CONCERNING JEROBOAM KING OF ISRAEL AND JONAH THE PROPHET; AND HOW AFTER THE DEATH OF JEROBOAM HIS SON ZACHARIAH TOOK THE GOVERNMENT. HOW UZZIAH, KING OF JERUSALEM, SUBDUED THE NATIONS THAT WERE ROUND ABOUT HIM; AND WHAT BEFELL HIM WHEN HE ATTEMPTED TO OFFER INCENSE TO GOD. FJAJ 9.52
1. IN the fifteenth year of the reign of Amaziah, Jeroboam the son of
Joash reigned over Israel in Samaria forty years
This king was guilty
of contumely against God, (18)
What I have above noted concerning Jehoash, seems to me to have been true
also concerning his son Jeroboam II., viz. that although he began wickedly,
as Josephus agrees with our other copies, and, as he adds, "was the
cause of a vast number of misfortunes to the Israelites" in those
his first years, (the particulars of which are unhappily wanting both in
Josephus and in all our copies,) so does it seem to me that he was afterwards
reclaimed, and became a good king, and so was encouraged by the prophet
Jonah, and had great successes afterward, when "God had saved the
Israelites by the hand of Jeroboam, the son of Joash," 2 Kings 14:27;
which encouragement by Jonah, and great successes, are equally observable
in Josephus, and in the other copies.
and became very wicked in worshipping of idols, and in many undertakings
that were absurd and foreign
He was also the cause of ten thousand misfortunes
to the people of Israel
Now one Jonah, a prophet, foretold to him that
he should make war with the Syrians, and conquer their army, and enlarge
the bounds of his kingdom on the northern parts to the city Hamath, and
on the southern to the lake Asphaltitis; for the bounds of the Canaanites
originally were these, as Joshua their general had determined them
So
Jeroboam made an expedition against the Syrians, and overran all their
country, as Jonah had foretold. FJAJ 9.53
2. Now I cannot but think it necessary for me, who have promised to
give an accurate account of our affairs, to describe the actions of this
prophet, so far as I have found them written down in the Hebrew books.
Jonah had been commanded by God to go to the kingdom of Nineveh; and when
he was there, to publish it in that city, how it should lose the dominion
it had over the nations
But he went not, out of fear; nay, he ran away
from God to the city of Joppa, and finding a ship there, he went into it,
and sailed to Tarsus, in Cilicia (19)
When Jonah is said in our Bibles to have gone to Tarshish, Jonah 1:3, Josephus
understood it that he went to Tarsus in Cilicia, or to the Mediterranean
Sea, upon which Tarsus lay; so that he does not appear to have read the
text, 1 Kings 22:48, as our copies do, that ships of Tarshish could lie
at Ezion-geber, upon the Red Sea. But as to Josephus's assertion, that
Jonah's fish was carried by the strength of the current, upon a nean, it
is by no means an improbable determination in Josephus.
and upon the rise of a most terrible storm, which was so great that the
ship was in danger of sinking, the mariners, the master, and the pilot
himself, made prayers and vows, in case they escaped the sea: but Jonah
lay still and covered [in the ship,] without imitating any thing that the
others did; but as the waves grew greater, and the sea became more violent
by the winds, they suspected, as is usual in such cases, that some one
of the persons that sailed with them was the occasion of this storm, and
agreed to discover by lot which of them it was
When they had cast lots,
(20)
This ancient piece of religion, of supposing there was great sin where
there was great misery, and of casting lots to discover great sinners,
not only among the Israelites, but among these heathen mariners, seems
a remarkable remains of the ancient tradition which prevailed of old over
all mankind, that I Providence used to interpose visibly in all human affairs,
and storm, as far as the Euxine Sea, it is no way impossible; and since
the storm might have driven the ship, while Jonah was in it never to bring,
or at least not long to continue, notorious judge, near to that Euxine
Sea, and since in three more days, while but for notorious sins, which
the most ancient Book of he was in the fish's belly, that current might
bring him to the Job shows to have been the state of mankind for about
the Assyrian coast, and since withal that coast could bring him former
three thousand years of the world, till the days of Job nearer to Nineveh
than could any coast of the Mediterranian and Moses. the
lot fell upon the prophet; and when they asked him whence he came, and
what he had done? he replied, that he was a Hebrew by nation, and a prophet
of Almighty God; and he persuaded them to cast him into the sea, if they
would escape the danger they were in, for that he was the occasion of the
storm which was upon them
Now at the first they durst not do so, as esteeming
it a wicked thing to cast a man who was a stranger, and who had committed
his life to them, into such manifest perdition; but at last, when their
misfortune overbore them, and the ship was just going to be drowned, and
when they were animated to do it by the prophet himself, and by the fear
concerning their own safety, they cast him into the sea; upon which the
sea became calm
It is also reported that Jonah was swallowed down by a
whale, and that when he had been there three days, and as many nights,
he was vomited out upon the Euxine Sea, and this alive, and without any
hurt upon his body; and there, on his prayer to God, he obtained pardon
for his sins, and went to the city Nineveh, where he stood so as to be
heard, and preached, that in a very little time they should lose the dominion
of Asia
And when he had published this, he returned
Now I have given
this account about him as I found it written [in our books.] FJAJ 9.54
3. When Jeroboam the king had passed his life in great happiness, and
had ruled forty years, he died, and was buried in Samaria, and his son
Zachariah took the kingdom
After the same manner did Uzziah, the son of
Amaziah, begin to reign over the two tribes in Jerusalem, in the fourteenth
year of the reign of Jeroboam
He was born of Jecoliah, his mother, who
was a citizen of Jerusalem
He was a good man, and by nature righteous
and magnanimous, and very laborious in taking care of the affairs of his
kingdom
He made an expedition also against the Philistines, and overcame
them in battle, and took the cities of Gath and Jabneh, and brake down
their walls; after which expedition he assaulted those Arabs that adjoined
to Egypt
He also built a city upon the Red Sea, and put a garrison into
it
He, after this, overthrew the Ammonites, and appointed that they should
pay tribute
He also overcame all the countries as far as the bounds of
Egypt, and then began to take care of Jerusalem itself for the rest of
his life; for he rebuilt and repaired all those parts of the wall which
had either fallen down by length of time, or by the carelessness of the
kings, his predecessors, as well as all that part which had been thrown
down by the king of Israel, when he took his father Amaziah prisoner, and
entered with him into the city
Moreover, he built a great many towers,
of one hundred and fifty cubits high, and built walled towns in desert
places, and put garrisons into them, and dug many channels for conveyance
of water
He had also many beasts for labor, and an immense number of cattle;
for his country was fit for pasturage
He was also given to husbandry,
and took care to cultivate the ground, and planted it with all sorts of
plants, and sowed it with all sorts of seeds
He had also about him an
army composed of chosen men, in number three hundred and seventy thousand,
who were governed by general officers and captains of thousands, who were
men of valor, and of unconquerable strength, in number two thousand
He
also divided his whole army into bands, and armed them, giving every one
a sword, with brazen bucklers and breastplates, with bows and slings; and
besides these, he made for them many engines of war for besieging of cities,
such as cast stones and darts, with grapplers, and other instruments of
that sort. FJAJ 9.55
4. While Uzziah was in this state, and making preparation [for futurity],
he was corrupted in his mind by pride, and became insolent, and this on
account of that abundance which he had of things that will soon perish,
and despised that power which is of eternal duration (which consisted in
piety towards God, and in the observation of the laws); so he fell by occasion
of the good success of his affairs, and was carried headlong into those
sins of his father, which the splendor of that prosperity he enjoyed, and
the glorious actions he had done, led him into, while he was not able to
govern himself well about them
Accordingly, when a remarkable day was
come, and a general festival was to be celebrated, he put on the holy garment,
and went into the temple to offer incense to God upon the golden altar,
which he was prohibited to do by Azariah the high priest, who had fourscore
priests with him, and who told him that it was not lawful for him to offer
sacrifice, and that "none besides the posterity of Aaron were permitted
so to do." And when they cried out that he must go out of the temple,
and not transgress against God, he was wroth at them, and threatened to
kill them, unless they would hold their peace
In the mean time a great
earthquake shook the ground (21)
This account of an earthquake at Jerusalem at the very same time when Uzziah
usurped the priest's office, and went into the sanctuary to burn incense,
and of the consequences of the earthquake, is entirely wanting in our other
copies, though it be exceeding like to a prophecy of Jeremiah, now in Zechariah
14:4, 5; in which prophecy mention is made of "fleeing from that earthquake,
as they fled from this earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah;"
so that there seems to have been some considerable resemblance between
these historical and prophetical earthquakes.
and a rent was made in the temple, and the bright rays of the sun shone
through it, and fell upon the king's face, insomuch that the leprosy seized
upon him immediately
And before the city, at a place called Eroge, half
the mountain broke off from the rest on the west, and rolled itself four
furlongs, and stood still at the east mountain, till the roads, as well
as the king's gardens, were spoiled by the obstruction
Now, as soon as
the priests saw that the king's face was infected with the leprosy, they
told him of the calamity he was under, and commanded that he should go
out of the city as a polluted person
Hereupon he was so confounded at
the sad distemper, and sensible that he was not at liberty to contradict,
that he did as he was commanded, and underwent this miserable and terrible
punishment for an intention beyond what befitted a man to have, and for
that impiety against God which was implied therein
So he abode out of
the city for some time, and lived a private life, while his son Jotham
took the government; after which he died with grief and anxiety at what
had happened to him, when he had lived sixty-eight years, and reigned of
them fifty-two; and was buried by himself in his own gardens. FJAJ 9.56