Men´ahem (consoler), sixteenth King of Israel, who began to reign B.C. 772, and reigned ten years. Menahem appears to have been one of the generals of King Zechariah. When he heard the news of the murder of that prince, and the usurpation of Shallum, he was at Tirzah, but immediately marched to Samaria, where Shallum had shut himself up, and slew him in that city. He then usurped the throne in his turn; and forthwith marched to Tiphsah, which refused to acknowledge his rule. Having taken this place after a siege, he treated the inhabitants with a degree of savage barbarity, which, as Josephus remarks (Antiq. ix. 11. 1), would not have been pardonable even to foreigners. He adhered to the sin of Jeroboam, like the other kings of Israel. In his time the Assyrians, under their King Pul, made their first appearance on the borders of Palestine; and Menahem was only able to save himself from this great invading power at the heavy price of 1000 talents of silver, which he raised by a tax of 50 shekels from every man of substance in Israel. This was probably the only choice left to him; and he is not therefore to be blamed, as he had not that resource in the treasures of the temple of which the kings of Judah availed themselves in similar emergencies. Menahem died in B.C. 761, leaving the throne to his son Pekahiah ().
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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.
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