mon, the other to the Messiah;
the distinction between which is of the greatest consequence to the
Christian religion.

[10] Whether Syria Zobah, 2 Samuel 3:8; 1 Chronicles 18:3-8, be Sophene,
as Josephus here supposes; which yet Ptolemy places beyond Euphrates,
as Dr. Hudson observes here, whereas Zobah was on this side; or whether
Josephus was not here guilty of a mistake in his geography; I cannot
certainly determine.

[11] David's reserving only one hundred chariots for himself out of one
thousand he had taken from Hadadezer, was most probably in compliance
with the law of Moses, which forbade a king of Israel "to multiply
horses to himself," Deuteronomy 17:16; one of the principal uses of
horses in Judea at that time being for drawing their chariots. See
Joshua 12:6; and Antiq. B. V. ch. 1. sect. 18. It deserves here to be
remarked, that this Hadad, being a very great king, was conquered by
David, whose posterity yet for several generations were called Benhadad,
or the son of Hadad, till the days of Hazael, whose son Adar or Ader
is also in our Hebrew copy [2 Kings 13:24] written Benhadad, but in
Josephus Adad or Adar. And strange it is, that the son of Hazael, said
to be such in the same text, and in Josephus, Antiq. B. IX. ch. 8. sect.
7, should still be called the son of Hadad. I would, therefore, here
correct our Hebrew copy from Josephus's, which seems to have the true
reading, nor does the testimony of Nicolaus of Damascus, produced in
this place by Josephus, seem to be faultless, when it says that he
was the third of the Hadads, or second of the Benhadads, who besieged
Samaria in the days of Ahab. He must rather have been the seventh or
eighth, if there were ten in all of that name, as we are assured there
were. For this testimony makes all the Hadads or Benhadads of the same
line, and to have immediately succeeded one another; whereas Hazael was
not of that line, nor is he called Hadad or Benhadad in any copy. And
note, that from this Hadad, in the days of David, to the beginning
of Hazael, were near two hundred years, according to the exactest
chronology of Josephus.

[12] By this great victory over the Idameans or Edomites, the posterity
of Esau, and by the consequent tribute paid by that nation to the Jews,
were the prophecies delivered to Rebecca before Jacob and Esau were
born, and by old Isaac before his death, that the elder, Esau, [or the
Edomites,] should serve and the younger, Jacob, [or the Is