fastidious distinctions.

He was no

prophet, as he informed Amaziah, neither was he a prophet's son; that is, he had no regular education in the schools of the prophets, but was called by an express irresistible commission from God, to prophesy unto his people Israel. The Holy Spirit did not disdain to speak by the voice of the most humble man; and selected its ministers as well from the tents of the shepherd, as from the palace of the sovereign respecting only the qualities and not the conditions of its agents, as capable of inspiring knowledge and eloquence where they did not exist.

The zeal with which the prophet

reproved the impenitence of the people, and the severe threats which he denounced against the oppression, effeminacy, and luxurious indolence that prevailed, exasperated so much the court of Jeroboam, which cultivated its idolatries at Bethel, that they drew upon him the resentment of the priests and princes of the people; and tradition relates, that he was ill-treated and put to death by Uzziah, the son of Amaziah, who was irritated by his prophecies and censures, but who soon after experienced the divine vengeance in the calamities which Amos had predicted to his family and country.

OBADIAH.

THIS Prophet has furnished us with no particulars of his own origin or life, any more than of the period in which he was favoured by the divine revelations. That he received a commission to prophesy is evident; as well from the admission of his work into the sacred canon, as from the completion of those predictions which he delivered. According to some traditionary accounts, he was of the tribe of Ephraim, and a native of Bethacamar, which Epiphanius describes as in the neighbourhood of Sichem, but which, according to Huet, was a town in the hilly part of the territory of

Judah; and there probably he prophesied, though some suppose that he was carried captive to Babylon, and others that he died in Samaria. Huet and other writers, in consideration of the place which he holds among the prophets in the Hebrew canon, suppose him to have been contemporary with Hosea, Amos, and Joel. In conformity to which opinion, Huet also conceives that the prophet delivered his threats against the Edomites, because they took possession of Elah after it had been conquered by Pekah and Rezin in the reign of Ahaz, and exercised great cruelties against the Jews. The best opinions concur in supposing him to have prophesied a

little after the destruction of Jerusa

lem by Nebuchadnezzar, which hap

pened about A. M. 3416. He predicted therefore the same circumstances which those prophets had foretold against the Edomites, who had upon many occasions favoured the enemies of Judah; and who, when strangers carried their forces into captivity, and when they cast lots upon Jerusalem, had rejoiced at the destruction, and insulted the children of Judah in their affliction.

JONAH.

JONAH was the son of Amittai, of the tribe of Zebulon, and was born at Gath-hepher, which is supposed to