able, that he could be no longer borne by his own family, his two eldest sons, Adramelech and Sharazer, conspired against him, and falling upon him while he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch, his god, they there slew him with the sword; and thereon having made their escape into the land of Armenia, Esarhaddon, his third son, reigned in his stead. Some commentators will have it, that he had vowed to sacrifice these his two sons to appease his gods, and make them the more favourable to him for the restoration of his affairs, and that it was to prevent this that they thus sacrificed him. But for this there is no other foundation, but that scarce any thing else can be thought of which can afford any excuse for so wicked and barbarous a parracide. An. 706. Esarhaddon began his reign over Assyria, about the twenty-second year of king Hezekiah, which was the last of the reign of Sevechus, or Sethon, in Hezek. 22. the kingdom of Egypt; who dying, after he had reigned fourteen years," was succeeded by Tirhakah, the same who came with the Ethiopian army to his help. He was the third and last of that race that reigned in Egypt. In the twenty-third year of Hezekiah, Arkianus dying without issue, there followed an inter- An. 705. regnum of two years, in the kingdom of Baby- Hezek. 28, lon, before they could agree upon a succes X X sor. At length Belibus, being advanced to the throne, sat in it three years. After him succeeded Apronadius, and reigned six years. An. 699. The same year that Apronadius began his reign at Babylon, Hezekiah ended his at Jerusalem: fory he died there, after he had reigned twenty and nine years; and all Judah and Jerusalem did Hezek.29. honour at his death; for they buried him, with great solemnity, in the chiefest and highest place of the sepulchres of the sons of David, expressing thereby, that they looked on him as the worthiest and best s 2 Kings xix, 37. 2 Chron. xxxii, 21. Isa. xxxvii, 38. t Bishop Patrick on 2 Kings xix, 37. Salianus sub anno ante Christum 729. u Africanus apud Syncellum, p. 74. y 2 Kings xx, 21. 2 Chron. xxxii, 33. x Pol. Can. of all that had reigned over them of that family, since him that was the first founder of it. Ꮓ The burial-place, called the sepulchres of the kings of the house of David (which hath been afore spoken of) was a very sumptuous and stately thing. It lies now within the walls of Jerusalem, but, as is supposed, was formerly a within them, before that city was destroyed by the Romans. It consists of a large court of about one hundred and twenty feet square, with a gallery, or cloister, on the left hand, which court and gallery, with the pillars that supported it, were cut out of the solid marble rock. At the end of the gallery there is a narrow passage or hole, through which there is an entrance into a large room or hall, of about twenty-four feet square, within which there are several lesser rooms one within another, with stone doors opening into them; all which rooms, with the great room, were all likewise cut out of the solid marble rock. In the sides of those lesser rooms are several niches, in which the corpses of the deceased kings were deposited in stone coffins. In the innermost, or chiefest of these rooms, was the body of Hezekiah laid in a niche, perchance cut on purpose at that time for it, in the upper end of that room, to do him the greater honour; and all this remains entire even to this day. It seems to have been the work of king Solomon, for it could not have been made without vast expense; and it is the only true remainder of old Jerusalem which is now to be seen in that place. Hezekiah, during his reign, much improved the city of Jerusalem, not only b by new fortifying of it, erecting magazines therein, and filling them with all manner of armoury, which were of use in those days, but also by building a new aqueduct, which was of great convenience to the inhabitants for the supplying z Thevenot's Travels, part 1, book 2, c. 40. Maundrel's Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem, p. 76. a Maimonides in his tract, Beth Habbechirah, c. 7, saith, in Jerusalem, they do not allow a sepulchre, except the sepulchres of the house of David, and the sepulchre of Huldah, the prophetess, which were there from the days of the former prophets. This proves these sepulchres to have been within the walls of Jerusalem, and that the words of Scripture which place them in the city of David are strictly to be understood. b 2 Chron. xxxii, 5. Ecclesiasticus xlviii, 17. c 2 Kings xx, 20. 2 Chron. xxxii, 30. Ecclesiasticus xlviii, 17. of them with water: and, for thed better promoting of religion, he maintained skilful scribes to collate together and write out copies of the holy Scripture; and it is particularly mentioned, that the Proverbs of Solomon were thus collected together and wrote out by those men. And in his time the Simeonites, being straitened in their habitations, much enlarged their borders toward the south: for falling on the Amalekites, who dwelt in part of Mount Seir, and in the rich valley adjoining, they smote them, and utterly destroyed them, and dwelt in their rooms. An. 698. But it was the misfortune of this good king Hezekiah to be succeeded by a son who was the wickedest and worst of the whole race: for after him Manas. 1. reignedf Manasseh, who being a minor only twelve years old, at his coming to the crown, had the misfortune to fall into the hands of such of the nobility for his guardians and chief ministers, who, being ill affected to his father's reformation, took care to breed him up in the greatest aversion to it that they were able, corrupting his youth with the worst of principles, both as to religion and government; so that, when he grew up, he proved the most impious towards God, and most tyrannical and wicked towards his subjects, of any that had ever reigned, either in Jerusalem or Samaria, over the tribes of Israel; for he not only restored all the idolatry of Ahaz, but went much beyond him in every abomination, whereby the true worship of God might be suppressed, and his most holy name dishonoured in the land; for whereas Ahaz did only shut up the house of God, he converted it into a house of all manner of idolatrous profanation, setting up an image in the sanctuary, and erecting altars for Baalim, and all the host of heaven, in both its courts; and he also practised witchcrafts, and enchantments, and dealt with familiar spirits, and made his children pass through the tire to Molech, and filled Judah and Jerusalem with his high places, idols, groves, and altars erected to false gods, and brought in all manner of other idolatrous profanations, whereby the d Prov. xxv, 1. e 1 Chron. iv, 39-43. f 2 Kings xxi. 2 Chron. xxxiii. true religion might be most corrupted, and all manner of impiety be most promoted, in the kingdom: and, to all these ways of abomination, he made Judah and Jerusalem to conform, raising a terrible persecution against all that would not comply with him herein, whereby he filled the whole land with innocent blood, of which he did shed very much in the carrying on of these and his other wicked purposes. And when God sent his prophets to him, to tell him of these his iniquities, and to exhort him to depart from them, he treated them with contempt and outrage, and severals of them he put to death; and, particularly, it is said, that Isaiah the prophet, on this account, suffered martyrdom under him, by being cruelly sawn asunder. This wash an old tradition among the Jews; and the holy apostle, St. Paul, in his epistle to the Hebrews (c. xi, 37,) having among the torments undergone by the prophets and martyrs of foregoing times, reckoned that of being sawn asunder, he is generally thought in that place to have had respect hereto. By which horrid iniquities and abominations, God was so justly incensed against the land, that he declared hereon, j that he would stretch out over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab, and wipe Jerusalem clean of all its inhabitants, as a man wipeth a dish, and turneth it when empty upside down. Which, accordingly, was executed upon it, in the destruction of that city, and the desolation which was brought upon all Judah at the same time. And among all the iniquities that drew down these heavy judg ments upon that city and land, the sins of Manasseh are always reckoned as the most provoking cause; by which an estimate may be best made of the greatness of them. In the fifth year of Manasseh diedm Apronadius, king of Babylon, and was succeeded by m Manas. 5. Regibilus, who reigned only one year. After An. 694. g Josephus Antiq. lib. 10, c. 4. Talmud Hierosol. in Sanhedrin, fol. 28, col. 3. Talm. Babylon. in Jevammoth, fol. 49. col. 2, et in Sanhedrin, fol. 103, col. 2. Shaleshelleth Hakkabbalah, fol. 19, col 1. Yalcut Lib. egum, fol. 38, col. 4. i Vide Justin. Martyr. in Dialogo cum Tryphone. am, c. 20 and 57. Epiphanium, et alios. 12 Kings xxiii, 26; and xxiv, 3. Jer. xv, 4. Hieronymum in Esai. j 2 Kings xxi, 13. m Canon Ptolemai. him, Mesessimordacus had the kingdom, and held it four years. An. 688. In the eleventh year of Manasseh" died Tirhakah, king of Egypt, after he had reigned there Manas.11. eighteen years, who was the last of the Ethiopian kings that reigned in that country. The Egyptians, after his death, not being able to agree about the succession, continued for two years together in a state of anarchy and great confusion, till at length, twelve of the principal nobility conspiring together, seized the kingdom, and, dividing it among themselves into twelve parts, governed it by joint confederacy fifteen years. Manas. 19. The same year that this happened in Egypt, by the death of Tirhakah, the like happened in Babylon, by the death of Mesessimordacus. For, he leaving no son behind him to inherit the kingdom, an interregnum of anarchy and confusion followed there, for eight years together; of which Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, taking the advantage, seized BabyAn. 680. lon; and adding it to his former empire, thenceforth reigned over both for thirteen years. He is in the canon of Ptolemy, called AssarAdinus. And in the Scriptures he is spoken of as king of Babylon and Assyria jointly together. In Ezra he is called Asnappar, and hath there the honourable epithets of the great and noble, added to his name by the author of that book; which argues him to have been a prince of great excellency and worth in his time, and far exceeding all others, that had reigned before him in either of the kingdoms. In the twenty-second year of Manasseh, Esarhaddon, after he had now entered on the fourth year of his reign in Babylon, and fully settled his authority o Diodorus Siculus, lib. 1. n Africanus apud Syncellum, p. 74. r Canon Ptolemæi. s He is said, as king of Assyria, to have brought a colony out of Babylon into Samaria, 2 Kings xvii, 24. Ezra iv, 9, 10, which he could not have done, if he had not been king of Babylon, as well as of Assyria, at that time. And in 2 Chron. xxiii, 11, he is said, as king of Assyria, to have taken Manasseh prisoner, and to have carried him to Babylon, which argues him, at that time, to have been king of Babylon also. t Ezra iv, 10. |