If such a supposition be correct and admissible--and assuredly it is based on all that we increasingly learn of the methods of Eastern literature, and of the forms in which religious ideas were inculcated in early ages--then all difficulties are removed. We are not dealing with the mercilessness of a prophet, or the wielding of Divine powers in a manner which higher revelation condemns, but only with the well-known fact that the Elijah-spirit was not the Christ-spirit, and that the scribes of Ramah or Gilgal, and "the men of the tradition" and the "men of letters" who lived at Jabez, when they used the methods of Targum and Haggadah in handing down the stories of the prophets, had not received that full measure of enlightenment which came only when the Light of the World had shone.[22] FOOTNOTES: [1] Rawlinson, _Kings of Israel and Judah_, p. 86. "The name of Ahaziah ('the Lord taketh hold'), like that of all Ahab's sons, testifies to the fact that the husband of Jezebel still worshipped Jehovah. Among the names of the judges and kings before Ahab in Israel, and Asa in Judah, scarcely a single instance occurs of names compounded with Jehovah; thenceforward they became the rule" (Wellhausen, _Israel and Judah_, Es. 1, p. 66). [2] 1 Kings xxii. 47; 2 Kings iii. 9: comp. viii. 20. [3] 2 Sam. viii. 2. On the ethics of these wars of extermination, such as are commanded in the Pentateuch, and were practised by Joshua, Samuel, Saul, David, and others, see Josh. vi. 17; 1 Sam. xv. 3, 33; 2 Sam. viii. 2, etc., and Mozley's _Lectures on the Old Testament_, pp. 83-103. [4] See Stade, i. 86. He gives a photograph and translation of it at p. 534. [5] See _Records of the Past_, xi. 166, 167. [6] 2 Kings i. 2; Heb., _be'ad hass'bakāh_; LXX., διὰ τοῦ δικτυωτοῦ; Vulg., _per cancellos_ (comp. 1 Kings vii. 18; 2 Chron. iv. 12). [7] LXX., Βάαλ μυῖαν θεὸν Ἀκκαρών. So, too, Jos., _Antt._, IX. ii. 1. It is possible that the god was represented holding a fly as the type of pestilence, just as the statue of Pthah held in its hands a mouse (Herod., ii. 141). Flies convey all kinds of contagion (Plin., _H. N._, x. 28). [8] Pausan., v. 14, § 2. [9] The name, or a derisive modification of it, was given by the Jews in the days of Christ to the prince of the devils. In Matt. xii. 24 the true reading is Βεελζεβούλ, which perhaps means (in contempt) "the lord of dung"; but might mean "the lord of the [celestial] habitation" (οἰκοδεσπότην). Comp. Matt. x. 25; Eph. ii. 2; "Baal Shamaim," the Belsamen of Augustine (Gesen., _Monum. Phœnic._, 387; Movers, _Phönizier_, i. 176). For "opprobrious puns" applied to idols, see Lightfoot, _Exercitationes ad Matt._, xii. 24. The common word for idols, _gilloolim_, is perhaps connected with _galal_, "dung." Hitzig thinks that the god was represented under the symbol of the _Scarabæus pillularius_, or dung-beetle. [10] Lev. xx. 6.