Evelyn Abbott - The History of Antiquity, Vol. 3 (of 6)

"What shall I do to thee, Ephraim? how shall I deal with thee? Shall I destroy thee? saith Jehovah. But my heart is turned, my repentings are kindled; I will not execute the fierceness of my wrath; I am God and not man; as the Holy One I will not come into anger. 95I will punish them till they repent, and in their affliction they will seek me early. 96I will allure them into the wilderness; I will speak to their hearts, that Israel may sing again as in the days of his youth, and on the day when he came out of Egypt; and the name of Baal I will remove out of his mouth. 97Return, O Israel, to Jehovah thy God. Speak ye to him; Take away iniquity, and receive us, that we offer the sacrifice of our lips. Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride on horses; the work of our hands shall be called our gods no more. 98Then, saith Jehovah: I will hear Ephraim, and look with favour upon him. I will heal their backsliding, and come and love them freely; my anger is turned away, and I will let them dwell in their houses. I will be as dew upon Israel; Israel shall grow as a lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon: and I will betroth thee unto me for ever; I will betroth thee in righteousness and in judgment, in loving-kindness, gentleness, and mercies." 99

The words of Hosea leave no doubt that Menahem, king of Israel, sought aid from Assyria in order to maintain himself on the throne. With this the Books of Kings agree. They tell us: Menahem gave to the king of Assyria 1000 kikkar of silver (according to the Babylonian standard about £300,000), "that the king might join him in establishing the kingdom in his hand." The payment of the money was imposed by Menahem on all the men of substance in Israel; fifty shekels of silver on every man. According to this the king of Israel was himself without means, but the land must have been in a position to pay such a considerable tribute, so large a sum. There must, according to this statement, have been at this time 60,000 families in Israel who were in a position to pay a mina each (about £5). The monuments of Assyria inform us that in the year 742 B.C. Tiglath Pilesar marched against northern Syria and Arpad (Tel Erfad p. 2); that he conquered Arpad after a siege of three years, or after three campaigns against the city. 100In the city of Arpad – so we are told in a fragment of his annals – he received the tribute of Rezin of Damascus; 18 kikkar of gold, 3000 kikkar of silver, 200 kikkar of copper; and the tribute of Kustaspi of Kummukh, of Hiram of Tyre, of Pisiris of Karchemish. 101This must, therefore, have taken place in the year 740 or 739 B.C. He received the tribute of Menahem immediately before the ninth year of his reign (737 B.C.), i. e. in the year 738 B.C. He tells us that at that time he received tribute from Kustaspi of Kummukh, Rezin of Damascus, Menahem of Samaria, Hiram of Tyre, Sibittibal of Gebal (Byblus), Urikki of Kui (Cilicia), Pisiris of Karchemish, Eniel of Hamath, Tarchular of Gamguma, Sulumal of Milid, Vassurmi of Tubal, and Zabibieh, the queen of the Arabs. Menahem, therefore, sought to purchase the help of Tiglath Pilesar by offering tribute soon after the fall of Arpad. Hence in these years the king of Assyria held a position which included northern and central Syria, and governed those countries immediately from the crossing of the Euphrates at Karchemish, and from Arpad. Passing beyond Hamath and Damascus, beyond Byblus and Tyre, he was now ruler over the kingdom of Samaria also. From the South-east a princess of the Arabs, from the North-west the prince of the Cilicians, sent tribute. Menahem of Israel must have died soon after the payment of tribute; the subjection to Assyria appears to have established his power so far that his son Pekahiah could succeed him on the throne (738 B.C.). But in the second year of his reign Pekahiah was murdered in the palace at Samaria by Pekah, the son of Remaliah, who now ascended the throne of Israel (736 B.C.). Pekah combined with Rezin, king of Damascus, for a united attack on the kingdom of Judah.

Judah did not remain untouched by the establishment and extensive advances of the Assyrian power in Syria. We saw in what successful struggles Uzziah-Azariah had extended the territory of Judah in his long reign; how agriculture and trade developed under him. The advance of Tiglath Pilesar in the last years of the reign of Uzziah called these successes in question once more. It did not find Uzziah wholly unprepared. He had fortified Jerusalem more strongly; he had provided for the arming of his forces, and arranged the levy of the men of military age. A very mutilated fragment of the annals of Tiglath Pilesar mentions twice the land of Judah, and three times the second half of the name of Azariah, i. e. the name by which Uzziah is named in the Books of Kings. 102Another fragment, which deals with the events in Syria which took place before the payment of tribute to Menahem, again mentions Azariah (Uzziah); it informs us that Mount Lebanon, the land of Baalzephon, 103the land of Ammana (the region of the Amanus?) the city of Hadrach had been subjugated; that the king "added to the land of Assyria nineteen districts of Hamath, situated on the sea of the setting sun, together with the cities in their land, which had revolted to Azariah in faithless rebellion, and had placed his officers and viceroys over them." 104The districts of Hamath here mentioned must be sought between the Orontes and the sea, immediately north of Aradus. The occurrence no doubt took place in the time when Tiglath Pilesar fought against or besieged Arpad, i. e. in the years from 742 B.C. to 740. From this we must conclude that Azariah (Uzziah) of Judah (neither he nor the kingdom of Judah is mentioned among the tributary states in these fragments) assumed a hostile position towards Tiglath Pilesar; that during the struggle for Arpad he attempted to unite some of the states and tribes of Syria against the advance of Assyria. This opposition of Judah may have formed another motive for Menahem to place himself under the supremacy, and at the same time under the protection, of Tiglath Pilesar. As vassals of Tiglath Pilesar, Rezin of Damascus and Pekah of Israel may have felt themselves more justified in attacking the southern neighbour-state, the kingdom of Judah, which would not submit to the dominion of Assyria.

Uzziah was no more when Pekah obtained the throne of Israel. He had died four years previously (740 B.C.), and was buried in the sepulchres of the kings at Jerusalem. His son Jotham, who had already shared in the rule during the last years of his father's reign, sat on the throne of Judah. He withstood the attack of the combined Israelites and Damascenes. 105But his son Ahaz, who succeeded him in the year 734 B.C., was reduced by this war to the greatest distress. The Philistines whom Uzziah had repelled and punished severely, the Edomites whom he had subjugated, rebelled. Pekah's warriors laid Judah waste, and carried rich booty and numerous prisoners to Samaria; Rezin pressed forward to the south to aid the Edomites, expelled the Judæans from Elath, and there established himself on the Red Sea. The hostile armies marched on Jerusalem. Ahaz "made his son to go through the fire" to avert the threatened ruin. At last he found no other means of rescue than to pay homage to Assyria, and entreat the protection of Tiglath Pilesar.

In the last years of Uzziah, and in the reign of Jotham, Isaiah, the son of Amoz, had received the word at Jerusalem. Like Amos and Hosea, Isaiah contended against the luxury and dissoluteness of the rich, the injustice of the elders, the corruption of the judges, the idolatry in the land. He attacked the false security in which men reposed in the possession of horses and chariots of war; he announced the coming vengeance with even more vehement emphasis than his predecessors. If for them the gods of the other nations have already disappeared beside the One Jehovah, Isaiah represents the approaching destruction as breaking out not only over Israel and Judah, but over all nations, because they go after false gods. Their evil deeds will also be punished; no power on the earth can stand before Jehovah. But behind this judgment, the horror of which will turn all men to Jehovah, Isaiah also exhibits the restoration of Israel and Judah, the restoration of the whole renewed world, in the most glowing colours. That was Jehovah's purpose "since the days of old."