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s marriage with the daughter of Pharaoh; but the entire absence of any mention of Egypt is decisive against this view. Hence Hupfeld imagines a daughter of Hiram to be the bride, by reference to the Zidonian Ashtôreth which is mentioned among Solomon's strange gods (1Ki 11:5, 1Ki 11:33). But the fact that the king here celebrated is called upon to go forth to battle, is also strange, whilst the glory of Solomon consists in his being, in accordance with his name, the Prince of Peace, or אישׁ מנוּחה, 1Ch 22:9. Further, the wish is expressed for him that he may have children who shall take the place of his ancestors: Solomon, however, had a royal father, but not royal fathers; and there is the less ground for any retrospective reference to the princes of Judah as Solomon's ancestors (which Kurtz inclines to), since of these only one, viz., Nahshon, occurs among the ancestry of David.
All this speaks against Solomon, but just with equal force in favour of Joram, as being the king celebrated. This Joram is the son of Jehoshaphat, the second Solomon of the Israelitish history. He became king even during the lifetime of his pious father, under whom the Salomonic prosperity of Israel was revived (cf. 2Ch 18:1 with Psa 21:3, 2Ki 8:16, and Winer's Realwörterbuch under Jehoram); he was also married to Athaliah during his father's lifetime; and it is natural, that just at that time, when Judah had again attained to the height of the glory of the days of Solomon, the highest hopes should be gathered around these nuptials. This explains the name שׁגל which the queen bears, - a name that is elsewhere Chaldaean (Dan 5:2.) and Persian (Neh 2:6), and is more North-Palestinian^[1] than Jewish; for Athaliah sprang from the royal family of Tyre, and was married by Joram out of the royal family of Israel. If she is the queen, then the exhortation to forget her people and her father's house has all the greater force. And it becomes intelligible why the homage of Tyre in particular, and only of Tyre, is mentioned. The Salomonic splendour of Asiatic perfumes and costly things is thus quite as easily explained as by referring the Psalm to Solomon. For even Jehoshaphat had turned his attention to

1. In Deborah's song (Jdg 5:30) probably שׁגל is to be read instead of לצוּארי שׁלל.