Wooden images of Astarte under the sacred trees, huge images of Molech appeared at every turn in the walks around Jerusalem."[570] Jehoshaphat introduced a decisive improvement into the conditions which prevailed under Rehoboam and Abijah, but practically the conflict between light and darkness goes on for ever. It was in days when Jerusalem had come to be regarded by herself and by all nations as exceptionally holy, that she, who had been for centuries the murderess of the prophets, became under her priestly religionists the murderess of the Christ, and--far different in God's eyes from what she was in her own--deserved the dreadful stigma of being "the great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt." FOOTNOTES: [561] Following the precedent set by Rehoboam, he established his six younger sons in castles and fenced cities. Athaliah must have found it difficult to exterminate their families if she attempted this. [562] The Nitzab or Præfect of Edom was allowed the barren title of king. [563] 2 Chron. xx. 37. His name faintly recalls that of Eleazar, son of Dodo (2 Sam. xxiii. 9). Dodavahu means "friend of God." [564] 2 Chron. xx. 36, 37. It would be monstrous to send ships to circumnavigate Africa in order to reach Tartessus. The last resource of the harmonists (_e.g._, Keil) to save the accuracy of the chronicler is to suppose that Jehoshaphat meant to drag the whole fleet across the Isthmus of Suez, and so to sail from one of the havens of Palestine! [565] "Cette version," says Munk (_Palestine_, p. 314), "a probablement pris naissance dans l'esprit de rigorisme qui animait plus tard les écrivans Juifs." "This," says Dr. Robertson Smith, "is a mere pragmatical inference from the story in Kings." See his further remarks in _The Old Testament in the Jewish Church_, chap. ii., p. 146. He regards parts of the Books of Chronicles as being, in fact, a Jewish _Midrash_. "It is not History, but _Haggada_, moralising romance. And the chronicler himself gives the name of _Midrash_ (R.V., 'story') to two of the sources from which he drew (2 Chron. xiii. 22, xxiv. 27), so that there is really no mystery as to the nature of the work when it departs from the old canonical histories" (p. 148). [566] We shall have further glimpses of Jehoshaphat in the reigns of Ahab and even of Jehoram. [567] See 1 Chron. xvi. 34; 2 Chron. v. 13, vii. 3, xx. 21; Psalms cvi., cvii., cxviii., etc. The eighty-third Psalm may owe its origin to this deliverance, and Hengstenberg thinks Psalms xlvii. and xlviii. also. [568] The title "valley of Jehoshaphat" is thought also to have derived its origin from these events. Comp. Joel iii. 2. [569] 2 Chron. xxi. 2, 3. [570] There is a little exaggeration here. CHAPTER XXXII. _THE KINGS OF ISRAEL FROM ZIMRI TO AHAB._ B.C. 889-877. 1 KINGS xvi. 11-34.