[375] The length of Pekah's reign is most doubtful. If the periods assigned to the reigns in the Northern and Southern Kingdoms be added together up to the Fall of Samaria in the sixth year of Hezekiah (2 Kings xviii. 9, 10), it will be found that the Southern chronology is twenty years longer than the Northern. G. Smith would alter the text, and make Jeroboam II. reign fifty-one years and Pekah thirty years; others invent an interregnum of eleven years between Jeroboam II. and Zachariah, and an anarchy of nine years before Hoshea's accession; others shorten Pekah's reign to _one_ year. [376] 2 Kings xv. 37. [377] Vide _infra_. [378] Deut. xxxiii. 19: "They [Zebulon] shall call the peoples unto the mountain: there shall they offer the sacrifices of righteousness." [379] Isa. viii. 6, 7. [380] Perhaps we should read Edomites (2 Kings xvi. 6). [381] The bar of its city gate. [382] Bikath-Aven--"The cleft of Aven"--Cœle Syria, or Hollow Syria, still called by the Arabs El-Bukāa. Comp. Josh. xi. 17, xii. 7. Aven--or "Vanity"--is perhaps Heliopolis or Baalbek. Comp. Ezek. xxx. 17. [383] Perhaps Beit el Jame, "House of Paradise"--about eight hours from Damascus (Porter, _Five Years in Syria_, i. 313). [384] Kir, in Armenia--the land of their origin (Amos ix. 7). [385] But, after all, was there a golden calf at Dan? It is scarcely ever alluded to, and the notion that there was one may have arisen (1) from a corruption or mistaken rendering of the text in 1 Kings xii. 29, and (2) from the existence there of the idolatrous ephod. See Klostermann, _ad loc._; Isa. ix. 8-17. [386] LXX., Ἀποτρίψαι τὸν μόσχον σοῦ, Σαμάρεια; Vulg., _Projectus est vitulus tuus, Samaria_. Orelli renders it, "Abscheulich ist dein Kalb, O Samaria." In Jer. xlvi. 15 we read (of Egypt), "Why is thy strong one swept away?" where the true reading may be, "Hath Khaph [_i.e._, Apis], thy chosen one, fled?" LXX., Ἆπις ὁ μόσχος σοῦ, ὁ ἐκλεκτός. So Amos had prophesied that the "god of Dan" and the "way of Beersheba" should fall for evermore (Amos viii. 14). [387] Isa. ix. 11-16. With this passage comp. 2 Kings xxiii. 5; Zeph. i. 4; Hos. vii. 9, 10. [388] Tiglath-Pileser says: "Pakaha, their king, I killed: Ausi [Hoshea] I placed over them. The distant land of Bit-Khumri [the "house of Omri"]--_the whole of its inhabitants_, with their goods--I carried away to Asshur" (B.C. 734). In this year he mentions Ahaz among his tributaries. CHAPTER XXI _HOSHEA, AND THE FALL OF THE NORTHERN KINGDOM_ B.C. 734-725 2 KINGS xvii. 1-41 "As for Samaria, her king is cut off as the foam upon the water."--HOS. x. 7.