Commentaria in III Regum
31. AND HE WENT AND SERVED BAAL.—“Baal,” or “Bal, Bel and Belus,” is Jupiter Belus, namely “Nemrod.” For Nemrod is Belus, who was the father of Ninus, the first king of the Assyrians, by whom “Nineveh” was founded and named, and whose wife was Semiramis. Nemrod, then, was called “Baal,” that is lord; and was the author of idolatry about the three hundredth year after the flood, as I said on Genesis 10:9. Whence from him the other gods and idols of the nations afterwards were called or surnamed “Baal” or “Baalim.” Whence Abulensis on 4 Kings, chapter 3, question 4, judges that this Baal of the Sidonians and Tyrians was Hercules, for he was in great honour among them. Whence Hiram king of Tyre in the time of Solomon erected a statue to him, as Josephus testifies, book 8, chapter 2. Hence at Tyre quinquennial games were celebrated in honour of Hercules, as is plain from 2 Machabees 4:18; therefore to the idols and calves of Jeroboam he added the idol Baal, or Jupiter Belus, which Jezabel his wife worshipped after the manner of her Sidonian nation.
Tropologically, learn hence how hateful to God, and therefore how unhappy, impiety is, since the life of impious princes is a continuous and most deadly tragedy; take a few tragic things from what was said in chapters 12, 15 and 16, and in 4 Kings, chapters 9, 10, 11 and 15. Jeroboam seized the kingdom of Israel on account of the offence of Solomon, avenged in the person of Roboam his son, the ten tribes being transferred to Jeroboam; his son also reigned in Israel. Vengeance came in the person of the son, and he himself with all the seed and house of Nabat was blotted out by a new king, Baasa. The power of the tyrant Baasa ended in his son Ela, who was slain with all his seed by Zambri his servant. Zambri reigned only seven days, and, besieged by Amri, was forced to burn himself in the palace and destroyed the royal progeny. The stock of Amri and Achab was destroyed by Jehu, the servant of King Joram, who was of the offspring of Achab. In the fourth generation vengeance came upon the offspring of Jehu, according to the word of the Lord, and therefore Zacharias, who was descended from Jehu, was cut down by his servant named Sellum, who reigned in his stead in Israel only one month, and was likewise slain by Manahen the son of Gadi in Thersa, who reigned for him ten years in Israel, and after him Phaceia his son only two years: for Phaceas the son of Romelia, his captain, slew him; but Osee the son of Ela slew him also, and he was carried away with his people into Assyria. So Saladin, says Aemilius, book 6, having subdued the East, at last died, and all his sons were slain by their uncle, only one escaping from the hands of the uncle Sephadin. It is an old saying that tyrant princes very rarely grow old, on account of the various dangers in which they are involved, and that they can very seldom escape the common lot of envy and danger, and very few at all have perished by their own fate or natural death. Wherefore Saturninus also in Flavius Vopiscus, when he was clothed in the purple by his men, said: “You do not know, friends, what an evil it is to rule. For swords hang over our necks, spears threaten, darts on every side, the very guards are feared, the very companions are dreaded: not food for pleasure, not travel for authority, not wars by choice, not arms by inclination. Add that every age is blamed in an emperor: if one is old, he seems unfit; if young, there is rashness in him. For in that you desire me as emperor, you drag me into the necessity of death: but I have this consolation in death, I shall not be able to perish alone.” There comes to mind what Aelian pleasantly relates of tyrants from the writings of Aesop: if anyone seizes a pig, it squeals, and not without reason. For since it bears neither wool nor anything else of that kind, it at once conjectures its death, knowing that it is for the use and eating of those who take it. Tyrants seem like pigs; for they live always in suspicions and fear, knowing, as pigs do, that their life alone is owed to all. So Aelian, book 9 of the Various Histories.
34. IN HIS DAYS HIEL OF BETHEL BUILT JERICHO: IN ABIRAM HIS FIRSTBORN HE LAID THE FOUNDATION THEREOF, AND IN HIS YOUNGEST SON SEGUB HE SET UP THE GATES THEREOF: ACCORDING TO THE WORD OF THE LORD, WHICH HE SPOKE BY THE HAND OF JOSUE.—Josue, overthrowing Jericho, made it an anathema, and cursed him who should wish to rebuild it, saying in chapter 6, verse 26: “Cursed be the man before the Lord, that shall raise up and build the city of Jericho. In his firstborn may he lay the foundation thereof, and in his youngest son set up its gates.” Wherefore no one up to the time of Achab dared to rebuild Jericho, but then Hiel dared it, enticed by the fertility of the place. For Jericho was most fruitful and most pleasant, and alone produced balsam. Scripture adds this to show how great was the forgetfulness of God and of the prophets under the wicked idolater Achab, and how corrupt the times were through avarice: for this goaded Hiel to rebuild Jericho against the command of Josue. Again, that by his punishment it might terrify Achab and the idolaters. For if Hiel, for rebuilding Jericho against the command of Josue, was punished with the loss of all his sons, much more ought Achab to have thought that he would be punished by God with the loss of all his sons, who, to the injury of God, wished his Baal to be worshipped as God.
IN ABIRAM HIS FIRSTBORN HE LAID THE FOUNDATION THEREOF, AND IN HIS YOUNGEST SON SEGUB HE SET UP THE GATES THEREOF,—as if to say: Hiel, laying the foundations of Jericho, immediately lost his firstborn son, named “Abiram”; then, going on to build it, he lost the rest in order down to the last, “Segub,” whom he lost while he was setting up the gates of the city. As much, therefore, as Jericho grew, so much did the family of Hiel diminish, so that when the city was finished, the family was plainly extinct, with wonderful obstinacy, says Rupert, upholding the name of the founder, so that he lost with effect all the honour of the begetter. Here appears the wonderful blindness, avarice and ambition of Hiel, who, though he saw the threats of Josue fulfilled in himself, and his sons gradually all dying, yet did not desist from building the city, preferring to finish it with the loss of all his sons than to leave it off and keep his sons alive; perhaps also he did this to please the impious Achab, and to show him that he, like Achab himself, was a despiser of God and His prophets.
Tropologically Eucherius says: “He who, after he has taken the habit of religion in the Church, returns to commit the crimes which the Lord Jesus forgave him on the day of baptism, and, by living luxuriously, takes up again the pomps of the devil which he himself had anathematized, when he raises, as it were, going out of Bethel, the ruins of Jericho, the doctrines of errors or the fables of the Gentiles against the ecclesiastical truth with which he was imbued, is justly cursed before the Lord, and loses his first son in the laying of the foundation of the wicked city, and his last in the setting up of the gates, because he loses both the foundations of faith, from which good buildings must begin, and the bars of good action, by which they ought to be completed.” Angelomus has the same word for word.