son Solomon: for, retiring into Egypt, he continued there waiting for some opportunity of repossessing himself of that country. And the LORD stirred up an adversary unto Solomon, Hadad the Edomite; he was of the king's seed in Edom. For it came to pass when David was in Edom, and Joab the captain of the host was gone up to bury the slain, after he had smitten every male in Edom. That Hadad fled, he and certain Edomites of his father's servants with him, to go into Egypt; Hadad being yet a little child. And they arose out of Midian, and came to Paran; and they took men with them out of Paran, and they came to Egypt unto Pharaoh king of Egypt, which gave him a house, and appointed him victuals, and gave him land. 1 Kings xi. 14, 15, 17, 18.

But as to the families of Jeroboam and Ahab, GOD threatened, not only that they should be despoiled of the kingdom, but that the destruction should be without any hope of recovery. none being preserved, either in some secret place of concealment among their friends; or by flying to some strong city, from whence they might excite great alarm, if not much trouble; or by escaping into some foreign country, from whence their antagonist might dread their return; none by whose means it might be supposed those families might recover themselves, and regain the possession of the throne of the ten tribes.

And not only so, but that no branch of those families whatsoever should remain, none left of

those from whom no danger was apprehended. In later times in the East, sometimes persons of royal descent have been left alive, when the rest of a family have been cut off; because it was thought there were no grounds of suspicion of any danger resulting from them, either on account of defects in their understandings; blindness, or some other great bodily disqualification; or exquisite dissembling but none of the families of Jeroboam or Ahab were to be permitted to live on these accounts-none should escape, none should in

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Supposed intellectual weakness probably saved the life of David, when among the Philistines of Gath, 1 Sam. xxi, 12-15.

Blindness saved the life of Mohammed Khodabendeh, a Persian prince of the sixteenth century, when his brother Ismael put all the rest of his brethren to death, being spared on the account that he had lost his eye-sight. D'Herbelot, p. 613.

And one of the ancestors of this blind prince, of the same name of Ismael, escaped by his having so much art, as to make a prince who had him and another son of that ambitious family, (which was almost extirpated on the account of its high pretences and great restlessness,) believe that be intended to retire from the world, and devote him, self to religious retirement. D'Herbelot p. 504. “Ismael, and Ali Mirza his brother, having been made prisoners by Jacoub Begh, the son of Usuncassan," says this writer, from, the Oriental Histories, who had killed their father Haidar in battle, were some time after set at liberty by Rostam Begh, who had succeeded Jacob his uncle. It was not long before Rostam Begh repented of his having unchained these two young lions, who immediately set out for Ardebil their native country, and the burial-place of their ancestors, under the pretence of spending the rest of their days, in the habit of dervishes, in lamenting the death of their father, but in fact to give new vigour to the Haidarian faction, which was very powerful there, when Rostam sent people after them, who killed Ali, but never could come up with Ismael, who took refuge in Ghilan, where one of the friends of the late Sheik Haider, his father, governed,”

pity, and from unsuspiciousness, be left alive. The destruction was to be universal. Such, I should think, is what is to be understood by the terms shut up and left.

This prophetic declaration is the more remarkable, as the entire extinction of a numerous royal family, such as those of the East are wont to be, is not easily accomplished. Great havoc was made from time to time, among the decendants of Ali, the son-in-law of their prophet Mohammed, whose family claimed the khalifate, or supreme power among the Mohammedans, by a supposed divine right; but it could never be effected, and its descendants are very numerous at this very day, and reign in several of those countries.

The Ommiades, or family which, in the opinion of many, usurped what of right belonged to the family of Ali, which family of Ommiah was the first that possessed the khalifate in an hereditary way, were dispossessed of this high dignity by another family, called Abassides, or the children of Abbas, but could not be extirpated, though the Abassides took great pains to do it, and were guilty of great barbarity in the attempt, without being able to accomplish it.

For we are told, that an uncle of the first of the khalifs of this new family, after the defeat of the before-reigning prince, assembled about four-score of the house of Ommiab, to whom he had given quarter, and caused them to be all knocked on the head, by people intermixed

among them with wooden clubs; after which covering their bodies with a carpet, he gave a great entertainment upon that carpet to the officers of his army, in such a manner as to spend that time of joy amidst the last groans of these miserable wretches, who were still breathing. But though the Abassides destroyed all those of the house of Ommiah, on whom they could lay their hands, as we are informed in a preceding part of the same, and in the following page, and endeavoured to extirpate it, for some escaped, and appeared with great lustre elsewhere, reigning both in Spain. and Arabia.

It was otherwise with the houses of Jeroboam, Baasha, and Ahab.

If this explanation be admitted, it will enable us more clearly to understand two or three other passages of Scripture. For when it is

said, 2 Kings xiv. 26, that the Lord saw the affliction of Israel, that it was very bitter: for there was not any shut up, nor any left, nor any helper for Israel, the words seem to mean, that before the time of the prince there spoken of, Jereboam the second, there was no one of their more eminent people, from whom they might have great expectations; nor any of those in a more obscure station, from which class of people great deliverers have sometimes been raised up to save their native country; nor any helper for Israel among foreign princes, or generals; but they seemed quite lost, and D'Herbelot, p. 692.

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devoted to ruin by the hand of the Syrian .princes.

In like manner, when Moses says in his last song, The Lord shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants, when he seeth that their power is gone, and there is none shut up, or left-None able to make head against their enemies, by means of strong holds, or left among the people at large, from whom any support could be expected; the LORD will then, says Moses, repent concerning his servants, that is, change the tenor of his conduct towards them.

OBSERVATION XLIII.

Of the Power and Influence of ancient Palmyra and Balbec.

To those that feel something of an incredulous anxiety, about the accounts which the sacred writers have given us, of the extent of the kingdom and of the fame of Israel in the days of David and Solomon; whereas we find few or no traces of this mighty power in profane history, and we know that the Arabs have been always looked upon as untameable people, I would recommend the account which the curious editor of the Ruins of Palmyra has given of that state.

Let them consider that it was a small territory in the midst of a desert, and yet extended 1 Kings xvi. 3.