[339] Hos. vi. 9: for "by consent" read "towards Shechem."
[340] Hos. vii. 3-7. The allusions are vague, but we see a drunken king among his drunken princes, surrounded by wicked plotters who have flattered his vices. He is ignorant of his peril. The subjects aid the rulers in these abominations. All are blazing, like an oven, with passion and infamy, and only rest (as the baker does) to acquire new strength for inflaming their burning desires. At the dawn their treachery blazes into the crime of murder, and in the wine-sick fever-heat of the banquet the king is murdered by his corrupt intimates (see my Minor Prophets, p. 78).
[341] Wellhausen, Isr. and Jud., 85.
[342] Hence, perhaps, the expression that the people "took him." If Amaziah died at fifty-nine, he probably had other sons.
[343] Compare the interchange of the names Azariel and Uzziel (Exod. vi. 18) in 1 Chron. vi. 2, 18. Azariah means "Jehovah hath helped," and Uzziah "Strength of Jehovah." It is just possible that his name was changed at his accession, as the chief priest also was named Azariah, and confusion might otherwise have arisen.
[344] 2 Chron. xxvi. 2-15.
[345] Isa. xiv. 29. A mixed language arose in this district in consequence (Neh. xiii. 24; Zech. ix. 6). The word Palestine only applies strictly to the district of Philistia. Milton uses it, with his usual accuracy, in the description of Dagon as
"That twice-battered god of Palestine."
[346] Uzziah's opposition to Assyria—of which there seems to be no doubt, for he must be the Azrijahu of the Eponym Canon—took place about 738, and was a coalition movement. But it gives rise to great chronological and other difficulties. As the solution of these is at present only conjectural, I refer to Schrader (E. Tr.), ii. 211-219. He is called Azrijahu Jahudai.
[347] 2 Kings xv. 5 (2 Chron. xxvi. 21, "a house of sickness"). LXX., ἐν οἴκῳ ἀφφουσώθ; Vulg., in domo libera seorsim. Comp Lev. xiii. 46. Theodoret understands it that he was shut up privately in his own palace: ἔνδον ἐν θαλάμῳ ὑπ' οὐδένος ὁρώμενος. Symmachus, ἐγκεκλεισμένος.