Adonize´dek. The name denotes lord of justice, i.e. just lord, but some would rather have it to mean king of Zedek. He was the Canaanitish king of Jerusalem when the Israelites invaded Palestine; and the similarity of the name to that of a more ancient king of (as is supposed) the same place, Melchizedek (king of justice, or king of Zedek), has suggested that Zedek was one of the ancient names of Jerusalem. Be that as it may, this Adonizedek was the first of the native princes that attempted to make head against the invaders. After Jericho and Ai were taken, and the Gibeonites had succeeded in forming a treaty with the Israelites, Adonizedek was the first to rouse himself from the stupor which had fallen on the Canaanites (Joshua 10:1; Joshua 10:3), and he induced the other Amoritish kings of Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon, to join him in a confederacy against the enemy. They did not, however, march directly against the invaders, but went and besieged the Gibeonites, to punish them for the discouraging example which their secession from the common cause had afforded. Joshua no sooner heard of this than he marched all night from Gilgal to the relief of his allies; and falling unexpectedly upon the besiegers, soon put them to utter rout. The pursuit was long, and was signalized by Joshua's famous command to the sun and moon, as well as by a tremendous hail-storm, which greatly distressed the fugitive Amorites [JOSHUA]. The five kings took refuge in a cave; but were observed, and by Joshua's order the mouth of it was closed with large stones, and a guard set over it, until the pursuit was over. When the pursuers returned, the cave was opened, and the five kings brought out. The Hebrew chiefs then set their feet upon the necks of the prostrate monarchs—an ancient mark of triumph, of which the monuments of Persia and Egypt still afford illustrations. They were then slain, and their bodies hanged on trees until the evening, when, as the law forbade a longer exposure of the dead (Deuteronomy 21:23), they were taken down, and cast into the cave, the mouth of which was filled up with large stones, which remained long after (Joshua 10:1-27). The severe treatment of these kings by Joshua has been censured and defended with equal disregard of the real circumstances, which are, that the war was avowedly one of extermination, no quarter being given or expected on either side: and that the war-usages of the Jews were neither worse nor better than those of the people with whom they fought, who would most certainly have treated Joshua and the other Hebrew chiefs in the same manner, had they fallen into their hands.
This Encyclopedia of Biblical Literature is a 6 volume set in 1 book. It has over 2Read More
John Kitto was an English biblical scholar of Cornish descent.Born in Plymouth, John Kitto was a sickly child, son of a Cornish stonemason. The drunkenness of his father and the poverty of his family meant that much of his childhood was spent in the workhouse. He had no more than three years of erratic and interrupted education. At the age of twelve John Kitto fell on his head from a rooftop, and became totally and permanently deaf. As a young man he suffered further tragedies, disappointments and much loneliness. His height was 4 ft 8 in, and his accident left him with an impaired sense of balance. He found consolation in browsing at bookstalls and reading any books that came his way.
From these hardships he was rescued by friends who became aware of his mental abilities and encouraged him to write topical articles for local newspapers, arranging eventually for him to work as an assistant in a local library. Here he continued to educate himself.
One of his benefactors was the Exeter dentist Anthony Norris Groves, who in 1824 offered him employment as a dental assistant. Living with the Groves family, Kitto was profoundly influenced by the practical Christian faith of his employer. In 1829 he accompanied Groves on his pioneering mission to Baghdad and served as tutor to Groves's two sons. In 1833 Kitto returned to England via Constantinople, accompanied by another member of the Groves mission, Francis William Newman. Shortly afterwards he married, and in due course had several children.
A London publisher asked Kitto to write up his travel journals for a series of articles in the Penny Magazine, a publication read at that time by a million people in Britain, reprinted in America and translated into French, German and Dutch. Other writing projects followed as readers enquired about his experiences in the East amidst people living in circumstances closely resembling those of Bible times.
Wikipedia