[481] Vilmar.
[482] Now Talura, six miles north of Nablus.
[483] So, too, Jarchi. No doubt they were guided by the remark in 2 Chron. ix. 29, "the visions of Iddo the seer against Jeroboam." But it is not possible, for Iddo lived to a later date (2 Chron. xiii. 22). Ephrem Syrus and Tertullian suppose him to have been Shemaiah (comp. 2 Chron. xii. 5). These are untenable guesses. Epiphanius calls him Joas; Clement, Abd-adonai; Tertullian, Sameas.
[484] Not "by the altar," as in A.V. LXX., ἐπὶ τὸ θυσιαστήριον; Vulg., super altare.
[485] The ashes of the animal offerings (דֶּשֶׁן) used to be carried away to a clean place (Lev. vi. 11).
[486] Amos ix. 1. The Vatican LXX. distinctly makes the sign a future one (1 Kings xiii. 3), καὶ δώσει ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἐκείνῃ τέρας. The narrative seems to suppose, but it does not assert that the altar was rent then and there. Had these miracles immediately followed, it is difficult to imagine that no deeper impression should have been made. As it was the new cult does not seem to have been interrupted for a single day.
[487] The mention by name of a king three centuries before he was even born is wholly alien from every characteristic of Jewish prophecy, and, as in the case of Cyrus (Isa. xliv. 28), it would be false to say that we have even a particle of evidence to show that the name was not added from a marginal gloss or by the latest redactor. He also makes the mistake of putting into the old prophet's mouth the phrase "all the cities of Samaria" at least fifty years before Samaria existed (1 Kings xvi. 24). Keil's remark that "Josiah" is only used appellatively for one whom Jehovah will support (!) is one of the miserable expedients of reckless harmonists. Even Bähr, ad loc., admits that the narrative is of later date, and has received a traditional colouring. In 2 Kings xxiii. 15-18 there is no hint that Josiah had been prophesied of by name.
[488] 1 Kings xiii. 6, "Intreat now" (lit., "make soft") "the face of the Lord." Klostermann, "Besänftige noch das Angesicht Jahve's."
[489] Gal. i. 8.
[490] Klostermann, in his Kurzgefasster Kommentar, gets rid of the lion altogether by one of his sweeping emendations of the text, p. 352. He considers that the whole story comes from a book of edifying anecdotes for the use of young prophets in the schools; and that it may have some connexion with the threat of another Jewish prophet against the altar at Bethel in the days of another Jeroboam (Amos iii. 14, vii. 9).