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The war with Assyria, however, saved Israel from being swallowed up by its Syrian neighbour. Hazael's strength was exhausted in struggling for his own existence; he had none left for the conquest of Samaria. Shalmaneser himself, towards the end of his life, was no longer in a position to attack others.
Often since I finished my last letter has Hazael's reply to Elisha occurred to me, "Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?" For in answer to people who have said, "I hope nothing will induce you to attempt the ascent of Mauna Loa," I always said, "Oh, dear, no! I should never dream of it;" or, "Nothing would persuade me to think of it!" This morning early, Mr.
Hazael's voice interrupted his reveries: would you like, Sir, to visit our house? he asked, and he threw open the door and showed a great room, common to all. On either side of it, he said, are cells, six on one side, four on the other, and into these cells the brethren retire after breaking bread, and it is in this domed gallery we sit at food.
Hazael asked, lifting his chin out of his beard, and the calm of Jesus' face was troubled by the question and he sank upon a stool close by Hazael's chair. What may we do? he muttered, and the Essenes withdrew, for they guessed that the elders had serious words to speak together. Thou hast heard my story, Hazael; nothing remains now but to bid farewell to thy old friend.
Multitudes find their own case the renewal of Hazael's experience. When Elijah told him the enormities he, when on the throne of Syria, would practice, he exclaimed "Is thy servant a dog that he should do these things?" He was not then, but he afterwards became just such a dog. But if the heart be deceitful, sin is scarcely less so.
I had not time to tell you before that this trip to Kauai was hastily arranged for me by several of my Honolulu friends, some of whom gave me letters of introduction, while others wrote forewarning their friends of my arrival. I am often reminded of Hazael's question, "Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?"
This narrative opens to us some of the solemn, dark places of human life, of men's hearts, of God's ways. Let us look at some of the lessons which lie here. I. Man's responsibility for the sin which God foresees. It seems as if the prophet's words had much to do in exciting the ambitious desires which led to the crime. Hazael's purpose of executing the deed is clearly known to the prophet.
He continued his gloss till Mathias held up his hand and asked Hazael's permission to speak: the words that had been quoted from Deuteronomy, those in which the Scriptures speak of God as if he were a man, attributing to him the acts and motives of man, were addressed, as our reader has pointed out, to men who had hardly advanced beyond the intelligence of childhood, whose minds were still simple and unable to receive any idea of God except the primitive notion that God is a greater man.
This conversation with Elisha seems to have accelerated Hazael's purpose, as if the prediction were to his mind a justification of his means of fulfilling it. How like Macbeth he is! the successful soldier, stirred by supernatural monitions of a greatness which he should achieve, and at last a murderer.
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