cution was prevented, by the king's immediately following, and receiving a prophetic assurance, that the famine which then most terribly distressed the city, should terminate in four and twenty hours.P

Great energy will be given to the term messengers of death, mentioned by Solomon, Prov. xvi. 14, if we understand those words of the capidges of the ancient Jewish princes: The wrath of a king is as messengers of death, but a wise man will pacify it.-His wrath puts a man in danger of immediate death, and may chill the blood like the appearance of a capidgi; but by wisdom a man may sometimes escape the danger.

The behaviour of Elisha may be supposed to be a proof, that the ancient Jews were not so submissive to the orders brought by the messengers of death, of that country, as the Turks and Persians of later times. Jehoram's sending, however, only a single person, to take off the head of the Prophet, seems to shew that they were, or nearly so. It is to be remembered, that the capidges of later ages, have been persuaded sometimes to delay an execution, or attempts at least have been made use of to persuade them to do it, in hope of a counter-order; and at other times the condemned person may have delayed a while the making his appearance, imagining there might be a relenting in the prince. Chardin has given us an example of the first, in the case of a black servant, who

P2 Kings vi. 32, 33.

went along with his master to take off the head of a Persian general, and who joined with the supposed criminal in begging for a little delay, but who could not prevail; when scarcely was the messenger of death remounted on his horse, when a counter-order was brought, and the general's death very much regretted by the prince who commanded it.".

Elisha, it should seem, begged the elders of Israel that were with him, to detain the messenger of death a few minutes at the door, until the king should arrive, who was closely following him, probably as repenting of what he had commanded. He could not, however, forbear exclaiming, when he saw the Prophet, who, I should apprehend, had given him hopes of deliverance out of the hands of the king of Syria, who had been promising him favour if he yielded’ and at the same time threatening him if he persisted in holding out the city against him, exclaiming, I say, This calamity is of GOD! it cannot be avoided! why should I wait in a vain expectation of escaping from him, by depending, O Elisha, on thy flattering assurances of not falling into his hands, through which assurances my people are expiring with hunger, and even mothers constrained to eat their own children? Then the Prophet persuaded him to wait twenty-four hours longer, declaring, with great positiveness and precision, upon pain of being put immediately to death, that within that time, plenty should be restored Voy. tome 3, p. 148.

to Samaria. After some such a manner as this, I should think, this passage is to be understood.

OBSERVATION XLII.

Of the Extermination of ancient royal Families in the East.

NONE of the commentators whom I have seen, seem to me to have given the true explanation of that expression of sacred history, relating to the extermination of ancient royal families in the East, which describes every male as cut off, "There was no one remaining, either shut up or left in Israel :" the expression being to be understood, I apprehend, as signifying, that no one should remain, in a situation from whence it might be expected he would assert, and endeavour to make good, his claim to the crown; nor any one left of those from whom nothing was apprehended, either on account of mental or bodily imperfection, or the unsuspicious temper of the conqueror.

The expression is made use of in relation to the families of Jeroboam,' and Ahab,' kings of Israel; and occurs also in some other places

1 Kings, 14, 10. Therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam, him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel, and will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man taketh away dung, until it be all gone.

* 1 Kings xxi. 21, 2 Kings ix. 8.

of holy writ, which may be illustrated by explaining the phrase, as used in relation to those two ancient royal families of the Jewish nation.

The explanations of commentators are very various, but none of them satisfactory. That which I have to propose, and would submit to the reader, is founded on Eastern historical events.

Some times, when a successful prince has endeavoured to extirpate the preceding royal family, some of them have escaped the slaughter, and have secured themselves in some impregnable fortress, or place of great secrecy; while others have sought an asylum in some foreign country, from whence they have occasioned, from time to time, great anxiety and great difficulties to the usurper of their crown. The word shut up, strictly speaking, refers to the two first of these cases. When Athaliah endeavoured to destroy all the seed royal of Judah," that she might herself reign, one child alone was preserved, Joash by name, who was kept with great secrecy for some years, shut up in a private apartment of the Temple, from whence he was brought forth in due time, and actually recovered the crown.

Other princes have shut up themselves in impregnable fortresses, and from thence have given great alarm to their rivals, and, it may be, at length re-established themselves in the Deut. xxxii. 36, 2 Kings xiv. 26.

* 2 Kings i. xl.

government of their hereditary countries, or of part of them.

Those of royal blood in either of these situations come, strictly speaking, under this description, of persons shut up. But the term may be used in a more extensive sense, for those princes who, by retiring into deserts, or into foreign countries, preserve themselves from being slain by those who have usurped the dominions of their ancestors. Thus the term is applied to David, when he lived in Ziklag, in the time of King Saul, 1 Chron. xii. 1: Now these are they that came to David to Ziklag, while he yet kept himself close, or more exactly according to the Hebrew, as the margin observes, being yet shut up, because of Saul the son of Kish; and they were among the mighty men, helpers of the war. David did not shut himself up, strictly speaking, in Ziklag. It is described as a town in the country, in contradistinction from the royal city of the Philistines, 1 Sam. xxvii. 5, perhaps then an unwalled town: but however that was, it is certain he did not confine himself in Ziklag; he was on the contrary, continually making excursions from thence, as we are informed, ver. 8, &c. But being there in a state of safety, from whence he might in some favourable moment seize the kingdom, the term shut up is applied to him in a less exact sense.

In this sense in like manner, Hadad of the king's seed in Edom, might be described as one shut up, in the time of King David, and his