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النشر الإلكتروني

ELISHA ON HIS DEATH-BED.

SOON after Jehoash ascended the throne of Israel, the prophet Elisha fell sick, on which account the King of Israel came to visit him, and having mourned over him with tears, and declared what Israel would lose by his death, received Elisha's blessing and a prophetic promise of success against his enemies the Syrians. "And Elisha said unto him, take bow and arrows: and he took unto him bow and arrows. And he said to the king of Israel, put thine hand upon the bow: and he put his hand upon it: and Elisha put his hands upon the king's hands. And he said, open the window eastward: and he opened it. Then Elisha said, shoot: and he shot. And he said, The arrow of the Lord's deliverance, and the arrow of deliverance from Syria: for thou shalt smite the Syrians in Aphek, till thou have consumed them *." The prophet soon after died. "Shooting the arrows," says Le Clerc, in his commentary upon the passage, "was a symbolical action, whereby the prophet meant to represent more fully and plainly to the king of Israel the victory which he had promised him against the Syrians. His shooting the first arrow eastward, or towards that part of the country which the Syrians had taken from his ancestors, was a declaration of war against them for so doing; and his striking the other arrows against the ground, as described in the eighteenth verse, was an indication how many victories he was to obtain. But his stopping his hand too soon, denoted the imperfection of his conquests, which did not please the prophet so well." In the accompanying illustration, Elisha appears upon his bed, pointing through the window towards the east, where lay those conquered lands which Jehoash was to redeem, according to the prediction of the dying man. The king has his bow bent, and is in the act of discharging an arrow in the direction pointed out by Elisha. Behind him stands a priest, ready to offer the last consolations of religion to the expiring prophet, together with an attendant of his household.

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2 KINGS, XIII. 17.

ELISHA ON HIS DEATH-BED.

C. GUY, SC

THE ANGEL SLAYETH THE ASSYRIANS.

WHEN the Assyrian army was before Lachish, Sennacherib sent a peremptory message to Hezekiah king of Judah, commanding the surrender of Jerusalem. The unhappy king, terrified at the demand, rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, then went into the temple to humble himself before God, and despatched a message to Isaiah, informing him of the whole proceeding. The prophet sent an answer to the terrified king, advising him to treat with contempt the menaces of the tyrant, and commit himself to the protection of God, who would not suffer the heathen to prevail against Jerusalem. Just at this time news was brought to the Assyrian monarch that some part of his dominions was invaded by the king of Ethiopia, but before he raised the siege of Libnah, then invested by his troops, he sent another message to Hezekiah, if possible more peremptory and insulting than before. This was delivered in a letter, which Hezekiah had no sooner read, than he went into the Temple and spread it before the Lord, imploring deliverance from the enemy. Meanwhile the Assyrian general, having engaged and routed the Ethiopian army, marched towards Jerusalem, fully bent upon accomplishing its destruction. Flushed with bis late victory, he had determined not only to destroy all the inhabitants of the holy city, but to raze it to the ground. Hezekiah's terrors were now excited to the utmost pitch or distress, when he received assurance from Isaiah that God would not permit the capital of Judah, which he had taken under his protection, to be destroyed, but that the heathen, notwithstanding his vaunts, would be foiled in his undertaking. On the very night after this declaration of the prophet, while the army of the enemy was hushed in sleep, "the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred four-score and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold they were all dead corpses

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