By no means. For thus it is added in the same ch. 16 of 1 Kings: In Abiram his firstborn he (Hiel of Jericho) laid its foundation, and in Segub his youngest he set up its gates, according to the word of the Lord which he had spoken by the hand of Joshua the son of Nun. For “Abiram” the Seventy [LXX] write ἀβειρὼν [Abeirōn]; and since in Hebrew the name is the same as his who perished with Korah and Dathan, [as well as] the name of this our [Abiram], the same [LXX] write it at Num. 16 [as] ἀβειρὼν; and our [Vulgate] Interpreter imitates them there, and at ch. 26:8, Deut. 11:6, Ps. 105 and 107, Sir. [Ecclus.] 45:22. But for “Segub” the same Seventy wrote, in this place of Joshua, διασωθέντα [diasōthenta], that is, “saved.” For they rendered the signification of the proper name, since it is from sagab [שׂגב], which is “to exalt, to raise up, to deliver, and to rescue.” Indeed, God himself is called misgab [מִשְׂגָּב] — Ps. 9:10; Ps. 45:8, 12; [Ps.] 59; Ps. 58:14; Ps. 94:22; Isa. 25:12 — that is, “a refuge and a deliverance.” Yet not only these two children were taken away by Hiel’s doing, but the others also, as many as had been placed between these two. For thus Rupert (ch. 20, on Joshua): “When he laid the foundations of Jericho, immediately his firstborn son died; and then, during the building, [his sons] gradually departing according to the order of [their] birth, [and] when — which was the last [act] — he set up its gates, his youngest son died: a marvelous ambition upholding [his] obstinacy, so that, by ambitiously [pursuing] the founder’s name, he lost, with [full] feeling, the whole honor of a parent.” And this death of the children could come about in two ways. First: on account of the parent’s fault alone. For since this death is temporal, and the Lord has the right over the life and death of all, He can, without any fault of the children — [a fault] which would be their own — take them out of the midst, only so that the sad bereavement to the parents, and the bitter grief (of which [the children] are, as it were, certain parts), may be seared in
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be seared in. Secondly: on account of some fault of the children’s own also. And perhaps both modes had a place here. For the firstborn could by [his] age be now more grown, and [could be] one of the [more culpable] others; but the youngest-born was still, by his tender age, a stranger to the faculty of sinning. Those [elder ones], then, seem to have taken after their father, and to have followed his impiety and pride — and perhaps so much the more, by how much greater [are] the torches of boldness, of wickedness, and of empty glory that blaze in the young and in youths. For if the sons of Heroes are sometimes harmful [/guilty], how much more the offspring of impious parents? Too true, alas the shame, [is] that complaint of the Lyric [poet, Horace], bk. 3, Ode 6:
“The age of [our] parents, worse than [our] grandsires’, brought forth us [who are] more worthless, soon to give a still more vicious progeny.” [Horace, Odes 3.6.46–48]
But that youngest one — since indeed [his] parent worshipped Baal along with King Ahab, as was said in the previous question — was held still bound by original stain, because he had not been expiated from it by circumcision. Now “Abiram” is “strong,” and as it were “the excellent one” of them — namely, of the parents, or of the brothers. Yet this strength and excellence, this primogeniture and prerogative, could not defend him from death; and [the name] proved false in Segub — his name. For he was neither διασωθεὶς [diasōtheis] or “saved,” nor, as [was] the parent’s hope while he bestowed this name, did he prove “exalted” and “celebrated”; but, while the gates of Jericho are being raised, the unhappy boy is cast down. O how vain, often, [are] the auguries of parents concerning [their] children! how empty the hope! But how great [is] the obstinacy of men, who cannot be recalled from their undertakings even by the funerals of their own so-dear [children] — [warned] by a sure word of God, [even] when they see and feel [it]?