with the dust of their forgotten bones. Holly, I tell thee that at times those who create and act are impatient of such petty doubts and cavillings. Yet fear not, old friend, nor take my anger ill. Already thy heart is gold without alloy, so what need have I to gild thy bones?”
I thanked Ayesha for her compliment, and went to my bed wondering which was real, her kindness or her wrath, or if both were but assumed. ”

“ During the reign of Jehoshaphat, fourth king of Judah, and Ahab, sixth king of Israel, after the division of the kingdom, there came out of Gilead Elijah, a prophet of the Lord. Two of the kings of Judah, and all of the kings of Israel had been wicked men, and the Lord sent Elijah to Ahab, king of Israel, to tell him that there should be no rain for years in the land of Israel, and then only as Elijah should ask for it. Ahab was more wicked than the kings that reigned before him, and had built a temple for the god Baal in Samaria. ”

“ Fair reasoning may do a great deal of good and prevent a good deal of mischief. How forcible are right words! Abijah had got with his army into the heart of their country; for he made this speech upon a hill in Mount Ephraim, where he might be heard by Jeroboam and the principal officers, with whom it is probable he desired to have a treaty, to which they consented. It has been usual for great generals to make speeches to their soldiers to animate them, and this speech of Abijah had some tendency to do this, but was directed to Jeroboam and all Israel. ”

“ Elijah emerged from his retirement in the third year, when, the famine having reached its worst, Ahab and his minister Obadiah had themselves to search the land for provender for the royal stables. To the latter Elijah suddenly appeared, and announced his intention of showing himself to Ahab. The king met Elijah with the reproach that he was “the troubler of Israel,” which the prophet boldly flung back upon him who had forsaken the commandments of the Lord and followed the Baalim. ”

“ Look at the conflict between Ahaziah and Elijah, the Tishbite. Ahaziah is the king and Elijah is only the prophet, and the king ought to have every thing his own way ex-officio. Now we shall see what metal Elijah is [313] made of. He handled kings as if they were little children. He took them up and set them down behind him and said: “Wait there until I return, and stir at your peril.”
The prophet should always be the uppermost man. Kings are nothing compared to teachers and seers—men who hold the judgments of God on commission. ”

“ Chapter 5 The letter of the “riddles” is shown to Ahikar. The boys on the eagles. The first “airplane” ride. Off to Egypt. Ahikar, being a man of wisdom also has a sense of humor. (Verse 27) .
1 And he did as the king commanded him, and took rest for forty days.
2 Then he dressed himself his gayest dress, and went riding to the king, with his slaves behind him and before him, rejoicing and delighted.
3 But when Nadan his sister’s son perceived what was happening, fear took hold of him and terror, and he was perplexed, not knowing what to do. ”

“ Along with Saul and his six hundred men, there was also Ahiah, the son of Ahitub, the (elder) brother of Ichabod, the son of Phinehas, the son of Eli, the priest at Shiloh, and therefore a great-grandson of Eli, wearing the ephod, i.e., in the high priest's robes. Ahiah is generally supposed to be the same person as Ahimelech, the son of Ahitub (1Sa 22:9.) , in which case Ahiah (אחיּה, brother, i.e., friend of Jehovah) would be only another form of the name Ahimelech (i.e., brother or friend of the King, viz., Jehovah) . ”

“ Among these may be mentioned the Ojibway, who are at the present day, the most numerous and important tribe of the formerly wide extended Algic family of tribes. They occupy the area of Lake Superior and the sources of the Mississippi, and as a general fact, they still live in the ways of their ancestors. Even among these, a change is so rapidly taking place, caused by a close contact with the white race, that ten years hence it will be too late to save the traditions of their forefathers from total oblivion. ”

“ And Rehoboam appointed Abijah the son of Maacah to be chief, the prince among his brethren: for he intended to make him king. And he dealt wisely, and scattered all his sons throughout all the lands of Judah and Benjamin, unto every fenced city. ”

“ During my long residence among the Ojibways, after numberless inquiries of their old men, I have never been able to learn, by tradition or otherwise, that they entertain the belief that all the tribes of the red race inhabiting America have ever been, at any time since the occupancy of this continent, one and the same people, speaking the same language, and practising the same beliefs and customs. The traditions of this tribe extend no further into the past than the once concentration or coalition under one head, of the different and now scattered tribes belonging to the Algic stock. ”

“ So when Obadiah had informed the king that Elijah was there, Ahab met him, and asked him, in anger, if he were the man that afflicted the people of the Hebrews, and was the occasion of the drought they lay under? But Elijah, without any flattery, said that he was himself the man, he and his house, which brought such sad afflictions upon them, and that by introducing strange gods into their country, and worshipping them, and by leaving their own, who was the only true God, and having no manner of regard to him. ”

“ It is through the humane advice of this French trader, and the unbounded influence which he held over the Lake Superior Ojibways, which prevented them from joining the alliance of Pontiac, in his war against the English, and which has thereby saved them from the almost utter annihilation which has befallen every other tribe who have been induced to fight for one type of the white race against another, and which enables them at this day to assume the position of the most numerous and important branch of the Algic race, and the largest tribe residing east of the Mississippi. ”