31 ([return])
[ Here is a very great error in our Hebrew copy in this place, 2 Chronicles 15:3-6, as applying what follows to times past, and not to times future; whence that text is quite misapplied by Sir Isaac Newton.]
32 ([return])
[ This Abelmain, or, in Josephus's copy, Abellane, that belonged to the land of Israel, and bordered on the country of Damascus, is supposed, both by Hudson and Spanheim, to be the same with Abel, or Ahila, whence came Abilene. This may be that city so denominated from Abel the righteous, there buried, concerning the shedding of whose blood within the compass of the land of Israel, I understand our Savior's words about the fatal war and overthrow of Judea by Titus and his Roman army; "That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the land, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zacharias son of Barnchins, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily, I say unto you, all these things shall come upon this generation," Matthew 23;35, 36; Luke 11:51.]
33 ([return])
[ Josephus, in his present copies, says, that a little while rain upon the earth; whereas, in our other copies, it is after many days, 1 Kings 18:1. Several years are also intimated there, and in Josephus, sect. 2, as belonging to this drought and famine; nay, we have the express mention of the third year, which I suppose was reckoned from the recovery of the widow's son, and the ceasing of this drought in Phmuiela [Footnote which, as Menander informs us here, lasted one whole year]; and both our Savior and St. James affirm, that this drought lasted in all three years and six months, as their copies of the Old Testament then informed them, Luke 4:25; James 5:17. Josephus here seems to mean, that this drought affected all the habitable earth, and presently all the earth, as our Savior says it was upon all the earth, Luke 4:25. They who restrain these expressions to the land of Judea alone, go without sufficient authority or examples.]
34 ([return])
[ Mr. Spanheim takes notice here, that in the worship of Mithra [the god of the Persians] the priests cut themselves in the same manner as did these priests in their invocation of Baal [the god of the Phoenicians].]
35 ([return])
[ For Izar we may here read [with Hudson and Cocceius] Isachar, i.e of the tribe of Isachar, for to that tribe did Jezreel belong; and presently at the beginning of sect. 8, as also ch. 15. sect. 4, we may read for Iar, with one MS. nearly, and the Scripture, Jezreel, for that was the city meant in the history of Naboth.]