24 
ISRAEL. 
came, Ahab, always unbelieving, was still unprepared; and tbe few troops which be 
could bring into tbe field looked “ like two little flocks of kids, but tbe Syrians filled the 
country.” 1 
In this imminent hazard, when to fight or fly was equally hopeless, a prophetic mes¬ 
senger was again sent to announce victory. And bis announcement pressed tbe moral on 
the national mind, for which the miraculous deliverance was again given; “ Ye shall know 
that I am the Lokd.” In the strength of miracle, the little, despairing army, defeats the 
countless host, with the loss of a hundred thousand men: the victory is final, and the Syrian 
monarch is reduced to send an embassy in sackcloth to beg a peace and his life. 
Yet even those great transactions were regarded as of so subordinate a rank, that they 
were left to agents without a name. At length Elijah comes forward, for the higher office 
of vindicating the Divine Law, outraged in the person of Naboth. 2 The refusal of the 
Jezreelite to sell, or to exchange, his vineyard, had been founded on neither avarice nor 
obstinacy, but on the principle, that he had no right to alienate property given by the 
original division of Joshua. ‘ c The Lord forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of 
my fathers unto thee.” Ahab felt the force of the plea; but Jezebel, contemptuous of the 
national law, was suffered by him to seize the vineyard, and murder its owner. Then 
instantly follows the retribution; Elijah goes to meet Ahab in the very scene of his guilt, 
the vineyard of Naboth; charges him with the act of rapine and blood, and boldly pro¬ 
nounces to a tyrant, who might have ordered him to the axe, the overwhelming sentence: 
that he, his queen, and his whole posterity, shall die violent deaths, and those deaths visibly 
connected with the punishment of his crime:—that dogs shall lick the blood of Ahab on 
the spot where the blood of Naboth was shed; that dogs shall devour Jezebel within sight 
of the vineyard of Naboth; and that, whether his posterity perish in city or in field, they 
shall alike be deprived of sepulture, until his line perishes for ever. 3 
The qualities conferred on Elijah and Elisha were expressly of that class, which draws 
upon itself the broadest gaze of nations. In times of public danger, the chief demand is for 
those powerful and energetic faculties which are found to repel the danger. All other 
talents are vapid and trivial in comparison with those of the great soldier, the sagacious 
statesman, and the vigorous and inventive administrator. But both those memorable men 
possessed still higher claims, in their infallible success. Whenever they appear, the public 
ruin is stayed, the perplexities of council are cleared up, the doubtful battle is won: when 
the national vessel is running wildly before the storm, they are not merely found to be the 
only men who can take the helm, hut they control the storm: when the kingdom is 
quivering with the moral earthquake, they are not merely the only guides of the people to 
solid ground, hut they still the heavings of the soil. 
Finally, the two leading objects of their missions—the safety of the remnant of the 
Church, and the overthrow of Baal, were accomplished. The Church was no longer 
invisible; the “ sons of the prophets” were no longer compelled to hide in the forest and the 
cavern. One of their “ schools” began to exist even in Dan, the city of the idol of Jero¬ 
boam. Elijah was openly acknowledged as their head; and fifty of their number, when 
1 Kings, xx. 27, &c. 
2 1 Kings, xxi. 1, &c. 
3 Ibid. 17, &c. 
