_THE AGONY OF THE NORTHERN KINGDOM._
B.C.
Shallum 740
Menahem 740-737
Pekahiah 737-735
Pekah 735-734
2 KINGS xv. 8-31
"Blood toucheth blood."--HOS. iv. 2.
"The revolters are profuse in murders."--HOS. v. 2.
"They have set up kings, but not by Me: they have made princes,
and I knew it not."--HOS. viii. 4.
"Non tam reges fuere quam fures, latrones, et tyranni."--WITSIUS,
_Decaph._, 326.
With the death of Zachariah begins the acute agony of Israel's
dissolution. Four kings were murdered in forty years. Indeed, within
two centuries, at least nine kings--Nadab, Elah, Zimri, Tibni,
Jehoram, Zachariah, Shallum, Pekahiah, Pekah--had made the steps of
the throne slippery with blood. Except in the house of Omri, all the
kings of Israel either left no sons or left them to be slain. Amos, by
his vision of the basket of summer fruit, had intimated that the sins
of Israel were ripe for punishment, and the lesson had been emphasised
by the paronomasia of _quîts_, "summer," and _queets_, "end."[354] The
prophet had singled four out of many crimes as the cause of her ruin.
They were (1) greedy oppression of the poor; (2) land-grabbing; (3)
licentious and idolatrous revelries; (4) cruelty to poor debtors, and
rioting on the proceeds of unjust gains. In their drunkenness they
even tempted God's Nazarites to break their vows. "Behold," saith
Jehovah, "I am pressed under you, as a cart is pressed that is full of
sheaves." Even women shared in the common intoxication, and showed
themselves utterly shameless, so that Amos contemptuously calls them
"fat cows of Bashan upon the mountain of Samaria," whom in punishment
the brutal conqueror should drag by the hair out of their ivory
palaces, as a fisherman drags his prey out of the water by hooks.[355]
Shallum, son of Jabesh, the unknown murderer of Zachariah and the
usurper of his throne, suffered the fate of Zimri, and only reigned for
one month. If his conspiracy was marked by the odious circumstances of
treachery and corruption, which we infer from the allusions of Hosea,
Shallum richly deserved the swift retribution which fell upon him. He
seems to have destroyed Zachariah by means of his best affections--under
the guise of friendship, in the midst of boon companionship. But the
slayer of his master had no peace, and from the moment of his fruitless
crime the unhappy country seems to have been plunged in the horrors of
civil war. Some dim glimpses of the evils of the day are gained from the
earlier Zechariah,[356] just as some dim glimpses of the horrors of Rome
in the days of the later Cæsars may be seen in the Apocalypse. The
prophet speaks of three shepherds cut off in one month, who abhorred
God, and His soul was impatient at them.[357]
Just as Galba, Otho, and Vitellius flit across the stage of the Empire
amid war and assassinations, so Zachariah and Shallum are swept away by
"dagger-thrusts through the purple." Was there a third? Ewald and others
think that they detect a shadowy outline of him and of his name in 2
Kings xv. 10. If so, his name was Kobolam, but we know no more of him
beyond the fact that "he was, and is not." For the sacred annals are but
little concerned with this bloody phantasmagoria of feeble kings, who
ruled amid usurpation, anarchy, hostile attacks from without, and civil
war within. "Israel," said Hosea, "hath cast off the thing that is good:
the enemy shall pursue him. They have set up kings, but not by Me: they
have made princes, and I knew it not." "They are all as hot as an oven,
and have devoured their judges; all their kings have fallen; there is
none among them that calleth upon Me."[358]
It was perhaps during this distracted epoch that for one moment there
was an attempt to place the ruling authority of the nation in the
hands of the prophet himself. So it would appear from Zech. xi. 7-14.
Of course these chapters may be allegorical throughout, as, in any
case, they are in great part. But if so, it becomes more difficult to
understand the meaning. What the prophet says is as follows:--
First, as though he saw the terrible conflagration of the Assyrian
tyranny rolling southwards, and felt it to be irresistible, he bids
Lebanon open her doors, that the fire may devour her cedars. There is
perhaps an allusion to the death of Jeroboam II. in the words, "Howl
fir tree, for the cedar is fallen." He sees in vision the forces of
devastation raging among the oaks of Bashan, the forest and the
vintage, while the shepherds cry, and the ousted lions roar in vain.
Then Jehovah bids him feed "the flock of the slaughter"--the flock
sold remorselessly by its rich possessors, and slain, and left
unpitied, as the people were despoiled by its nobles and its kings.
The prophet undertakes the charge of the miserable flock, and takes
two staves, one of which he calls "Prosperity," and the other "Union."
While he was thus engaged three shepherds were cut off in one
month,[359] whom he loathed, and who abhorred him. But he finds his
task hopeless, and flings it up; and in sign that his covenant with
the people is broken, he breaks his staff "Prosperity." The nation
refused to pay him anything for his services, except a paltry sum of
thirty pieces of silver, and these he disdainfully flung into the
sacred treasury.[360] Then seeing that all hope of union between
Israel and Judah was at an end, he broke his staff "Union." Lastly,
Jehovah says He will raise up a foolish, neglectful, cruel shepherd
who would care for nothing but to eat the flesh of the fat and break
the hoofs of the flock. And as for this worthless shepherd, the sword
should be upon his arm and in his right eye; his arm shall be dried
up, and his right eye utterly darkened.
By this cruel and self-seeking shepherd is probably meant Menahem. He
had been, according to Josephus, the captain of the guard, and was
living at Tirzah, the old beautiful capital of the land. From Tirzah,
where he occupied the position of the captain of the chariots, he
marched on the ill-supported Shallum. Samaria apparently offered no
protection to the usurper. Menahem defeated him and put him to death.
Then he proceeded to enforce the allegiance of the rest of the
country. An otherwise unknown town of the name of Tiphsach[361]
ventured to resist him. Menahem conquered it, and perhaps thinking, as
Machiavelli thought, that princes had better exhibit their utmost
cruelty at first, to deter any further opposition, he let loose his
ferocity on the town in a way which created a shuddering remembrance.
As though he had been one of the ferocious heathen, who had never been
restrained by the knowledge of God, he exhibited the extreme of
callous brutality by ripping up all the women that were with
child.[362] In this he followed the remorseless example of Hazael.
Hosea had prophesied that this should be the fate of Samaria;[363]
Amos had denounced the Ammonites for acting thus in the cities of
Gilead;[364] Shalmaneser III. had, in B.C. 732, thus avenged himself
on the resistance of Beth-Arbel,[365] and Assyria was ultimately to
meet an analogous retribution,[366] as also was Babylon.[367] But that
a king of Ephraim, of God's chosen people, should act thus to his own
brethren was a horrible portent, ominous of swift destruction.
And the vengeance came. Menahem reigned, at least in name, for ten
years; for the sword which had slain mothers with their unborn infants
reduced the stricken people to terrified silence. But at this epoch
Assyria woke once more from her lethargy, and became the scourge of God
to the guilty people and their guiltier kings. For a whole century the
Assyrians had either been governed by kings who had abjured the lust of
blood and conquest, or had been too seriously occupied on their own
eastern and northern frontiers to intermeddle with the southern
kingdoms, or break down the barriers erected by the confederacy of
Hamath and Damascus between Nineveh and the weaker principalities of
Palestine. But now (B.C. 745) there came to the throne a king who, in
Chaldæa, was known by the name of Pul, and in Assyria by the name of
Tiglath-Pileser;[368] and being too formidable for any power to stay his
path, he marched against Menahem. Already he was lord of the world from
the Caspian to the Gulf of Persia; already he had subdued Babylonia,
Elam, Media, Armenia, eastward--Mesopotamia and Syria westward. Who was
Menahem, the petty usurper of a tenth-rate kingdom, that he should
withstand his power or even retard his advance?
The cruel usurper was in no condition to resist him. The brand of Cain
was on him and his kingdom. How could the weak, impoverished, harassed
troops of Israel stand up in battle against those numberless serried
ranks, or withstand their tremendous discipline? If the very name of
Persia once struck terror into the brave Greeks before the spell of
Persian ascendency was broken at Marathon, Thermopylæ, and Salamis,
much more did the name of Assyria make the hearts of the wretched
Israelites melt like water. They now for the first time saw those
bearded warriors with their broad swords, their tremendous bows, their
fierce, sensual faces, their thickset figures. In the language of the
prophets we still hear the echo of the fears which they excited by
their swift, unfaltering marches, their sleepless vigilance, their
girded loins, stout sandals, and barbed arrows.[369]
"Their horses' hoofs," says Isaiah, "shall be like flint, and their
wheels like a whirlwind: their roaring shall be like a lion, they
shall roar like young lions; yea, they shall roar, and lay hold of the
prey, and carry it away safe, and there shall be none to deliver. And
they shall roar against them in that day like the roaring of the sea;
and if one look unto the land, behold darkness and distress, and the
light is darkened in the clouds thereof."
Ancient Assyria lay beneath the Snowy Mountains of Kurdistan; and its
capital, Nineveh--near Mosul, Kouyunjik, and Neby-Junus--lay six
hundred miles from the Gulf of Persia. The people spoke, as their
descendants still speak, a dialect of Syriac, akin both grammatically
and structurally to Hebrew. Assyria was constantly at war with
Babylonia; but for the most part the kings of Assyria held Babylon in
subjection, and Tiglath-Pileser was a king of the Chaldæans under the
name Pul, as well as a king of Nineveh.
Menahem was warrior enough to know how hopeless it was to struggle
against these trained forces. He was not even secure on his own
throne. He thought it best to offer himself without resistance as a
feudatory, if the Assyrian King would confirm his sovereignty.
Tiglath-Pileser did not think Menahem worth more trouble, and was
graciously pleased to accept by way of bribe a tribute of a thousand
talents of silver, or about £125,000. This, however, as we learn from
the _Eponym Canon_, was not all. Menahem had to pay a further tribute
year by year. Later on, in 738, Shalmaneser mentions Minik-himmi
(Menahem), as well as Rasunnu (Rezin), among his tributaries.
The Assyrian withdrew, and Menahem had to exact this vast sum of money
from his miserable subjects. To tax the poor was hopeless. He found that
there were some sixty thousand persons who might be reckoned among the
wealthier farmers and proprietors,[370] and from them he at once exacted
fifty shekels of silver (more than £3) apiece. Probably they thought
that to pay the sum demanded was not too heavy a price for the
retirement of these frightful Assyrians, whose forces Tiglath-Pileser
did not withdraw until he had the money in hand. The event took place in
738, and Tiglath-Pileser continued to reign till 727. How bitterly the
burden of foreign tribute was felt appears from Hos. viii. 9, 10, which
should perhaps be rendered, "They are gone up to Assyria like a wild ass
alone by himself. Ephraim hath hired lovers. And they begin to be
minished by reason of the burden of the king of princes." "The king of
princes" was the haughty title usurped by Tiglath-Pileser, who said,
"Are not my princes all of them kings?" (Isa. x. 8).
All this was a fulfilment of what Hosea had foreseen:--
"Ephraim is oppressed, he is crushed in judgment, because he was content
to walk after vanity. Therefore am I unto Ephraim as a moth, and to the
house of Judah as rottenness. When Ephraim saw his sickness, and the
house of Judah his wound, then went Ephraim to Assyria, and sent unto an
avenging king:[371] yet could he not heal you, nor cure you of your
wound. For I will be unto Ephraim as a lion, and as a young lion to the
House of Judah: I, even I, will tear and go away; I will take away, and
none shall rescue him." The Assyrian was irresistible, because he was
the destined instrument of the wrath of God. The "mixing with the
heathens" was a sin, and Israel in cooing to Assyria was like a foolish
dove; but the day sometimes comes to doomed nations when no course can
save them from the fate which they have provoked.[372]
Not long afterwards Menahem died, and he had sufficiently established
his rule to be succeeded as a matter of course by his son Pekahiah. But
"Revenge and wrong bring forth their kind;
The foul cubs like their parents are."
Samaria had fearful object-lessons in the apparently immediate success
of murder and rebellion. The prize looked near and splendid: the
vengeance might be belated or might not come. Of Pekahiah we are told
absolutely nothing but that he reigned two years, with this
stereotyped addition, that "he did that which was evil in the sight of
Jehovah" by continuing the calf-worship.[373] After this brief and
uneventful reign, his captain Pekah got together fifty fierce
Gileadites, and with the aid of two otherwise unknown friends, Argob
and Arieh, murdered Pekahiah in his own harem.[374] Argob was probably
so named from the district in Bashan, and Arieh was a fit name for a
lion-faced Gadite (1 Chron. xii. 8).
The sacred historian troubles himself but little about these kings.
His annals of them are brief to extreme meagreness. Like the prophet,
he viewed them as God-abandoned phantoms of guilty royalty.
"They that cry unto me, My God, we, Israel, know thee.
Israel hath cast off that which is good:
The enemy shall pursue him.
They have set up kings, but not by Me;
They have removed them, and I knew it not:
Of their silver and their gold have they made them idols,
That they may be cut off.
He hath cast on thy calf, O Samaria."
Probably Pekahiah was, as so often happens, the weak son of a
vigorous father. The times could not tolerate incapable sovereigns;
and the fact that Pekah not only maintained himself on the throne for
twenty years,[375] but was able to take active steps of aggression
against Jerusalem, seems to show that he was a man of some
administrative capacity. If he had not achieved political and military
importance, it would hardly have been worth while for a fierce and
powerful king like Rezin, the last king of Syria, to form so close an
alliance with him. Probably Rezin saw that his throne and his very
existence were in danger, and Pekah wished with Rezin's aid to resist
to the uttermost the encroachments of Assyria, and escape the
burdensome tribute which Menahem had paid. Indeed, it may well be that
Pekahiah's passive continuance of this tribute may have been
distasteful to the people of the land, and that they condoned or even
tacitly aided Pekah's rebellion in order to get rid of it, and to find
protection in an abler monarch. It was the last, perhaps the only,
chance for the kings of Syria and of Israel. As we hear no more of
Hamath as a member of the alliance, we must suppose that it had now
been reduced to impotence and vassalage by the all-powerful Assyrian.
If, however, there was to be any overbalance to the colossal menace
of Nineveh, it could only be by a large confederacy; and it may have
been the refusal of Jotham to join that confederacy, on the death of
his father Uzziah, which caused the joint invasion of Rezin and Pekah
to force him to accept their alliance or to suppress him altogether.
In that case they might have formed a close alliance with Egypt, and
the forces of the united South might, they fancied, prove to be a
match for the forces of the North.[376]
Whatever designs they may have formed against Jotham, or to whatever
extent they may have annoyed him, it was not till the reign of his son
Ahaz that they became formidable and ruinous. Of this we shall say
more in recounting the reign of Ahaz. All that we need now remark is
that their bold aggression on Judah became the cause of utter
destruction to them both. They advanced against Ahaz, and overran his
helpless country. It was their object to depose the descendant of
David, and to crown in his place a certain unnamed "son of _Tabeal_,"
whom Ewald supposed to have been a Syrian, but whose name may possibly
furnish a specimen of the later Jewish device of Gematria.[377]
It is not impossible that behind these events we may find the efforts
and yearnings of a party which cared more for Israel's unity than for
David's throne. Such a party may easily have sprung up during the
splendid, prosperous reign of Jeroboam II. It has been conjectured by
some that the election of Uzziah by the people--delayed, according to
one reckoning, for twelve years--was in reality the triumph of the party
which felt an unquenchable allegiance to David's house. In Deut.
xxxiii. Reuben is put before Judah; Jeshurun (_i.e._, Israel) is
magnified far more than Judah; and some Northern shrine in Zebulon, as
well as the Temple, is celebrated as a sanctuary.[378] That there were
men in Jerusalem who preferred Rezin and Pekahiah to their own king is
clearly stated in Isaiah. He compares them to those who prefer a turbid
torrent to a soft, sweet stream. "Because," he says, "this people
despise the waters of Shiloah that flow softly, and take delight in
Rezin and Remaliah's son; now, therefore, the Lord bringeth upon them
the waters of the river, strong and many, even the King of Assyria, and
all his glory."[379] Isaiah seems to have had a contempt for the whole
attack. He told Ahaz not to fear for the stumps of those two smoking
firebrands Rezin, King of Syria, and the Israelitish usurper, whom he
only condescends to call "Remaliah's son." He promises the trembling
Ahaz that, since he had faithlessly _refused_ a sign, God would give him
a sign. The sign was that the young woman who accompanied
Isaiah--perhaps his youthful wife--should bear a son, whose name should
be called Immanuel; and that before the child Immanuel--whose
designation, "God with us," was an omen of the loftiest hope--should be
of an age to distinguish evil from good, the Northern land, which Ahaz
abhorred, should be forsaken of both her kings.
The prophecy came true in every particular. Rezin and Pekah swept all
before them, and besieged Jerusalem; but they wasted their time in
vain before the fortifications which Jotham had strengthened and
repaired. Obliged to raise the siege, Rezin carried his army
southward, and indemnified himself by seizing Elath, by driving out
the Judæan garrison, and replacing them with Syrians.[380] It was the
last gleam of Syrian success, before the final overthrow of Damascus
which prophecy had often and emphatically foretold.
Pekah also withdrew his forces--no doubt compelled to do so by the
step which Ahaz took in his desperation. For now the King of Judah
invoked the protection and invited the active interference of
Tiglath-Pileser against his enemies--"to save him out of the hand of
the King of Syria, and out of the hand of the King of Israel, who were
risen up against him."
Rezin and Damascus first felt the might of the Assyrian's conquering
arm. The account of his decisive conquest is preserved in the _Eponym
Canon_, and the passages which refer to the defeat of the Syrians will
be found in the First Appendix at the end of the volume. It appears
from the monuments that Rezin (Rasannu) lost not only his kingdom, but
his life.
It is the death-knell of Aramæan greatness, as Amos had foretold.
"Thus saith Jehovah:
For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four,
I will not turn away the punishment thereof;
Because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron:
But I will send a fire into the house of Hazael,
Which shall devour the palaces of Benhadad.
And I will break the bar of Damascus,[381]
And cut off him that sitteth [on the throne] in the Valley of
Aven,[382]
And him that holdeth the sceptre from Beth-Eden:[383]
And the people of Syria shall go into captivity unto Kir,[384]
Saith Jehovah."
Rezin was slain--how we know not; very probably by one of the horrible
methods of torture--by being flayed alive, or decapitated, or having
his lips and nose cut off--which were practised by these demon-kings
of Nineveh.
Nor did Pekah escape. Tiglath-Pileser advanced against the northern part
of his dominions, and afflicted the land of Zebulon and Naphtali. Ijon;
Abel-beth-Maachah, the city of Elisha; Zanoah, the ancient sanctuary of
Kedesh-Naphtali, the home of the hero Barak; Hazor, the former capital
of the Canaanitish king Jabin; Gilead; Galilee,--all submitted to him,
apparently without striking a serious blow. He dealt with the miserable
inhabitants in the way familiar to kings of Assyria. He deported them
_en masse_ into a strange country of which they did not understand the
language, and in which they were reduced to hopeless subjection, while
he supplied their places by aliens from various parts of his own
dominions. There could be no securer method of reducing to paralysis all
their national aspirations. Strangers in a strange land, they forgot
their nationality, forgot their religion, forgot their language, forgot
their traditions. Their sole resource was to plunge into material
pursuits, and to melt away into indistinguishable obliteration among
the neighbouring heathen. It was the beginning of the Northern
Captivity--of the loss of the Ten Tribes.
As Tiglath-Pileser thus permanently subdued and depopulated the land
of the Northern Tribes, it is a Jewish tradition that at this time he
carried away the golden "calf" from Dan among his spoils.[385]
Scripture does not record the fact, though in Hosea (viii. 5) there
may be an allusion to the fate of that at Bethel, whether the right
version be "He hath cast off thy calf, O Samaria," or "Thy calf, O
Samaria, hath cast thee off."[386] "The workman made it," he
continues; "therefore it is not God: for the calf of Samaria shall be
broken in pieces." And again (x. 5): "The people of Samaria shall fear
because of the heifer of the House of Vanity: for the people thereof
shall mourn over it, and the _chemarim_ [_i.e._, the black-robed false
priests thereof] shall tremble for it, for the glory thereof, because
it is departed. It [the idol] shall also be carried to Assyria for a
present to King Combat."
For a time Pekah escaped; but unsuccess is fatal to a murderous usurper,
weakened by the loss and plunder of dominions which he is unable to
defend. Instead of wasting time in the siege of a strong city like
Samaria, Tiglath-Pileser in all probability stirred up Hoshea, the son
of Elah, to rise in conspiracy against his master and slay him. For
Pekah and Israel seem to have made light of the Northern raid. They said
in their pride and stoutness of heart, "The bricks are fallen down, but
we will build with new stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will
change them into cedars." Such pretence of security was ill-timed and
senseless, and Isaiah denounced it. "Therefore," he said, "Jehovah hath
set up against Israel the adversaries of Rezin [_i.e._, the Assyrians],
and hath stirred up his enemies; the Syrians on the east, and the
Philistines on the west; and they have devoured Israel with open mouth.
For all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out
still. Yet the people have not turned unto Him that smote them, neither
have they sought the Lord of hosts. Therefore Jehovah hath cut off from
Israel palm-branch and rush in one day. The elder and the honourable
man, he is the head; and the prophet that speaketh lies, he is the tail.
For they that lead this people cause them to err, and they that are led
of them are swallowed up."[387]
The following verses furnish one of the numerous pictures of the anarchy
and abounding misery of these evil days. "For wickedness burneth as the
fire: it devoureth the briers and thorns; yea, it kindleth in the
thickets of the forest, and they roll upwards in thick clouds of smoke.
Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts is the land burnt up; the people
also are the fuel of fire: _no man spareth his brother_. And one shall
snatch on the right, and be hungry; and he shall eat on the left hand,
and they shall not be satisfied: they shall _eat every man the flesh of
his own arm_: Manasseh, Ephraim; and Ephraim, Manasseh: and they
together shall be against Judah. For all this His anger is not turned
away, but His hand is stretched out still."
We are told in the Book of Kings that Pekah reigned for twenty years;
but some of these later reigns must be shortened to suit the
exigencies of known chronological data. It seems probable that he
occupied the throne for a much shorter time.[388]
Such was the weakened, harassed, vassal kingdom--the gaunt spectre of
itself--to the throne of which, after a period of anarchy and chaos,
Hoshea, by conspiracy and murder, succeeded as the miserable feudatory
of Assyria.
FOOTNOTES:
[354] Amos viii. 2.
[355] Amos iv. 1-3.
[356] It is probable that our present Book of Zechariah is composed of
the works of three prophets of different dates, each of whom may have
borne that name. See my _Minor Prophets_ ("Men of the Bible" Series).
[357] Zech. xi. 8. In 2 Kings xv. 10 the LXX. read καὶ επάταξεν αὐτὸν
ἐν κεβλαάμ; and Ewald thinks that "before the people" (קָבָל־צָם) is
really a proper name of the third king in one month--"and _Kobolam_
slew him." There is insufficient ground for this; though a similar
name is found in Assyrian records.
[358] Hos. viii. 3, vii. 7.
[359] Zachariah, Shallum, Kobolam (?).
[360] Zech. xi. 1-17 (Heb. 13).
[361] That this was Thapsacus on the Euphrates (1 Kings iv. 24), and
that Menahem was in a position to march northward three hundred miles,
and offer so deadly and wanton an insult to the might of Assyria, is
out of the question. The name means "a ford," and might apply to any
town on a river. Thenius thinks the name is a clerical error for
_Tappuach_, between Ephraim and Manasseh (Josh. xvii. 7, 8).
[362] Josephus says, ὠμότητος ὑπερβολὴν οὐ καταλιπὼν οὐδὲ ἀγριότητος.
It is said that the same crime was committed in 1861 by a Mexican
bandit. Machiavelli says, "He who violently and without just right
usurps a crown must use cruelty, if cruelty becomes necessary, once
for all" (_De princ._, 8).
[363] 2 Kings viii. 12; Hos. xiii. 16.
[364] Amos i. 13.
[365] Hos. x. 14. This allusion is, however, uncertain. Shalmaneser III.
is not elsewhere found abbreviated into Shalman. Some suppose him to be
a Moabitish king, Salamannu, who was a vassal of Tiglath-Pileser. The
LXX., Vulg., etc., identify him with the Zalmunna of Judg. viii. 18.
Psalm lxxxiii. 11 renders the word _ex domo ejus qui judicavit Baal_
(_i.e._, Gideon). Beth-Arbel is either Arbela in Galilee, or Irbid,
north-east of Pella.
[366] Nah. iii. 10.
[367] Isa. xiii. 16.
[368] The two predecessors of Tiglath-Pileser (_Tuklat-abal-isarra_)
were Assurdayan and Assurnirari.
[369] Isa. v. 26-29.
[370] Comp. Job xx. 15; Ruth ii. 1.
[371] Hos. v. 11-13. Comp. x. 6: "It [Samaria] shall be carried to
Assyria for a present unto King Jareb." Sayce (_Bab. and Orient.
Records_, December 1887) thinks that Jareb may have been the original
name of Sargon, and so too Neubauer, _Zeitschr. für Assyr._, 1886. The
Vulg. renders King Jareb _ad regem ultorem_, and so too Symmachus.
Aquila and Theodotion have δικαζόμενον. It may be the name of an
unknown king of Assyria, or of Pul, or of Sargon--R.V., margin, "a
king that should contend."
[372] Hos. vii. 8-12.
[373] Josephus says, τῇ τοῦ πατρὸς ἀκολουθήσας ὠμότητι.
[374] 2 Kings xv. 25, A.V., "in the palace of the king's house"
(_armon_), rather "fortress." For the character of the Gileadites see
1 Chron. xii. 8, xxvi. 31.
[375] The length of Pekah's reign is most doubtful. If the periods
assigned to the reigns in the Northern and Southern Kingdoms be added
together up to the Fall of Samaria in the sixth year of Hezekiah (2
Kings xviii. 9, 10), it will be found that the Southern chronology is
twenty years longer than the Northern. G. Smith would alter the text,
and make Jeroboam II. reign fifty-one years and Pekah thirty years;
others invent an interregnum of eleven years between Jeroboam II. and
Zachariah, and an anarchy of nine years before Hoshea's accession;
others shorten Pekah's reign to _one_ year.
[376] 2 Kings xv. 37.
[377] Vide _infra_.
[378] Deut. xxxiii. 19: "They [Zebulon] shall call the peoples unto
the mountain: there shall they offer the sacrifices of righteousness."
[379] Isa. viii. 6, 7.
[380] Perhaps we should read Edomites (2 Kings xvi. 6).
[381] The bar of its city gate.
[382] Bikath-Aven--"The cleft of Aven"--Cœle Syria, or Hollow Syria,
still called by the Arabs El-Bukāa. Comp. Josh. xi. 17, xii. 7. Aven--or
"Vanity"--is perhaps Heliopolis or Baalbek. Comp. Ezek. xxx. 17.
[383] Perhaps Beit el Jame, "House of Paradise"--about eight hours
from Damascus (Porter, _Five Years in Syria_, i. 313).
[384] Kir, in Armenia--the land of their origin (Amos ix. 7).
[385] But, after all, was there a golden calf at Dan? It is scarcely
ever alluded to, and the notion that there was one may have arisen (1)
from a corruption or mistaken rendering of the text in 1 Kings xii.
29, and (2) from the existence there of the idolatrous ephod. See
Klostermann, _ad loc._; Isa. ix. 8-17.
[386] LXX., Ἀποτρίψαι τὸν μόσχον σοῦ, Σαμάρεια; Vulg., _Projectus est
vitulus tuus, Samaria_. Orelli renders it, "Abscheulich ist dein Kalb,
O Samaria." In Jer. xlvi. 15 we read (of Egypt), "Why is thy strong
one swept away?" where the true reading may be, "Hath Khaph [_i.e._,
Apis], thy chosen one, fled?" LXX., Ἆπις ὁ μόσχος σοῦ, ὁ ἐκλεκτός. So
Amos had prophesied that the "god of Dan" and the "way of Beersheba"
should fall for evermore (Amos viii. 14).
[387] Isa. ix. 11-16. With this passage comp. 2 Kings xxiii. 5; Zeph.
i. 4; Hos. vii. 9, 10.
[388] Tiglath-Pileser says: "Pakaha, their king, I killed: Ausi
[Hoshea] I placed over them. The distant land of Bit-Khumri [the
"house of Omri"]--_the whole of its inhabitants_, with their goods--I
carried away to Asshur" (B.C. 734). In this year he mentions Ahaz
among his tributaries.