Ahaziah could not do anything to subjugate the Moabites any further, since he was very soon afterwards taken grievously ill. He fell through the grating in his upper room at Samaria. השּׂבכה, the grating, is either a window furnished with a shutter of lattice-work, or a door of lattice-work in the upper room of the palace, but hardly a grating in the floor of the Aliyah for the purpose of letting light into the lower rooms, as the Rabbins supposed. On account of this misfortune, Ahaziah resorted to the Ekronitish Baalzebub to obtain an oracle concerning the result of his illness. בּעל־זבוּב, i.e., Fly-Baal, was not merely the "averter of swarms of insects," like the Ζεὺς ἀπομυῖος, μυίαγρος of Elis (Ges., Winer, Movers, Phniz. i. p. 175), since "the Fly-God cannot have received his name as the enemy of flies, like lucus a non lucendo," but was Μυῖα θεός (lxx, Joseph.), i.e., God represented as a fly, as a fly-idol, to which the name Myiodes, gnat-like, in Plin. h. n. xxix. 6, clearly points, and as a god of the sun and of summer must have stood in a similar relation to the flies to that of the oracle-god Apollo, who both sent diseases and took them away (vid., J. G. Mller, Art. Beelzebub in Herzog's Cycl. i. p. 768, and Stark, Gaza, pp. 260,261). The latter observes that "these (the flies), which are governed in their coming and going by all the conditions of the weather, are apparently endowed with prophetic power themselves." This explains the fact that a special power of prophecy was attributed to this god.

(Note: The later Jews altered the name Beelzebub into Βεελζεβούλ, i.e., probably lord of the (heavenly) dwelling, as a name given to the ἄρχων τῶν δαιμονίων (Matthew 10:25, etc.); and the later Rabbins finally, by changing זבוּל בּעל into זבל בּעל, made a fly-god into a dung-god, to express in the most intense form their abomination of idolatry (see Lightfoot, Horae hebr. et talm. in Matthew 12:24, and my Bibl. Archol. i. pp. 440,441).)

Ekron, now Akir, the most northerly of the five Philistine capitals (see at Joshua 13:3).

2 Kings 1:8 Parallel Commentaries

an hairy man That is, he wore a {rough garment}, either made of camel's hair as that of John Baptist, or of a skin, dressed with the {hair on}. Sir J. Chardin informs us, in a MS. note on this place, cited by Mr. Harmer, that the eastern dervishes and fakers are clothed just as Elijah was, with a {hairy} garment, girded with a leathern girdle.

Isaiah 20:2 At the same time spoke the LORD by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, Go and loose the sackcloth from off your loins...

Zechariah 13:4 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the prophets shall be ashamed every one of his vision, when he has prophesied...

Matthew 3:4 And the same John had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leather girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey.

Matthew 11:8 But what went you out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings' houses.

Luke 1:17 And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children...

Revelation 11:3 And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and three score days, clothed in sackcloth.