The struggle of the crown against this control was perhaps the most immediate cause of the ruin of Judah. Ahaz was probably less guided by policy than by superstition, or by architectural taste, in erecting his Damascene altar (2 Kings xvi. ro-rS). But the far more outrageous proceedings of Ma nasseh seem to have been a systematic attempt to extirpate the national religion because of its sup porting the priestly power ; and the innocent blood very much,' which he is stigmatized for shed ding (2 Kings xxi. 16), was undoubtedly a sangui nary attack on the party opposed to his impious and despotic innovations. The storm which he had raised did not burst in his lifetime ; but, two years after, it fell on the head of his son Amon ; and the disorganization of the kingdom which his madness had wrought is commemorated as the cause of the Babylonish captivity (2 Kings xxiii. 26 ; xxiv. 3, 4). It is also credible that the long-con tinued despotism had greatly lessened patriotic spirit ; and that the Jewish people of the declining kingdom were less brave against foreign invaders than against kindred and neighbour tribes or civil opponents. Faction had become very fierce within Jerusalem itself (Ezek. xxii.), and civil bloodshed was common. Wealth, where it existed, was generally a source of corruption, by introducing foreign luxury, tastes, manners, superstitions, im morality, or idolatry ; and when consecrated to pious purposes, as by Hezekiah and Josiah, pro duced little more than a formal and exterior re ligion.
Thoroughly to understand the political working of the monarchy, we ought to know, 1. What con trol the king exercised over ecclesiastical appoint ments ; 2. How the Levites were supported when ejected from Israel ; 3. What proportion of them acted as judges, lawyers, and scribes, and how far they were independent of the king. The nature of the case, and the precedent of David, may satisfy us that the king appointed the high-priest at his own pleasure out of the Aaronites ; but (as Henry II. of England and hundreds of monarchs besides have found) ecclesiastics once in office often dis.
appoint the hopes of their patron, and to eject them again is a most dangerous exertion of the prerogative. The Jewish king would naturally avoid following the law of descent, in order to pre serve his right of election unimpaired ; and it may be suspected that the line of Zadok was rather kept in the back-ground by royal jealousy. Hilkialt belonged to that line ; and if any inference can be drawn from his genealogy, as given in Chron. vi. 8-15, it is, that none of his ancestors between the reigns of Solomon and Josiah held the high priesthood. Even Azariah, who is named in 2 Chron. xxxi. ro as of the line of Zadok, is not found among Hilkiah's progenitors. Jehoiada, the celebrated priest, and Urijah, who was so com plaisant to the innovating Ahaz (2 Kings xvi.), were of a different family. It would seem that too many high-priests gained a reputation for subser vience (for it often happens in history that the ecclesiastical heads are more subservient to royalty than the mass of their order); so that, after Hil kiah, the race of Zadok became celebrated for up rightness, in invidious contrast to the rest of the priests; and even the Levites were regarded as more zealous than the generality of the Aaronites (2 Chron. xxix. 34). Hence in Ezekiel and other late writers, the phrase the priests the sons of Zadok,' or even the priests the Levites,' is a more honourable title than the priests the sons of Aaron.' Hilkiah's name seems to mark the era at which (by a reaction after the atrocities of Manasseh and Amon) the purer priestly sentiment obtained its triumph over the crown. But the victory came too late. Society was corrupt and convulsed with in, and the two great powers of Egypt and Babylon menaced it from without. True lovers of their God and of their country, like Jeremiah, saw that it was a time rather for weeping than for action ; and that the faithfttl must resign themselves to the bitter lot which the sins of their nation had earned. —F. W. N.