Uri´jah (flame of Jehovah), high priest of the Jews in the time of King Ahaz. He received from this young prince, who was then at Damascus, the model of an altar which had there engaged his attention, with orders to make one like it at Jerusalem. It was his duty to refuse compliance with this dangerous order; but he made such haste in his obedience that the altar was completed by the time Ahaz returned; and he afterwards went so far in his subservience as to offer upon this new and unauthorized altar the sacrifices prescribed by the law of Moses (). He was probably not so fully aware as he ought to have been of the crime and danger involved in this concession to a royal caprice, being a transgression of the law which fixed the form of the Mosaical altar (; ); for he appears to have been in intention a good man, as he is one of the 'faithful witnesses' chosen by Isaiah () to attest one of his prophecies.
Urijah, 2
Urijah, a prophet, son of Shemaiah of Kirjath-jearim in Judah, who, in the time of Jehoiakim, uttered prophecies against Judea and Jerusalem, of the same tenor as those which Jeremiah was commissioned to deliver. Menaced with death by the king, Urijah sought refuge in Egypt; but Judea was at that time subject to Pharaoh-Necho, who had no interest in protecting a proscribed fugitive who foretold the conquests of the Babylonians. He was therefore delivered up on the demand of Jehoiakim, who put him to death, and ordered him to be buried dishonorably in one of the graves of the meanest of the people ().
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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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