Former ‘closed cities

Few examples of how much trust is put in the hands of a pharmacist and the extent to which that trust can be betrayed come close to the story of Robert Courtney, a former pharmacist from Kansas City. During the 9 years leading up to his arrest in August 2001, Courtney secretively diluted the chemotherapy drugs of over 4,200 cancer patients to increase the profits of his home infusion pharmacy business. Courtney broke the law while betraying the trust of his patients and damaging the reputation of his profession. 

Not all orphans succeeded, however. Constantine Stilbes dedicated one of his poems to an orphan and former student who seems not to have benefitted materially from his education at the Orphanotropheion. Stilbes began his poem by praising this former student s intelligence he was a boy who had shone like the morning star among his fellow pupils. Nevertheless, he failed to find a place in Constantinople and finally died in the provincial city of Patras, abandoned by friends, an orphan without a home or even a city. He passed away in a philanthropic institution, probably a gerokomeion or a xenon, where the hospital workers washed him, fed him, quenched his thirst, and finally closed his eyes in death. 

However, two kings, Manasseh and Amon, are said to have been buried not in the city of David but in the garden of Uzza (2 Kgs 21 18, 24). The former reference states that this was in the garden of his house, i.e. the palace. The evidence indicates that the royal palace was near the temple (cf. the closeness of the comparable Tell Tainat temple and palace). Accordingly, there is every reason to connect these burials with what we read in Ezek 43 7-9, which states, The house of Israel shall no more defile my holy name, neither they nor... 

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