(9) Delivery of Israel. From this thraldom Israel was delivered by some unexplained agency. We are told merely that 'Jehovah gave to Israel a savior, so that they went out from under the hand of the Syrians; and the children of Israel dwelt in their tents as beforetime' (2 Kings xiii: 5). It is allowable to conjecture that the (appar ently unknown) deliverer was the Assyrian mon archy, which, assaulting Hazael towards the end of the reign of Jehoahaz, entirely drew away the Syrian armies. That it was some urgent, power ful, and continued pressure, considering the great strength which the empire of Damascus had at tained, seems clear from the sudden weakness of Syria through the reigns of Jehoash and Jero boam II, the former of whom thrice defeated Benhadad III and 'recovered the cities of Israel ;' the latter not only regained the full territory of the ten tribes, but made himself master (for a time at least) of Damascus and Hamath. How entirely the friendship of Israel and Judah had been caused and cemented by their common fear of Syria is proved by the fact that no sooner was the power of Damascus broken than new war broke out between the two kingdoms, which ended in the plunder of Jerusalem by Jehoash, who also broke down its walls and carried off hostages ; after which there is no more alliance between Judah and Israel. The enzpire of Da mascus seems to have been entirely dissolved un der the son of Hazael, and no mention is made of its kings for eighty years or more. When Pekah, son of Remaliah, reigned in Samaria, Rezin, as king of Damascus, made a last but in effectual effort for its independence.
(10) The Assyrian Power. The same As syrian power which had doubtless so seriously shaken, and perhaps temporarily overturned, the kingdom of Damascus, was soon to be felt by Is rael. Menahem was invaded by Pul (the first sovereign of Nineveh whose name we know), and was made tributary. His successor, Tiglath pileser, in the reign of Pekah, son of Remaliah, carried captive the eastern and northern tribes of Israel (i. e., perhaps all their chief men as hostages?), and soon after slew Rezin, the ally of Pekah, and subdued Damascus. The following emperor, Shalmaneser, besieged and captured Sa maria, and terminated the kingdom of Israel, B. C. 721.
This branch of the Hebrew monarchy suffered far greater and more rapid reverses than the other. From the accession of Jeroboam to the middle of Baasha's reign, it probably increased ir! power ; it then waned with the growth of the Damascene empire., it struggled hard against it under Ahab and Jehoram, but sank lower and lower ; it was dismembered under Jehu, and made subject under Jehoahaz. From B. C. 94o to B. C. 85o is. as nearly as can be ascertained, the period of depression ; and from B. C. 914 to B. C. 83o that of friendship or alliance with Judah. But after (about) B. C. 85o Syria began to decline, and Israel soon shot out rapidly ; so that Joash and his son Jeroboam appear, of all Hebrew mon archs, to come next to David and Solomon. How long this burst of prosperity lasted does not dis tinctly appear ; but it would seem that entire do minion over the tcn tribes was held until Pekah received the first blow from the Assyrian con queror.
(11) Causes of Weakness. Besides that which was a source of weakness to Israel from the beginning, viz., the schism of the crown with
the whole ecclesiastical body, other causes may be discerned which made the ten tribes less pow erful, in comparison with the two, than might have been expected. The marriage of Ahab to Jezebel brought with it no political advantages at all commensurate with the direct moral mis chief, to say nothing of the spiritual evil; and the reaction against the worship of Baal was a most ruinous atonement for the sin. To suppress the monstrous iniquity, the prophets let loose the remorseless Jehu, who, not satisfied with the blood of Ahab's wife, grandson, and seventy sons, murdered first the king of Judah himself, and next forty-two youthful and innocent princes of his house; while, strange to tell, the daughter of Jezebel gained by his deed the throne of Judah, and perpetrated a new massacre. The horror of such crimes must have fallen heavily on Jehu, and have caused a widespread disaffection among his own subjects. Add to this that the Phceni cians must have deeply resented his proceedings; so that we get a very sufficient clue to the pros tration of Israel under the foot of Hazael during the reign of Jehu and his son.
Another and more abiding cause of political debility in the ten tribes was found in the imper fect consolidation of the inhabitants into a single nation. Since those who lived east of the Jordan retained, to a great extent at least, their pastoral habits; their union with the rest could never have been very firm; and when a king was neither !strong independently of them, nor had good hereditary pretensions, they were not likely to contribute much to his power. After their con quest of the Hagarenes and the depression of the Moabites and Ammonites by David, they had free room to spread eastward; and many of their chief men may have become wealthy in flocks and herds (like Machir, the son of Ammiel, of Lodebar, and Barzillai the Gileadite (2 Sam. xvii :27), over whom the authority of the Israel itish crown would naturally be precarious ; while west of the Jordan the agrarian law of Moses made it difficult or impossible for a landed no bility to form itself, which could be formidable to the royal authority. That the Arab spirit of freedom was rooted in the eastern tribes may perhaps be inferred from the case of the Re chabites, who would neither live in houses nor plant vines; undoubtedly, like some of the Na bathmans, lest by becoming settled and agricul tural they should be enslaved. Yet the need of imposing this law on his descendants would not have been felt by Jonadab had n.ot an opposite tendency been rising—that of agricultural settle ment.
(12) Influence of the Prophets. Although the priests and Levites nearly disappeared out of Israel, prophets were perhaps even more numer ous and active there than in Judah, and Abijah, whose prediction first endangered Jeroboam (1( ' Kings xi :29-4o), lived in honor at Shiloh to his dying day (xiv :2). Obadiah alone saved one hundred prophets of Jehovah from the rage of Jezebel .(xviii :r3). Possibly (their extra-social character freed them from the restraint imposed on priests and Levites ; and while they felt less hound to the formal rites of the Law, the kings of Israel were also less jealous of them. (See HEBREWS, RELIGION OF THE; see also CHRONOL OGY.) F. W. N.