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lie one to another. And ye shall not swear by my name falsely, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the Lord. Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbor, neither rob him; the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning. . . . Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment; thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty; but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbor. Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people; neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy neighbor: I am the Lord. Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart; thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor, and not suffer sin upon him. Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am the Lord. . . . Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the Lord your God. Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honor the face of the old man, and fear thy God: I am the Lord. And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in mete-yard, in weight, or in measure. Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin shall ye have: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. Therefore shall ye observe all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do them: I am the Lord."-But the difficulties of introducing this system of institutions were as immense as those of maintaining the nation in the desert. The first census showed 22 male Levites above one year of age, and 603,550 males of other tribes above 20, including 22,273 first born. Provisions were scanty, water was scarce, dangers were constant; the people were an unruly mass of freed slaves, who often regretfully thought of the flesh pots of Egypt and of the quiet carelessness of bondage; a multitude of non-Israelites who had joined them regretted the visible gods of their former worship; envy and ambition often augmented the existing dissatisfaction. Moses was still on Mount Sinai when the people compelled his brother Aaron to give them, in a golden calf, an imitation of the Egyptian Apis, a visible god. Moses, descending, broke the tablets of the covenant in his anger, and restored order by a massacre of the idolatrous rioters, but almost despaired of his mission and desired to die. A pompous worship was now introduced, and sacrifices ordained, of which a later prophet, Jeremiah (vii. 22), significantly says in the name of God: "For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices." Moses removed his tent from the camp. All difficulties, however, were con

quered by the "man of God," who consoled himself with the idea that a generation educated under his guidance would replace that of the desert. Having passed round the lands of the Edomites, Moabites, and Ammonites, he conquered those of Sihon, king of the Amorites, and of Og, king of Bashan (Batanæa), E. of the Jordan, giving them to the tribes of Reuben and Gad and to half the tribe of Manasseh, and died on Mount Nebo before entering the land of promise. The man who was "meek above

all men that were on the face of the earth” died in voluntary loneliness, and "no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day." Joshua, his pupil and appointed successor, an Ephraimite, now led the 13 tribes of Israel, named after 11 sons of Jacob and the 2 sons of Joseph, across the Jordan into Canaan (or Palestine proper), which was conquered after a bloody war of extermination, and allotted to the tribes of Judah, Ephraim, Manasseh (the other half), Benjamin, Simeon, Zebulun, Issachar, Asher, Naphtali, and Dan. The Levites, who were to live by tithes, received no separate division, but a number. of cities within the limits of every tribe, among others the historical places of Gibeon, Geba, Beth-Horon, Mahanaim, Hesbon, Jaezer, Hebron, Shechem, Golan, Kedesh, and Ramoth-Gilead; of which the last 5 together with Bezer were selected as towns of refuge for involuntary murderers, while Shiloh became the central city, receiving the tabernacle with the ark of the covenant. Phinehas, son of Eleazar, the zealous priest, and Caleb, son of Jephunneh, were among the most distinguished assistants of Joshua. Before his death, Joshua held an assembly of the whole nation at Shechem, in which he called upon them to choose once more between the gods of their ancestors beyond the Euphrates, those of the conquered Amorites, and the God whom he was determined to follow with his house. The people chose their Deliverer and Preserver, and confirmed their choice by a new covenant; but scarcely were the elders gone who had witnessed the whole work of deliverance and maintained the order of Joshua, when idolatry and anarchy became general. Parts of the country remained unconquered, principally in the hands of the Phoenicians in the N. W., of the Philistines in the S. W., and of the Jebusites in the centre. With these, and with other neighbors on the borders, frequent warfare had to be waged, while the young state, forming a loose confederacy of 12 (or, counting Manasseh as two, of 13) almost independent members, had neither natural boundaries nor a capital, neither a hereditary head nor an elective federal government, the only bond of union being the common law, and the only centre the seat of the ark of the covenant, whose guardians probably enjoyed the privilege of convoking a general assembly of the people in cases of urgent necessity. Such national assemblies were often held at Mizpah. But the enmity and frequent attacks of the surrounding idolatrous tribes was less pernicious than their

friendly relations in times of peace, when the voluptuous rites connected with the worship of Ashtoreth and other divinities of the Phoenicians, Syrians, and Philistines, were too seductive for a people in an undeveloped state, whose own religion required a rigid observance of a strict morality. To remedy these evils, heroic and inspired men arose from time to time, repulsed the enemies, restored order and the law, were acknowledged as leaders and judges, at least by a part of the people, and thus revived its unity. This period of republican federalism under judges (shofetim, a name which also designated the chief magistrates of the Carthaginians in their language, which was also Semitic) is described in the book of that name, a continuation of that of Joshua, and forms one of the most interesting portions of Hebrew history. But criticism labors in vain to arrange chronologically the striking but in part probably contemporaneous events of the narrative. Othniel, a younger brother or nephew of Caleb, of the tribe of Judah, was the first of the judges. Ehud, a Benjamite, delivered Israel from the oppression of the Moabites, having killed with his own left hand Eglon, the king of the invaders. "And after him was Shamgar, the son of Anath, who slew of the Philistines 600 men with an ox goad," at a time when "no shield was seen or a spear among 40,000 in Israel." Barak, a Naphtalite, inspired by Deborah, a female prophet and judge, who afterward celebrated the event in her great song (Judges v.), gained together with her a signal victory near Mount Tabor and the brook Kishon over the army of Sisera, commander of Jabin, a Canaanite king on the N. of Palestine, which numbered 900 iron war chariots. Sisera fled, but was killed in sleep by Jael, a woman of the nomadic and neutral Kenite tribe, in whose tent he had sought refuge. "The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming? why tarry the wheels of his chariot? Her wise ladies answered her, yea, she returned answer to herself, Have they not sped, have they not divided the prey?" The song closes by comparing the victorious friends of the Lord to the rising sun conquering the night. Gideon, characterized as the youngest son of one of the weakest families in Manasseh, surprised with 300 select men the immense camp of the Midianites and Amalekites, dispersed them, called the surrounding tribes to arms, exterminated the invaders, appeased the Ephraimites, who were jealous of the glory gained by their neighbors, and refused to accept the royal dignity offered him by the gratitude of the people, declaring: "I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you; the Lord shall rule over you." Abimelech, however, his son by a concubine, gained adherents among the idolatrous friends of his mother in Shechem, destroyed the numerous family of his father, was proclaimed king in that city, was afterward expelled, but reconquered the city, and finally

perished while besieging the tower of the neighboring Thebez by a piece of millstone cast from its top by a woman. Jotham, the only son of Jerubbaal (as Gideon was called from his destruction of the Baal worship) who escaped from the massacre of his brothers, had predicted the bloody end of the usurper in his fable of "the trees that went forth to anoint a king over them" (Judges ix.), which is probably the most ancient specimen of that kind of poetry now extant. Of the judges Tola, of the tribe of Issachar, and Jair from Gilead in Manasseh beyond the Jordan, little more is preserved than their names. Jephthah, another Gileadite, of illegitimate birth, having been expelled from his home, was recalled by his native district to combat against the Ammonites, who had attacked it, carried the war into the land of the enemy, and returned after a signal victory, of which his heroic daughter, in consequence of a vow, became a victim, being doomed to die or to live unmarried in loneliness, the obscurity of the narrative rendering this point uncertain. And "the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year." The Ephraimites, who had not been called to participate in the combat, now threatened vengeance on the conqueror, who, unlike Gideon, terminated the quarrel with a bloody defeat of the troublesome tribe, which is the first example of civil war among the Israelites, soon to be followed by others. Ibzan of Bethlehem in Judah, Elon, a Zebulunite, and Abdon, an Ephraimite, are next briefly mentioned as judges. Dan, too, gave Israel a judge in the person of Samson, who braved and humiliated the Philistines; he was a Nazarite of prodigious strength, whose adventurous exploits in life and death greatly resemble those of the legendary heroes of Greece. The greatest anarchy now prevailed. The Danites not having yet conquered their territory, 600 men among them made an independent expedition north, and conquered a peaceful town of the Phoenicians, Laish, which was by them named Dan, and is henceforth mentioned as the northernmost town of the whole country, the opposite southern point being Beersheba. The concubine of a Levite having been outraged to death on a passage through Gibeah in Benjamin by some inhabitants of that place, her husband cut her corpse into pieces and sent them to all the tribes, calling for vengeance. The people assembled at Mizpah, and demanded from Benjamin the surrender of the criminals. The Benjamites refused to obey what they probably regarded as a usurpation by the confederacy of their sovereign rights, and a bloody civil war ensued, in which they were nearly exterminated after a heroic struggle against overwhelming forces. The people wept over their fratricidal victory, and 600 Benjamites who alone survived were allowed to seize wives (for the victors had sworn not to give them any) from among the girls dancing in the valley of Shiloh, on a sacred festival annually celebrated there. The

little book of Ruth, which contains the idyllic and the protection "bestowed on David by his narrative of the Moabitish widow of that name, children, Samuel, and the priests, he extermiwho, faithfully sharing the fate of her unfortunated the inhabitants of Nob, a city of the latter, nate mother-in-law, adopted her Hebrew home and passed his life in pursuit of his rival, who, and religion, and married Boaz, is supplement- with a band of desperate outlaws roving on the ary to the book of Judges. The 1st book of southern borders of the country, baffled every Samuel begins with the continuation of the attempt to capture him. The extermination latter. The priest Eli, who died suddenly on of wizardship was one of the acts of Saul. His receiving the news of the defeat of his peo- reign was terminated by a catastrophe. A batple by the Philistines, the death of his two tle was fought against the Philistines at Mount sons, and the capture of the ark of the covenant, Gilboa; the Hebrews fled, Jonathan and two and his pupil, the prophet or seer Samuel, the other sons of Saul fell, and the king slew himson of Elkanah and the pious Hannah, were the self with his own sword. David, whose skill last of the judges. The latter reestablished the in poetry equalled his musical genius, honored exclusive worship of the Lord, routed the Phi- in a touching elegy the memory of his fallen listines, restored the ark, and introduced schools friend and foe (2 Sam. i.), who, "lovely and of prophets, residing in Ramah, his native place, pleasant in their lives, were even in their death and regularly visiting Bethel, Gilgal, and Miz- not divided: they were swifter than eagles, they pah; and when he finally resigned the executive were stronger than lions." Repairing to He-. power, he could say to the assembled people at bron, he was anointed there by his own tribe of Gilgal: "Behold, here I am; witness against Judah as king, while Abner proclaimed a surme before the Lord: Whose ox have I taken? viving son of Saul, Ishbosheth, at Mahanaim, or whose ass have I taken? or whom have I who was acknowledged by all the other tribes defrauded? whom have I oppressed? or of (about 1055 B. C.). Bloody conflicts stained whose hand have I received any bribe to blind this double reign, David continually gaining mine eyes therewith?" And the people testi- the ascendency through his heroic officers, the fied to the purity of his career. But his sons, brothers Joab, Abisai, and Asahel, until the aswhom he appointed in his old age, acted very sassination of Abner and soon after of Ishboshdifferently, and their corruption, but still more eth, caused by private revenge, gave him the the desire for a strong military head, so natural whole kingdom. He now conquered Zion from after the previous long period of war, anarchy, the Jebusites, made Jerusalem his capital, orand disunion, finally decided the people to urge ganized the national worship as well as the the appointment of a king to rule them "like military power of the state, and by continual all other nations." The seer, deeply grieved victories over all surrounding neighbors, except by the proposed change of the Mosaic form of Phoenicia, a friendly country, extended the government, which is distinctly branded in the limits of his dominions N. E. as far as the Eunarrative as a repudiation of the divine rule itself, phrates, and S. W. as far as the Red sea. in vain painted to the people all the oppression, tice was strictly administered; literature and extortion, and degradation inseparable from mo- arts, especially poetry and music, flourished. narchical rule (1 Sam. viii.); they persisted in Asaph, the founder of a family of sacred singers, their demand, and he was obliged to yield. Saul, rivalled the king in psalms; Nathan and Gad the son of Kish, was appointed the first king of assisted him as prophets, Zadok and Abiathar Israel, and the constitution of the monarchy (1 as priests; Joab held almost continually the Sam. x. 25) was written and deposited in the chief command of the army. But the palace sanctuary. The new rule was strengthened and of the king was often stained with crimes; became popular by a series of victories over the David himself had much to repent of; the inAmmonites, Moabites, Idumæans, Syrians, and famous deeds of his sons by various wives, Philistines. The eldest son of the king, Jon- Amnon, Absalom, and Adonijah, distracted athan, distinguished himself as a heroic youth. the peace of his house and kingdom, and the Abner, a cousin of Saul, became commander of two former had perished, and two great insurthe army. Gibeah was the capital of the new rections had been quelled, when he died after a monarchy. But an expedition against the Ama- reign of 40 years (about 1015). His son and lekites, though successful, was not executed ac- successor Solomon, by Bathsheba, the widow cording to the ordinance of Samuel, who now of the assassinated patriot Uriah, a youth of turned his influence against Saul. The spirit of 12 years, commenced his reign with the executhe latter became troubled, and David, the son tion of his half brother Adonijah and the aged of Jesse of Bethlehem, was brought to soothe his Joab, who had conspired against his succession; temper with music. This young shepherd ex- but he soon became famous for personal wiscited the jealousy of Saul by his triumph over dom and scientific attainments, as well as for Goliath, the Philistine giant, which decided a the splendor of his court and the prosperity of campaign, as well as by his subsequent successes his subjects. He inherited a large army and when he married the princess Michal, and be- a full treasury, but he used the former only came the intimate friend of her brother Jona- to preserve peace and secure tribute from his than. Foreseeing the future destinies of the neighbors, and the latter for the adornment of aspiring youth, Saul repeatedly attempted to his country by numerous gorgeous public structake his life, and, exasperated by his failures, tures. He built the temple, which more than

Jus

all contributed to his glory, a royal palace, both in Jerusalem and with the assistance of Tyrian architects, an armory, Palmyra (Tadmor) in the desert, and other cities; made common naval expeditions with the king of Tyre, from Ezion Geber, a port on the eastern gulf of the Red sea, to the distant land of Ophir, which brought back gold, gems, precious woods, and rare animals; imported horses from Egypt for his numerous cavalry and war chariots; and introduced general luxury and culture by his example. The fame of his wisdom attracted visitors from many nations, among others the queen of Sheba (Sabæa) in southern Arabia. The authorship of 3,000 proverbs and 1,005 songs is mentioned among his literary merits; for he wrote on beasts, fowls, creeping animals, fishes, and on all kinds of plants from the cedar in Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall; and the extant philosophical book of Proverbs and the graceful Song of Songs bear his name. But, on the other hand, while the mighty monarch was teaching wisdom in admired works of literature, his personal example taught extravagance and folly. His court was as corrupt as it was splendid. The magnificence which he exhibited was not exclusively the product of foreign gold, tribute, and presents, but in part based on the taxes of his subjects. The army served not only to secure peace, but also as a tool of oppression. The public structures were built with the sweat of the people. Near the national temple on Mount Moriah, altars and mounds were erected for the worship of Ashtoreth, Moloch, and other idols, introduced by some of his numberless wives from their native countries, Phoenicia, the land of Ammon, Idumæa, and Egypt. Rezon was suffered to establish a hostile dynasty in Damascus, and Hadad to make himself independent in Idumæa. When Solomon died, after a peaceful reign of 40 years, the people felt themselves so exhausted that they demanded a considerable change from his son Rehoboam before they proclaimed him king at Shechem, where they had assembled for the purpose. Jeroboam, an Ephraimite who had already attempted an insurrection against the late king, now returned from his exile in Egypt and headed a deputation of the most distinguished citizens. Rehoboam promised an answer after 3 days. The experienced councillors of his father advised him to yield for the moment in order to be master for life; but the advice of his younger companions better suited his disposition, and his reply to the people was accordingly: "My father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke; my father also chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions." The consequence of this was an immediate defection of 10 tribes, who proclaimed Jeroboam their king, while only Judah and Benjamin remained faithful to the house of David. Rehoboam, having fled from Shechem, where his receiver-general of taxes was stoned by the revolted people, returned to Jerusalem and assembled a powerful army to reconquer his lost dominions; but the prophet VOL. IX.-3

Shemaiah dissuaded the people in the name of God from the civil war. Thus the division of the state into two separate kingdoms was consummated (975). The northern, comprising the country N. of Benjamin and all E. of the Jordan, was called Israel, or, from its principal members, Ephraim and Manasseh, the house of Joseph, and poetically Ephraim; its capital was Shechem, subsequently Tirzah, and finally Samaria (Shomron). The southern, from its chief tribe called Judah, had the advantage of possessing the sanctuary in the old capital, and being supported by the Levites and the priests, who gathered around it. To destroy the influence of the religious element upon his own subjects, who according to the Mosaic law were bound to repair 3 times in the year to the chosen sacred spot, Jeroboam revived the not yet extinct Egyptian superstitions of his people, established two golden calves as emblems of their divinity, at Dan and Bethel, on the N. and S. boundaries of his state, admitted non-Levites to the priestly office, and introduced new festivals and even a new calendar. The Mosaic institutions being thus systematically excluded from the state, idolatry, despotism, and corruption prevailed throughout the 250 years of its existence, almost without interruption. While these evils remained permanent, the condition of the people was made still worse by a continual change of masters. Usurpation followed usurpation; conspiracy, revolt, and regicide became common events. The house of Jeroboam was exterminated with his son Nadab by Baasha, who reigned at Tirzah, and whose son Elah was assassinated while drunk by Zimri, one of his generals. At the same time another of his officers, who commanded an army besieging Gibbethon, a city of the Philistines, was proclaimed king by his troops, marched upon Tirzah, and took it, and Zimri after a reign of 7 days burned himself with his palace. A part of the people now wanted Tibni, but Omri prevailed, and Tibni died. Omri, who built Samaria and made it his capital, was succeeded by his son Ahab, whose wife Jezebel, a Sidonian princess, was fanatically zealous in propagating the worship of the Phoenician Baal, and in persecuting the prophets of monotheism, who were almost exterminated. Ahab having died of a wound received in the battle of Ramoth-Gilead against the Syrians under Benhadad II. (897), his two sons Ahaziah and Jehoram successively reigned after him; but with the latter the idolatrous house of Omri was exterminated by Jehu, who was proclaimed king by the officers of the army which he commanded against Hazael of Syria in Gilead (884). Jehu, who had been anointed by the prophet Elisha, abolished the worship of Baal, but left the institutions of Jeroboam. His dynasty, assisted by the influence of Elisha, was in many respects prosperous. To it belonged the kings Jehoahaz, Joash, Jeroboam II., and Zechariah, with whose murder by Shallum it ended (773). Shallum met with the same fate after a month through Menahem,

whose son Pekahiah was slain and succeeded by his chariot driver Pekah. The murderer of the latter, Hoshea, was the last of the usurpers, and the last king of Israel. This state, which during all its existence was exposed to violent shocks from its neighbors, Judah, the Philistines, Moab, which revolted, and especially from the Syrians of Damascus, against whom its possessions beyond the Jordan could seldom be defended, had recovered some strength by repeated victories under Joash and Jeroboam II.; but soon after, rotten and decayed through idolatry, despotism, and anarchy, it became an easy prey to the growing power of Assyria, to whose king Phul it became tributary after an invasion in the reign of Menahem. Tiglath Pileser conquered its E. and N. provinces, carrying off the inhabitants to Assyria, in the time of Pekah, and Salmanassar destroyed it entirely, conquering the capital, Samaria, after a siege of 3 years (721), taking Hoshea prisoner, and dispersing the inhabitants throughout the N. E. provinces of his empire, where their idolatrous habits made them likely to lose their nationality and soon to disappear among their neighbors, though scattered remnants may occasionally have emerg ed at later periods, and in various countries, as representatives of the 10 tribes of Israel. The prophets Ahijah of Shiloh, who contributed to the election of Jeroboam I., Elijah, the hero of the Mosaic religion under Ahab, his great disciple Elisha, the two contemporaries of Jeroboam II., Amos and Hosea, Micah, who lived in the last period, and many others, strove in vain to check the growing power of evil by appeals to the conscience of rulers and people, boldly denouncing the despotism, hypocrisy, and licentiousness of kings, princes, and priests, the selfishness, pride, and extravagance of the rich, the extortions, deceptions, and seductions practised on the people, and again and again kindling the spirit of justice, truth, patriotism, humility, or hope. The extant books of the three last named prophets, while painting in the darkest colors the wickedness and perverse ness of the mighty and the degradation and misery of the poor, console us by showing what pure and sublime ideas of justice, morality, and fraternity were still entertained and taught, what bright visions of a future state of mankind could still be conceived, and what severe truths and fiery reprimands were still listened to even in those times. Without these living thoughts of that distant age, without these evidences of continued moral struggles and sublime efforts, the history of the kingdom of Israel, as preserved in the books of Kings and Chronicles, would be but a gloomy record of crime, bloodshed, and misery.-The rival state of Judah enjoyed more frequent periods of prosperity and lawful order, as well as a longer duration. There the interest of the dynasty, which continued in a direct line of succession down to the latest period, was identical with that of the people. Their common enemy was the idolatry which reigned in Israel. Their common

safeguard was the law, which was here supported by the Levites, and more effectively defended by the prophets. Corruption, however, often led both government and people to break down their only wall of protection, and to imitate the pernicious example of their neighbors. This tendency prevailed as early as the reign of Rehoboam, the most important event of which was the invasion of Shishak (Sheshonk), king of Egypt, who pillaged the temple and the royal palace. War against Jeroboam was almost continually waged during this and the following short reign of Abijam. The successor of the latter, Asa, abolished idolatry, checked public immorality, routed an invading army of Ethiopians, resisted the attacks of Baasha of Israel through an alliance with the king of Damascene Syria, and fortified Gibeah and Mizpah against an invasion from the north. Jehoshaphat, his son, made peace with Israel, and even fought in alliance with Ahab against Benhadad of Syria (897), subdued Idumæa, and fought successfully against the Moabites and their allies, but was unfortunate in an attempted expedition to Ophir. Internally, too, his reign was one of the most successful, the salutary reforms of his father being further developed. But his son Jehoram, having married Athaliah, a sister of Ahab, followed the example of the court of Samaria, and also lost his father's conquest, Idumæa, by a revolt. Ahaziah was equally attached to the house of Ahab, whose fate he shared. Having gone to visit Jehoram, he was mortally wounded by the conspirators under Jehu, and expired on his flight at Megiddo (884). On receiving news of that event, Athaliah his mother usurped the government, exterminating all the royal princes except one, Joash, a child of one year, who was saved by his aunt and secreted in the temple. Six years later Jehoiada, an old priest, matured a conspiracy, the legal heir to the house of David was produced in the temple, and the queen, who hastened thither, was slain. The altars of Baal were now destroyed, and the temple repaired under the influence of Jehoiada; but an invasion of Hazael from Syria could not be repulsed, and the capital itself was saved only by an immense ransom. After the death of Jehoiada Joash abandoned his teachings, and even the son of his benefactor, Zechariah, who boldly reprimanded him, fell a victim to his tyranny, which was ended with his life by a conspiracy (838). His successor Amaziah punished the murderers of his father, and made a successful expedition to Idumæa, but was made prisoner in a battle against Joash, king of Israel, which he had wantonly provoked by a challenge, and, having returned after the death of that king to his conquered and unfortified capital, was deprived by a conspiracy of his throne and life. The following reign of Uzziah or Azariah was not only one of the longest in the history of the Hebrews, lasting 52 years, but also distinguished by victories over the Philistines, Arabians, and Ammonites, and by the flourishing condition

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