is nowhere stated in Scripture. In the Jewish Chronicle Seder olam, 2 Chr 17:45, it is indeed placed in the second year of Ahaziah of Israel; but this statement is not founded upon historical tradition, but is a mere deduction from the fact that his translation is narrated in 2 Kings 2 immediately after Ahaziah's death; and the last act of Elijah of which we have any record (2 Kings 1) falls in the second year of that king. Lightfoot, indeed (Opp. i. p. 85), Ramb., and Dereser have concluded from 2Ki 3:11 that Elijah was taken away from the earth in the reign of Jehoshaphat, because according to that passage, in the campaign against the Moabites, undertaken in company with Joram of Israel, Jehoshaphat inquired for a prophet, and received the answer that Elisha was there, who had poured water upon the hands of Elijah. But the only conclusion to be drawn from that is, that in the camp, or near it, was Elisha, Elijah's servant, not that Elijah was no longer upon earth. The perfect יצק אשׁר seems indeed to imply this; but it is questionable if we may so press the perfect, i.e., whether the speaker made use of it, or whether it was employed only by the later historian. The words are merely a periphrasis to express the relationship of master and servant in which Elijah stood to Elisha, and tell us only that the latter was Elijah's attendant. But Elisha had entered upon this relationship to Elijah long before Elijah's departure from the earth (1Ki 19:19.). Elijah may therefore have still been alive under Joram of Judah; and Berth. accordingly thinks it “antecedently probable that he spoke of Joram's sins, and threatened him with punishment. But the letter,” so he further says, “is couched in quite general terms, and gives, moreover, merely a prophetic explanation of the misfortunes with which Joram was visited;” whence we may conclude that in its present form it is the work of a historian living at a later time, who describes the relation of Elijah to Joram in few words, and according to his conception of it as a whole. This judgment rests on dogmatic grounds, and flows from a principle which refuses to recognise any supernatural prediction in the prophetic utterances. The contents of the letter can be regarded as a prophetic exposition of the misfortunes which broke in, as it were, upon Joram, only by those who deny à priori that there is any special prediction in the speeches of the prophets, and hold all prophecies which contain such to be vaticinia post eventum. Somewhat more weighty is the objection raised against the
