Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters Part 5

AHAZIAH

BY REV. J. G. GREENHOUGH, M.A.

"And the destruction of Ahaziah was of G.o.d, by coming to Joram; for, when he was come, he went out with Jehoram against Jehu the son of Nims.h.i.+, whom the Lord had anointed to cut off the house of Ahab."--2 CHRON. xxii. 7.

We rarely read this part of the Bible. And I do not wonder at it. For those particular chapters are undoubtedly dreary and monotonous. They contain the names of a number of incompetent and worthless kings who did nothing that was worth writing about, and who were singularly alike, so that when you have heard the story of one of them you know pretty well the story of all. It is the good lives that furnish attractive reading, because there is so much individuality and variety in them, so many pictorial lights and shadows. A novel in which all the characters are mean, would be read by n.o.body. The blackness needs to be relieved by something good, for darkness is always monotonous.

Bad men show a dreary sameness in their thoughts and doings, their rise and fall. The G.o.dly are like nature illumined by the sunlight, manifold and infinite; the wicked are like nature when the darkness covers it, uniform and dismal. Nearly all that is said in the Bible about these bad kings, is that they walked in the ways of Ahab or Jeroboam or some other wicked person, that they closely imitated the doings of their model. The Bible does not waste s.p.a.ce in describing them more accurately. One or two specimens do for all.

But certain things are said about Ahaziah which afford room for reflection, and may, perhaps, be useful to us if we take them in a right way.

And first let me give you a lesson in genealogy. These lessons are often very wearisome. Let two men get on talking about who was the cousin, father, grandfather, great-grandmother, and what not of such a person, and you begin at once to wish that you were out of it, or that you could quietly go to sleep until they settle the question; and yet it is not so unimportant as it seems. When a man writes a biography he deems it his duty to go back three or four generations, and tell you what sort of fathers and mothers and grandmothers and even great-grandsires his hero had. It is very wearisome, but it is very necessary. The story is not complete without that--for breed and ancestry go quite as far with men as with cattle, and often further.

Ahaziah's descent was right on one side, but it was very mean on the other. He had David's blood in his veins, and Jehoshaphat's, and mingled with that, the venom of heathenism. His mother was Athaliah, and Athaliah was the daughter of Jezebel, and Jezebel was a licentious heathen princess whom Ahab on an evil day had made his wife.

There is nothing in the Bible more tragical and more infamous than the story of this woman Jezebel, and the part which she took in shaping the destiny of the Jewish nation. She was a Syro-Phenician princess, whose father ruled over the powerful and wealthy cities of Tyre and Sidon.

Ahab was caught by her beauty, and by the attractive political alliance of which she was the pledge. Some think that the forty-fifth Psalm had reference to her, which speaks of the daughter of Tyre coming with gold of Ophir, splendidly arrayed, and bringing a handsome dowry with her.

Ahab thought he was marrying wealth and dignity, and providing for the greatness of his house, and, as often happens in such marriages, he forgot to ask for a certificate of character, forgot to ask what sort of mother he was providing for his children. She came with all her meretricious splendour covering one of the most fiendish natures that ever wore a woman's form. She developed, if she did not bring with her, all imaginable vices--her vindictive pa.s.sion revelled in blood; her religion was the filthiest licentiousness; her beauty became the painted face of a common harlot. Her figure stands forth in the Bible as the very worst exemplification of the dark possibilities of human nature. Tennyson says men do not mount as high as the best of women--but they scarce can sink as low as the worst. For men at most differ as heaven and earth; but women, worst and best, as heaven and h.e.l.l. And this woman became, alas, the mother of kings; and all who went forth from her inherited her nature, and forgot nothing of her training. For several generations the taint of her evil influence was felt throughout the whole court life of Israel, and the licentious abominations which she had introduced infected the whole national life.

Ahab married for money and position, and this was what came of it.

Her influence extended also to the southern kingdom of Judah. Jehoram, King of Judah, must needs marry Ahab's daughter, Athaliah, who was the exact counterpart of her mother, Jezebel. Another wedding in which morals and religion were sacrificed on the altar of gain--for by means of it a small kingdom was to be cemented in alliance with a greater, and another rich dowry to be secured. And the same dreary results followed--a court corrupted with all manner of impurity, sons and daughters initiated into all the mysteries of wickedness, demoralisation spreading all around.

In this atmosphere Ahaziah was trained. His mother's name, says the record briefly, was Athaliah, the daughter of Omri, that is, the direct daughter of Jezebel. He also walked in the ways of the house of Ahab, for his mother was his counsellor to do wickedly--wherefore he did evil in the sight of the Lord, for they were his counsellors after the death of his father to his destruction. What else could result in a home of which Athaliah was the head, in which the main training and influence were supplied by one of Jezebel's brood. The significant feature in all these Chronicles is the immense influence of women in shaping the lives and characters of kings. The men seem to have little to do with it; the women are almost supreme. Sons do not take after their fathers but after their mothers. Again and again we read of a good king who had a wicked father--Josiah, Hezekiah, and others. They shake off their evil inheritance; they refuse to follow in their fathers' steps; they destroy idolatry, and endeavour to redeem Israel from its iniquity. But whenever this is the case you do not look far without discovering the cause. A good mother has been at work--woman's gracious influence has counteracted against the pernicious example of the father. And, on the other hand, we have a long list of vile and idolatrous kings, whose fathers were either comparatively worthy, or full of downright G.o.dliness, and then, invariably, there is some evil-minded royal consort at the back of it. Whenever we can get into the secrets of court life, we find that the character of the wife determines the moral weight and form of the royal children. It is her training that shapes the men. How could it be otherwise indeed? What time had those kings to spend on home matters, what with their fighting, judging, governing, and attending to all the affairs of empire? How could they do a father's work and watch the training of the future kings? It was left to the mothers, and unhappy they who had mothers like Ahaziah's.

And is not this an everlasting story, true to-day as it was in those old days? It is the mother's hand mainly that shapes men for good or evil. Women more than men make the atmosphere of home--the atmosphere which young lives breathe, and breathing never lose. The wise woman buildeth her house--the foolish plucketh it down with her hands. What time does a father spend in disciplining the moral and spiritual nature of his children? That has to be done in the hours when he is toiling in the warehouse, or resting wearily after the labours of the day, or surely it is not done at all. From a mother the child receives all its early religious thoughts. By her the Bible stories are taught, and through her lips the good book comes to be loved. None can do it except her. It is her eyes that watch every moral movement in the young life--every sign of change--every incipient error--every beginning of good and evil habit. No eyes can detect these things as quickly and as surely as hers. And if she is too careless to discover them, they will go un.o.bserved and unchecked. Unhappy is the mother who gives to society, or to friends.h.i.+p, or to pleasure the time which she owes to her sons and daughters, for she will have to reap in vain regrets the penalty of her neglect. How rarely do good and true women and men go forth from a home in which a mother has been too busy with the giddy affairs of the pleasurable world to teach and pray with her children. Still more rarely do permanently evil and incorrigible lives go forth from a home in which a n.o.ble and religious mother has made it the chief business of her life to mould and train her children in paths of pure thought and reverent purpose. There is no religious work which a woman can do that equals this in importance, and none which secures such sure and blessed results. That, then, is the main thought suggested by these chapters--the measureless influence of women in forming lives for evil or for good.

Then comes the only other thing that we are told about this Ahaziah--that he was killed because he happened to be found in evil company. He lived badly because he followed the counsels of his mother, we read, and he died suddenly and tragically because he endeavoured to be on very friendly terms with his mother's relatives.

He was King of Judah, and Judah with all its sins still wors.h.i.+pped G.o.d and was comparatively free from idolatry. But Israel, over which Jehoram, his mother's brother ruled, was given up to all the abominations of heathenism. Its court was a horrible sink of iniquity, and G.o.d's judgment had gone forth against it and all its doings.

Ahaziah must needs join hands and pledge friends.h.i.+p with his relatives, and for that purpose visited them--probably he did not intend to do more. It was just to look at the doings of this court, and have a taste of its pleasures, and then come back again. But once there he was led on from step to step--found Jehoram's company very attractive, entered into his plans, went out with him to battle, took part, no doubt, in the wors.h.i.+p of his G.o.ds, and then while the two were going hand and glove together, the long-deferred judgment of G.o.d fell on Jezebel's house. The soldier raised up by G.o.d for that purpose swooped down upon the wicked king and his favourites with resistless force, making no distinction; and Ahaziah, being one of the band, shared in the general destruction.

The destruction of Ahaziah, says the Book, was of G.o.d, by coming to Jehoram. By his coquetting with evil he was made to pay the last penalty. So runs the story, and it seems far removed from everything that concerns our lives--yet not so far--things of a similar kind are happening every day. Men who tread the ways of sinners, who enter into any sort of fellows.h.i.+p with them, often find themselves involved very strangely and suddenly in their shame and their punishment. You cannot go into ways of evil men, or visit any forbidden scenes, or lend your countenance in any way to their doings, even though you have no further intention than just to look on, but there is ever hanging over you the sword of detection. The policeman appears, or G.o.d's light is let down upon the scene, and you are discovered as having part in it, and your name is stained and your character gone, and your life marked with a perpetual stigma of disgrace. When G.o.d's Judgment comes on sin it always involves some who are just hovering on the edge of it, as well as those who are in the thick of it. You ought not to be there.

Remember Ahaziah.

And there are some evil natures and some evil things which a man cannot touch in even the slightest degree without being led on from step to step, as Ahaziah was, until he was in the thick of Jehoram's iniquity.

A young woman cannot enter a gin-palace and drink her gla.s.s at the counter--as I see scores do any night--without gradually going further and losing all the modesty and grace of womanhood. A young man cannot touch gambling in any of its forms without almost inevitably being drawn under its fascinations, as one who is slowly involved in a wily serpent's coils. An English bishop thinks and has said that a little betting is allowable, that if you only indulge moderately in it, you may do it with impunity. He might as well have said that if you only steal coppers the law will smile upon you, but if you steal gold you will come in for its stripes. He might as well have said, "If you only put your little finger in this fire it will not hurt you, but if you thrust your whole hand in, it will burn." There can be no moderation in a thing which is essentially and in all its principles based on dishonesty and corruption, and evil excitement and evil greed. I am profoundly sorry that such a thing has been said by one whose word has so much authority and influence. It will be taken by thousands as an encouragement to do what they are only too p.r.o.ne and eager to do. Who shall curse what a father in Christ has condescended to bless? We need rather to have all Christian hands and voices raised in pa.s.sionate and tearful denunciation of that which is doing more than anything else to demoralise our youth and eat away the very morals of the nation. We need to warn against it and denounce it in whatever form and degree it is practised, and to say, "Touch not, taste not, handle not the accursed thing."

We must keep away altogether from the men who delight in evil paths, and from the things, the very touch of which defiles. Go not in their way, pa.s.s not by it. "If sinners entice thee, consent thou not."

Learn the lesson of Ahaziah's life, and how his fall came because he consorted with wickeder men than himself, and was anxious to see their doings.

GEHAZI

BY REV. J. MORGAN GIBBON

"The leprosy therefore of Naaman shall cleave unto thee, and unto thy seed for ever. And he went out from his presence a leper as white as snow."--2 KINGS v. 27.

Elisha and Gehazi were master and man. They were more. They were almost father and son. Elisha calls him "_my heart_," just as Paul calls Onesimus his heart. Yet they parted so.--"_He went out from his presence a leper_." The punishment was terrible. Was it deserved?

Had the master a right to pa.s.s this sentence? "_The leprosy of Naaman_"--yes! but had Gehazi caught nothing from Elisha?

Most commentators fall on Gehazi with one accord. He is pilloried as a liar. He is branded as a thief. He is bracketed with Achan, and coupled with Judas. They flatter the master, they are hard on the man.

But this is surely a very false reading of facts. By clothing the prophet in spotless white, and tarring Gehazi a deep black all over, we violate the truth of things and miss the lesson of the story, which, like the sword-flames at Eden's gate, turn many ways.

To take but one out of its numerous suggestions, we have here a story for servants of all sorts, and for masters and mistresses too, of all kinds.

The section is rich in domestic interiors. Servants have always formed important members of the household, and often their service has risen to be a beautiful and holy ministry.

We see here, for example, a great Eastern lady, Naaman's wife, and her little Jewish maid, whom the fortunes of war had swept from her home "in the land of Israel." In the division of the spoil, this human mite had fallen to Naaman's share, and drifted into his lady's service. The slave-child has evidently reached the woman, perhaps the hungering mother's heart, in her mistress; and the sorrow of the woman, for alas!

she is a leper's wife, has touched the servant's heart. The burning sense of the wrong to herself is cooled and quenched by the pity she feels for her master; and the expedition that brought health to Naaman, and unspeakable joy to Naaman's wife, was the outcome of a word she spoke. She knew of Elisha, she said what she knew, and great things came of it.

She did this, not as a slave of Naaman's wife, but as a free human soul, and servant of G.o.d. No tyranny could extort this service. No wealth could pay for this golden secret. Sometimes a character appears but once in the course of a great drama. The man or woman, comes on the stage to deliver one message, and then disappears. But that one brief word has its place in the playwright's scheme, and its effect on the action of the piece. This child was sent to Syria to utter one speech, to speak one name, and because she spoke her little speech, kindly and clearly, things went better with ever so many people.

"A fair day's wage for a fair day's work," but let there be more than money in the wage, and more than labour in the service. Let no one, in being a servant, cease to be a free human soul. Do you serve in Syria?

Is your lot cast among those that know not the Prophet? Well, but _you_ are from the land of Israel; speak your speech, tell out the Prophet's name. Be more than servant, more than clerk, more than a "hand," an apprentice, a journeyman; be a soul, an influence, a link with higher things, a reminder of G.o.d, a minister of Christ.

Naaman, too, was happy in _his_ servants. He was a Bismarckian, peppery man. Accustomed to command, he expected miracles to be done to order, and prophets to toe the line. And because he did not like Elisha's manner nor his prescription, he was on the point of returning to Syria in a rage. But he had servants that knew him through and through. They knew what note to sound, and they saved him from himself. The expedition had been suggested by a servant who generously paid good for evil. It was saved from defeat by servants who did for kindness what no contract could have specified and no wage could cover.

They also were souls who knew at times that man was created for spiritual service.

But Elisha, too, though doubtless poor, had his servant, and an efficient, tactful servant he was.

A very good book might be written on "poor men's servants." For they have had of the very best. The whole world knows Boswell, and with all his faults it loves him still, for he was loyal to a royal soul. Well, most great men have had their Boswells. When all is known it will be found that the men of the five talents have owed much of their success and more of their happiness to the fidelity and love of men of the one talent.

How well Gehazi served Elisha! How n.o.bly the servant comes out in that exquisite story of the Lady of Shunem. How jealous he is of his master's honour! How dear he was to Elisha's soul, "my heart! my other self!" And yet, he did this thing. He lied, he cheated, he obtained goods by false pretences, he lowered the prophet in Naaman's sight; and after all his years of n.o.ble service, his master smote him with his curse, and he went out of his presence a leper!

But was Naaman's the only leprosy that infected Gehazi? Had Elisha any share in his fall? After all, it is a sorry business to heal a stranger and send forth one's own friend in this fas.h.i.+on.

Nothing can exonerate Gehazi. His lie remains a lie, say what you will. But our business is not to apportion blame, but to try to find out how such things came to be, in order to guard against them in our own homes. If a servant leaves your employ poorer in character than when she came to you, if a youth leaves your business harder, colder, weaker in will, further from G.o.d than when you received him from home, it is a clear case for inquiry. It is our duty to see that young people are not exposed to moral infection in our homes.

In the matter of physical infection, two facts are familiar to us all.

The first is, that mischief enters the system by means of a germ; and the second is, that the action of the germ depends very much on the condition of health in which it finds a man. If the man is healthy, he is often proof against the arrow that fleeth by day, and the pestilence that walketh in darkness. But if the body is already enfeebled, the germs find half their work done for them beforehand.

Well now, these natural laws are valid in the spiritual world. The rules of moral hygiene are summed up in our Lord's prayer, "_Lead us not into temptation_," that is to say, do not breathe the germ-laden air, and in St Paul's precept, "_Be strong in the Lord_," cultivate general spiritual health, safety lies in strength. Good health is the best prophylactic. There is no precaution so effective as being well.

Now what have we in this narrative? When the prophet permitted Naaman to bow in the temple of Rimmon he did very right, say the chorus of commentators. But the common-sense of mankind has taken a different view. Bowing in the temple of Rimmon has become a byword and a reproach. It signifies something which men feel is not quite right.

It was, in fact, an indulgence. Still, perhaps it was wise not to force the new-born convert. Perhaps it did Naaman no harm. Possibly it did Elisha's soul no injury to be so far complaisant towards idolatry. But surely there was a germ of evil in the thing, and this germ found a nidus, found a nest in Gehazi's soul, in which to hatch its evil brood. It lighted on Gehazi at the psychological moment. He had seen the gorgeous equipage. He had gazed on the ingots of gold and the great bars of silver. He had fingered the silks and brocades.

Elisha had waved them away. To him they were as child's trinkets. But he had other resources than Gehazi, and when the cavalcade drew off, leaving nothing of its treasures behind, his longing grew into a fever of desire. It was so mad of the master to let _all_ that gold and silver go, and he so poor! Gehazi had to bear the brunt of the poverty, and tax his five wits to make ends meet. And to think that a gold mine had come to their very door and they had refused to let it in!

But it is too late now--and yet why should it be too late? The company moves slowly. One could easily catch up with it. But what to say?

Pilgrims sometimes knock at Elisha's door. Sons of the prophets from the college on Mount Ephraim often come to see the master. There were two last week, or was it the week before? Without doubt we shall have others soon, for they like to talk to the master. They are miserably poor like ourselves, but they have good appet.i.tes. Naaman would be delighted to leave something for them. He would feel easier in his mind. It would be a kindness to let him give something. True, we have none of them in the house at this moment. But we have had and we shall have. If I say we have them _now_--well, that will only be making a little bow in the temple of Rimmon. Naaman means to do that. Master allows him to do it. We must not be _too_ strict. "_As the Lord liveth I will run after him and take somewhat of him_!" Elisha was hurt, shamed, and angry. The sin was great and terrible. Yet, perhaps, had Gehazi met Elijah this would not have happened. Had Elisha sounded the great Elijah-note, "if the Lord is G.o.d, follow Him, but if Rimmon, then follow him," perhaps the germ of temptation would not have found Gehazi even quite such an easy prey,