In his days did Hiel, &c.— The sentence which we here see executed was pronounced above four hundred and forty years before, and is a most striking proof of the divine prescience, as well as of the authority of those sacred writings which contain so remarkable a prediction. Hiel was probably a professed idolater; and therefore might undertake the rebuilding of Jericho, either at the instigation of the court, or in defiance of God, and to let the world see that whatever was denounced in his name was of no significance at all: but the event proved the contrary, and he met with his condign punishment.
REFLECTIONS.—Ahab, that monster of iniquity, succeeds his father Omri in the 38th year of Asa. We have,
1. A general account of his wicked reign, the particulars of which may be thus recapitulated: he out-did all the worst of his predecessors; even Jeroboam's sins were light compared to his. He began with marrying a Zidonian wife, worse, if possible, than himself, idolatrous, proud, imperious, lewd, malicious, the adviser and encourager of every abomination. Her gods pleased him better than his own; and he went, probably, at first to Tyre to worship; and then, that he might have his idol nearer home, he reared a magnificent temple in Samaria, set up an altar before the image of Baal, and planted a grove around it, to perform those shocking rites which the day blushed to behold. Note; (1.) Of all the earthly plagues that can light upon miserable man, there is not a greater than to be joined to a wicked and abandoned woman. (2.) The idolater grudges no expence to serve his abominations; and shall we be niggards at the altar of the true and only God? (3.) Deeds of lewdness shun the light; but what thick grove can exclude the piercing eye of God?