[535] Abijam seems to mean "father of the sea"; _vir maritimus_, Gesenius. [536] So perhaps, for the same reason, Jehoahaz was shortened into Ahaz. See Canon Rawlinson on 2 Kings xv. 38 (_Speaker's Commentary_). But Simonis, _Onomasticon_, regards the final _m_ as intensive. [537] 2 Chron. xi. 18-23. Rehoboam had eighteen wives, sixty concubines, twenty-eight sons, and sixty daughters. A fragment of the _Stemma Davidis_ may make things clearer to the reader:-- Jesse. | +----------+------------+ Eliab. David. | | | +------+--------+ Abihial. Solomon. Absalom. | | +--+ | | | Abihail = Rehoboam = Maachah. Tamar = Uriel. | | Abijah. Maachah. Thus on both sides, as a great-grandson and great-great-grandson, Abijah was descended from David. [538] The lamp (LXX., κατάλειμμα; in xi. 36, θέσις) is the sign of home (1 Kings xi. 36; 2 Kings viii. 19. Comp. Psalm xviii. 28, cxxxii. 17). There was, as the chronicler boldly expressed it, "a covenant of salt" between God and the House of David (2 Chron. xiii. 5; comp. Numb. xviii. 19). [539] Chron. xiii. 22. [540] Zemaraim was in Benjamin near Bethel (Josh. xviii. 22), apparently Kirbet _el-Szomer_ in the Jordan valley, four miles north of Jericho. [541] 2 Chron. xiii. 3-19. So that the golden calf and its chapel and its priests must, if the account be true, have fallen into his power. But it does not seem to have made the least difference. It is certain that "the calf" remained undisturbed till the days of the Assyrian invasion. [542] How atrocious these "abominations were" may be seen from the Pentateuch (Lev. xviii. 3-25, xx. 1-23; Deut. xviii. 6-12). [543] 1 Kings xv. 15. [544] Ewald, iv. 49. [545] Comp. the _Madame Mère_ in the French court. [546] The LXX. (Vat.) calls her Ana. [547] That it was not perfectly successful we see from 1 Kings xxii. 46. [548] The word is an ἅπαξ λεγόμενον. It is only applied to this grotesque and obscene figure (1 Kings xv. 13; 2 Chron. xv. 16). [549] 2 Kings xi. 16, xxiii. 4, 6, 12; 2 Chron. xxix. 16, xxx. 14. Vulg., _in Sacris Priapi_. Jerome (_ad Hos._, i. 4) calls Maachah's "horror" a _Simulacrum Priapi_ (see Selden, _De Dis Syris Syntagma_, ii. 5). [550] 2 Chron. xvi. 8. Zarkh, perhaps Osorkhon I. (O-_serek_-on, "Ammon's darling"), was the feebler successor of Shesonk, Maspero, p. 362; Ewald, iii. 470. Shishak's army also consisted of Sushim and Lubim (2 Chron. xii. 3).