READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE. TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER XVII

ISRAEL AND THENEIGHBOURING STATES

I.

EARLY HISTORY TO THE MIDDLE OF THE NINTH CENTURY B.C.

ALTHOUGH the political history of the minor states which lay between Egypt, Asia Minor and the dominions of Assyria and Babylonia was throughout shaped by that of their great neighbours, they had, nevertheless, a certain internal independence of their own. This has already been observed in the neo-Hittite states; and Israel and Judah, too, although inextricably interwoven, as it would seem, with the whole area of which they were, geographically and historically, an organic part, had distinctive features which marked them out from the rest, and, for obvious reasons, call for special treatment. Now, we are in the fortunate position of being able to read their history from within in a way that is impossible in the case of the other states; for the small land whose internal development proved so vital for the history of the world is that one alone which has preserved in its sacred writings an account, or rather material for an account, of the events which gave it its importance. The period to be surveyed is, broadly speaking, that of the prominence of Aramaean and secondary ‘Hittite’ kingdoms in the north, the extension of the Assyrian empire until it reached Egypt (ninth—seventh centuries), the gradual disintegration of these northern kingdoms and the overthrow of Israel, the brief reign of neo-Babylonian empire upon the ruins of Assyria, and the fall of Judah, and the Exile. Finally, Egypt and south-west Asia passed into the hands of the Persians, and in due course we leave an old Oriental world for one more under Western influence. In the pages that follow we shall supplement the preceding chapters by an outline of the history of Israel and her immediate neighbours, and shall then proceed to notice the internal development, in so far as it helps us to understand the course of events.

Native contemporary monuments are unfortunately very few. Numerous archaeological remains survive to suggest that further examination of the ‘tells’ would disclose much valuable material. The Egyptian evidence is scanty and inconclusive. The Assyrian monuments are of the first importance. The Old Testament is our main source. It contains the history of Israel and Judah in two forms: (1) the books of Samuel-Kings, which, with the preceding Joshua-Judges, were known as ‘prophetical’ (didactic) rather than as ‘historical’ writings; and (2) Chronicles, continued further in Ezra-Nehemiah. Of these the former series is now linked on to the Pentateuch, and ends abruptly with the release by Evil-Merodach of the captive Judaean king Jehoiachin (561). The second series runs essen­tially parallel to Samuel (parts) and Kings, but passes from the fall of Jerusalem (586) to the time of Cyrus (539), when it describes the return of Judaeans from exile and the reconstruction of the Jewish state. The book of Chronicles is now recognized to be distinctly later and less trustworthy than the parallel Samuel-Kings, as can easily be seen from the slight use made of it by all modern writers; and a comparison of the two illuminates the free methods of ancient compilers, their various and conflicting interests, and the growth of tradition. There is a characteristic reshaping of earlier tradition on religious grounds which can be readily perceived and discounted; but Chronicles also contains traditions which appear to be merely late and more developed forms, both of what is already found in the earlier series, and of what, though lost, is too circumstantial to be ignored. The earlier series itself is far from being contemporary or entirely trust­worthy. It, too, is the result of compilation; it includes conflicting traditions, and often represents a late didactic treatment of events. Accordingly, while some of the sources of the ‘Chronicler’ (as the compiler of the later series is commonly called) go back some centuries before his own age (not earlier than the fourth century BC), Samuel-Kings has had a complex literary history and did not reach its present form before the release of Jehoiachin (561), and in all probability is at least several decades later.

As has already been shown, the biblical sources do not allow us to furnish any simple or convincing sketch of the union of the tribes of Israel into a single monarchy. The first king, Saul, was evidently a more powerful figure than appears from those narratives which either reflect a Judaean bias in favour of his rival and successor David, or have a certain anti-monarchical bias and emphasize the influence of Samuel, a figure of the ‘prophetical’ rather than the ‘priestly’ type. Saul’s work as king was undone through his defeat by the Philistines at Gilboa, and David became king at Hebron in the south. Ultimately he took Jerusalem from the non-Israelite Jebusites and made it his capital. While the oldest traditions seem to separate the heroic founders of Israel and Judah, later writers not only closely associate them, but they view the occupation of Jerusalem as the climax of all that had gone before. Hence we find in the biblical narrative an apparently unbroken continuity between the Exodus from Egypt, the laws promulgated in readiness for the Promised Land and the place which Yahweh should choose, the conquest of Palestine, the settlement of the ark at Jerusalem, the prepara­tions for the building of the Temple, and the inauguration of a dynasty which surmounted all crises, survived the Exile, and, after a brief revival under Zerubbabel (c. 520—516), disappeared in unknown circumstances, to be replaced by a priestly regime. At this later stage—which falls outside the period treated in this volume—we reach conditions and tendencies which have been reflected back even to the days of the Exodus and Conquest, and the course of the history, in its extant form, becomes intelligible only when we view the past from the very late standpoints of the writers themselves.

What is related of Saul, David and his son Solomon shows how naturally the strength of Israel and Judah depended upon relations with Aramaeans, Phoenicians and Philistines, with Ammon, Moab and Edom. David comes before us as a successful conqueror from south Judah, if not a more southern locality. Having established his power by force of arms, he founds a kingdom, which possibly stretched as far north as Kadesh on the Orontes; he plants a garrison at Damascus, enters into friendly relations with Hamath, and, like Solomon, enlists the help of Tyre in his building enterprises. Of Solomon himself (c. 974-932) an impressive picture is given. His numerous marriages point to widespread alliances. His marriage with a Pharaoh’s daughter brought him Gezer, which her father had taken from the Canaanites: Egypt, it would seem, was not unmindful of her ancient claims upon Palestine. The coastal plain—an object of anxious concern to both Egypt and Israel—was thus secured, and the fortification of Hazor, Megiddo and Bethhoron, of which we read, would control the main trade-routes. With Hiram of Tyre Solomon owned a ‘Tarshish’ fleet, which, to judge from the name, went to Tartessus in Spain, though not there alone. From Eziongeber in Edom a fleet, manned by Phoenicians, brought gold from the land of Ophir (? South Arabia). Edom itself had been exterminated by David, though the escape of the young prince Hadad had important results later. A traffic in horses was conducted with Mizraim (Musri) and Kue, i.e. prob­ably with Cilicia and adjacent countries. Finally, the well-known story of the Queen of Sheba’s visit with a camel-train of spices, gold and precious stones—a favourite theme in later legend—is at least a hint of the valuable trade between the little-known South Arabian kingdoms and the north.

It is not easy to determine how far Solomon’s power has been idealized. We read of a mighty kingdom from Gaza (the port for Arabian trade with the Levant) to Thapsacus on the Euphrates. These were halcyon days for Israel and Judah, when men dwelt secure under vine and fig-tree, or officered the remnant of the pre-Israelite ‘Amorites,’ who did all the toil. Later ages told of Solomon’s uxoriousness, the wisdom of his mature years, the pessimism of his old age, his great wealth, his idolatry, and that sovereignty over the world of creatures and demons which so fascinates the Oriental. Behind all this it is difficult to perceive the man himself. There is, however, a darker side to the picture: we learn that Israel itself must raise a levy of workmen, that for this purpose the land was divided into twelve districts, a division which not only ignored tribal boundaries, but evidently favoured Judah with exemption. Majestic buildings and their upkeep, the cult-places for the gods of the foreign wives, and all the dis­advantages of Oriental monarchy, laid a heavy burden upon the people. Various cities in the north were ceded to Hiram. Hadad of Edom, who had fled to Egypt and married the sister of the queen, returned to his country, and became an enemy to Solomon. In the north a hostile kingdom was established at Damascus. And at the centre of Israel itself Jeroboam ben (i.e. son of) Nebat, who was in charge of the local labour-bands, headed a revolt, and was forced to escape to Egypt. Egypt, too, the refuge of Solomon’s enemies, seems no longer friendly; naturally, it would not desire Palestine to be too powerful. On the death of Solomon his son Rehoboam proposed to be crowned at the old city of Shechem; but the northern tribes were restless, and summoned Jeroboam from Egypt as their leader. Their demand for less onerous treatment was ignominiously refused. Adoniram (or Adoram), who was over the levy, was sent by Rehoboam, but was stoned to death by the rebels; Jeroboam was proclaimed king, and north and south, which even under David had never been closely united, fell apart.

To accentuate the cleavage and weaken the supremacy of Jerusalem as the political and religious capital, Jeroboam is said to have made two bull-images, placing them in the border cities of Dan (in the north) and Bethel, io miles north of Jerusalem; he changed the date of the important autumnal feast of Taber­nacles, and instituted his own priests. The schism is treated didactically by the writers. Some regard it as inevitable: Ahijah, a prophet of Shiloh, supports Jeroboam, while Shemaiah dissuades Rehoboam from making war. Others treat the schism as an unforgivable offence: only in Jerusalem is the God of Israel to be found. Henceforth, a generally unfavourable view is taken of the kings of Israel, and the fall of the northern kingdom is attributed to the wickedness of the founder of the cult of the calves and to its persistent apostasy. On the other hand, the kings of Judah are estimated in the light of sweeping reforms ascribed to Josiah (c. 621), which are the climax of the religious history of the land, so that kings are judged by their attitude to the temple of Jerusalem. With rare exceptions (when special sources are employed) the histories of the two kingdoms are treated independently, and are placed within a frame­work which dates the accession of each king by the year of his contemporary in the rival kingdom—there is a fairly similar procedure in the ‘Synchronous History’ of Babylonia—and through­out employs stereotyped formulae, indicative of a single and simple editorial process. But while Judah and Israel are essentially rivals—though from time to time one controlled the other—Judah was also one of the ‘sons’ of Jacob, and one of the tribes of Israel; and Judah claimed, especially after the Exile, to be the sole and true Israel. It is convenient, therefore, to speak of the northern kingdom, when it is to be kept distinct from the south, as Ephraim or Samaria, and to use ‘Israel’ either to include Judah or in those cases where distinction is impossible or unnecessary.

The separate treatment of Judah and Ephraim renders it difficult to follow the events after the schism. The powerful Davidic kingdom had broken in pieces, and Israel’s relations with Edom, Moab, Damascus and Phoenicia entered upon a new stage. Jerusalem itself, no longer the capital of a single people, was in a dangerous position, close to the border of her rival. Judah, deprived of its earlier advantages, depended for its welfare on its relations with its immediate neighbours, especially Edom, Philistia (the Philistine coast) and Egypt. Its annals know of an invasion by Shishak. Temple and palace treasure was carried off, and the Chronicler even hints at subjugation to Egypt. The Egyptian evidence does not show at all clearly whether Egypt was helping Ephraim against Judah. Jeroboam, who had made Shechem his capital, removed to Penuel for reasons unspecified; but this latter city is among those enumerated by Shishak. Other Ephraimite cities (e.g. Bethshan) are also named; and, unless we assume that the Egyptians grossly exaggerated the invasion, it is possible that most of the cities named merely paid tribute.

Of Rehoboam’s otherwise unknown son Abijam (or rather Abijah) the Chronicler relates a great victory over Jeroboam, and the capture of Bethel and other south Ephraimite cities. Two years later the Judaean throne was occupied by Asa, whose long reign of forty years (c. 914—874) was contemporary with vital changes in the north. Jeroboam was succeeded by Nadab, who, while besieging the Philistines at Gibbethon (a frontier city of the south Danites), was slain in a conspiracy by Baasha of the tribe of Issachar. The rest of Jeroboam’s seed was exterminated, and Baasha, with Tirzah as his new capital, energetically attacked Asa. Ramah, only five miles north of Jerusalem, was invested and Asa was reduced to bribing Ben-Hadad, king of Damascus, to create a diversion. An army was sent to harry the northern districts (Dan, Abel, Naphtali), and Baasha was forced to withdraw. Asa thereupon dismantled Ramah, fortified Mizpah, and established a new fortress at Geba, a commanding height about 3000 ft. above sea-level, between Ramah and Jerusalem. The Chronicler tells how a prophet, condemning Asa’s reliance upon Aram instead of Yahweh, pointed to his earlier marvellous victory over Zerah, the Cushite (Ethiopian) at Mareshah. The historical basis of the story is disputed. Although the name Zerah can hardly be identified with that of Osorkon I, a battle with Egyptians is not improbable. But the name is found in old South Arabian inscriptions, and ‘Cush’ was also the reputed ancestor of Sheba and other Arabian divisions. Inroads from the south are character­istic of Judaean history, and confusion between Egyptians and Arabians is prominent later. It is difficult to decide between the claims of Egypt and Arabia, and it might even be assumed that the story of an Arabian raid has been applied to some genuine recollection of an invasion of Palestine by Osorkon. In any event, an attack from the south would certainly affect other countries besides Judah—notably Philistia.

Meanwhile, in Ephraim an energetic king was, as was not rarely the case, succeeded by a weakling, and Baasha’s son Elah, ‘while drinking himself drunk’ at Tirzah, was killed by Zimri, the captain of half his chariots. The royal house was, as usual, put to the sword. Zimri’s treachery became a by-word. Only seven days passed—unless with the Septuagint we read seven years—and the army, which was again besieging the Philistine Gibbethon, chose Omri as king. Omri marched against Tirzah and seized it; and Zimri, seeing that the cause was hopeless, entered the citadel and burnt it over his head. For a time Tibni and Joram, sons of Gunath, maintained an opposition, but at last in Asa’s thirty-first year (c. 884) Omri gained complete control and became head of the first dynasty of Ephraim. This pre-eminence of military rule is noteworthy; we may compare the strength of the generals of Saul and David. The tribal origin of Baasha, and possibly of Tibni (? of Naphtali), suggests frequent disagreement between the central and the more northerly tribes. Moreover, the fact that there was a second siege of Gibbethon points to continued unrest along the coastal plain; but we are unable to coordinate it with the little we know of Egypt or of north Arabia.

The names of both Rehoboam (‘the enlargement of ‘am’) and Jeroboam (‘a’ will contend’) contain an element ‘am’(‘uncle’; but also used as a divine name), which is familiar in South Arabian; and while the former, on his mother’s side, was half-Ammonite, the name of the ‘father’ of the latter, Nebat, associates itself both with south Arabian and with the Nabataeans, who, however, do not appear in history until several centuries later. Even Zimri and Omri have names of marked Arabian analogy, whereas that of the chief of the levy, Adoram, suggests the old god Addu or Adad. Further, the list of Solomon’s administrative officers (1 Kings IV) is characterized by archaic compounds of Ben-(‘son’). One cannot avoid observing a certain colour about these names, the more significant because the name Yahweh does not predominate, although the stage upon which we now enter is clearly recognized, by the old writers themselves, to be one of supreme importance for the history of Yahwism.

Omri and his son Ahab are our first definite landmarks in the history of Israel. Both left their impress upon tradition, and for a century and a half the Assyrians continued to call Ephraim ‘the land of Beth (the house of) Omri’. To Omri is ascribed the founding of a new capital at Samaria, six miles north-west of Nablus, called, we are naively told, after Shemer, the former owner of the hill; that it was not an ancient site seems to be proved by the results of the Harvard excavations. The rise of the Omri dynasty is contemporary with new activity in Phoenicia. Ahab had as wife Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal, or Ithobaal, the Sidonian priest-king of Astarte, who, too, like Omri, had seized the throne by violence. Sidon held sway over the other Phoenician cities, and Ithobaal is credited by later writers with the foundation of Botrys (north of Byblus) and Auza (in Libya). While tradition avers that Solomon’s ally, Hiram of Tyre, worked zealously for his deities Melkart (the Baal of Tyre, later identified by the Greeks with Heracles) and Astarte, so now, with the priestly usurper of Sidon as an ally of Ephraim, the spread of the Phoenician cults was a natural result, only to be enhanced when in due course Athaliah, the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, was married to Asa’s grandson Jehoram. Phoenicia and Israel had always much in common, they were ‘brother’ peoples; and while there was always closer inter­course between them than our scanty narratives relate, at this period we enter upon a new stage in their relations.

Asa was Omri’s contemporary, and for a time there were close relations between Judah and Ephraim, alliance in sea-trade (with control over Eziongeber) and in war. Ephraim was un­doubtedly the predominant partner. The assumption that Judah would naturally be influenced by the Phoenician cults will explain the Chronicler’s story of Asa’s unbelief; but it is noteworthy that, although Baal-names are prominent among those found on more or less contemporary ostraca unearthed at Samaria, Yahweh names are also conspicuous in the dynasty; and the names Joram (or Jehoram) and Ahaziah are, strangely enough, borne by successive kings in Judah and (in the inverse order) in Ephraim.

Not only was Judah subordinate to Ephraim, but conquests east of the Jordan made Moab tributary. For some years, therefore, Ephraim must have been the centre of a powerful nucleus of states. In the farther north, too, were extensive combinations of Aramaean kingdoms, which the increasing threat of Assyria was uniting to face the common danger. Assyria had her eyes on the Western Lands—it was part of a deliberate policy—and, for the first time since Tiglath-Pileser I, an Assyrian king reached the Mediterranean, and that without opposition. Ashur-Nasir-Pal (884-859) thus speaks (876):

“I marched along the Lebanon and went up to the Great Sea of the land of Amor. In the Great Sea I washed my weapons. I sacrificed before my gods”.

Rich tribute was received from the Phoenician towns, but Damascus and the southern states were untouched. In a series of expeditions he and his successor, Shalmaneser III (859—824) strove to break down the opposition of the Aramaean kingdoms, strong pro-Assyrian tendencies, mingled with internecine rivalry, facilitating their steps. Damascus, however, under Adad-Idri (the Ben-Hadad of the O.T.) stood out as a powerful champion, and then, as later, was the real bulwark against Assyrian aggression in Palestine. For long Shalmaneser was confronted with a remarkable confederation of ‘kings of the Hatti-land and of the sea­coast’. Here were Musri, Hamath and several Phoenician cities—Arvad, Irkanata, Shiana (the Sinite), Usanat (? Hosah), also Arabia (the Syrian desert), Ammon (under a king Baasha), and Ahabbu Sir-i-lai. The last, ‘Ahab the Israelite,’ contributed the largest number of chariots (2000) and the third largest army (10,000). The obvious importance of Ephraim is as noteworthy as the absence of Judah, which, if not included among Ahab’s troops, may have lain entirely outside the political field. The two sides met at the battle of Karkar (? Apamea on the Orontes, 853 BC), but the allies hardly suffered the severe defeat which Shalmaneser claims to have inflicted upon them.

Only after repeated attacks was the league broken. Tyre and Sidon, which are absent from the above list, were perhaps already tributary, and the other states were presumably induced to remain quiescent. At all events, in a fourth campaign against Damascus (841) the Assyrian king, possibly through the defection of Ephraim, gained a more decisive success. He is no longer confronted by the old alliance: new rulers, military usurpers, appear in both Damascus (Hazael) and Ephraim (Jehu); and while Jehu, Tyre and Sidon—under compulsion, or to buy favour—pay tribute, Hazael seems to have borne the brunt of the attacks in the northern part of the Lebanon. He was defeated in Sanir (Mt Hermon), the northern part of the Anti-Lebanon, and Shalmaneser moved down into Hauran, destroying his cities. Then, working across (? via Jezreel, or some more northerly route), he reached the ‘head-land’, where he set up his monument at the Nahr el-Kelb. Events proved, however, that Hazael, though beaten, was not destroyed, and a fresh campaign was necessary a few years later (837). Meanwhile, Shalmaneser gathered the fruits of victory, and the famous ‘Black Obelisk’ (in the British Museum) represents, on the second panel from the top, the Israelite tribute-bearers and their officials—men in long-fringed garments with short sleeves and turban-like caps. The facial type is ‘outspokenly Hittite’, and testifies to the powerful influence of the Armenoid Hittites, whereas Shishak’s monument represents another type which may be regarded as ‘Amorite.’

Ephraim thus came definitely within the horizon of Assyria. The repeated Assyrian campaigns, the forming and breaking of the successful anti-Assyrian league, and the dynastic changes in both Ephraim and Damascus imply profound internal political vicissitudes. The age was a stirring one, and it is precisely upon events culminating in these dynastic changes that the biblical history itself concentrates. It treats the period from Ahab to the accession of Jehu as one of such importance that the effort must be made to ascertain what these years meant for the internal history of Israel.

II

ELIJAH AND THE RISE OF JEHU

Both Kings and Chronicles describe with exceptional fullness the close of the dynasty of Omri and Ahab and the rise of new kings in Damascus, Ephraim and Judah. This fact in itself is significant. The prophets Elijah and Elisha are the central figures. We see the austere Elijah denouncing Ahab and his Phoenician wife for the judicial murder of Naboth, whose field the king desired for himself. Ahab’s penitence, however, procures a respite, and the judgment falls on his son Jehoram. Moreover, the land is suffering from a terrible drought—known also to Phoenician tradition—and Elijah, the champion of Yahweh, is ranged against the Baal-cult of the court. At a wonderful scene on Mt Carmel Yahweh overcomes Baal—it is Yahweh who sends the rain. Fleeing for his life to Horeb, the ‘mount of God,’ Elijah, in an impressive theophany, receives the dread message of the purging sword of Hazael, Jehu and Elisha. Interspersed are stories of Elijah, Elisha and other prophets, the parts they played in great political events, their marvels on behalf of the state or of private persons. We mingle with the guilds of the prophets at Gilgal, Bethel and Jericho—they were circles likely to cherish traditions of their august heroes, rather than those of the Assyrian campaigns. It is a striking fact that the biblical writers have preserved no memory of the Assyrian events, whereas these guilds are the very bodies among which would circulate the somewhat domestic stories of the wonder-workers (e.g. 2 Kings II, 19—25). Finally, amid fierce Ephraimite-Aramaean wars, Jehu, one of the captains of Israel, fighting at Ramoth-Gilead, was anointed king through Elisha. Raising the revolt, he killed Jehoram at Jezreel, slew Ahaziah of Judah, massacred the princes of both households, and destroyed the Baal-cult in Samaria. In Judah Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, exterminated the seed royal and became queen of Judah. A few years later she was killed in a Judaean revolt, and her grandson, the young prince J(eh)oash, who had escaped the massacres, was placed on the throne, the protégé of the priests and the choice of the people, and the Baal-cult was thus removed from Jerusalem.

Undoubtedly we have a land-mark in the history of Israel: Elijah himself stands for some far-reaching changes. A vast conflict has been embodied in a single figure who, in fact, came to rank second only to Moses. But, in the incisive words of Well­hausen, ‘there remains the vague impression that with him the development of Israel’s conception of Yahweh entered upon a new stadium, rather than any data from which it can be ascertained wherein the contrast of the new with the old lay’. An estimate of the history must be based on four leading arguments: (a) there is a gap between the stories of Elisha’s part in the Ephraimite-Aramaean wars, and other events before the accession of Jehu, on the one hand, and, on the other, his final interview, nearly fifty years later, with Jehu’s grandson Jehoash (2 Kings XIII, 14-19). Here the dying prophet is represented as one ‘whose spirit had been the best defence of the realm—its chariots and its horsemen’ (Skinner). Accordingly, unless this reference be to the events of half-a-century previously, Elisha was evidently the mainstay of Ephraim during the terrible Aramaean wars which we meet after the rise of Jehu, although he is not mentioned in them. Hence, it becomes very difficult not to believe that (to quote Robertson Smith) ‘those narratives in which the renowned prophet appears as on friendly terms with the king and possessed of influence at court plainly belong to the time of Jehu’s dynasty, though they are related before the fall of the house of Omri.’

Further (b), chronological and other details (2 Kings I, 17, etc.) combine to show that there have been ‘sweeping operations’ in the course of which the independent Elisha-narratives were freely transposed in accordance with the views of different editors’ (Skinner). Thus, there has been transposition of material, and the Elisha narratives belong more naturally to the later dynasty. The effect of these conclusions is incalculable. Moreover (c), it proves more than difficult to place the Ephraimite-Aramaean wars, which are so prominent in the stories of Elijah and Elisha, before the accession of Jehu. Israel had been a powerful supporter of the anti­Assyrian league; and, as the narrative relates, Elisha foresees the horrors of which the Aramaeans would be guilty. Further, the stories of the wars are, as a rule, anonymous, or involve situations which either are not in accord with the conditions, or are in marked agreement with events of the Jehu dynasty. For example, not only does the terrible siege of Samaria presuppose a general situation for which there is otherwise no warrant, but Micaiah’s impressive prophecy of the utter rout of Israel is not even substantially fulfilled, though it fits in admirably with the misery of Israel under the later dynasty. In common with the Elisha-stories, the Aramaean wars, as described, more naturally illustrate the dynasty of Jehu, where they form a fairly continuous thread, than that of Omri; and it is scarcely a coincidence that, as the narratives now read, all the Aramaean wars of Ephraim cover one-third of the total duration of the northern kingdom. But although the narratives seem to have been reshaped, and arranged in ac­cordance with some historical theory, the fact remains that before the rise of Jehu Aramaean razzias, as distinct from campaigns, are entirely probable1; for the tendencies which supported the usurper Hazael might well be opposed to his predecessor, Adad-idri, and his Ephraimite ally. For example, the new king Hazael may well have warred against his predecessor’s ally, Jehoram, and his Judaean vassal at Ramoth-Gilead; and Jehoram’s general, Jehu, may well have been induced at this juncture to turn his sword against his own master. So the sword of Hazael could have preceded that of Jehu, and Hazael and Jehu may have united against the older alliance of the dynasties of Damascus and of Samaria.

Whatever the Aramaean conflicts actually were, we have now to observe that (d) there are traces of very serious revolts in the south on the part of Edom and Philistia. Moab too revolted after the death of Ahab. That the petty neighbouring states should seek to take advantage of Ephraim’s participation in the war against Assyria is intelligible, but it is not easy to trace the course of events. Asa’s son Jehoshaphat outlived Ahab, and maintained the joint trading-journeys from Eziongeber with Ahaziah of Ephraim. There are vague references to the destruction of the fleet, and these become more clear when, a few years later, Jehoshaphat’s successor, Joram or Jehoram (c. 850), has to face an Edomite revolt; and, as Libnah in the south revolted at the same time, there was evidently one of the not infrequent alliances of Edom and Philistia. Jehoram attacked Edom at Zair (Zoar, south of the Dead Sea?), but was forced to retreat; and it is noteworthy that the Chronicler records quite consistently, though with much embellishment, first, the tribute brought to Jehoshaphat by Philistines and Arabs (i.e. Edomites) and, later, their revolt against Jehoram. Meanwhile, in Ephraim, Ahab’s weak son Ahaziah was helpless before the revolt of Moab, but his successor, Joram or Jehoram, made an energetic attempt to recover his power (2 Kings III). His Judaean ally was the good king Jehoshaphat (who is contrasted with his Ephraimite cousin), but other chronological schemes point to Jehoram of Judah, or the latter’s successor, the short-lived Ahaziah. The king of Edom appears, strangely enough, as participating in the campaign against the king of Moab; but the story of the latter’s attempt to cut his way through to the king of Edom points to the desire, not to destroy a traitor (though subsequently Moab and Edom were bitterly hostile), but to join an ally. Omri’s conquests had thrust Moab towards Edom, and the army of Jehoram of Ephraim took the circuitous route by the south of the Dead Sea, evidently in order to drive a wedge between them. And Moab in fact was hard pressed, until in obscure circum­stances the invading forces were driven off: the king of Moab, we are told, offered up his eldest son as a burnt offering upon the wall of his city, ‘and there was great wrath against Israel’. So Jehoram of Ephraim returned in defeat to his land even as, in the independent annals of Judah, a Jehoram suffered defeat, probably in the same region—and on one chronological scheme the two Jehorams were contemporary.

The coincidence of these traditions may tempt the conjecture that there was only one Jehoram over a single kingdom, and that we have the Judaean and Ephraimite versions. It is at least clear that Judah, faced with victorious foes in Moab, Edom and Philistia, was in dire straits, and ran the risk of being blotted out. The Chronicler even tells of an invasion of Judah by Philistines, Arabians (i.e. Edomites) and others, and the sack of Jerusalem, Jehoahaz (i.e. Ahaziah) alone surviving the massacre. Moreover, the stories in Kings of Jehu’s slaughter of forty-two Judaean princes and Athaliah’s destruction of the seed royal, point to sweeping changes in Judah. Dubious though the Chronicler’s unsupported traditions are, there is a certain consistency when they record Jehoshaphat’s victory over Moabites and others near Tekoa in the wilderness, and when they state that his alliance with Ephraim was condemned by Eliezer ben Dodovahu, whose name is of an old type, and whose home was at Mareshah, situated in the very district through which attacks would be made upon Judah. Although these traditions of Judaean disaster are unfortunately very obscure, they at least point to some important vicissitudes in Judah and south Palestine not less significant than the Aramaean disturbances in the north. Accordingly, we have next to notice that when, at Elisha’s instigation, Jehu made himself king and put down the Baal-cult in Ephraim, he was associated with Jehonadab the Rechabite, the representative of a guild famed for its puritanism and its antipathy to settled life. As a protest against a decadent civilization, this collaboration indicates that Jehu’s reforming movement had the support of those who favoured a simpler life. It is very noteworthy, therefore, that the Rechabites were related to the Kenites (the kin of Moses), and had Judaean and south Palestinian connections: desert influences played some part in Jehu’s reforms. Elijah’s visit to Horeb the ‘mount of God’ and his fight against the Tyrian Baal now have a new significance, since, just as Elisha played a leading part in the political changes in Damascus and Samaria, so the visit of Elijah to the southern desert presumably had some connection with the movements in the south. To Ahab Elijah was ‘the troubler of Israel’, he was essentially a political and a religious adversary. Hence, Elijah at Horeb, the warning prophet of Mareshah, and the disaster to the Israelite fleet at Eziongeber, are facts which combine with the other evidence that has been specified to point to far-reaching-political activity in connection with the religious changes at the rise of Jehu.

Although Judah and Ephraim were once closely connected, and the Baal-cult had been introduced into Judah, the history of Judah is made to run an independent course in our sources. Ahaziah of Judah and Jehoram of Ephraim perished together, and Jehu massacred the princely families of both countries; but, curiously enough, Jehu neither became king of Judah, nor does he appear to have laid claim to that throne. What is more striking is that Jehu’s reform in collaboration with the Rechabites had no apparent repercussion in Judah. On the contrary, we learn that at Ahaziah’s death the queen-mother Athaliah destroyed all the royal family, ascended the throne and reigned six years, when Jehoiada the priest won over the temple-guards, killed the queen, and set up the young Joash (Jehoash), the sole survivor of the Davidic stock. Then only did the people destroy the Baal-temple and slay the priest Mattan: his name (which stands for Mattan-baal) was also the name of Ethbaal’s grandson and therefore Athaliah’s cousin. But the writer in Kings is chiefly interested in the temple; and we hear of a new plan for providing for repairs because the priests embezzled the offerings. The Judaean narrative thus becomes extremely perplexing, for, in view of the vassalage of Judah and the apparent strength of Athaliah, the more powerful we reckon the Baal-cult in Judah the less trustworthy become the very favourable estimates of the superior piety of Jehoshaphat, and the greater the likelihood, both of some sanguinary religious and political reform in Judah, and of the stories of sweeping attacks from the southern deserts. As it is, the accession of Joash is, according to the extant narratives, a victory of the priests and the temple-guard over the nobles, and the Chronicler goes on to relate that after the death of the priest Jehoiada the king was seduced by the Judaean princes and ‘wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for their guilt’. In a word, the reform, in the Judaean tradition, is essentially a priestly one, and as it opens the second of the three equal periods into which Judaean history is divided, some artificial shaping of the events may be suspected, as there was in the account of the Aramaean wars

The usual view of the age of Elijah is that it saw a contest between Yahweh and the cult of the Tyrian Baal (and Astarte). But later, even in the days of Zephaniah, the name of Baal had not been eradicated, and close relations between Israel and Tyre, both earlier (in the days of David and Solomon), and later, would involve a fairly continuous influence of Phoenician religion. Indeed, the Phoenician and other altars attributed to Solomon are supposed to have lasted from his time until the days of Josiah’s reforms. None the less, the narratives undoubtedly represent some protest against Phoenicia.

In primitive thought the destructive drought of Elijah’s age would be taken as a sign of divine displeasure, especially with a bad king; and this fact gives force to Elijah’s championship of Yahweh’s sovereignty against Ahab and Jezebel. According to Menander (cited by Josephus) there was a year’s drought in Phoenicia, and it was removed only through the prayers of Ethbaal the priest-king. Now Ethbaal is no other than the father-in­law of Ahab himself, and it seems very probable that here we have no other than the Phoenician version of the event. But Carmel, itself the scene of Yahweh’s victory over Baal, and the break of the drought, belonged at times to the province of Tyre. Elisha goes thither, even as Elijah stays near Sidon. Phoenicians and Israelites, like the later Jews and Egyptians, were not unacquainted with each other’s history; and it is difficult to believe that the Phoenician and Israelite traditions are un­related. So far from Menander’s simple statement being the Phoenician retort to the complex biblical traditions, it is more likely that he has preserved the older tradition. Instead of a one year’s drought broken by the prayers of Ahab’s father-in­law to Baal, the loyal Israelite knew of a three years’ affliction removed by Yahweh; indeed, the part attributed to Elijah and his intense concentration upon the desired effect, really implies that Elijah, the servant of Yahweh, and not Ethbaal, the priest-king of Astarte, was the real rain-maker.

The age was one of religious and social evils. The northern alliance against Assyria, of which Israel was so valuable a member, must have weakened the land, and Assyria would have an interest in fomenting attacks upon Israel, utilizing, as was her wont, the tribes of the desert. And while Omri’s victories over Moab had once proved the might of Yahweh, now Chemosh, the god of Moab, was showing himself the stronger, and traditions emphasize the lack of faith in Israel. There were bloody reforms —subsequently to be denounced by the prophet Hosea— and the prominence of the Rechabites, Elijah’s theophany at Horeb, together with the traditions of attacks from the south, point, as we have seen, to upheavals in which desert and, especially, southern influences were conspicuous. In due course, Elijah came to rank as the greatest personality next to Moses—both alike mysterious in their death—his age became, perhaps, the greatest landmark since the days of Mosaism.

Elijah’s visit to the cave at Horeb (or Sinai) recalls that of Moses at Horeb[II], and just as Horeb (Sinai) was once the scene of a gathering of tribes about to invade the land of an effete civilization, so Elijah’s visit is associated with great movements and sweeping changes which radically altered history. Accordingly, the events illustrate and supplement one another, though the extent of the movements in the age of Elijah can hardly be guessed. But if Mosaism is rightly interpreted as a new stage in the religion of Palestine, this is no less true of the work of Elijah. The accounts of his age suggest a new religious enthusiasm of desert origin, they recall the stories of the sanguinary zeal of the Levites; and it must be borne in mind that the account of the birth of Mosaism is, in its present form, much later than the age now under discussion. The actual events of the age of Elijah were nearer to the writers than those of the days of Moses, some five or more centuries earlier. Hence, not only are there important points of resem­blance between the traditions of Moses and those of Elijah, not only do we find hints of a movement in the age of Jehu’s rise which we can interpret in the light of the traditions of the Israelite conquest, but the traditions of the Elijah-age come down to use in sources older, to some extent, than those of the age of Moses.

Elijah (‘Yah[weh] is God’) became in tradition the one who was to prepare the way for the cataclysm which should usher in a new age. The theophany at Horeb foreshadows an age of blood and iron. Yet the course of events was not as heralded: Hazael of Damascus followed Jehu and we know nothing of the sword of Elisha. Unless we acquiesce in the discrepancies, we may suppose that our varied narratives represent a few only of the particular traditions that came to prevail, and that there were others which ran along the lines of the message, and perhaps united Hazael, Jehu and Elisha against the old dynasties of Damascus and Samaria. It was an age to call forth the activities of prophets: the conflicts with Philistines—not to mention others—would not fail to leave their traditions; the age was a crowded one. Yet really little has survived, and we have no independent witness until we reach the middle of the eighth century. While hints abound of movements and invasions, of desert influences, and puritanical and fierce reforms, the canonical history concentrates upon the earlier periods; it has no room for more than one great invasion, one great religious inauguration, even as we shall find that only one fall of Jerusalem could be allowed. All the great epoch-making changes are relegated to the past, and the continuity of the history seems to be maintained intact. On the other hand, the closer study of the years from the time of Ahab to the accession of Jehu enhances the fact that we have here a landmark in the history of Palestine. We can recognize the inauguration of a new stage through influences hostile to the civilization of the land. There are internal changes of a social and political nature, due to some extent to movements influenced by the desert, and analogous to those which we associate with the Israelite invasion, although the account of that event is later than the age now under discussion. The more decisive the changes that were made during these stormy years, the more difficult it becomes to estimate the records of the preceding ages, which in their present form date from a much later time; and it is for this reason that the period is of such outstanding importance for our understanding of the biblical narratives. When properly understood it is a new starting-point, perhaps the most tangible clue to the social and political development of Israel that we have yet found in our survey.

III.

THE DYNASTY OF JEHU

Among the states which profited by Israel’s troubles was Moab, of whose king Mesha we possess a contemporary record discovered in 1868 at Dhiban (O.T. Dibon), four miles north of the Arnon. It is the oldest historical inscription written in the ancient north Semitic character, the most valuable monument of ancient Palestinian history, and its language and phraseology differ only slightly from Hebrew. The style of the inscription indicates that Moab was no rude land; the same could no doubt be said also of Edom, Ammon and other states. In it Mesha, a wealthy sheep­owner, who had been forced to pay a heavy tribute of wool to Ephraim, tells how, through the help of his god Chemosh, he recovered his cities, particularly those north of the Arnon, and sacked the Israelite sanctuary at Nebo, devoting 7000 inhabitants to Ashtor-Chemosh. To commemorate his victory he built a ‘high-place’ to Chemosh in Kerekhoh (the vocalization of all the names is uncertain), possibly a suburb of his city, like the Zion of Jerusalem. The inscription runs as follows:

“I am Mesha, son of Chemosh[kan?], king of Moab, the Daibonite. My father reigned over Moab for thirty years, and I reigned after my father. And I made this high-place for Chemosh in Kerekhoh a (?) high-place of salvation, because he had saved me from all assailants (?), and because he had let me see my pleasure upon all them that hated me. Omri was king of Israel, and he afflicted Moab for many days, for Chemosh was being angry with his land. And his son (i.e. Ahab) succeeded him, and he also said, I will afflict Moab. In my days said he [thus], and I saw my pleasure on him and his house. And Israel perished with an everlasting destruction; now Omri had taken possession of the land of Mehdeba. And it (i.e. Israel) dwelt therein his days (viz. 12 years) and half the days of his son (or sons) 40 years; and Chemosh restored it in my days. And I built Baal-Meon, and I made in it the reservoir; and I bui[It] Kiryathen. Now the men of Gad had dwelt in the land of Ataroth from of old; and the king of Israel built for himself Ataroth. And I warred against the city and seized it. And I slew all the people of the city, a gazing-stock to Chemosh and to Moab. And I captured thence the altar-hearth of Dawdoh, and I dragged it before Chemosh in Keriyyoth. And I settled therein the men of Sheren (?Sharon) and the men of Makharath (?). And Chemosh said unto me, Go, seize Nebo against Israel. And I went by night and warred against it from the break of dawn unto noon. And I seized it, and slew all of it, 7000 men and male sojourners (or lads), and women and female sojourners (or lasses) and maidens (? slaves). For to ‘Ashtor-Chemosh had I devoted it (‘utterly destroyed’). And I took thence the vessels of Yahweh, and I dragged them before Chemosh. Now the king of Israel had built Yahas (Jahaz), and dwelt in it, when he warred against me. And Chemosh drove him out from before me; and I took of Moab 200 men, all its chiefs (? or poor ones). And I brought it (i.e. them) against Yahas, and seized it, to add it unto Daibon. I built Kerekhoh, the wall of the Woods (or Yearin) and the wall of the Mound (or ‘Ophel). And I built its gates, and I built its towers. And I built the king’s house and I made the two (?) reservoirs for water in the midst of the city. Now there was no cistern in the midst of the city, in Kerekhoh; and I said to all the people, Make you every man a cistern in his house. And I cut out the cutting for Kerekhoh with the prisoners of Israel. And I built ‘roer, and I made the highway by the Arnon. I built Beth-Bamoth, for it was overthrown. I built Beser, for ruins had it become. And the chiejfs of Daibon were fifty (? or in battle array); for all Daibon was obedient. And I reigned (?) (over) an hundred [chiefs?] in the cities (?) which I added to the land. And I built Mehdeba (?), and Beth-Diblathen. And Beth-Baal-Meon; and I took thence the nakad-keepers (? ‘sheep-master’), the sheep of the land. And as for Horonen, there dwelt therein and Chemosh said unto me, Go down, fight against Horonen. And I went down… and Chemosh restored it in my days”

The inscription dates after the weakness of Israel, but whether it is just before or after the rise of Jehu it is difficult to determine. In 841 BC Jehu, together with Tyre and Sidon, paid tribute to Shalmaneser. Jehu is called ‘son of Omri,’ an abbreviation of the fuller ‘son (inhabitant) of Beth-Omri (i.e. Israel)’. Hazael, who is called the ‘son of a nobody’, was bearing the full weight of the Assyrian attack in 841, and in 837 lost only four cities. Tribute was then received from Tyre, Sidon and Byblus (Palestine is not mentioned), and an inscription found at Ashur records ‘booty from the temple of the god Sher of Malakha, residence of Hazael of Damascus’. No doubt Damascus still had Ammon as an ally, and was a force not to be despised.

Through some unknown cause the two usurpers, Hazael and Jehu, who had ascended the throne together and in similar circumstances became bitter foes. ‘In those days Yahweh began to cut short Israel’; and Hazael smote them on both sides of the Jordan. Under Jehu’s successor Jehoahaz (? 816 BC) Hazael and his son Ben-Hadad redoubled their efforts, and the coastal plain fell into their hands. Ephraim’s chariots and horsemen were almost wiped out, and in spite of a temporary relief by some ‘deliverer’ the land became like dust in the threshing. The Judaean annals agree in so far as they record that Hazael reached Gath, and only a prompt bribe by Joash saved Jerusalem. Whatever happened, Judah, at all events, evi­dently suffered only slightly, and it is not improbable that the timely payment by Joash conveyed a hint to Damascus to concentrate upon Ephraim. Joash perished in a conspiracy and was succeeded by Amaziah, of whom it is recorded that he slew only the actual murderers of his father. Whatever internal changes lay behind the sparse notices, it is clear that Amaziah was strong enough to recover Edom, and for a time Judah was in a much better position than Ephraim.

In Phoenicia, internal strife in the reign of Pygmalion drove away Elissa (Dido), and she founded Carthage (? 822 BC) on the site of an earlier trading-station (Cambe or Caccabe). In Ephraim Amaziah’s contemporary, with the familiar name of Jehoash (Joash), had some successes against Damascus. The last scene in the life of Elisha tells of the king’s visit to him who had been the ‘chariots and horsemen of Israel,’ words to be illustrated by stories of his achievements now placed before the rise of the Jehu-dynasty. With his own wonder-working hands upon the king’s hands the dying prophet bade Joash shoot Yahweh’s arrow of victory over Syria and smite the ground with the arrows. Thrice only he smote, and only three victories were granted him; had he smitten five or six times, the enemy would have been destroyed.

So died the man who raised up the dynasties of Jehu and Hazael, and foresaw the excesses that Damascus would perpetrate. And in truth the brief details of invasion and unforgettable cruelty, still fresh in the days of Amos, indicate situations which can be interpreted by those stories of Elisha’s high position at court and of his powerful aid which now swell the present account of the age of Elijah. For to these later years does Micaiah’s vision of the distress of Israel best apply. It was Joash who defeated Ben-Hadad and regained the territory which his father had lost; and here belong most suitably the defeat of Damascus and the treaty referred to in 1 Kings XX, 34 (anonymous). With Elisha’s wrath at the failure of Joash to press his opportunity accords the anonymous denun­ciation of the unnamed king who let slip out of his hand the man whom Yahweh had devoted to destruction. It re­quired little insight to perceive that it was folly to rely upon the temporary weakness of a Damascus which could so valiantly withstand Assyria, but events were soon to prove that Damascus, though now the foe of Ephraim, was a buffer the removal of which would open the road for Assyria to Palestine and Egypt.

The western states could never combine for long. As we learn from the very difficult but valuable north Semitic inscription of Kilamu king of Yadi (pronunciation of both unknown), they were ready to ‘hire the king of Assyria’ (cf. the ‘hired razor’) one against the other, and Assyria was always prompt to suspect and to counter hostile alliances.

Some further light is thrown upon the period by an interesting stele found in north Syria in 1903. A usurper with the good Semitic name of Zakir or Zakar (cf. the names Zaccur, Zechariah), became king of Hamath and Laash (? near Damascus), and erected this stele to his god El-wad (?) to commemorate his victories over a confederation of Aramaean kings led by Bar-Hadad, son of Hazael, king of Aram. Here are kings of Kue, Amk (Coele-Syria, or perhaps Antioch), Gurgum, Samal (near the Gulf of Alexandretta), Malaz (Malatia), and some ten others. ‘All these kings laid siege against Hazrak, and raised a wall higher than the wall of Hazrak, and made a trench deeper than its trench. And I lifted up my hands to the Baal of Heaven, and he answered me, and spoke to me by the hand of seers and calculators (?).... Fear not, for I have made thee king, and I will stand by thee, and I will deliver thee from all these kings who have made siege­works against thee... The king of Hamath goes on to record his work of fortification and temple-building, and concludes in the familiar manner with an imprecation on all who removed the stele. He, it would seem, was supporting the Assyrian cause, and it is possible that his victory over Bar-Hadad’s coalition— which, of course, would relieve the pressure upon Ephraim— was facilitated by Adad-Nirari’s campaign in the west (c. 805—2). At all events, the king of Damascus, Mari’ (perhaps a title, ‘the lord,’ or else the son of Bar-Hadad), was besieged, and the Assyrian king records the subjugation of the lands of Hatti and Amor. It was on this occasion that Adad-Nirari received the tribute of Tyre and Sidon, the ‘land of Omri,’ Edom and ‘Palashtu’ (Philistia). We have here the first independent reference to the Philistine coastland as a political unit. Both it and Edom (also the first occurrence) are autonomous. But the continued absence of Judah is as striking as it was in the alliance against Shalmaneser at Karkar. Was it included as a vassal of Beth-Omri? or was Judah, like Hamath under Zakar, pro-Assyrian, and, it may be, profiting from the patronage of Assyria? Whatever be the explanation, Ephraim, under Jehoahaz, had found a ‘deliverer’ —possibly in the defeat of Damascus by Zakar, or in the attack of Adad-Nirari (whose name means ‘Adad is a help’) upon Damascus: the chronology does not permit a certain decision.

Amaziah of Judah, flushed after his victories over Edom, chal­lenged the Ephraimite Joash and at once received a typically Oriental taunt: the thistle was advised to refrain from meddling with the cedar of Lebanon. The two met at Beth-shemesh (on the Jerusalem-Jaffa road), and Amaziah was captured. Marching to Jerusalem, Joash broke down part of the northern wall, looted palace and temple, and carried off hostages. The treatment is a most significant hint of the embittered relations which had evidently preceded. Judah had been practically a vassal of Ephraim during the Omri dynasty; it had escaped the Aramaean wars. It may be that Jehu himself on his accession had sought and failed to maintain Ephraim’s superiority over the south, and that there had been friction: the relations between Ephraim and Judah are obscure. Or it may be that Judah, threatened by Ephraim, as once before in the days of Asa, had bribed the Aramaeans to attack the north. All that can be said is that in some way Jerusalem had come to merit drastic reprisals, and that Ephraim won the day. Once more we are unable to trace the events. A conspiracy in Jerusalem forced Amaziah to flee to Lachish (Tell el-Hesy, about 35 miles south-west of Jerusalem), where he was followed and slain; but the chronological notices leave it uncertain whether Amaziah reigned fifteen years after the death of Joash, or whether Joash’s son, the great king Jeroboam II, had reigned twenty-seven of his forty years before Azariah (or Uzziah), the no less famous son of Amaziah, became king of Judah as the popular choice. It would seem that for a time Judah had no king of its own. Ephraim in its turn had witnessed dark days. Joash of Ephraim had gained his three victories over Damascus, he had recovered his cities; but in due course the Aramaeans returned to the attack. Then, when Ephraim almost succumbed, ‘Yahweh saw the very bitter affliction of Israel’; ‘there was no helper for Israel,’ but Yahweh did not intend to blot out the name of Israel from beneath the heavens, so he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam II. Jeroboam was the real deliverer of Ephraim, and, whatever the true relations were between north and south, for some years, at least (after c. 790— 785), he and Uzziah were evidently contemporary, and the fortunes of the two kingdoms were at their highest.

The circumstances that permitted this new prominence of Israel can perhaps be conjectured. During these years Shalmaneser IV had been endeavouring to subdue Damascus (773) and Hatarika (Hazrak, 773—2); while his successor, Ashur-Dan III, warred against both the latter (765 and 755), and the Phoenician Arpad (754). The great protagonists were Assyria, on the one hand, and, on the other, the old heirs of Hittite or Mitannian tradition whose centre was in Urartu (O.T. Ararat) or Van. Syria was always exposed to influences from Asia Minor and Armenia, and significant political develop­ments outside her doors usually found an echo within. Ambitious plans were being developed by Urartu against a weak Assyria; and for the key to some of the movements in Syria and Palestine we have to look to the north. Egypt was probably unable to play any controlling part in Palestine and Syria. It is possible that it was the Assyrian campaigns in the north that relieved Israel and first enabled Jeroboam to ‘restore the boundary of Israel’ from the ‘approach to Hamath’ (probably the pass between Hermon and Lebanon) to the Dead Sea. The possession of Lo-debar (as though ‘a thing of nought’) and of Karnaim (‘horns’), in Gilead beyond the Jordan, is perhaps punningly alluded to by Amos. In Judah Uzziah’s reign was not less brilliant. The Edomite port on the Gulf of Akabah was recovered, and the Chronicler, consistently with the situation, tells of fights against Philistines, Arabians, and the people of Ma’in (south-east of Petra). The coast-land was secured, and tribute received even from Ammon: Moab, however, is not mentioned. Much is made of Uzziah’s military plans, his fortifications and his strengthening of the (? western) defences of Jerusalem. Under the two kings the Hebrew monarchies extended to their utmost limits—thanks, mainly, to the weakness of Assyria—but upon the all-important question of the relation between them we have no information.

Jeroboam’s restoration of Israel is associated with the activity of the prophet Jonah of Zebulun, a district bordering upon the Aramaeans. The canonical book of this name is of a man divinely commissioned to denounce Nineveh for its sins; it is now recognized as a quite late Midrash or didactic story. On the other hand, it is not unlikely that it is based on some genuine tradition of interrelations between Ephraim and Nineveh. In any event, the age which we are now approaching was one when relations between Israel and Assyria became closer than ever they had been before. It is difficult to understand the statement that Jeroboam ‘recovered Damascus and Hamath (? which had belonged) to Judah for (or in?) Israel’. We have no evidence that Judah under Uzziah (Azariah) had territory so far north. It is true that the Assyrian records refer to a certain Az-ri-ya-u (Azariah) of Ya’udi, who headed a Hamathite league against Tiglath-Pileser III in 738. But there are serious chronological and other difficulties in connecting the two, although relations between Judah and Hamath were traditional, and some kings of Hamath bear names of ‘Hebrew’ type (Zakar) or compounded with the divine name Yahweh. All that can safely be said, however, is that the successes of both Jeroboam and Uzziah were no doubt bound up with the far greater political movements in which were involved Assyria, Urartu and Damascus; and it is significant that the contemporary prophet Amos hints ominously at the part Assyria was about to take in changing the face of Ephraimite history. For a new Assyria was arising under Tiglath-Pileser.

Amos is the first of the great prophets whose writings have survived. They are our earliest picture of internal conditions. Amos himself was a shepherd, also a ‘dresser’ (nipper) of sycamore figs; and his words are dated two years before a certain earthquake which long continued to be remembered. An eclipse which he is supposed to have seen has been calculated to be that of June 15, 763. Like many a rude Arab orator of later days, he possessed a perfect command of language, a breadth of view, and a wealth of passion. Yet his Hebrew is simpler and easier than that of most prophets. He was proud that he was no professional prophet: Yahweh, who declares his words unto his servants, had called him, and who could keep silent? Damascus and Ammon had been guilty of the barbarities of Oriental warfare; Gaza, Ashdod and other Philistine cities had carried off whole communities, and sold them as slaves. Tyre had forgotten its alliance with its ‘brother’ Israel, and had handed over people to Edom—the trade extends along the coastal plain into south Palestine and north Arabia. Edom also had pitilessly pursued his own ‘brother’ with the sword, and Moab had perpetrated what was a gross indignity upon the bones of the king of Edom. ‘For three transgressions and for four, I will not turn it back’—and wise men knew what was impending. Judah and Israel, in their turn, if not responsible for such conspicuous offences as those pilloried, were no less guilty; and their religious, moral and social evils were bringing upon them the inevitable penalty. A nation—it is not explicitly named—was about to afflict Israel (the northern kingdom) from the approach to Hamath unto the Dead Sea. So Amos describes the careless indifference of the people, the serene foolish confidence for which there was no justification, and the unwarrantable reliance upon the national religion. It was his mission to proclaim that Yahweh was the god of other peoples besides Israel, and Israel’s conviction of a special relationship with this god only involved a higher standard by which she would be judged. The stern reformer saw the rottenness beneath the religious, social and political brilliance of the age, and the shepherd of Tekoa is an epoch-maker who stands at the head of the succession of prophets who made Israel unique.

IV.

ASSYRIA AND THE FALL OF EPHRAIM

With the death of Jeroboam (? 745) the northern kingdom entered upon its last years. His son Zechariah was slain six months later by Shallum of Jabesh, and the dynasty of Jehu perished, as it began, in blood, like that of Omri before it. Only a month and Shallum was slain by Menahem, perhaps a Gadite, who after ferocious fighting made himself king. The internal situation, as manifested in the writings of the prophet Hosea, was desperate: ‘the bloodshed of Jezreel’ was indeed visited upon the house of Jehu. What part was played in these fierce conflicts by Judah, then under Uzziah’s little-known son Jotham, cannot be conjectured, though the Chronicler knows of some, perhaps temporary, conquest of Ammon. A strong anti-Assyrian movement in Syria, engineered by Urartu, was crushed by Tiglath-Pileser, who, after taking Arpad, reached the Mediterranean. Tribute was received from Kue, Carchemish, Damascus (under Rasun, O.T. Rezin), Tyre (under Hiram), Byblus, and the Arabs of the Syrian desert. Menahem of Samaria, who is also in the list, gained the recognition of Assyria by the payment of 1000 talents of silver which he raised by levying a payment of fifty shekels upon all the better-class inhabitants, who, accordingly, must have numbered about 60.000. Ten years later his son Pekahiah, of whom nothing is known, was slain by Pekah ben Remaliah in what was apparently a Gileadite and anti-Assyrian revolt, inspired, it may be, by Urartu.

(On chronological and other grounds it is not unlikely that through some misunderstanding the two kings Pekahiah and Pekah have arisen out of one.)

When at last we hear something of Judah we find ourselves in the midst of fierce and far-reaching conflicts. Pekah and Rezon had joined forces in a great attack upon Judah, where Jotham was being succeeded by Ahaz (or Jehoahaz, as the Assyrian form suggests). Judah was hard-pressed. Ammon was presumably hostile; and in the south Edom recovered the port of Elath, while Philistia attacked the Judaean lowlands. These are suggestive indications of Judah’s earlier strength under Uzziah. It is strange that Egypt is not mentioned. The Syro-Ephraimite army marched against Jerusalem, and the Chronicler records a great slaughter and the removal to Damascus of large bodies of captives. The scene is illumined by the prophet Isaiah. The house of David, threatened by the enemy, was seized with panic, and the hearts of the people shook like the trees of the forest before the wind. With hopeful words the court-prophet Isaiah sought to encourage Judah, while expressing his contempt for the weak Pekah and Rezon, the ‘fag-ends of smoking logs.’ With one of his characteristic ringing utterances he called to confidence in Yahweh: ‘if ye will not confide ye shall not abide’, or, ‘if ye have not faith ye cannot hath staith’. The timidity of Ahaz gave rise to the famous-sign,’ still a subject of discussion: a young woman should bear a son, and give him the significant name, Immanuel (‘God with us’); the babe would not lack good food, and in a few years’ time the land of the two kings of whom Ahaz was in deadly fear would itself be desolate. The doom of Damascus and Samaria was imminent, and, as another ‘sign’, it was declared that Isaiah would have a son who should be called ‘Hasten-booty, Speed­spoil’, for before he was old enough to recognize his parents, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria would be carried off by the king of Assyria.

But Ahaz had confidence neither in his own power nor in Yahweh, and with gifts he is said to have bought the help which Assyria in any case would have been only too ready to offer. Accordingly, Tiglath-Pileser came to him, though the consequences were hardly those that he had anticipated. Practically all the western states were up in arms against Assyria, but their efforts were in vain. Syria and Phoenicia were deliberately ravaged. Damascus fell in 732, and Ephraim’s fate was sealed. The O.T. knows of the depopulation of north Palestine (Kadesh, Galilee, Naphtali), and the deportation of men of Reuben, Gad, and other Trans-Jordanic tribes. The Assyrian records name, inter alia, the old cities of Merom, by Lake Huleh, and Khinnatun. Samsi, queen of Aribi (Arabia, or the Syrian desert), who had broken her oath by Shamash, and the tribes of Bira, Badan (Pliny’s Badanatha), Masa, and Tema (in north Arabia), Hatti (hardly the neo-­Hittites), Sabaeans and Idiba’il (Adbeel), brought their tribute of gold and silver, camels and perfumes. Hanun king of Gaza fled to Musri, and Tiglath-Pileser carried off his possessions and his gods. At Askalon the rebel Mitinti was replaced by his brother Rukibtu, and fifteen of his cities were handed over to Idibi’il of‘Arabia,’ who was appointed to watch Musri. This prominence of desert tribes of north Arabia and the Syrian desert is one of the most striking facts of the age.

Meanwhile, Samaria was in a state of anarchy; the anti-Assyrian Pekah was slain by Hoshea ben Elah—Tiglath-Pileser claims the responsibility for the deed—and a heavy tribute was imposed upon him. Among other tributaries were Shalaman of Moab, Sanip of Ammon, Kaush-Melek of Edom and Hanun of Gaza. Ahaz himself was now a protégé of Assyria, and the almost contemporary inscriptions of the House of Panammu in north Syria usefully illustrate the ordinary relations between a loyal vassal and his suzerain. Here Bar-Rekub tells how his father Panammu ‘laid hold of the skirt of his lord’, and ‘ran at the wheel’ of the king in his campaigns east and west. When he died at Damascus the whole camp bewailed him, and ‘because of the loyalty of my father and my own loyalty, my lord Rekub-el (i.e. the god) and my lord Tiglath-Pileser seated me on the throne of my father’. Ahaz, too, must go to Damascus to pay homage, and he sent back a copy of the altar there, which was duly erected in the temple of Jerusalem, the efficacy of the old brazen altar being ceremonially transferred to it. The Chronicler expresses the interesting opinion that Ahaz sacrificed to the gods of Damascus because they were the stronger1; but, although Syrian gods were perhaps taken into Ephraim subsequently, it is more likely that sub­ordination to Assyria involved some tangible recognition of Assyrian rather than of Syrian religion. The conquests of Assyria spread the cult of the national god Ashur, and this would naturally involve the introduction of Assyrian gods (as happened in the case of the rebellious city of Gaza), or some intelligible co­ordination of the gods of the suzerain and of the vassal states.

Damascus fell in 732 b.c. Rezon was slain and the chief of the people deported (to Kir). Tyre capitulated (under Metenna) and paid 150 talents of gold, though its next king, the powerful Luli (Elulaeus), joined in a fresh intrigue against Assyria. The downfall of Syria removed the ancient bulwark against aggression from the north, but Ephraim did not permit itself to be seriously disturbed. The bricks had fallen, but they would use hewn stone; the sycamores were cut down, but they would replace them by cedars. The careless land was rent into two factions; without stability or policy, it was sending ‘love-gifts’ to secure alliances, and vacillating between Egypt and Assyria—like a ‘foolish dove’. In 727 a change on the Assyrian throne gave the signal for open revolt. Hoshea threw off allegiance and is said to have carried on a secret intrigue with So, or rather, Seve, king of Mizraim. After, perhaps, a preliminary campaign against Tyre, Shal­maneser came down and besieged the defaulter. The order of events is not quite clear; but the actual fall of Samaria was achieved by Sargon (722 BC), who deported 27,290 people and placed the land under an Assyrian officer, the tribute formerly paid by Hoshea being reimposed. Thus the northern kingdom came to an end. Yet another widespread revolt broke out in 720. In it participated Ilu-bi’di (or Yau-bi’di) of Hamath, the kings of Damascus, the coastland and Arabia, and Sib’e (Seve) of Musri. Two decisive battles were fought: one in the north, at Karkar, already famous for the battle of 853, the other at Raphia, on the southern border, south of Gaza. Hanun of Gaza, who had again rebelled, was captured, but Sibe escaped. Tribute of gold, camels and horses was received from Piru (? the Pharaoh) of Musri, Samsi queen of ‘Arabia,’ and Itamar the Sabaean. Unrest, however, continued among the desert tribes, and a few years later, in 715, Sargon, possibly in order to secure the southern trade-routes, defeated and deported to the ‘House of Omri’ (Ephraim) tribes of_Tamud (Thamud), Ibadid, Marsiman, Khayapa (the Midianite Ephah,), and the ‘distant Arabs’ of the desert.

As the northern states gradually decreased in power, the bedouin tribes and the peoples of Arabia proper were gaining political importance. It is the distinctive feature of the period, and it has brought with it the problem of the precise application of the term Mizraim (Heb. Misrayim, Ass. Musri), which is usually rendered ‘Egypt’. But could Egypt proper play the part ascribed to her? She was not the powerful Egypt of old, nor was she so influential as subsequently under the Saite dynasty. Would a sheikh of ‘Arabia’ (viz. Idibi’il) be naturally appointed to watch her? The prominence of the Delta, the political importance of Edom (at times, however, unaccountably absent), and the various references to ‘Arabs,’ Sabaeans, etc., allow us to conclude that, in any case, there would be close interrelations between Egypt proper and north Arabia. Again, the fact that Hagar (cf. the Arab Hagarenes), the ‘mother’ of Ishmaelite tribes, is called an ‘Egyptian’—not to mention other data—makes it entirely probable that the name Mizraim (Musri) could and did extend eastwards at least to the south of Palestine, just as, centuries later, the Delta had an ‘Arabian’ nome. Egyptian influence easily flowed eastward, and a natural eastern border runs from the Wadi el-Arish (the ‘River of Egypt’) to the Gulf of Akabah. Hence, although the opinion of scholars is definitely opposed to far-reaching speculations of an independent Mizraim, as a political unit, in north Arabia, the theory of a non-Egyptian Mizraim, or Musri, cannot be definitely rejected.

Besides the growing power of the desert and Arabian tribes, the fact that Sargon settled some of them in the land of Samaria is of capital importance. It meant the entry of a purer, fresher stock, with desert and nomadic ideas, into a land of old, and—to judge from the prophets—of decadent civilization. These tribes would, of course, have their own traditions, and their own views of the circumstances which now enabled them—we may suppose— to possess cities they had not built and vineyards they had not planted. If it could be said that Sargon’s god had brought them there, the god Ashur was no mean one. Indeed, when Sennacherib claims to have been sent against Judah by Yahweh, it is easy to see how the new emigrants might even be led to ascribe their presence to Yahweh himself. Whatever may have happened more than a century earlier in the age of Elijah, many of the vicissitudes which we commonly associate with the entry of Israelite tribes from the desert would again occur at this period, and the recollection of these later events would naturally be more lively than that of the invasion of Israel which happened many centuries before. Moreover, not only is this the second great recognizable landmark in the internal history of the land, but we are now entering a period of unparalleled political and social disintegration. In Syria and Palestine Sargon, it is said, deported Israelites to Assyria, Halah (? near Harran), Gozan (near Nisibis) and. Men of Babylonia, Assyria and Urartu had been settled in Syria; and into Samaria itself there were introduced at one time or another, besides the desert tribes mentioned above, communities from Cuthah, Babylonia, Sippar (or Sibraim), Susa and Elam. A priest of Bethel, the old rival city of Jerusalem, was indeed sent back to inculcate the worship of Yahweh; but new gods were introduced, with mixed cults of Babylonian and Syrian origin. Deportation did not necessarily mean captivity; to an oppressed and impoverished people it might hold out hopes of more food. It was a deliberate policy for the purpose of breaking up old alliances, of introducing strangers (who in some cases would have Assyrian sympathies), and of inaugurating new conditions more favourable to Assyrian ambitions of empire. It is difficult to estimate adequately the significance of this dislocation; but it at least involved a destruction of religious, social and political bonds, more drastic than any that had preceded. No doubt the Assyrian conquests only hastened the end of decaying Semitic states; but the old conditions were swept away, old landmarks disappeared, old local and national feelings were dissolved. Buffer states were destroyed, the fall of Aramaean kingdoms weakened Ephraim, and her fall exposed Judah; the decline of Urartu opened the road to Scythian and other hordes. New situations began to arise—Media, for example, was now being born. The age in which we now find ourselves marks a decisive break between the old order and the new: the old Egypto-Semitic world is dying, and the stage is being prepared for the dawn of the Persian and Greek world.

While the external and contemporary evidence compels us to regard the period as one of vital importance for subsequent history, its real significance could hardly have been recognized had we been confined to the pages of the Old Testament. This is one of the most conspicuous contributions of the monuments to the interpretation of Ancient History. The prophets, it is true, had seen old age creeping over Ephraim; if her downfall was inevitable, haply Judah might take warning. The fate of Samaria is treated by the later historians as the fruits of the original schism of Jeroboam I, as the penalty for apostasy from Yahweh, or for disobedience to the law of Moses. All the northern tribes, it was believed, had been carried off—the enquiry into their fate has been one of the curiosities of learned and other research; it has been forgotten that they were probably soon swallowed up in their new homes. Yet, in spite of the deportation of Israel to Assyria and elsewhere, the old territorial and tribal names would neither be removed, nor would they disappear from memory at once. The old names would have a new content. The entry of colonists might make a break in the continuity of tradition, yet there could be intermarriage (as between Israelites and Canaanites), and their descendants might in time be regarded as truly Israelite, even as the semi-Edomite clans that entered Judah were reckoned as Israelites. The new-comers might identify themselves with the old local traditions, as Josephus definitely says of the later Samaritans themselves; and it is commonly agreed that, earlier, the Israelites took over traditions from the Canaanites. Moreover, the facility with which the northern tribes continued to be named in much later tradition can hardly be due to antiquarian interest in tribes which centuries earlier had left their native soil. Not only was the deportation not a complete one, but we shall find in the sixth century indications of a more than sympathetic intercourse between Judah and the somewhat mixed north. In other words, a new Israel is being formed—a fact of the greatest importance for our estimate of biblical history.

The Israelites were Hebrews, and not only is this a much wider term than Israel, but Hebrew names and connections can be traced in Hamath and, to judge from Assyrian contract-tablets, in the neighbourhood of Harran. Moreover, Israelites in exile did not necessarily lose touch with the homeland. On the other hand, in course of time the view came to prevail that (north) Israel was unclean. Judah was the sole heir of the old Israelite tradition, and the north was unworthy to participate. It is necessary, therefore, to recognize that in the O.T. we are looking at history through the eyes of men who cherished a deep antipathy to the Samaritans. And not only this, there were Judaeans who even felt themselves to be of a purer strain than the rest. A more or less intense exclusiveness pervades the biblical narrative, and the idea of a community of tribes, all alike—even Judah—sons of Jacob (Israel), was tolerated only for the distant past and for the glorious days of David and Solomon. The close interrelations that subsisted during the Omri dynasty, and no doubt at other times, were banished from memory: the schismatic Jeroboam had taken the first step on the downward path, and with the fall of the northern kingdom the history of (north) Israel came to an end. Hitherto the annals of Judah and those of Israel had been kept separate—artificially, arbitrarily so; and now that ‘Israel was carried away out of their own land’, our sources are confined to the kingdom of Judah. Samaria lies outside the horizon of the writers—it is almost non-existent. Only with the rise of modern criticism have scholars gone behind the Jewish theory, recognizing that, in the nature of things, intercourse between the two would not cease, and that such was the history of south-west Asia after 722, that only a very imperfect view of the subsequent development of Palestine can be gained from the scanty records of Judah which now claim our attention.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE FALL AND RISE OF JUDAH