[Footnote 3: Ant. IX. xiii.]
[Footnote 4: Ant. X. ii. 2. Comp. Is. 30:8_f_.]
While he thus cursorily disposes of the prophetical writers, he seizes on any scrap of Hellenistic authors which he could find to confirm the Bible story, or rather to confirm the existence of the personages mentioned in the Bible. Thus he quotes the Phoenician historian Menander, who confirms the existence and exploits of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser. So, too, he brings forward Herodotus and Berosus to confirm the existence and doings of Sennacherib.[1] He refutes Herodotus again, doubtless on the authority of a predecessor, for saying that Sennacherib was king of the Arabs instead of king of the Assyrians.
[Footnote 1: Ant. X. ii. 4.]
As with Ahab, so with Josiah, Josephus sees the power of fate impelling him to his death, and substitutes the Hellenistic conception of a blind and jealous power for the Hebrew idea of a just Providence. He ascribes to Jeremiah "an elegy on the death of the king, which is still extant,"[1] apparently following a statement in the Book of Chronicles, which does not refer to our Book of Lamentations. Jeremiah is treated rather more fully than Isaiah. Besides a notice of his writings we have an account of his imprisonment. He ascribes to Ezekiel two books foretelling the Babylonian captivity. Possibly the difference between the last nine and the first forty chapters of the exile prophet suggested the idea of the two books, unless these words apply rather to Jeremiah,
"The two prophets agreed [he remarks] on all other things as to the capture of the city and King Zedekiah, but Ezekiel declared that Zedekiah should not see Babylon, while Jeremiah said the king of Babylon should carry him thither in bonds. Because of this discrepancy, the Jewish prince disbelieved them both, and condemned them for false tidings.[2] Both prophets, however, were justified, because Zedekiah came to Babylon, but he came blind, so that, as Ezekiel had predicted, he did not see the city."
[Footnote 1: Ant. X. v. 2. Comp. II Chron. 35:25.]
[Footnote 2: Ant. X. vii. 2.]
The episode is possibly based on some apocryphal book that has disappeared, and the historian extracts from it the lesson, which he is never weary of repeating, that God's nature is various and acts in diverse ways, and men are blind and cannot see the future, so that they are exposed to calamities and cannot avoid their incidence.[1]
[Footnote 1: Ant. X. viii. 3.]