[378] Deut. xxxiii. 19: "They [Zebulon] shall call the peoples unto the mountain: there shall they offer the sacrifices of righteousness."
[379] Isa. viii. 6, 7.
[380] Perhaps we should read Edomites (2 Kings xvi. 6).
[381] The bar of its city gate.
[382] Bikath-Aven—"The cleft of Aven"—Cœle Syria, or Hollow Syria, still called by the Arabs El-Bukāa. Comp. Josh. xi. 17, xii. 7. Aven—or "Vanity"—is perhaps Heliopolis or Baalbek. Comp. Ezek. xxx. 17.
[383] Perhaps Beit el Jame, "House of Paradise"—about eight hours from Damascus (Porter, Five Years in Syria, i. 313).
[384] Kir, in Armenia—the land of their origin (Amos ix. 7).
[385] But, after all, was there a golden calf at Dan? It is scarcely ever alluded to, and the notion that there was one may have arisen (1) from a corruption or mistaken rendering of the text in 1 Kings xii. 29, and (2) from the existence there of the idolatrous ephod. See Klostermann, ad loc.; Isa. ix. 8-17.
[386] LXX., Ἀποτρίψαι τὸν μόσχον σοῦ, Σαμάρεια; Vulg., Projectus est vitulus tuus, Samaria. Orelli renders it, "Abscheulich ist dein Kalb, O Samaria." In Jer. xlvi. 15 we read (of Egypt), "Why is thy strong one swept away?" where the true reading may be, "Hath Khaph [i.e., Apis], thy chosen one, fled?" LXX., Ἆπις ὁ μόσχος σοῦ, ὁ ἐκλεκτός. So Amos had prophesied that the "god of Dan" and the "way of Beersheba" should fall for evermore (Amos viii. 14).
[387] Isa. ix. 11-16. With this passage comp. 2 Kings xxiii. 5; Zeph. i. 4; Hos. vii. 9, 10.