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[215]
When Jeroboam the king had passed his life in great happiness, and
had ruled forty years, he died, and was buried in Samaria, and his son
Zachariah took the kingdom. After the same manner did Uzziah, the son of
Amaziah, begin to reign over the two tribes in Jerusalem, in the fourteenth
year of the reign of Jeroboam. He was born of Jecoliah, his mother, who
was a citizen of Jerusalem. He was a good man, and by nature righteous
and magnanimous, and very laborious in taking care of the affairs of his
kingdom. He made an expedition also against the Philistines, and overcame
them in battle, and took the cities of Gath and Jabneh, and brake down
their walls; after which expedition he assaulted those Arabs that adjoined
to Egypt. He also built a city upon the Red Sea, and put a garrison into
it. He, after this, overthrew the Ammonites, and appointed that they should
pay tribute. He also overcame all the countries as far as the bounds of
Egypt, and then began to take care of Jerusalem itself for the rest of
his life; for he rebuilt and repaired all those parts of the wall which
had either fallen down by length of time, or by the carelessness of the
kings, his predecessors, as well as all that part which had been thrown
down by the king of Israel, when he took his father Amaziah prisoner, and
entered with him into the city. Moreover, he built a great many towers,
of one hundred and fifty cubits high, and built walled towns in desert
places, and put garrisons into them, and dug many channels for conveyance
of water. He had also many beasts for labor, and an immense number of cattle;
for his country was fit for pasturage. He was also given to husbandry,
and took care to cultivate the ground, and planted it with all sorts of
plants, and sowed it with all sorts of seeds. He had also about him an
army composed of chosen men, in number three hundred and seventy thousand,
who were governed by general officers and captains of thousands, who were
men of valor, and of unconquerable strength, in number two thousand. He
also divided his whole army into bands, and armed them, giving every one
a sword, with brazen bucklers and breastplates, with bows and slings; and
besides these, he made for them many engines of war for besieging of cities,
such as cast stones and darts, with grapplers, and other instruments of
that sort.
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