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Madness, we learn moreover, was not uncommon in these times, for we find in the twenty-first chapter of this same book, that David feigned himself mad. (1) "And he changed his behaviour before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands, and scribbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard. Then said Achish unto his servants, lo, you see this man is mad, wherefore then have you brought him unto me? Have I need of madmen, that ye have brought this fellow to play the madman in my presence, shall this fellow come into my house?"

(1) Verses 13, 14, 15.

THE

DISEASE OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR.

"AND they shall drive thee from men, (') and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts. of the field; they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and seven times shall pass over thee, until thou know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.

"The same hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar, and he was driven. from men, and did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like eagles' feathers, and his nails like birds' claws."

(1) Daniel, chap. iv. verses 32, 33.

N

This disorder appears to belong to that class of madness in which there is a specific hallucination, by which he fancied himself an ox, and did accordingly. Illustrations may be found in every work on insanity;Uwins says, "the French revolution, while it overthrew one monarch created many, nay, the madhouses of France at this time were peopled with gods as well as kings. Three Louis XVI.'s were seen together disputing one another's pretensions. There were, besides, several kings of Corsica and other countries; there were sovereigns of the world, a Jesus Christ, a Mahomet, so many deities as to render it necessary to distinguish them by the place they came from, as the god of Lyons, the god of the Gironde ;" and the actions of these people accorded with their morbid fancies. They thought themselves kings or gods, and they behaved themselves according to their

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own ideas, as kings and gods-Nebuchadnezzar fancied himself an ox, therefore browsed in the open fields as oxen do.

THE

DISEASE OF KING JEHORAM.

THE disease under which Jehoram laboured, I have no hesitation in saying, must have been a chronic dysentery, notwithstanding "some take it to be an hernia, or rupture; others, the falling of the anus, or a fistula in it; others the colic, or iliac passion." (') As this infliction is the fulfilment of a threat, which includes the people of his kingdom, "Behold with a great plague will the Lord smite thy people and thy

(1) Gill.

children, and thy wives, and all thy goods,"(") and which we have no reason to suppose was not carried fully into execution, it should appear that, in the first place, it was epidemic, and that after it had passed through the acute stage, chronic dysentery was super-induced, which occasionally is of long duration. "And it came to pass, that in process of time, after the end of two years, his bowels fell out by reason of his sickness, so he died of sore diseases," which event took place at the early age of forty years, there is nothing in the text that runs in any way counter to the symptoms of dysentery, for, not unfrequently, the colluvies have the appearance of containing the substance of the bowels themselves, and it is a vulgar expression so to describe it.

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(1) Chron. chap. xxxi. verses 12, 13.

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