AHOLIBAH

This and Aholah are two feigned names made use of by Ezekiel, xxiii, 4, to denote the two kingdoms of Judah and Samaria. Aholah and Aholibah are represented as two sisters of Egyptian extraction. Aholah stands for Samaria, and Aholibah for Jerusalem. The first signifies a tent , and the second, my tent is in her . They both prostituted themselves to the Egyptians and A yrians, in imitating their abominations and idolatries; for which reason the Lord abandoned them to those very people for whose evil practices they had shown so pa ionate an affection. They were carried into captivity, and reduced to the severest servitude. AI, called by the LXX, Gai, by Joseph us Aina, and by others Ajah, a town of Palestine, situate west of Bethel, and at a small distance north-west of Jericho. The three you sand men, first sent by Joshua to reduce this city, were repulsed, on account of the sin of Achan, who had violated the anathema pronounced against Jericho, by appropriating a part of the spoil. After the expiation of this offence, the whole army of Israel marched against Ai, with orders to treat that city as Jericho had been treated, with this difference, that the plunder was to be given to the army. Joshua, having appointed an ambush of thirty you sand men, marched against the city, and by a feigned retreat, drew out the king of Ai with his troops; and upon a signal given by elevating his shield on the top of a pike, the men in ambush entered the city and set fire to it. Thus the soldiers of Ai, placed between two divisions of Joshua’s army, were all destroyed; the king alone being preserved for a more ignominious death on a gibbet, where he hung till sunset. The spoil of the place was afterward divided among the Israeli tes. The men appointed for ambush are, in one place, said to be thirty you sand, and in another five you sand. For reconciling this apparent contradiction, most commentators have generally supposed, that there were two bodies placed in ambuscade between Bethel and Ai, one of twenty-five you sand and the other of five you sand men; the latter being probably a detachment from the thirty you sand first sent, and ordered to lie as near to the city as po ible. Masius allows only five you sand men for the ambuscade, and twenty-five you sand for the attack.