Annotations upon the remaining historicall part of the Old Testament. The second part. to wit, the books of Joshua, Judges, the two books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, and the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther : wherein first, all such passages in the text are explained as were thought likely to be questioned by any reader of ordinary capacity : secondly, in many clauses those things are discovered which are needfull and usefull to be known ... and thirdly, many places that might at first seem to contradict one another are reconciled ... / by Arthur Jackson.

CHAP. XII.

Vers. 1. ANd it came to passe when Rehoboam had established the kingdome, &c.] See the notes for these two verses, 1. Kings 14.22. and 25.

Vers. 7. They humbled themselves, therefore I will not destroy them, &c.] This humiliation of Rehoboams (and so it is likely of his Princes too) proceeded onely from a base slavish fear of the wrath that he saw was coming upon him, and there∣fore it said after this, that he did evil because he prepared not his heart to seek the Lord; yet so farre did the Lord regard this, that he resolved so farre, or so long to deliver them, that he would not now utterly destroy Jerusalem, and the Temple by the hand of Shishak, as he did afterward in a like case with Ahab, 1. Kings 21.27. Concerning which see the notes there.

Vers. 8. Neverthelesse, they shall be his servants, &c.] That is, they shall be∣come

tributaries to the king of Egypt, (upon which condition it seems Shishak ren∣dred up to Rehoboam the cities which he had taken) that they may know my service (saith the Lord) and the service of the kingdomes of the countreys; that is, that they may know how much better it had been to have served me, then by sin to bring themselves into bondage to other nations, which indeed they had cause to com∣plain of, as Isaiah 26.13. O Lord, other lords besides thee have had dominion over us.

Vers. 9. So Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, and took away the treasures of the house of the Lord, &c.] Not the holy vessels, but the treasures of the Temple, and the treasures of the kings house, which were yielded it seems for the ransome of Jerusalem, and those other cities which he had taken.

Vers. 12. And also in Judah things went well.] That is, after this time things began again to prosper and go well with the kingdome of Judah. But some reade it as in the margin, and yet in Judah there was good things; and then it is added as another reason, why God did not utterly destroy Jerusalem at this time, to wit, because there were some in Judah that feared God, and continued constant in that way of his worship which he had prescribed: for that which is said, vers. 1. that he forsook the Law of the Lord, and all Israel with him, must be understood onely of the generality of the people, that all in a manner had corrupted themselves.

Vers. 15. And there were warres between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continually.] See 1. Kings 12.24.