EMPIRE FROM 745 TO 722 B.C.
_Failure of Urartu and re-conquest of Syria--Egypt again united under
Ethiopian auspices--Piônkhi--The downfall of Damascus, of Babylon, and
of Israel._
* Drawn by Boudier, from Layard. The vignette, also by
Boudier, represents a bronze statuette of Queen Karomama,
now in the Louvre.
Events proved that, in this period, at any rate, the decadence of
Assyria was not due to any exhaustion of the race or impoverishment of
the country, but was mainly owing to the incapacity of its kings and the
lack of energy displayed by their generals. If Menuas and Argistis had
again and again triumphed over the Assyrians during half a century, it
was not because their bands of raw recruits were superior to the tried
veterans of Rammân-nirâri in either discipline or courage. The Assyrian
troops had lost none of their former valour, and their muster-roll
showed no trace of diminution, but their leaders had lost the power of
handling their men after the vigorous fashion of their predecessors,
and showed less foresight and tenacity in conducting their campaigns.
Although decimated and driven from fortress to fortress, and from
province to province, hampered by the rebellions it was called upon
to suppress, and distracted by civil discord, the Assyrian army still
remained a strong and efficient force, ever ready to make its full power
felt the moment it realised that it was being led by a sovereign capable
of employing its good qualities to advantage. Tiglath-pileser had,
doubtless, held a military command before ascending the throne, and
had succeeded in winning the confidence of his men: as soon as he had
assumed the leadership they regained their former prestige, and restored
to their country that supremacy which its last three rulers had failed
to maintain.*
* The official documents dealing with the history of
Tiglath-pileser III. have been seriously mutilated, and
there is on several points some difference of opinion among
historians as to the proper order in which the fragments
ought to be placed, and, consequently, as to the true
sequence of the various campaigns. The principal documents
are as follows: (1) The _Annals_ in the Central Hall of the
palace of Shalmaneser III. at Nimroud, partly defaced by
Esarhaddon, and carried off to serve as materials for the
south-western palace, whence they were rescued by Layard,
and brought in fragments to the British Museum. (2) The
_Tablets_, K. 3571 and D. T. 3, in the British Museum. (3)
The _Slabs of Nimrud_, discovered by Layard and G. Smith.
The empire still included the original patrimony of Assur and its
ancient colonies on the Upper Tigris, the districts of Mesopotamia won
from the Aramæans at various epochs, the cities of Khabur, Khindanu,
Laqî, and Tebabnî, and that portion of Bît-Adini which lay to the left
of the Euphrates. It thus formed a compact mass capable of successfully
resisting the fiercest attacks; but the buffer provinces which
Assur-nazir-pal and Shalmaneser III. had grouped round their own
immediate domains on the borders of Namri, of Naîri, of Melitene, and of
Syria had either resumed their independence, or else had thrown in their
lot with the states against which they had been intended to watch. The
Aramaean tribes never let slip an opportunity of encroaching on the
southern frontier. So far, the migratory instinct which had brought them
from the Arabian desert to the swamps of the Persian Gulf had met with
no check. Those who first reached its shores became the founders of that
nation of the Kaldâ which had, perhaps, already furnished Babylon with
one of its dynasties; others had soon after followed in their footsteps,
and passing beyond the Kaldâ settlement, had gradually made their way
along the canals which connect the Euphrates with the Tigris till they
had penetrated to the lowlands of the Uknu. Towards the middle of
the eighth century B.C. they wedged themselves in between Elam and
Karduniash, forming so many buffer states of varying size and influence.
They extended from north to south along both banks of the Tigris, their
different tribes being known as the Gambulu, the Puqudu, the Litau, the
Damunu, the Ruuâ, the Khindaru, the Labdudu, the Harîlu, and the Rubuu;*
the Itua, who formed the vanguard, reached the valleys of the Turnat
during the reign of Kammân-nirâri III. They were defeated in 791 B.C.,
but obstinately renewed hostilities in 783, 782, 777, and 769; favoured
by circumstances, they ended by forcing the cordon of Assyrian outposts,
and by the time of Assur-nirâri had secured a footing on the Lower Zab.
Close by, to the east of them, lay Namri and Media, both at that time in
a state of absolute anarchy. The invasions of Menuas and of Argistis
had entirely laid waste the country, and Sharduris III., the king who
succeeded Argistis, had done nothing towards permanently incorporating
them with Urartu.** Sharduris, while still heir-apparent to the throne,
had been appointed by his father governor of the recently annexed
territory belonging to Etius and the Mannai:*** he made Lununis his
headquarters, and set himself to subdue the barbarians who had settled
between the Kur and the Araxes. When he succeeded to the throne,
about 760 B.C., the enjoyment of supreme power in no way lessened
his activity. On the contrary, he at once fixed upon the sort of wide
isthmus which separates the Araxes from Lake Urumiah, as the goal of his
incursions, and overran the territory of the Babilu; there he carried by
storm three royal castles, twenty-three cities, and sixty villages; he
then fell back upon Etius, passing through Dakis, Edias, and Urmes on
his way, and brought back with him 12,735 children, 46,600 women,
12,000 men capable of bearing arms, 23,335 oxen, 58,100 sheep, and 2,500
horses; these figures give some idea of the importance of his victories
and the wealth of the conquered territory.
* The list of Aramæan tribes, and the positions occupied by
them towards the middle of the eighth century, have been
given us by Tiglath-pileser III. himself.
** Tiglath-pileser did not encounter any Urartian forces in
these regions, as would almost certainly have been the case
had these countries remained subject to Urartu from the
invasions of Menuas and Argistis onwards.
*** Argistis tells us in the _Annals_ that he had made his
son satrap over the provinces won from the Mannai and Etius:
though his name is not mentioned, Sayce believes this son
must have been Sharduris.
So far as we can learn, he does not seem to have attacked Khubushkia,*
nor to have entered into open rivalry with Assyria; even under the rule
of Assur-nirâri III. Assyria showed a bold enough front to deter any
enemy from disturbing her except when forced to do so. Sharduris merely
strove to recover those portions of his inheritance to which Assyria
attached but little value, and his inscriptions tell us of more than
one campaign waged by him with this object against the mountaineers of
Melitene, about the year 758. He captured most of their citadels, one
after another: Dhumeskis, Zapsas, fourteen royal castles, and a hundred
towns, including Milid itself, where King Khitaruadas held his court.**
* It is evident from the account of the campaigns that
Tiglath-pileser occupied Khubushkia from the very
commencement of his reign; we must therefore assume that the
invasions of Argistis had produced only transient effects.
** These campaigns must have preceded the descent into
Syria, and I believe this latter to have been anterior to
the expedition of Assur-nirâri against Arpad in 754 B.C.
Assur-nirâri probably tried to reconquer the tribes who had
just become subject to Sharduris. The descent of this latter
into Syria probably took place about 756 or 755 B.C., and
his wars against Melitene about 758 to 757 B.C.
At this point two courses lay open before him. He could either continue
his march westwards, and, penetrating into Asia Minor, fall upon the
wealthy and industrious races who led a prosperous existence between
the Halys and the Sangarios, such as the Tabal, the Chalybes, and the
Phrygians, or he could turn southwards.
[Illustration: 180.jpg A VISTA OF THE ASIANIC STEPPE]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Alfred Boissier.
Deterred, apparently, by the dreary and monotonous aspect of the Asianic
steppes, he chose the latter course; he crossed Mount Taurus, descended
into Northern Syria about 756, and forced the Khâti to swear allegiance
to him. Their inveterate hatred of the Assyrians led the Bît-Agusi to
accept without much reluctance the supremacy of the only power which had
shown itself capable of withstanding their triumphant progress. Arpad
became for several years an unfailing support to Urartu and the basis on
which its rule in Syria rested. Assur-nirâri had, as we know, at
first sought to recover it, but his attempt to do so in 754 B.C. was
unsuccessful, and merely served to demonstrate his own weakness: ten
years later, Carchemish, Grurgum, Kummukh, Samalla, Unki, Kuî--in a
word, all the Aramæans and the Khâti between the Euphrates and the
sea had followed in the steps of the Agusi, and had acknowledged the
supremacy of Sharduris.*
* The _minimum_ extent of the dominions of Sharduris in
Syria may be deduced from the list of the allies assigned to
him by Tiglath-pileser in 743 in the Annals.
This prince must now haye been sorely tempted to adopt, on his own
account, the policy of the Ninevite monarchs, and push on in the
direction of Hamath, Damascus, and the Phoenician seaboard, towards
those countries of Israel and Judah which were nearly coterminous with
far-off Egypt. The rapidity of the victories which he had just succeeded
in winning at the foot of Mount Taurus and Mount Amanus must have
seemed a happy omen of what awaited his enterprise in the valleys of the
Orontes and the Jordan. Although the races of southern and central
Syria had suffered less than those of the north from the ambition of the
Ninevite kings, they had, none the less, been sorely tried during the
previous century; and it might be questioned whether they had derived
courage from the humiliation of Assyria, or still remained in so feeble
a state as to present an easy prey to the first invader.
The defeat inflicted on Mari by Rammân-nirâri in 803 had done but little
harm to the prestige of Damascus. The influence exercised by this state
from the sources of the Litany to the brook of Egypt * was based on so
solid a foundation that no temporary reverse had power to weaken it.
* [Not the Nile, but the Wady el Arish, the frontier between
Southern Syria and Egypt. Cf. Josh. xv. 47; 2 Kings xxiv. 7,
called river of Egypt in the A.V.--Tr.]
Had the Assyrian monarch thrown himself more seriously into the
enterprise, and reappeared before the ramparts of the capital in the
following year, refusing to leave it till he had annihilated its armies
and rased its walls to the ground, then, no doubt, Israel, Judah,
the Philistines, Edom, and Ammon, seeing it fully occupied in its own
defence, might have forgotten the ruthless severity of Hazael, and have
plucked up sufficient courage to struggle against the Damascene yoke; as
it was, Bammân-nirâri did not return, and the princes who had, perhaps,
for the moment, regarded him as a possible deliverer, did not venture
on any concerted action. Joash, King of Judah, and Jehoahaz, King of
Israel, continued to pay tribute till both their deaths, within a year
of each other, Jehoahaz in 797 B.C., and Joash in 796, the first in his
bed, the second by the hand of an assassin.*
* Kings xii. 20, 21, xiii. 9; cf. 2 Citron, xxiv. 22-26,
where the death of Joash is mentioned as one of the
consequences of the Syrian invasion, and as a punishment for
his crime in killing the sons of Jehoiada.
Their children, Jehoash in Israel, Amaziah in Judah, were, at first, like
their parents, merely the instruments of Damascus; but before long, the
conditions being favourable, they shook off their apathy and initiated
a more vigorous policy, each in his own kingdom. Mari had been succeeded
by a certain Ben-hadad, also a son of Hazael,* and possibly this change
of kings was accompanied by one of those revolutions which had done so
much to weaken Damascus: Jehoash rebelled and defeated Ben-hadad near
Aphek and in three subsequent engagements, but he failed to make his
nation completely independent, and the territory beyond Jordan still
remained in the hands of the Syrians.** We are told that before
embarking on this venture he went to consult the aged Elisha, then on
his deathbed. He wept to see him in this extremity, and bending over
him, cried out, My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and the
horsemen thereof! The prophet bade him take bow and arrows and shoot
from the window toward the East. The king did so, and Elisha said, The
Lords arrow of victory *** over Syria; for thou shalt smite the Syrians
in Aphek till thou have consumed them.
* 2 Kings xiii. 24, 25. Winckler is of opinion that Mari and
Ben-hadad, son of Hazael, were one and the same person.
** 2 Kings xiii. 25, The term saviour in 2 Kings xiii. 5
is generally taken as referring to Joash: Winckler, however,
prefers to apply it to the King of Assyria. The biblical
text does not expressly state that Joash failed to win back
the districts of Gilead from the Syrians, but affirms that
he took from them the cities which Hazael had taken out of
the hand of Jehoahaz, his father. Ramah of Gilead and the
cities previously annexed by Jehoahaz must, therefore, have
remained in the hands of Ben-hadad.
*** [Heb. salvation; A.V. deliverance.--Tr.]
Then he went on: Take the arrows, and the king took them; then he
said, Smite upon the ground, and the king smote thrice and stayed.
And the man of God was wroth with him, and said, Thou shouldest have
smitten five or six times; then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst
consumed it, whereas now thou shalt smite Syria but thrice. * Amaziah,
on his side, had routed the Edomites in the Valley of Salt, one of
Davids former battle-fields, and had captured their capital, Sela.**
Elated by his success, he believed himself strong enough to break the
tie of vassalage which bound him to Israel, and sent a challenge to
Jehoash in Samaria. The latter, surprised at his audacity, replied in a
parable, The thistle that was in Lebanon sent to the cedar that was
in Lebanon, saying, Give thy daughter to my son to wife. But there
passed by a wild beast that was in Lebanon and trode down the thistle.
Thou hast indeed smitten Edom, and thine heart hath lifted thee up:
glory thereof and abide at home; for why shouldest thou meddle to thy
hurt that thou shouldest fall, even thou, and Judah with thee? They met
near Beth-shemesh, on the border of the Philistine lowlands. Amaziah was
worsted in the engagement, and fell into the power of his rival. Jehoash
entered Jerusalem and dismantled its walls for a space of four hundred
cubits, from the gate of Ephraim unto the corner gate; he pillaged
the Temple, as though it had been the abode, not of Jahveh, but of some
pagan deity, insisted on receiving hostages before he would release
his prisoner, and returned to Samaria, where he soon after died (781
B.C.).***
* 2 Kings xiii. 14-19.
** 2 Kings xiv. 7; cf. 2 Gliron. xxv. 11, 12. Sela was
rebuilt, and received the name of Joktheel from its Hebrew
masters. The subjection of the country was complete, for,
later on, the Hebrew chronicler tells of the conquest of
Elath by King Azariah, son of Amaziah (2 Kings xiv. 22).
*** 2 Kings xiv. 8-16. cf. 2 Ghron. xxv. 17-24.
Jeroboam II. completed that rehabilitation of Israel, of which his
father had but sketched the outline; he maintained his suzerainty, first
over Amaziah, and when the latter was assassinated at Lachish (764),*
over his son, the young Azariah.** After the defeat of Ben-hadad near
Aphek, Damascus declined still further in power, and Hadrach, suddenly
emerging from obscurity, completely barred the valley of the Orontes
against it. An expedition under Shalmaneser IV. in 773 seems to have
precipitated it to a lower depth than it had ever reached before:
Jeroboam was able to wrest from it, almost without a struggle, the
cities which it had usurped in the days of Jehu, and Gilead was at last
set free from a yoke which had oppressed it for more than a century.
Tradition goes so far as to affirm that Israel reconquered the Bekaa,
Hamath, and Damascus, those northern territories once possessed by
David, and it is quite possible that its rivals, menaced from afar
by Assyria and hard pressed at their own doors by Hadrach, may have
resorted to one of those propitiatory overtures which eastern monarchs
are only too ready to recognise as acts of submission. The lesser
southern states, such as Ammon, the Bedâwin tribes of Hauran, and, at
the opposite extremity of the kingdom, the Philistines,*** who had bowed
themselves before Hazael in the days of his prosperity, now transferred
their homage to Israel.
* 2 Kings xiv. 19, 20; cf. 2 Ghron. xxv. 27, 28.
** The Hebrew texts make no mention of this subjection of
Judah to Jeroboam II.; that it actually took place must,
however, be admitted, at any rate in so far as the first
half of the reign of Azariah is concerned, as a necessary
outcome of the events of the preceding reigns.
*** The conquests of Jeroboam II. are indicated very briefly
in 2 Kings xiv. 25-28: cf. Amos vi. 14, where the
expressions employed by the prophet imply that at the time
at which he wrote the whole of the ancient kingdom of David,
Judah included, was in the possession of Israel.
Moab alone offered any serious resistance. It had preserved its
independence ever since the reign of Mesha, having escaped from being
drawn into the wars which had laid waste the rest of Syria. It was now
suddenly forced to pay the penalty of its long prosperity. Jeroboam made
a furious onslaught upon its cities--Ar of Moab, Kir of Moab, Dibon,
Medeba, Heshbon, Elealeh--and destroyed them all in succession. The
Moabite forces carried a part of the population with them in their
flight, and all escaped together across the deserts which enclose the
southern basin of the Dead Sea. On the frontier of Edom they begged for
sanctuary, but the King of Judah, to whom the Edomite valleys belonged,
did not dare to shelter the vanquished enemies of his suzerain, and one
of his prophets, forgetting his hatred of Israel in delight at being
able to gratify his grudge against Moab, greeted them in their distress
with a hymn of joy--I will water thee with my tears, O Heshbon
Elealeh: for upon thy summer fruits and upon thy harvest the battle
shout is fallen. And gladness is taken away and joy out of the fruitful
fields; and in the vineyards there shall be no singing, neither joyful
noise; no treader shall tread out wine in the presses; I have made the
vintage shout to cease. Wherefore my bowels sound like an harp for Moab,
and my inward parts for Kir-Heres. And it shall come to pass, when Moab
presenteth himself, when he wearieth himself upon the high place, and
shall come to his sanctuary to pray, he shall not prevail!*
* Isa. xv. 1-9; xvi. 1-12. This prophecy, which had been
pronounced against Moab in the old days, and which is
appropriated by Isaiah (xvi. 13, 14), has been attributed to
Jonah, son of Amittaî, of Gath-Hepher, who actually lived in
the time of Jeroboam II. (2 Kings xiv. 25). It is now
generally recognised as the production of an anonymous
Judsean prophet, and the earliest authentic fragment of
prophetic literature which has come down to us.
This revival, like the former greatness of David and Solomon, was due
not so much to any inherent energy on the part of Israel, as to the
weakness of the nations on its frontiers. Egypt was not in the habit of
intervening in the quarrels of Asia, and Assyria was suffering from
a temporary eclipse. Damascus had suddenly collapsed, and Hadrach or
Mansuati, the cities which sought to take its place, found themselves
fully employed in repelling the intermittent attacks of the Assyrian;
the Hebrews, for a quarter of a century, therefore, had the stage to
themselves, there being no other actors to dispute their possession of
it. During the three hundred years of their existence as a monarchy they
had adopted nearly all the laws and customs of the races over whom they
held sway, and by whom they were completely surrounded. The bulk of the
people devoted themselves to the pasturing and rearing of cattle, and,
during the better part of the year, preferred to live in tents, unless
war rendered such a practice impossible.* They had few industries save
those of the potter** and the smith,*** and their trade was almost
entirely in the hands of foreigners.
* Cf. the passage in 2 Kings xiii. 5, And the children of
Israel dwelt in their tents as beforetime. Although the
word _ôhel_ had by that time acquired the more general
meaning of _habitation_, the context here seems to require
us to translate it by its original meaning tent.
** Pottery is mentioned in 2 Sam. xvii. 28; numerous
fragments dating from the monarchical period have been found
at Jerusalem and Lachish.
*** The story of Tubal-Cain (Gen. iv. 22) shows the
antiquity of the ironworkers art among the Israelites; the
smith is practically the only artisan to be found amongst
nomadic tribes.
We find, however, Hebrew merchants in Egypt,* at Tyre, and in
Coele-Syria, and they were so numerous at Damascus that they requested
that a special bazaar might be allotted to them, similar to that
occupied by the merchants of Damascus in Samaria from time immemorial.**
* The accurate ideas on the subject of Egypt possessed by
the earliest compilers of the traditions contained in
Genesis and Exodus, prove that Hebrew merchants must have
been in constant communication with that country about the
time with which we are now concerned.
** 1 Kings xx. 34; cf. what has been said on this point in
vol. vi. pp. 432, 441.
[Illustration: 188.jpg SPECIMENS OF HEBREW POTTERY]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from sketches by Warren.
The Hebrew monarchs had done their best to encourage this growing desire
for trade. It was only the complicated state of Syrian politics that
prevented them from following the example of Solomon, and opening
communications by sea with the far-famed countries of Ophir, either in
competition with the Phoenicians or under their guidance. Indeed, as
we have seen, Jehoshaphat, encouraged by his alliance with the house of
Omri, tried to establish a seagoing fleet, but found that peasants could
not be turned into sailors at a days notice, and the vessel built by
him at Eziongeber was wrecked before it left the harbour.
[Illustration: 189.jpg ISRAELITES OF THE HIGHER CLASS IN THE TIME OF
SHALMANESER III]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from one of the bas-reliefs of the
Black Obelisk.
In appearance, the Hebrew towns closely resembled the ancient Canaanite
cities. Egyptian influences still predominated in their architecture,
as may be seen from what is still left of the walls of Lachish, and they
were fortified in such a way as to be able to defy the military engines
of besiegers. This applies not only to capitals, like Jerusalem, Tirzah,
and Samaria, but even to those towns which commanded a road or mountain
pass, the ford of a river, or the entrance to some fertile plain; there
were scores of these on the frontiers of the two kingdoms, and in
those portions of their territory which lay exposed to the attacks
of Damascus, Moab, Edom, or the Philistines.* The daily life of the
inhabitants was; to all intents, the same as at Arpad, Sidon, or Gaza;
and the dress, dwellings, and customs of the upper and middle
classes cannot have differed in any marked degree from those of the
corresponding grades of society in Syria.
* 2 Chron. xi. 6-10, where we find a list of the towns
fortified by Rehoboam: Bethlehem, Etam, Beth-zur, Soco,
Adullam, Gath, Mareshah, Ziph, Adoraim, Lachish, Azekah,
Zorah, Ajalon, Hebron.
[Illustration: 190.jpg JUDÆAN PEASANTS]
Drawn by Boudier, from Layard. These figures are taken from
a bas-relief which represents Sennacherib receiving the
submission of Judah before Lachish.
The men wore over their tunic a fringed kaftan, with short sleeves, open
in front, a low-crowned hat, and sandals or shoes of pliant leather; *
they curled their beards and hair, painted their eyes and cheeks, and
wore many jewels; while their wives adopted all the latest refinements
in vogue in the harems of Damascus, Tyre, or Nineveh.** Descendants of
ancient families paid for all this luxury out of the revenues of the
wide domains they had inherited; others kept it up by less honourable
means, by usury, corruption, and by the exercise of a ruthless violence
towards neighbours who were unable to defend themselves.
* The kaftan met with in these parts seems to correspond to
the _meîl_ (R.V. ephod ) of the biblical texts (1 Sam. ii.
19; xviii. 4, etc.).
** Isa. iii. 16-24 describes in detail the whole equipment
of jewels, paint, and garments required by the fashionable
women of Jerusalem during the last thirty years of the
eighth century B.C.
Illustration: 191.jpg WOMEN AND CHILDREN OF JUDÆA
Drawn by Boudier, from Layard.
The king himself set them an evil example, and did not hesitate to
assassinate one of his subjects in order that he might seize a vineyard
which he coveted;* it was not to be wondered at, therefore, that the
nobles of Ephraim sold the righteous for silver, and the needy for a
pair of shoes; ** that they demanded gifts of wheat, and turned the
needy from their right when they sat as a jury at the gate. *** From
top to bottom of the social ladder the stronger and wealthier oppressed
those who were weaker or poorer than themselves, leaving them with no
hope of redress except at the hands of the king.****
* Cf. the well-known episode of Naboth and Ahab in 1 Kings
xxi.
** Amos ii. 6.
*** Amos v. 11, 12.
**** 2 Kings vi. 26-30; viii. 3-8, where, in both instances,
it is a woman who appeals to the king. Cf. for the period of
David and Solomon, 2 Sam. xiv. 1-20, and 1 Kings iii. 16-27.
Unfortunately, the king, when he did not himself set the example
of oppression, seldom possessed the resources necessary to make his
decisions effective. True, he was chief of the most influential family
in either Judah or Israel, a chief by divine appointment, consecrated
by the priests and prophets of Jahveh, a priest of the Lord,* and he was
master in his own city of Jerusalem or Samaria, but his authority did
not extend far beyond the walls.
* Cf. the anointing of Saul (1 Sam. ix. 16; x. 1; and xiv.
1), of David (1 Sam. xvi. 1-3, 12, 13), of Solomon (1 Kings
i. 34, 39, 45), of Jehu (2 Kings ix. 1-10), and compare it
with the unction received by the priests on their admission
to the priesthood (Exod. xxix. 7; xxx. 22, 23; cf. Lev.
viii. 12, 30; x. 7).
It was not the old tribal organisation that embarrassed him, for the
secondary tribes had almost entirely given up their claims to political
independence. The division of the country into provinces, a consequence
of the establishment of financial districts by Solomon, had broken them
up, and they gradually gave way before the two houses of Ephraim and
Judah; but the great landed proprietors, especially those who held royal
fiefs, enjoyed almost unlimited power within their own domains. They
were, indeed, called on to render military service, to furnish forced
labour, and to pay certain trifling dues into the royal treasury;* but,
otherwise, they were absolute masters in their own domains, and the
sovereign was obliged to employ force if he wished to extort any tax or
act of homage which they were unwilling to render. For this purpose
he had a standing army distributed in strong detachments along the
frontier, but the flower of his forces was concentrated round the royal
residence to serve as a body-guard. It included whole companies of
foreign mercenaries, like those Cretan and Carian warriors who, since
the time of David, had kept guard round the Kings of Judah;** these, in
time of war,*** were reinforced by militia, drawn entirely from among
the landed proprietors, and the whole force, when commanded by an
energetic leader, formed a host capable of meeting on equal terms the
armies of Damascus, Edom, or Moab, or even the veterans of Egypt and
Assyria.
* 1 Kings xv. 22 (cf. 2 Ohron. xvi. 6), where King Asa made
a proclamation unto all Judah; none was exempted, the
object in this case being the destruction of Ramah, the
building of which had been begun by Baasha.
** The Carians or Cretans are again referred to in the
history of Athaliah (2 Kings xi. 4).
*** Taking the tribute paid by Menahem to Pul (2 Kings xv.
19, 20) as a basis, it has been estimated that the owners of
landed estate in Israel, who were in that capacity liable to
render military service, numbered 60,000 in the time of that
king; all others were exempt from military service.
The reigning prince was hereditary commander-in-chief, but the
_sharzaba_, or captain of the troops, often took his place, as in the
time of David, and thereby became the most important person in the
kingdom. More than one of these officers had already turned against
their sovereign the forces which he had entrusted, to them, and these
revolts, when crowned with success, had, on various occasions, in Israel
at any rate, led to a change of dynasty: Omri had been shar zaba when he
mutinied against Zimri, the assassin of Elah, and Jehu occupied the same
position when Elisha deputed him to destroy the house of Omri.
The political constitutions of Judah and Israel were, on the whole, very
similar to those of the numerous states which shared the territory of
Syria between them, and their domestic history gives us a fairly exact
idea of the revolutions which agitated Damascus, Hamath, Carchemish,
Arpad, and the principalities of Amanos and Lebanon about the same
period. It would seem, however, that none of these other nations
possessed a literary or religious life of any great intensity. They had
their archives, it is true, in which were accumulated documents relating
to their past history, their rituals of theology and religious worship,
their collections of hymns and national songs; but none of these have
survived, and the very few inscriptions that have come down to us merely
show that they had nearly all of them adopted the alphabet invented
by the Phoenicians. The Israelites, initiated by them into the art of
writing, lost no time in setting down, in their turn, all they could
recall of the destinies of their race from the creation of the world
down to the time in which they lived. From the beginning of the
monarchical epoch onwards, their scribes collected together in the _Book
of the Wars of the Lord_, the _Book of Jashar_, and in other works the
titles of which have not survived, lyrics of different dates, in which
nameless poets had sung the victories and glorious deeds of their
national heroes, such as the Song of the Well, the Hymn of Moses, the
triumphal Ode of Deborah, and the blessing of Jacob.* They were able to
draw upon traditions which preserved the memory of what had taken
place in the time of the Judges;** and when that patriarchal form of
government was succeeded by a monarchy, they had narratives of the ark
of the Lord and its wanderings, of Samuel, Saul, David, and Solomon,***
not to mention the official records which, since then, had been
continuously produced and accumulated by the court historians.****
* The books of _Jashar_ and of the _Wars of the Lord_ appear
to date from the IXth century B.C.; as the latter is quoted
in the Elohist narrative, it cannot have been compiled later
than the beginning of the VIIIth century B.C. The passage in
Numb. xxi. lib, 15, is the only one expressly attributed by
the testimony of the ancients to the _Book of the Wars of
the Lord,_ but modern writers add to this the _Song of the
Well _(Numb. xxi. 17b, 18), and the Song of Victory over
Moab (Numb. xxi. 27&-30). The _Song of the Bow_ (2 Sam. i.
19-27) admittedly formed part of the _Book of Jashar_.
Joshuas Song of Victory over the Amorites (Josh. x. 13),
and very probably the couplet recited by Solomon at the
dedication of the Temple (1 Kings viii, 12, 13, placed by
the LXX. after verse 53), also formed part of it, as also
the _Song of Deborah_ and the Blessing of Jacob (Gen. xlix.
1-27).
** Wellhausen was the first to admit the existence of a Book
of Judges prior to the epoch of Deuteronomy, and his opinion
has been adopted by Kuenen and Driver. This book was
probably drawn upon by the two historians of the IXth and
VIIIth centuries B.C. of whom we are about to speak; some of
the narratives, such as the story of Abimelech, and possibly
that of Ehud, may have been taken from a document written at
the end of the Xth or the beginning of the IXth centuries
B.C.
*** The revolutions which occurred in the family of David (2
Sam. ix.-xx.) bear so evident a stamp of authenticity that
they have been attributed to a contemporary writer, perhaps
Ahimaaz, son of Zadok (2 Sam. xv. 27), who took part in the
events in question. But apart from this, the existence is
generally admitted of two or three books which were drawn up
shortly after the separation of the tribes, containing a
kind of epic of the history of the first two kings; the one
dealing with Saul, for instance, was probably written in the
time of Jeroboam.
**** The two lists in which the names of the principal
personages at the court of David are handed down to us,
mention a certain Jehoshaphat, son of Ahilud, who was
_mazhir_, or recorder; he retained his post under Solomon (1
Kings iv. 3).
It may be that more than one writer had already endeavoured to evolve
from these materials an Epie of Jahveh and His faithful people, but
in the second half of the IXth century B.C., perhaps in the time of
Jehoshaphat, a member of the tribe of Judah undertook to put forth a
fresh edition.*
* The approximate date of the composition and source of this
first _Jehovist_ is still an open question., Reuss and
Kuenen, not to mention others, believe the Jehovist writer
to have been a native of the northern kingdom; I have
adopted the opposite view, which is supported by most modern
critics.
He related how God, after creating the universe out of chaos, had chosen
His own people, and had led them, after trials innumerable, to the
conquest of the Promised Land. He showed, as he went on, the origin of
the tribes identified with the children of Israel, and the covenants
made by Jahveh with Moses in the Arabian desert; while accepting the
stories connected with the ancient sanctuaries of the north and east
at Shechem, Bethel, Peniel, Mahanaim, and Succoth, it was at Hebron
in Judah that he placed the principal residence of Abraham and his
descendants. His style, while simple and direct, is at the same time
singularly graceful and vivacious; the incidents he gives are carefully
selected, apt and characteristic, while his narrative passes from scene
to scene without trace of flagging, unburdened by useless details, and
his dialogue, always natural and easy, rises without effort from the
level of familiar conversation to heights of impassioned eloquence. His
aim was not merely to compile the history of his people: he desired
at the same time to edify them, by showing how sin first came into the
world through disobedience to the commandments of the Most High, and
how man, prosperous so long as he kept to the laws of the covenant, fell
into difficulties as soon as he transgressed or failed to respect
them. His concept of Jahveh is in the highest degree a concrete one: he
regards Him as a Being superior to other beings, but made like unto them
and moved by the same passions. He shows anger and is appeased, displays
sorrow and repents Him of the evil.* When the descendants of Noah build
a tower and a city, He draws nigh to examine what they have done, and
having taken account of their work, confounds their language and thus
prevents them from proceeding farther.** He desires, later on, to confer
a favour on His servant Abraham: He appears to him in human form, and
eats and drinks with him.*** Sodom and Gomorrah had committed abominable
iniquities, the cry against them was great and their sin very grievous:
but before punishing them, He tells Abraham that He will go down and
see whether they have done according to the cry of it which is come unto
Me; and if not, I will know. ****
* Exod. iv. 14 and xxxii. 10, anger of Jahveh against Moses
and against Israel; Gen. vi. 6, 7, where He repents and is
sorry for having created man; and Exod. xxxii. 14, where He
repents Him of the evil He had intended to do unto Israel.
** Gen. xi. 5-8.
*** Gen. xviii.
**** Gen. xviii. and xix.
Elsewhere He wrestles a whole night long with Jacob;* or falls upon
Moses, seeking to kill him, until appeased by Zipporah, who casts the
blood-stained foreskin of her child at her husbands feet.** This book,
though it breathes the spirit of the prophets and was perhaps written
in one of their schools, did not, however, include all the current
narratives, and omitted many traditions that were passing from lip to
lip; moreover, the excessive materialism of its treatment no longer
harmonised with that more idealised concept of the Deity which had
already begun to prevail. Consequently, within less than a century
of its appearance, more than one version containing changes and
interpolations in the narrative came to be circulated,*** till a scribe
of Ephraim, who flourished in the time of Jeroboam II., took up the
subject and dealt with it in a different fashion.****
* Gen. xxxii. 24, 25.
** Exod. iv. 24-26.
*** Schrader and Wellhausen have drawn attention to
contradictions in the primitive history of humanity as
presented by the Jehovist which forbid us to accept it as
the work of a single writer. Nor can these inconsistencies
be due to the influence of the Elohist, since the latter did
not deal with this period in his book. Budde has maintained
that the primitive work contained no account of the Deluge,
and traced the descent of all the nations, Israel included,
back to Cain, and he declares he can detect in the earlier
chapters of Genesis traces of a first Jehovist, whom he
calls J1. A second Jehovist, J2, who flourished between 800
and 700 B.C., is supposed to have added to the contribution
of the first, certain details borrowed from the Babylonian
tradition, such as the Deluge, the story of Noah, of Nimrod,
etc. Finally, a third Jehovist is said to have thrown the
versions of his two predecessors into one, taking J2 as the
basis of his work.
**** The date and origin of the Elohist have given rise to
no less controversy than those of the Jehovist: the view
most generally adopted is that he was a native of the
northern kingdom, and flourished about 750 B.C.
Putting on one side the primitive accounts of the origin of the human
race which his predecessors had taken pleasure in elaborating, he
confined his attention solely to events since the birth of Abraham;* his
origin is betrayed by the preference he displays for details calculated
to flatter the self-esteem of the northern tribes. To his eyes, Joseph
is the noblest of all the sons of Jacob, before whom all the rest
must bow their heads, as to a king; next to Joseph comes Reuben, to
whom--rather than to Judah**--he gives the place as firstborn. He groups
his characters round Bethel and Shechem, the sanctuaries of Israel;
even Abraham is represented as residing, not at Hebron in Judea, but at
Beersheba, a spot held in deep veneration by pilgrims belonging to the
ten tribes.*** It is in his concept of the Supreme Being, however, that
he differs most widely from his predecessors. God is, according to him,
widely removed from ordinary humanity. He no longer reveals Himself at
all times and in all places, but works rather by night, and appears
to men in their dreams, or, when circumstances require His active
interference, is content to send His angels rather than come in His own
person.****
* Budde seems to have proved conclusively that the Elohist did not write
any part of the primitive history of mankind.
** Gen. xxxvii. 21, 22, 29, 30; xlii. 22, 27; whereas in Gen. xliii. 3,
8-10, where the narrative is from the pen of the Jehovist, it is Judah
that plays the principal part: it is possible that, in Gen. xxxvii. 21,
Reuben has been substituted in the existing text for Judah.
*** Gen. xxi. 31, 33; xxii. 19; the importance of Beersheba as a holy
place resorted to by pilgrims from the northern kingdom is shown in 1
Kings xix. 3, and Amos v. 5; viii. 14.
**** Gen. xx. 3-8; xxviii. 11-15; xxxi 24; Numb. xxii. 8-12, 20.
Indeed, such cases of active interference are of rare occurrence, and
He prefers to accomplish His purpose through human agents, who act
unconsciously, or even in direct contravention of their own clearly,
expressed intentions.* Moreover it was only by degrees that He revealed
His true nature and title; the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and
Joseph, had called Him Elohim, or the gods, and it was not until
the coming of Moses that He disclosed His real name of Jahveh to His
worshippers.**
* Gen. 1. 20, end of the story of Joseph: And as for you,
ye meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to
bring it to pass as it is this day, to save much people
alive.
** Exod. iii. 13, 14; verse 15 is an interpolation of much
later date.
[Illustration: 200.jpg Prayer at Sunset]
After Painting by Gerome
[Illustration: 200-text.jpg]
In a word, this new historian shows us in every line that the
theological instinct has superseded popular enthusiasm, and his work
loses unmistakably in literary interest by the change. We feel that
he is wanting in feeling and inspiration; his characters no longer
palpitate with life; his narrative drags, its interest decreases, and
his language is often deficient in force and colour. But while writers,
trained in the schools of the prophets, thus sought to bring home to
the people the benefits which their God had showered on them, the people
themselves showed signs of disaffection towards Him, or were, at
any rate, inclined to associate with Him other gods borrowed from
neighbouring states, and to overlay the worship they rendered Him
with ceremonies and ideas inconsistent with its original purity. The
permanent division of the nation into two independent kingdoms had had
its effect on their religion as well as on their political life, and
had separated the worshippers into two hostile camps. The inhabitants of
Judah still continued to build altars on their high places, as they had
done in the time before David; there, the devout prostrated themselves
before the sacred stones and before the Asherah, or went in unto
the _kedeshôth_ in honour of Astarte, and in Jahvehs own temple at
Jerusalem they had set up the image of a brazen serpent to which they
paid homage.* The feeling, however, that the patron deity of the chosen
people could have but one recognised habitation--the temple built for
Him by Solomon--and that the priests of this temple were alone qualified
to officiate there in an effective manner, came to prevail more and more
strongly in Judaea. The king, indeed, continued to offer sacrifices and
prayer there,** but the common people could no longer intercede with
their God except through the agency of the priests.
* Cf. what we are told of idolatrous practices in Judah
under Rehoboam and Abraham (1 Kings xiv. 22-24; xv. 3), and
of the tolerance of high places by Asa and Jehoshaphat (1
Kings xv. 14; xxii. 44); even at the period now under
consideration neither Amaziah (2 Kings xiv. 4) nor Azariah
(2 Kings xv. 4) showed any disposition to prohibit them. The
brazen serpent was still in existence in the time of
Hezekiah, at the close of the VIIIth century B.C. (2 Kings
xviii. 4).
** 2 Kings xvi. 10-16, where Ahaz is described as offering
sacrifice and giving instructions to the high priest Urijah
as to the reconstruction and service of the altar; cf. 2
Chron. xxvi. 16-21, where similar conduct on the part of
Uzziah is recorded, and where the leprosy by which he was
attacked is, in accordance with the belief of later times,
represented as a punishment of the sacrilege committed by
him in attempting to perform the sacrifice in person.
The latter, in their turn, tended to develop into a close corporation of
families consecrated for generations past to the priestly office; they
came in time to form a tribe by themselves, which took rank among the
other tribes of Israel, and claimed Levi, one of the twelve sons of
Jacob, as its ancestor. Their head, chosen from among the descendants of
Zadok, who had been the first high priest in the reign of Solomon, was
by virtue of his office one of the chief ministers of the crown, and we
know what an important part was played by Jehoiadah in the revolution
which led to the deposition of Athaliah; the high priest was, however,
no less subordinate to the supreme power than his fellow-ministers,
and the sanctity of his office did not avail to protect him from
ill-treatment or death if he incurred the displeasure of his sovereign.*
He had control over a treasury continually enriched by the offerings
of the faithful, and did not always turn his trust to the best uses;
in times of extreme distress the king used to borrow from him as a
last resource, in order to bring about the withdrawal of an invader, or
purchase the help of a powerful ally.** The capital of Israel was of
too recent foundation to allow of its chapel royal becoming the official
centre of national worship; the temple and priesthood of Samaria never
succeeded in effacing the prestige enjoyed by the ancient oracles,
though in the reign of both the first and second Jeroboam, Dan, Bethel,
Gilgal, and Mizpah had each its band of chosen worshippers.***
* In order to form an idea of the relative positions
occupied by the king and the high priest, we must read what
is told of Jehoiadah and Joash (2 Kings xii. 6-16), or
Urijah and Ahaz (2 Kings xvi. 10-16); the story runs that
Zechariah was put to death by Joash (2 Chron. xxiv. 22).
** Asa did so in order to secure Ben-hadads help against
Baasha (1 Kings xv. 18, 19; cf. 2 Chron. xvi. 2, 3): as to
the revenues by which the treasury of the temple was
supported and the special dues appropriated to it, cf. 2
Kings xii. 4, 5, 7-16, and xxii. 4-7, 9.
*** In the time of Jeroboam II., Bethel, Gilgal, and Dan are
mentioned by Amos (iv. 4; v. 5, 6; viii. 14), by Hosea (iv.
15; ix. 15; xii. 12). Mizpah is mentioned by Hosea (v. 1),
and so is Tabor. The altar of Jahveh on Mount Carmel was
restored by Elijah (1 Kings xviii. 30).
At these centres adoration was rendered to the animal presentment of
Jahveh,* and even prophets like Elijah and Elisha did not condemn this
as heretical; they had enough to do in hunting down the followers of
Baal without entering into open conflict with the worshippers of the
golden calf. The priesthood of the northern kingdom was not confined to
members of the family of Levi, but was recruited from all the tribes;
it levied a tithe on the harvest, reserved to itself the pick of
the offerings and victims, and jealously forbade a plurality of
sanctuaries,** The _Book of the Covenant_*** has handed down to us the
regulations in force at one of these temples, perhaps that of Bethel,
one of the wealthiest of them all.
* The golden calves at Dan and Bethel are referred to by
Amos (viii. 14) and Hosea (x. 5), where Bethel is called
Beth-aven; as to the golden calf at Samaria, cf. Amos viii.
14 and Hos. viii. 5, 6.
** Amos iv. 4, 5; v. 21-23.
*** This is the title given in Exod. xxiv. 7 to a writing
in which Moses is said to have entered the covenant made
between Jahveh and Israel; it is preserved, with certain
interpolations and alterations, in Exod. xx. 23?--xxiii. 33.
It was inserted in its entirety in the Elohist narrative,
there taking the place at present occupied by Deuteronomy in
the Pentateuch, viz. that of the covenant made between
Jahveh and Israel prior to the crossing of the Jordan
(Kuenen, _H. C. Onderzoek_, i. § 13, No. 32). Reuss tries to
make out that it was the code promulgated on the occasion of
Jehoshaphats legal reforms, which is only referred to in 2
Chron. xvii. 7-9; cf. xix. 5. A more probable theory is that
it was the custom of one of the great sanctuaries of the
northern kingdom reduced to writing at the end of the Xth or
during the IXth century B.C.
[Illustration: 202.jpg EGYPTIAN ALTAR AT DEIK-EL-BAHARI]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a restoration by Naville.
The directions in regard to ritual are extremely simple, and the moral
code is based throughout on the inexorable _lex talionis_, Life for
life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. * This brief
code must have been almost universally applicable to every conjuncture
of civil and religious life in Judah no less than in Israel. On one
point only do we find a disagreement, and that is in connection with
the one and only Holy of Holies to the possession of which the southern
kingdom had begun to lay claim: in a passage full of significance
Jahveh declares, An altar of earth thou shalt make unto Me, and shalt
sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings and thy peace offerings, thy sheep
and thine oxen: in every place where I record My name I will come unto
thee and I will bless thee. And if thou make Me an altar of stone, thou
shalt not build it of hewn stones: for if thou lift up thy tool upon
it, thou hast polluted it. Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto Mine
altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon. **
* Exod. xxi. 23-25.
** Exod. xx. 24-26.
The patriarchs and early ancestors of the race had performed their
sacrifices in the open air, on rude and low altars, differing widely
from lofty and elaborately ornamented erections like those at Jerusalem,
which seem to have borne a resemblance to the altars of the Egyptians:
the author of the _Book of the Covenant_ advises the faithful to follow
the example of those great men rather than that of the Lévites of
Judah. Nevertheless this multiplicity of high places was not without its
dangers; it led the common people to confuse Jahveh with the idols
of Canaan, and encouraged the spread of foreign superstitions. The
misfortunes which had come thick and fast upon the Israelites ever
since the division of the kingdom had made them only too ready to seek
elsewhere that support and consolation which they could no longer find
at home. The gods of Damascus and Assur who had caused the downfall of
Gath, of Calneh, and of Hamath,* those of Tyre and Sidon who lavished
upon the Phoenicians the wealth of the seas, or even the deities of
Ammon, Moab, or Edom, might well appear more desirable than a Being Who,
in spite of His former promises, seemed powerless to protect His own
people. A number of the Israelites transferred their allegiance to
these powerful deities, prostrated themselves before the celestial host,
flocked round the resting-places of Kevan, the star of El, and carried
the tabernacles of the King of heaven;** nor was Judah slow to follow
their example. The prophets, however, did not view their persistent
ill-fortune in the same light as the common people; far from accepting
it as a proof of the power of other divinities, they recognised in it a
mark of Jahvehs superiority.
* Amos vi. 2; with regard to the destruction of Gath by
Hazael.
** Amos v. 26, 27
In their eyes Jahveh was the one God, compared with Whom the pagan
deities were no gods at all, and could not even be said to exist. He
might, had He so willed it, have bestowed His protection on any one of
the numerous races whom He had planted on the earth: but as a special
favour, which He was under no obligation to confer, He had chosen Israel
to be His own people, and had promised them that they should occupy
Canaan so long as they kept free from sin. But Israel had sinned, Israel
had followed after idols; its misfortunes were, therefore, but the
just penalty of its unfaithfulness. Thus conceived, Jahveh ceased to be
merely the god of a nation--He became the God of the whole world; and
it is in the guise of a universal Deity that some, at any rate, of the
prophets begin to represent Him from the time of Jeroboam II. onwards.
This change of view in regard to the Being of Jahveh coincided with a no
less marked alteration in the character of His prophets. At first they
had taken an active part in public affairs; they had thrown themselves
into the political movements of the time, and had often directed their
course,* by persuasion when persuasion sufficed, by violence when
violence was the only means that was left to them of enforcing the
decrees of the Most High. Not long before this, we find Elisha secretly
conspiring against the successors of Ahab, and taking a decisive part
in the revolution which set the house of Jehu on the throne in place of
that of Omri; but during the half-century which had elapsed since his
death, the revival in the fortunes of Israel and its growing prosperity
under the rule of an energetic king had furnished the prophets with but
few pretexts for interfering in the conduct of state affairs.
* Cf. the part taken by Nathan in the conspiracy which
raised Solomon to the throne (1 Kings i. 8, et seq.), and
previous to this in the story of Davids amour with
Bathsheba (2 Sam. xii. 1-25). Similarly, we find prophets
such as Ahijah in the reign of Jeroboam I. (1 Kings xi. 29-
39; cf. xiv. 1-18; xv. 29, 30), and Shemaîah in the reign of
Rehoboam (1 Kings xii. 22-24), Jehu son of Hananiah under
Baasha (1 Kings xvi. 1-4, 7, 12, 13), Micaiah son of Imla,
and Zedekiah under Ahab (1 Kings xxii. 5-28), not to speak
of those mentioned in the Chronicles, e.g. Azariah son of
Oded (2 Ghron. xv. 1-8), and Hanani under Asa (2 Ghron. xvi.
7-10), Jahaziel (2 Ghron. xx. 14-19), and Eliezer, son of
Dodavahu (2 Ghron. xx. 37), in the time of Johoshaphat. No
trace of any writings composed by these prophets is found
until a very late date; but in Chronicles, in addition to a
letter from Elijah to Jehoram of Juda (2 Ghron. xxi. 12-15),
we find a reference to the commentary of the prophet Iddo in
the time of Abijah (2 Ghron. xiii. 22), and to the History
of Jehu the son of Hanani, which is inserted in the book of
the kings of Israel (2 Chron. xx. 34), in the time of
Jehoshaphat.
They no longer occupied themselves in resisting the king, but addressed
themselves to the people, pointed out the heinousness of their sins,
and threatened them with the wrath of Jahveh if they persisted in their
unfaithfulness: they came to be spiritual advisers rather than
political partisans, and orators rather than men of action like their
predecessors. Their discourses were carefully prepared beforehand, and
were written down either by themselves or by some of their disciples
for the benefit of posterity, in the hope that future generations
would understand the dangers or witness the catastrophes which their
contemporaries might not live to see. About 760 B.C., Amos of Tekôa,* a
native of Judaea, suddenly made his appearance at Bethel, in the midst
of the festivals which pilgrims had flocked to celebrate in the ancient
temple erected to Jahveh in one of His animal forms.
* The title of the Book of Amos fixes the date as being in
the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days of
Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel (i. 1), and the
state of affairs described by him corresponds pretty closely
with what we know of this period. Most critics fix the date
somewhere between 760 and 750 B.C., but nearer 760 than 750.
His opening words filled the listening crowd with wonder: The high
places of Isaac shall be desolate, he proclaimed, and the sanctuaries
of Israel shall be laid waste; and I will rise against the house of
Jeroboam with the sword. *
* Amos vii. 9.
Yet Jeroboam had by this time gained all his victories, and never before
had the King of Samaria appeared to be more firmly seated on the throne:
what, then, did this intruder mean by introducing himself as a messenger
of wrath in the name of Jahveh, at the very moment when Jahveh was
furnishing His worshippers with abundant signs of His favour? Amaziah,
the priest of Bethel, interrupted him as he went on to declare that
Jeroboam should die by the sword, and Israel should surely be led
away captive out of his land. The king, informed of what was going
on, ordered Amos into exile, and Amaziah undertook to communicate this
sentence to him: O thou seer, go, flee thee away into the land of
Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there: but prophesy not again
any more at Bethel: for it is the kings sanctuary, and it is a royal
house. And Amos replied, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophets
son; but I was a herdman, and a dresser of sycomore trees: and the
Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said unto me, Go,
prophesy unto My people Israel. Now therefore hear thou the word of the
Lord: Thou sayest, Prophesy not against Israel, and drop not thy word
against the house of Isaac: therefore thus saith the Lord: Thy wife
shall be an harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall
fall by the sword, and thy land shall be divided by line; and thou
thyself shalt die in a land that is unclean, and Israel shall surely be
led away captive out of his land. *
* Amos vii. 9-17.
This prophecy, first expanded, and then written down with a purity of
diction and loftiness of thought which prove Amos to have been a master
of literary art,* was widely circulated, and gradually gained authority
as portents indicative of the divine wrath began to accumulate, such as
an earthquake which occurred two years after the incident at Bethel,* an
eclipse of the sun, drought, famine, and pestilence.*** It foretold,
in the first place, the downfall of all the surrounding
countries--Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, Moab, and Judah; then,
denouncing Israel itself, condemned it to the same penalties for the
same iniquities. In vain did the latter plead its privileges as the
chosen people of Jahveh, and seek to atone for its guilt by endless
sacrifices. I hate, I despise your feasts, declared Jahveh, and I
will take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Yea, though ye offer Me
your burnt offerings and meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither
will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away
from Me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy
viols. But let judgment roll down as waters, and righteousness as a
mighty stream. ****
* S. Jerome describes Amos as rusticus and imperitus
sermone, but modern writers are generally agreed that in
putting forward this view he was influenced by the statement
as to the peasant origin of the prophet.
** Amos i. 1; reference is made to it by the unknown prophet
whose words are preserved in Zech. xiv. 5.
*** The famine is mentioned in Amos iv. 6, the drought in
Amos iv. 7, 8, the pestilence in Amos iv. 10.
**** Amos v. 21-24.
The unfaithfulness of Israel, the corruption of its cities, the pride of
its nobles, had sealed its doom; even at that moment the avenger was at
hand on its north-eastern border, the Assyrian appointed to carry out
sentence upon it.* Then follow visions, each one of which tends
to deepen the effect of the seers words--a cloud of locusts,** a
devouring fire,*** a plumb-line in the hands of the Lord,**** a basket
laden with summer fruits--till at last the whole people of Israel take
refuge in their temple, vainly hoping that there they may escape from
the vengeance of the Eternal. There shall not one of them flee away,
and there shall not one of them escape. Though they dig into hell,
thence shall Mine hand take them; and though they climb up to heaven,
thence will I bring them down. And though they hide themselves in the
top of Oarmel, I will search and take them out thence; and though they
be hid from My sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command
the serpent, and he shall bite them. And though they go into captivity
before their enemies, thence will I command the sword, and it shall slay
them; and I will set Mine eyes upon them for evil and not for good.
* Most commentators admit that the nation raised up by
Jahveh to oppress Israel from the entering in of Hamath
unto the brook of the Arabah (Amos vi. 14) was no other
than Assyria. At the very period in which Amos flourished,
Assurdân made two campaigns against Hadrach, in 765 and 755,
which brought his armies right up to the Israelite frontier
(Schrader, Keilinschrift. Bibliothec, vol. i. pp. 210-
213).
** Amos vii. 1-3.
*** Amos vii. 4-6.
**** Amos vii. 7-9. It is here that the speech delivered by
the prophet at Bethel is supposed to occur (vii. 9); the
narrative of what afterwards happened follows immediately
(Amos vii. 10-17).
^ Amos viii. 1-3.; Amos ix. 1-4.
For the first time in history a prophet foretold disaster and banishment
for a whole people: love of country was already giving place in the
heart of Amos to his conviction of the universal jurisdiction of God,
and this conviction led him to regard as possible and probable a
state of things in which Israel should have no part. Nevertheless,
its decadence was to be merely temporary; Jahveh, though prepared to
chastise the posterity of Jacob severely, could not bring Himself to
destroy it utterly. The kingdom of David was soon to flourish anew:
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the plowman shall overtake
the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the
mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt. And I
will bring again the captivity of My people Israel, and they shall build
the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and
drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit
of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more
be plucked up out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord
thy God. *
The voice of Amos was not the only one raised in warning. From the midst
of Ephraim, another seer, this time a priest, Hosea, son of Beeri,**
was never weary of reproaching the tribes with their ingratitude, and
persisted in his foretelling of the desolation to come.
* Amos ix. 13-15.
** Hoshea (or Hosea) was regarded by the rabbis as the
oldest of the lesser prophets, and his writings were placed
at the head of their collected works. The title of his book
(Hos. i. 1), where he begins by stating that he preached
in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash (Jehoash), King of
Israel, is a later interpolation; the additional mention of
Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, is due
to an attempted analogy with the title of Isaiah. Hosea was
familiar with the prophecies of Amos, and his own
predictions show that the events merely foreseen by his
predecessor were now in course of fulfilment in his day. The
first three chapters probably date from the end of the reign
of Jeroboam, about 750 B.C.; the others were compiled under
his successors, and before 734-733 B.C., since Gilead is
there mentioned as still forming part of Israel (Hos. vi. 8;
xii. 12), though it was in that year laid waste and
conquered by Tiglath-pileser III. Duhm has suggested that
Hosea must have been a priest from the tone of his writings,
and this hypothesis is generally accepted by theologians.
The halo of grandeur and renown with which Jeroboam had surrounded
the kingdom could not hide its wretched and paltry character from the
prophets eyes; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of
Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause the kingdom of the house
of Israel to cease. And it shall come to pass at that day that I
will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. * Like
his predecessor, he, too, inveighed against the perversity and
unfaithfulness of his people. The abandoned wickedness of Gomer, his
wife, had brought him to despair. In the bitterness of his heart, he
demands of Jahveh why He should have seen fit to visit such humiliation
on His servant, and persuades himself that the faithlessness of which
he is a victim is but a feeble type of that which Jahveh had suffered at
the hands of His people. Israel had gone a-whoring after strange gods,
and the day of retribution for its crimes was not far distant: The
children of Israel shall abide many days without king and without
prince, and without sacrifice and without pillar, and without ephod or
teraphim; afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the
Lord their God, and David their king; and shall come with fear unto the
Lord and to His goodness in the latter days. **
* Hos. i. 4, 5.
**Hos. i.-iii. Is the story of Hosea and his wife an
allegory, or does it rest on a basis of actual fact? Most
critics now seem to incline to the view that the prophet has
here set down an authentic episode from his own career, and
uses it to point the moral of his work.
Whether the decadence of the Hebrews was or was not due to the purely
moral and religious causes indicated by the prophets, it was only too
real, and even the least observant among their contemporaries must
have suspected that the two kingdoms were quite unfitted, as to their
numbers, their military organisation, and monetary reserves, to resist
successfully any determined attack that might be made upon them by
surrounding nations. An armed force entering Syria by way of the
Euphrates could hardly fail to overcome any opposition that might be
offered to it, if not at the first onset, at any rate after a very
brief struggle; none of the minor states to be met upon its way, such
as Damascus or Israel, much less those of Hamath or Hadrach, were any
longer capable of barring its progress, as Ben-hadad and Hazael had
arrested that of the Assyrians in the time of Shalmaneser III. The
efforts then made by the Syrian kings to secure their independence had
exhausted their resources and worn out the spirit of their peoples;
civil war had prevented them from making good their losses during the
breathing-space afforded by the decadence of Assyria, and now that
Nature herself had afflicted them with the crowning misfortunes of
famine and pestilence, they were reduced to a mere shadow of what they
had been during the previous century. If, therefore, Sharduris, after
making himself master of the countries of the Taurus and Amanos, had
turned his steps towards the valley of the Orontes, he might have
secured possession of it without much difficulty, and after that there
would have been nothing to prevent his soldiers from pressing on, if
need be, to the walls of Samaria or even of Jerusalem itself. Indeed, he
seems to have at last made up his mind to embark on this venture, when
the revival of Assyrian power put a stop to his ambitious schemes.
Tiglath-pileser, hard pressed on every side by daring and restless foes,
began by attacking those who were at once the most troublesome and most
vulnerable--the Aramæan tribes on the banks of the Tigris. To give these
incorrigible banditti, who boldly planted their outposts not a score of
leagues from his capital, a free hand on his rear, and brave the fortune
of war in Armenia or Syria, without first teaching them a lesson in
respect, would have been simply to court serious disaster; an Aramæan
raid occurring at a time when he was engaged elsewhere with the bulk
of his army, might have made it necessary to break off a successful
campaign and fall back in haste to the relief of Nineveh or Calah
(Kalakh), just as he was on the eve of gaining some decisive advantage.
Moreover, the suzerainty of Assyria over Karduniash entailed on him the
duty of safeguarding Babylon from that other horde of Aramæans which
harassed it on the east, while the Kaldâ were already threatening its
southern frontier. It is not quite clear whether Nabunazîr who then
occupied the throne implored his help:* at any rate, he took the field
as soon as he felt that his own crown was secure, overthrew the Aramæans
at the first encounter, and drove them back from the banks of the Lower
Zab to those of the Uknu: all the countries which they had seized to the
east of the Tigris at once fell again into the hands of the Assyrians.
* Nabunazîr is the Nabonassar who afterwards gave his name
to the era employed by Ptolemy.
This first point gained, Tiglath-pileser crossed the river, and made a
demonstration in force before the Babylonian fortresses. He visited, one
after another, Sippar, Nipur, Babylon, Borsippa, Kuta, Kîshu, Dilbat,
and Uruk, cities without peer, and offered in all of them sacrifices
to the gods,--to Bel, to Zirbanît, to Nebo, to Tashmît, and to Nirgal.
Karduniash bowed down before him, but he abstained from giving any
provocation to the Kaldâ, and satisfied with having convinced Nabunazîr
that Assyria had lost none of her former vigour, he made his way back to
his hereditary kingdom.*
* Most historians believe that Tiglath-pileser entered
Karduniash as an enemy: that he captured several towns, and
allowed the others to ransom themselves on payment of
tribute. The way in which the texts known to us refer to
this expedition seems to me, however, to prove that he set
out as an ally and protector of Nabonazir, and that his
visit to the Babylonian sanctuaries was of a purely pacific
nature.
The lightly-won success of this expedition produced the looked-for
result. Tiglath-pileser had set out a king _de facto_; but now that the
gods of the ancient sanctuaries had declared themselves satisfied with
his homage, and had granted him that religious consecration which had
before been lacking, he returned a king de jure as well (745 B.C.). His
next campaign completed what the first had begun. The subjugation of the
plain would have been of little advantage if the highlands had been left
in the power of tribes as yet unconquered, and allowed to pour down
with impunity bands of rapacious freebooters on the newly liberated
provinces: security between the Zab and the Uknu could only be attained
by the pacification of Namri, and it was, therefore, to Namri that the
sea of war was transferred in 744 B.C. All the Cossæan and Babylonian
races intermingled in the valleys on the frontier were put to ransom one
after another.
[Illustration: 216.jpg MAP OF CAMPAIGNS OF TIGLATH-PILESER III. IN
MEDIA]
These included the Bît-Sangibuti, the Bît-Khambân, the Barrua, the
Bit-Zualzash, the Bît-Matti, the Umliash, the Parsua, the Bît-Zatti,
the Bît-Zabdâdani, the Bît-Ishtar, the city of Zakruti, the Nina, the
Bustus, the Arakuttu, by which the conqueror gradually made his way
into the heart of Media, reaching districts into which none of his
predecessors had ever penetrated. Those least remote he annexed to
his own empire, converting them into a province under the rule of an
Assyrian governor; he then returned to Calah with a convoy of 60,500
prisoners, and countless herds of oxen, sheep, mules, and dromedaries.
Whilst he was thus employed, Assur-dainâni, one of his generals to whom
he had entrusted the pick of his army, pressed on still further to
the north-east, across the almost waterless deserts of Media. The
mountainous district on the shores of the Caspian had for centuries
enjoyed a reputation for wealth and fertility among the races settled
on the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris. It was from thence that they
obtained their lapis-lazuli, and the hills from which it was extracted
were popularly supposed to consist almost entirely of one compact mass
of this precious mineral. Their highest peak, now known as the Demavend,
was then called Bikni,* a name which had come to be applied to the whole
district.
* The country of Bikni is probably Rhagian Media and Mount
Bikni, the modern Demavend.
To the Assyrians it stood as the utmost boundary mark of the known
world, beyond which their imagination pictured little more than a
confused mist of almost fabulous regions and peoples. Assur-dainâni
caught a distant glimpse of the snow-capped pyramid of Demavend, but
approached no nearer than its lower slopes, whence he retraced his steps
after having levied tribute from their inhabitants. The fame of this
exploit spread far and wide in a marvellously short space of time, and
chiefs who till then had vacillated in their decision now crowded the
path of the victor, eager to pay him homage on his return: even the King
of Illipi thought it wise to avoid the risk of invasion, and hastened of
his own accord to meet the conqueror. Here, again, Tiglath-pileser
had merely to show himself in order to re-establish the supremacy of
Assyria: the races of the plain, for many years familiar with defeat,
made no pretence of serious resistance, but bowed their necks beneath a
fresh yoke almost without protest.
[Illustration: 218.jpg PRINCIPAL PAK OF MOUNT BIKNI (DEMAVEND)]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by M. de Morgan.
Having thus secured his rear from attack for some years at any rate,
Tiglath-pileser no longer hesitated to try conclusions with Urartu. The
struggle in which he now deliberately engaged could not fail to be a
decisive one; for Urartu, buoyed up and borne on the wave of some fifty
years of prosperity, had almost succeeded in reaching first rank
among the Asiatic powers: one more victory over Nineveh, and it would
become--for how long none might say--undisputed mistress of the whole of
Asia. Assyria, on the other hand, had reached a. point where its whole
future hung upon a single issue of defeat or victory. The prestige with
which the brilliant campaigns of Assur-nazir-pal and Shalmaneser III.
had invested its name, if somewhat diminished, had still survived its
recent reverses, and the terror inspired by its arms was so great even
among races who had witnessed them from a distance, that the image of
Assyria rose involuntarily before the eyes of the Hebrew prophets as
that of the avenger destined to punish Israel for its excesses.*
* Cf. Amos vi. 4.
No doubt, during the last few reigns its prosperity had waned and its
authority over distant provinces had gradually become relaxed; but now
the old dynasty, worn out by its own activity, had given place to a
new one, and with this change of rulers the tide of ill-fortune was,
perhaps, at last about to turn. At such a juncture, a successful
campaign meant full compensation for all past disasters and the
attainment of a firmer position than had ever yet been held; whereas
another reverse, following on those from which the empire had already
suffered, would render their effect tenfold more deadly, and, by letting
loose the hatred of those whom fear alone still held in check, complete
its overthrow. It was essential, therefore, before entering on the
struggle, to weigh well every chance of victory, and to take every
precaution by which adverse contingencies might be, as far as possible,
eliminated. The army, encouraged by its success in the two preceding
campaigns, was in excellent fighting order, and ready to march in any
direction without a moments hesitation, confident in its ability to
defeat the forces of Urartu as it had defeated those of the Medes and
Aramæans; but the precise point of attack needed careful consideration.
Tiglath-pileser must have been sorely tempted to take the shortest
route, challenge the enemy at his most vulnerable point on the shores of
Lake Van, and by a well-aimed thrust deal him a blow from which he
would never, or only by slow degrees, recover. But this vital region
of Urartu, as we have already pointed out, presented the greatest
difficulties of access. The rampart of mountain and forest by which it
was protected on the Assyrian side could only be traversed by means of
a few byways, along which bands of guerrillas could slip down easily
enough to the banks of the Tigris, but which were quite impassable to
any army in full marching order, hampered by its horses, chariots,
and baggage-train: compelled to thread its way, with columns unduly
extended, through the woods and passes of an unknown country, which
daily use had long made familiar to its adversaries, it would have run
the risk of being cut to pieces man by man a dozen times before it could
hope to range its disciplined masses on the field of battle. Former
Assyrian invasions had, as a general rule, taken an oblique course
towards some of the spurs of this formidable chain, and had endeavoured
to neutralise its defences by outflanking them, either by proceeding
westwards along the basins of the Supnat and the Arzania, or eastwards
through the countries bordering on Lake Urumiah; but even this method
presented too many difficulties and too little certainty of success to
warrant Tiglath-pileser in staking the reviving fortunes of his empire
on its adoption. He rightly argued that Sharduris would be most easily
vulnerable in those provinces whose allegiance to him was of recent
date, and he resolved to seek out his foe in the heart of Northern
Syria.
[Illustration: 221.jpg VIEW OF THE MOUNTAINS WHICH GUARD THE SOUTHERN
BORDER OF UARTU]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by M. Binder. Taken at
Julamerk, near the junction of the mountain tracks leading
from the Zab valley to the south-eastern corner of the basin
of Lake Van.
There, if anywhere, every chance was in his favour and against the
Armenian. The scene of operations, while it had long been familiar to
his own generals and soldiers, was, on the other hand, entirely new
ground to those of the enemy; the latter, though unsurpassed in mountain
warfare, lost much of their superiority on the plains, and could not,
with all their courage, make up for their lack of experience. Moreover,
it must not be forgotten that a victory on the banks of the Afrîn or the
Orontes would have more important results than a success gained in the
neighbourhood of the lakes or of Urartu. Not only would it free the
Assyrians from the only one of their enemies whom they had any cause
to fear, but it would also bring back the Hittite kings to their
allegiance, and restore the Assyrian supremacy over the wealthiest
regions of Western Asia: they would thus disable Urartu and reconquer
Syria at one and the same time. Tiglath-pileser, therefore, crossed the
Euphrates in the spring of 743 B.C., neither Matîlu of Agusi, Kushtashpi
of Kummukh, nor their allies daring to interfere with his progress. He
thus advanced as far as Arpad, and, in the first moment of surprise, the
town threw open its gates before him.*
* Different writers have given different versions of this
campaign. Some think that Arpad resisted, and that Tiglath-
pileser was laying siege to it, when the arrival of
Sharduris compelled him to retire; others prefer to believe
that Arpad was still in the hands of the Assyrians, and that
Tiglath-pileser used it as his base of operations. The
formula ina Arpadda in the Eponym Canon proves that Tiglath-
pileser was certainly in Arpad: since Arpad belonged to the
Bit-Agusi, and they were the allies or vassals of Sharduris,
we must assume, as I have done here, that in the absence of
the Urartians they did not dare to resist the Assyrians, and
opened their gates to them.
There, while he was making ready to claim the homage of the surrounding
countries, he learnt that Sharduris was hastening up to the rescue. He
at once struck his camp and marched out to meet his rival, coming up
with him in the centre of Kummukh, not far from the Euphrates, between
Kishtân and Khalpi. Sharduris was at the head of his Syrian contingents,
including the forces of Agusi, Melitene, Kummukh, and Gurgum--a
formidable army, probably superior in point of numbers to that of the
Assyrians. The struggle lasted a whole day, and in the course of it the
two kings, catching sight of one another on the field of battle, engaged
in personal combat: at last, towards evening, the chariots and cavalry
of Urartu gave way and the rout began. The victors made their way into
the camp at the heels of their flying enemies. Sharduris abandoned his
chariot, and could find nothing but a mare to aid him in his flight;
he threw himself upon her back, careless of the ridicule at that time
attached to the use of such a mount in Eastern countries,* fled at a
gallop all through the night, hard pressed by a large body of cavalry,
crossed the hills of Sibak, and with much difficulty reached the bridge
over the Euphrates.
* So, too, later on, in the time of Sargon, Rusas, when
defeated, gets on the back of a mare and rides off.