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Pharaoh's Daughter

AFTER MAX NONNENBRUCH, A CONTEMPORARY

GERMAN ARTIST.

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"And Solomon made affinity with Pharaoh king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh's daughter, and brought her into the city of David."-I Kings, 3, 1.

OLOMON thus made himself secure at home.

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Abroad he had no important enemies to meet. David had so fully impressed the fear of Israel upon all the surrounding nations, that they were only too glad to welcome Solomon in peace. Even the great monarch of Egypt treated with the Israelite ruler apparently as an equal. Solomon wedded a daughter of one of the Pharaohs, who must have been a member of the twenty-first Egyptian dynasty, the Tanites or priestly rulers. As a dower for his daughter the Egyptian sent his armies to storm Gezer, the chief remaining city of the ancient Canaanites. This he presented as a wedding gift with the bride.

Of the queen thus vigorously introduced into Solomon's household, we can learn little further. The wedding was not fully approved in Israel despite the princess's high rank. She was a foreigner, and her faith was not Israel's. Indeed we learn that Solomon would not keep her in the "city of David," because that was holy. Hence she must ever have felt herself a stranger in this land of her adoption. In later years Solomon built for her a palace, whose magnificence was second only to that of the temple he built to God. Perhaps we can trace here the beginning of the king's downfall, his choice of splendor rather than religion.

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SECOND CHRONICLES XIII—ABIJAH'S VICTORY

779

10 But as for us, the LORD is our God, and we have not forsaken him; and the priests, which minister unto the LORD, are the sons of Aaron, and the Levites wait upon their business:

11 And they burn unto the LORD every morning and every evening burnt sacrifices and sweet incense: the shewbread also set they in order upon the pure table; and the candlestick of gold with the lamps thereof, to burn every evening: for we keep the charge of the LORD our God; but ye have forsaken him.

12 And, behold, God himself is with us for our captain, and his priests with sounding trumpets to cry alarm against you. O children of Israel, fight ye not against the LORD God of your fathers; for ye shall not prosper.

13 But Jeroboam caused an ambushment to come about behind them: so they were before Judah, and the ambushment was behind them. 14 And when Judah looked back, behold, the battle was before and behind: and they cried unto the LORD, and the priests sounded with the trumpets.

15 Then the men of Judah gave a shout: and as the men of Judah shouted, it came to pass, that God smote Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah.

16 And the children of Israel fled before Judah; and God delivered them into their hand.

17 And Abijah and his people slew them with a great slaughter: so there fell down slain of Israel five hundred thousand chosen men. 18 Thus the children of Israel were brought under at that time, and the children of Judah prevailed, because they relied upon the LORD God of their fathers.

19 And Abijah pursued after Jeroboam, and took cities from him, Beth-el with the towns thereof, and Jeshanah with the towns thereof, and Ephraim' with the towns thereof.

20 Neither did Jeroboam recover strength again in the days of Abijah: and the LORD struck him and he died.

21 ¶ But Abijah waxed mighty, and married fourteen wives, and begat twenty and two sons, and sixteen daughters.

22 And the rest of the acts of Abijah, and his ways, and his sayings, are written in the story of the prophet Iddo.

Chapter 14

1 Asa succeeding destroyeth idolatry. 6 Having peace, he strengtheneth his kingdom with forts and armics. 9 Calling on God, he overthroweth Zerah, and spoileth the Ethiopians.

O Abijah slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of David: and Asa his son reigned in his stead. In his days the land was quiet ten years.

2 And Åsa did that which was good and right in the eyes of the LORD his God:

This refers not to the tribe of Ephraim, but to the town Ephron near Bethel.

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