ABSTRACT
Hazael was the first minister of one of those eastern governments, strangers to the great principles of policy and justice, that are indeed but another name for lawless oppression and anarchy. Thy son, Benhadad, king of Syria, sendeth unto thee saying, Shall I recover of this disease? To show that this was not a slight, irresolute measure, but that his heart was in it, he makes Hazael, the prime minister of the kingdom, his messenger. Bishop Patrickb looked into the incident of Hazael’s character. He only sought out the very next scene in the drama of his life. In his return from the gate of the city in which he met Elisha to the palace of Benhadad, he conceived the traiterous plan of his master’s murder. That tenderness, which was ever apt to be touched and to be melted, will not stop at cool indifference, but must be congealed into cruelty, or agitated into phrenzy. Thus it was with Hazael.
