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[306]
But the elders of Jerusalem being very uneasy that the brother of
Jaddua the high priest, though married to a foreigner, should be a partner
with him in the high priesthood, quarreled with him; for they esteemed
this man's marriage a step to such as should be desirous of transgressing
about the marriage of [strange] wives, and that this would be the beginning
of a mutual society with foreigners, although the offense of some about
marriages, and their having married wives that were not of their own country,
had been an occasion of their former captivity, and of the miseries they
then underwent; so they commanded Manasseh to divorce his wife, or not
to approach the altar, the high priest himself joining with the people
in their indignation against his brother, and driving him away from the
altar. Whereupon Manasseh came to his father-in-law, Sanballat, and told
him, that although he loved his daughter Nicaso, yet was he not willing
to be deprived of his sacerdotal dignity on her account, which was the
principal dignity in their nation, and always continued in the same family.
And then Sanballat promised him not only to preserve to him the honor of
his priesthood, but to procure for him the power and dignity of a high
priest, and would make him governor of all the places he himself now ruled,
if he would keep his daughter for his wife. He also told him further, that
he would build him a temple like that at Jerusalem, upon Mount Gerizzini,
which is the highest of all the mountains that are in Samaria; and he promised
that he would do this with the approbation of Darius the king. Manasseh
was elevated with these promises, and staid with Sanballat, upon a supposal
that he should gain a high priesthood, as bestowed on him by Darius, for
it happened that Sanballat was then in years. But there was now a great
disturbance among the people of Jerusalem, because many of those priests
and Levites were entangled in such matches; for they all revolted to Manasseh,
and Sanballat afforded them money, and divided among them land for tillage,
and habitations also, and all this in order every way to gratify his son-in-law.
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
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