nhadad, the
Syrian king. He had been raised from a humble lot and promoted to that
high post by the partiality of his sovereign, who had doubtless
discerned his exceptional abilities, and certainly placed implicit
trust in him. Just now the king was dangerously ill, and Hazael had
been sent to inquire of the prophet of Israel as to the probable issue
of the sickness. He put the question with seeming anxiety: "Will my
master recover?" He spoke as if that was his dearest wish; perhaps he
did wish it. But there were evidently other thoughts half-formed,
lurking and hiding themselves in the background. Suppose the king
should die and leave the throne vacant, what then? May there not be a
chance for me? Elisha read these hidden thoughts, and looked the man
in the face long and steadfastly, until the face turned crimson and the
head was lowered with shame. And then the prophet said, "Thy master
need not die of the sickness; nevertheless, he will die, and I see you
filling a throne won by murder, and I have a picture before me of the
terrible things which you will do to my dear land of Israel." And as
this vision passed before the prophet's eyes, he wept. Then Hazael
gave the answer which stands at the head of this paper.

It is open to two interpretations. The Authorised Version gives one
and the Revised Version the other. According to the first, it is an
indignant denial; he recoils with horror from the picture of perfidy,
cruelty, and enormous criminality which the prophet has sketched for
him. I am not capable of such a thing, he says; "_Is thy servant a
dog, that he should do this great thing_?" According to the other
reading it is not the crime that he revolts from, but the kingship and
the greatness that he refuses to believe in. It seems so improbable
and all but impossible that he, a man of obscure birth, should climb to
such eminence. He exclaims against it as a piece of incredulous and
extravagant imagination. "_What is thy servant, which is but a dog,
that he should do this great thing_?"

Now, I doubt not that both readings may be allowed. For certainly both
thoughts were in the speaker's mind. He did not believe at that moment
that he could ever be brought to commit such infamous deeds, and he did
not believe that he could ever attain such high ambitions and power.
There was a dark moral depth predicted for him to which he was sure he
would never fall, and there was a certain grandeur and ele