* The subordinate position of Jehoshaphat is clearly indicated by the reply which he makes to Ahab when the latter asks him to accompany him on this expedition:  “I am as thou art, my people as thy people, my horses as thy horses” (1 Kings xxii. 4).

** 1 Kings xvi. 34, where the writer has preserved the remembrance of a double human sacrifice, destined, according to the common custom in the whole of the East, to create guardian spirits for the new building:  “he laid the foundation thereof with the loss of Abiram his firstborn, and set up the gates thereof with the loss of his youngest son Segub; according to the word of the Lord.” [For the curse pronounced on whoever should rebuild Jericho, see Josh. vi. 26.—­Tr.]

     *** [Following the distinction in spelling given in 2 Kings
     viii. 25, I have everywhere written Joram (of Israel) and
     Jehoram (of Judah), to avoid confusion.—­Tr.]

**** Athaliah is sometimes called the daughter of Ahab (2 Kings viii. 18), and sometimes the daughter of Omri (2 Kings viii. 26; cf. 2 Ohron. xxii. 2), and several authors prefer the latter filiation, while the majority see in it a mistake of the Hebrew scribe.  It is possible that both attributions may be correct, for we see by the Assyrian inscriptions that a sovereign is called the son of the founder of his line even when he was several generations removed from him:  thus, Merodach-baladan, the adversary of Sargon of Assyria, calls himself son of Iakin, although the founder of the Bit-Iakin had been dead many centuries before his accession.  The document used in 2 Kings viii. 26 may have employed the term daughter of Omri in the same manner merely to indicate that the Queen of Jerusalem belonged to the house of Omri.

It might well have appeared a more than foolhardy enterprise, and it was told in Israel that Micaiah, a prophet, the son of Imlah, had predicted its disastrous ending.  “I saw,” exclaimed the prophet, “the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing on His right hand and on His left.  And the Lord said, Who shall entice Ahab that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?  And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner.  And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and said, I will entice him.  And the Lord said unto him, Wherewith?  And he said, I will go forth, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.  And He said, Thou shalt entice him, and shalt prevail also:  go forth, and do so.  Now therefore, behold, the Lord hafch put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets; and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee."*

     * 1 Kings xxii. 5-23, reproduced in 2 Chron. xviii. 4-22.