te circumstances.

[43] This reading of Josephus, that Jehoshaphat put on not his own, but
Ahab's robes, in order to appear to be Ahab, while Ahab was without
any robes at all, and hoped thereby to escape his own evil fate, and
disprove Micaiah's prophecy against him, is exceeding probable. It gives
great light also to this whole history; and shows, that although Ahab
hoped Jehoshaphat would be mistaken for him, and run the only risk of
being slain in the battle, yet he was entirely disappointed, while still
the escape of the good man Jehoshaphat, and the slaughter of the bad
man Ahab, demonstrated the great distinction that Divine providence made
betwixt them.

[44] We have here a very wise reflection of Josephus about Divine
Providence, and what is derived from it, prophecy, and the inevitable
certainty of its accomplishment; and that when wicked men think they
take proper methods to elude what is denounced against them, and to
escape the Divine judgments thereby threatened them, without repentance,
they are ever by Providence infatuated to bring about their own
destruction, and thereby withal to demonstrate the perfect veracity of
that God whose predictions they in vain endeavored to elude.

BOOK 9 FOOTNOTES

[1] These judges constituted by Jehoshaphat were a kind of Jerusalem
Sanhedrim, out of the priests, the Levites, and the principal of the
people, both here and 2 Chronicles 19:8; much like the old Christian
judicatures of the bishop, the presbyters, the deacons, and the people.

[2] Concerning this precious balsam, see the note on Atiq. B. VIII. ch.
6. sect. 6.

[3] What are here Pontus and Thrace, as the places whither Jehoshaphat's
fleet sailed, are in our other copies Ophir and Tarshish, and the place
whence it sailed is in them Eziongeber, which lay on the Red Sea, whence
it was impossible for any ships to sail to Pontus or Thrace; so that
Josephus's copy differed from our other copies, as is further plain from
his own words, which render what we read, that "the ships were broken at
Eziongeber, from their unwieldy greatness." But so far we may conclude,
that Josephus thought one Ophir to be some where in the Mediterranean,
and not in the South Sea, though perhaps there might be another Ophir in
that South Sea also, and that fleets might then sail both from Phoenicia
and from the Red Sea to fetch the gold of Ophir.

[4] This god of flies seems to have been so called, as was the like god
among