Jerusha

“ Jerusha leaned forward watching with curiosity—and a touch of wistfulness—the stream of carriages and automobiles that rolled out of the asylum gates. In imagination she followed first one equipage, then another, to the big houses dotted along the hillside. She pictured herself in a fur coat and a velvet hat trimmed with feathers leaning back in the seat and nonchalantly murmuring 'Home' to the driver. But on the door-sill of her home the picture grew blurred. ”

“ She had been on her feet since five that morning, doing everybody's bidding, scolded and hurried by a nervous matron. Mrs. Lippett, behind the scenes, did not always maintain that calm and pompous dignity with which she faced an audience of Trustees and lady visitors. Jerusha gazed out across a broad stretch of frozen lawn, beyond the tall iron paling that marked the confines of the asylum, down undulating ridges sprinkled with country estates, to the spires of the village rising from the midst of bare trees. ”

“ And his mother’s name was Jerusha, the daughter of Zadok. 34 And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD: he did according to all that his father Uzziah had done. 35 Yet the high places were not removed: the people sacrificed and burned incense still in the high places. He built the higher gate of the house of the LORD. 36 Now the rest of the acts of Jotham, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? 37 In those days the LORD began to send against Judah Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah. ”

“ The ambient air is here also of so good a temperature, that the people of the country are clothed in linen-only, even when snow covers the rest of Judea. This place is one hundred and fifty furlongs from Jerusalem, and sixty from Jordan. The country, as far as Jerusalem, is desert and stony; but that as far as Jordan and the lake Asphaltitis lies lower indeed, though it be equally desert and barren. But so much shall suffice to have said about Jericho, and of the great happiness of its situation. ”

“ One of the best, though not one of the wisest, kings of Judah, he did his best to eradicate every trace of idolatry; but the hearts of the people responded faintly to his efforts. Reform was only outward and superficial,--an illustration of the inability even of an absolute monarch to remove evils to which the people cling in their hearts. To the eyes of Jeremiah, there was no hope while the hearts of the people were unchanged. "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?" he mournfully exclaims. "Much less can those who are accustomed to do evil learn to do well." ”

“ How could the still smaller and weaker kingdom of Judah keep itself from vassalage to Egypt and from the encroachments of Philistines on the west and Moabites on the east? Could anything but ruin be imminent, if these two nations of Israel and Judah—one in land, one in blood, one in language, in tradition, and in interests—were perpetually to destroy each other with internecine strife? The kings determined to make a league with one another, and to bind it by mutual affinity. It was proposed that Athaliah, daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, should marry Jehoram, the son of Jehoshaphat. ”

“ In the one and twentieth year of the reign of Jehoash, Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu, took the government of the Israelites in Samaria, and held it seventeen years. He did not [properly] imitate his father, but was guilty of as wicked practices as hose that first had God in contempt: but the king of Syria brought him low, and by an expedition against him did so greatly reduce his forces, that there remained no more of so great an army than ten thousand armed men, and fifty horsemen. He also took away from him his great cities, and many of them also, and destroyed his army. ”

“ Now after the death of Jehoahaz, his son Joash took the kingdom, in the thirty-seventh year of Jehoash, the king of the tribe of Judah. This Joash then took the kingdom of Israel in Samaria, for he had the same name with the king of Jerusalem, and he retained the kingdom sixteen years. He was a good man, 17 and in his disposition was not at all like his father. Now at this time it was that when Elisha the prophet, who was already very old, and was now fallen into a disease, the king of Israel came to visit him ”

“ They remained passive, whilst the Israelites were encamping near Gilgal, between the Jordan and Jericho. The fortress of Jericho, exposed to the first brunt of an attack from the Israelites, could expect no help from elsewhere, and was left entirely to its own resources. The tribes of Israel, on the other hand, were headed by a well-tried leader; they were united, skilled in warfare, and eager for conquest.
Joshua, the son of Nun, of the tribe of Ephraim, was accepted as the rightful successor of the great Prophet. ”

“ JEHU, son of Jehoshaphat and grandson of Nimshi, in the Bible, a general of Ahab and Jehoram, and, later, king of Israel. Ahaziah son of Jehoram of Judah and Jehoram brother of Ahaziah of Israel had taken joint action against the Aramaeans of Damascus who were attacking Ramoth-Gilead under Hazael. Jehoram had returned wounded to his palace at Jezreel, whither Ahaziah had come down to visit him. Jehu, meanwhile, remained at the seat of war, and the prophet Elisha sent a messenger to anoint him king. ”

“ Now, as we ascend the winding path along the steep mountain sides, we pause for one last look over the plain and the sea and the dark heights beyond, whence came Israel’s hosts of old to possess the land. There, beneath us, where the plain is lost in green, stood the ancient Jericho, where the worshippers from the east of Jordan were wont to assemble ere going up in company to the great feasts. ”

“ So he went out to meet Jehu, who marched slowly, 16 and in good order; and when Joram met him in the field of Naboth, he asked him if all things were well in the camp; but Jehu reproached him bitterly, and ventured to call his mother a witch and a harlot. Upon this the king, fearing what he intended, and suspecting he had no good meaning, turned his chariot about as soon as he could, and said to Ahaziah, "We are fought against by deceit and treachery." But Jehu drew his bow, and smote him, the arrow going through his heart: so Joram fell down immediately on his knee, and gave up the ghost. ”

“ Amity had reigned for a century between Judah and Israel, the result of the politic-impolitic alliance which Jehoshaphat had sanctioned between his son Jehoram and the daughter of Jezebel. It was obviously most desirable that the two small kingdoms should be united as closely as possible by an offensive and defensive alliance. But the bond between them was broken by the overweening vanity of Amaziah ben-Joash of Judah. His victory over the Edomites, and his conquest of Petra, had puffed him up with the mistaken notion that he was a very great man and an invincible warrior. ”

“ But what cared Jehu? Many a conqueror ere now has sat down to the dinner prepared for his enemy; and the obsequious household of the dead tyrants, ready to do the bidding of their new lord, ushered the hungry man to the banquet provided for the kings whom he had slain. No man dreamt of uttering a wail; no man thought of raising a finger for dead Jehoram or for dead Jezebel, though they had all been under her sway for at least five-and-thirty years. "The wicked perish, and no man regardeth." "When the wicked perish, there is shouting." ”

“ Then said Yush'a to his people: "This day has annihilated the power of the confederates and of the allies of the confederates. All the children of Israil should offer praises and halleluiahs to the King of kings and Lord of lords, who has rescued them and preserved them, and protected them, and delivered them, and uprooted their enemies."And the king was offering praise, and saying: "God is the one who acts as the Hero for us in the wars, God is His name."And the children of Israil followed him, while all of them were saying: "Who is like unto Thee, perfect in holiness? ”

“ Without them it would be impossible either to find the way to Jericho and the river, or to pass along the deserted road, for there are always out-lookers about the tops of the hills to give notice that you are without an escort, and you would consequently still find that travellers may “fall among thieves” between Jerusalem and Jericho; besides that, on descending to the plain of Jericho you would certainly become the prey of other Arabs of real tribes, ever passing about there—including most probably the ’Adwân, to whose hospitality, however, we were now about to commit ourselves. ”

“ With Jer 22:11 and Jer 22:12, cf. 2Ki 23:33-35. - The brief saying in regard to Joahaz forms the transition from the general censure of the wicked rulers of Judah who brought on the ruin of the kingdom, to the special predictions concerning the ungodly kings Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin, in whose time the judgment burst forth. In counselling not to weep for the dead king (Josiah) , but for the departed one (Joahaz) , Jeremiah does not mean merely to bewail the lot of the king carried prisoner to Egypt, but to foreshadow the misery that awaits the whole people. ”

“ Of the many strange paradoxes in the romantic history of Israel not the least strange is this, that the Jewish nation should have found a home and refuge in that desolate and remote corner of Eastern Europe once ruled by the Jesuits, and that the destiny of the Jews should have become so closely associated with the fate of a Catholic people, which, like the Jews, has only an ideal existence; which, like the Jews, has been oppressed and suppressed, and which, like the Jews, has asserted its vitality in the face of economic degradation and political martyrdom. ”

“ Jericho was a city surrounded with strong walls; but the Israelites took it without sword and bow. For six days the priests with the ark and all the armed men walked around the city, once every day; but on the seventh day they went around it seven times, and the seventh time the priests blew the trumpets and the people shouted, and the walls fell, and the town was taken.—After seven years Joshua had subdued 31 kings, and divided the land among the twelve tribes of Israel. The tribe of Levi received no separate portion 30of land, but 48 cities were given them among the other tribes. ”

“ The [pg 073] small remnant that remained, under the guidance of Jeremiah, recovered some civil rights, and supported themselves by the cultivation of the land, and in their bitter misery learned those lessons which prepared them for a renewed prosperity after the seventy years captivity. Never afterward was idolatry practiced by the Jews. But no nation was ever more signally humiliated and prostrated. Can we hence wonder at the mournful strains of Jeremiah, or the bitter tears which the captive Jews, now slaves, shed by the rivers of Babylon when they remembered the old prosperity of Zion. ”

“ And Judah was put to the worse before Israel; and they fled every man to their tents.
Jehoash afterwards destroyed a large portion of the wall of Jerusalem and plundered the temple and palace, returning home to Samaria with rich booty and hostages. [505] Judah thus remained a vassal state of Israel's.
Jeroboam, son of Jehoash, had a long and prosperous reign. About 773 B.C. he appears to have co-operated with Assyria and conquered Damascus and Hamath. ”

“ Near the camp is a high mound of rubbish. This is the site of our favorite Jericho, a name of no majesty like that of Rome, and endeared to us by no associations like Jerusalem, but almost as widely known as either; probably even its wickedness would not have preserved its reputation, but for the singular incident that attended its first destruction. Jericho must have been a city of some consequence at the time of the arrival of the Israelites; we gain an idea of the civilization of its inhabitants from the nature of the plunder that Joshua secured ”

“ Already the tribesmen about Jericho might have begun to fulfil their threat, and move against Judas. These men had been the enemies of her people for ages. Not since Joshua crossed their plain had they been at peace, except at times when the degenerate Jews mingled their blood in marriage with that of these heathen. Toward the Chasidim, those extremists who would purge the land of all but the pure stock of Israel, these tribes had sworn special hatred. ”

“ Joash, king of Israel, captured the city from Amaziah, king of Judah, and destroyed part of the fortifications, but these were rebuilt by Uzziah, the son of Amaziah, who did much to restore the city to its original prosperity. In the reign of Hezekiah, the kingdom of Judah became tributary to the Assyrians, who attempted the capture of Jerusalem. Hezekiah improved the defences and arranged for a good water supply, preparatory to the siege by Sennacherib, the Assyrian general. The siege failed and the Assyrians retired. ”

“ At the very beginning of Jehoiakim's reign, the priests, the prophets, and the people assembled in the temple, laid hands on Jeremiah, because he had declared that Zion should share the fate of Shiloh, and that Jerusalem should be destroyed. He was by them found worthy of death, and he escaped from the power of his enemies only by the mediation of the princes of Judah, who hastened to his rescue, and reminded the people that in Hezekiah's days the prophet Micah had uttered a like prophecy, and yet had suffered nothing at the hand of the king, because he feared God. ”

“ The transient nature of Josiah's reformation, radical as it may have appeared at the time to the principal agents engaged in it, is evident from the testimony of Jeremiah himself. And Iahvah said unto me, There exists a conspiracy among the men of Judah, and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem. They have returned to the old sins of their fathers, who refused to hear My words; and they too have gone away after other gods, to serve them: the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken My covenant, which I made with their forefathers. ”