(7) Once more the temple was spoiled, before we come to the final spoliations by the king of Babylon, in the 8th year of Jehoiachim king of Judah. This has been alluded to already.
It will be observed that it is not always said that the vessels were taken out of the temple, but in several of the spoliations it is said simply that the treasures were taken out of the house of the Lord; by turning, however, to 1 Kings, vii., 51, it will be seen that the “treasures” include the vessels, for we are told that “the silver, and the gold, and the vessels, did Solomon put among the treasures of the house of the Lord.”
Hence Shishak took away all the treasures of the temple, all the silver and the gold and the vessels that Solomon had placed there. If all in this case means less than all we have Asa to follow, who took away “all that was left.” Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, Ahaziah, and Jehoash, made new vessels and hallowed things, but Jehoash gave all these to Hazael king of Syria; and though all the treasures were given away already, the king of Israel makes a raid on the temple and carries off to Samaria “all the vessels” both of silver and of gold; Ahaz does the same; Hezekiah takes all the silver vessels and cuts off all the gold ornaments of the doors and pillars. After this comes Nebuchadnezzar, who finds all the vessels of Solomon somehow still treasured in the temple, and seizing on them he cuts them to pieces, but they are not yet destroyed nor even lost, for some 10 or 11 years afterwards Nebuzzar-adan, captain of the guard of the king of Babylon, lays his hand on the sacred vessels, and took them “in gold and in silver” to Nebuchadnezzar. Ezra tells us the number amounted to 5400, but how they could be given to so many, cut to pieces and repaired, sent to Assyria, Samaria, and Syria, yet be all wonderfully found safe and sound in a temple in Babylon, is, to say the least, past understanding. Come we now to another class of errors.
(c.) Misstatements.
Exod. vi., 3.
God is represented as saying: “I appeared unto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, by the name God Almighty [El Shadday], but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them.”
Now the name Jehovah occurs over and over again in the Book of Genesis, and has given rise to the Jehovistic and Elohistic controversy, made familiar to English readers by Bishop Colenso. Abraham, we are told, built an altar to Jehovah near Bethel [Gen. xii. 8.], and another in Hebron [Gen. xiii., 18.] but stranger still, when the sacrifice of Isaac was stopped, the patriarch called the spot Jehovah-Jireh [Gen. xxii. 14]. How could he call it so, if the very name Jehovah was unknown to him?
Exod. xvii., 8–13.
The children of Israel had scarcely entered the “wilderness” when the Amalekites came to oppose them. A severe battle ensued, in which the Israelites were at first worsted, but ultimately the foe was “put to the sword.”
The whole history leads to the belief that the people left Egypt unarmed. They were slaves, and it is not at all likely that Pharaoh would have suffered 600,000 slaves to carry swords. It is very true that our English version says “the children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt” [Exod. xiii., 18.], but the marginal reading is “by five in a rank,” which seems the more probable. No time was given for preparation, for the people were “urgent to send them away in haste,” they had not even time to prepare food before they left, but “took their dough before it was leavened” [Exod. xii., 34]. Having crossed the Red Sea, they would have no opportunity of procuring swords, so that this battle must remain a mystery.