remote from
the political suspicions of Le Clerc; nor ought such weak suspicions to
be deemed of any force against authentic testimonies of antiquity.

[14] This epistle, in some copies of Josephus, is said to come to Jotare
from Elijah, with this addition," for he was yet upon earth," which
could not be true of Elijah, who, as all agree, was gone from the earth
about four years before, and could only be true of Elisha; nor perhaps
is there any more mystery here, than that the name of Elijah has very
anciently crept into the text instead of Elisha, by the copiers, there
being nothing in any copy of that epistle peculiar to Elijah.

[15] Spanheim here notes, that this putting off men's garments,
and strewing them under a king, was an Eastern custom, which he had
elsewhere explained.

[16] Our copies say that this "driving of the chariots was like the
driving of Jehu the son of Nimshi; for he driveth furiously," 2 Kings
9:20; whereas Josephus's copy, as he understood it, was this, that,
on the contrary, Jehu marched slowly, and in good order. Nor can it be
denied, that since there was interval enough for king Joram to send out
two horsemen, one after another, to Jehu, and at length to go out with
king Ahaziah to meet him, and all this after he was come within sight
of the watchman, and before he was come to Jezreel, the probability is
greatly on the side of Josephus's copy or interpretation.

[17] This character of Joash, the son of Jehoahaz, that "he was a good
man, and in his disposition not at all like to his father," seems a
direct contradiction to our ordinary copies, which say [2 Kings 13:11]
that "he did evil in the sight of the Lord; and that he departed not
from all the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to
sin: he walked therein." Which copies are here the truest it is hard
positively to determine. If Josephus's be true, this Joash is the single
instance of a good king over the ten tribes; if the other be true, we
have not one such example. The account that follows, in all copies,
of Elisha the prophet's concern for him, and his concern for Elisha,
greatly favors Josephus's copies, and supposes this king to have been
then a good man, and no idolater, with whom God's prophets used not to
be so familiar. Upon the whole, since it appears, even by Josephus's own
account, that Amaziah, the good king of Judah, while he was a good king,
was forbidden to make use of the hundred thousand auxiliaries