in hieroglyphics, and the learned have made out the picture of a people
with the features of Jews, bringing their gifts to his feet, no doubt
the messengers of Rehoboam. He lost his sight in his old age, and is
said to have killed himself.

In 955 Abijah came to the throne instead of Rehoboam, and was permitted
to gain a great victory over Jeroboam, but he died at the end of three
years, and was succeeded by his son Asa. The great temptation of the men
of Judah seems to have been at this time the resorting to hill tops and
groves of trees as places of worship, instead of going steadily to the
Temple at Jerusalem; and the kings, though obedient in other respects,
did not dare to put down this forbidden custom. Asa's mother, Maachah, a
daughter of Absalom, even had an idol in a grove; but after the king
had been strengthened to gain a great victory over the Ethiopians, he
destroyed the idol, and put her down from being queen. His end was less
good than his beginning; he made a league with the Syrians instead of
trusting to God; and threw the prophet Hanani into prison for having
rebuked him; and in his latter years he was cruel and oppressive. He
died in 891.

His son Jehoshaphat was a very good and gentle prince, but his very
gentleness seemed to have led him into error, for he became too friendly
with the idolatrous House of Ahab in Samaria, and allowed his son
Jehoram to take to wife the child of Ahab and Jezebel, Athaliah, who
proved even more wicked than her mother. Jehoshaphat was in alliance
with Ahab, and went out with him to his last battle at Ramoth-Gilead,
where Ahab tried to put his friend into danger instead of himself by
making him appear as the only king present, but entirely failed to
deceive the hand appointed to bring death. Afterwards, when the
Edomites, Ammonites, and Moabites came up against Judah, Jehoshaphat was