61. B.C. 771 to 721

B.C. 771 to 721

Chapter VII

Timeline View:

1. In Israel, Shallum did not long retain the power he had acquired by the death of Zechariah, the last of Jehu’s house. He was in his turn assassinated by Menahem, about a month after he ascended the throne.

2. But the act of Menahem was not sanctioned by public opinion, and the nation generally refused to acknowledge his authority. The land was thus distracted by internal commotions, when the Assyrians first made their appearance in these parts, under Pul their king, the father of Tiglath-pileser. This conqueror was advancing to invade Israel, when Menahem made submission to him, and, by the payment of one thousand talents of silver, procured his assistance against his refractory subjects. Menahem exercised with great barbarity the power he had thus acquired by foreign help; and the heavy annual tribute which he had engaged to pay the Assyrians in some degree compelled him to extort large sums of money from the people. The kings of Israel had no sacred treasury to draw from, like those of Judah; and in eastern countries, where there is no regular system of finance, extraordinary demands are met by the exaction of large contributions in money from those who are supposed to be in possession of wealth. Israel was thus in a most miserable condition. The land became impoverished; the people were iv a state of exasperation; and the Assyrians, having so largely profited by the invasion of Israel, were ready to avail themselves of any pretext for repeating the experiment. The state of religion and morals corresponded with this external condition. With the rapid growth of idolatry, and the neglect of that religious system which was the true glory of the nation, the people lost all love for the good and the beautiful, and gave themselves up to the grossest abominations that the heart of man can conceive. It was evident that the nation was ripening fast for that destruction which the prophets had foretold. After a troubled reign of ten years, Menahem died.

3. Pekahiah, his son, reigned two years, and was then put to death by Pekah, the commander of the forces.

4. Pekah then ascended the throne. The principal events of thus reign were those which arose from the alliance of Pekah with Rezin, king of Syria, against Ahaz, king of Judah, as related in the preceding chapter. Pekah was victorious in this war, which induced Ahaz to apply to Tiglathpileser, the son of Pul, king of Assyria, who came and chastised the belligerents into quietness, after which he removed the tribes beyond Jordan to Media and Assyria. After a reign of twenty years, Pekah was slain by Hoshea.

5. Ten years of the most cruel anarchy elapsed before Hoshea was able to establish himself on the throne. About this time the Egyptians became seriously alarmed at the progress of the Assyrians in their neighborhood; and So or Sabaco, the king of Egypt, adopted the policy of procuring employment for them elsewhere, to avert their attention from his own country. To this end he induced Hoshea in Israel, and Hezekiah in Judah, by insincere promises of support, to hold back the tribute they had paid to the Assyrians. This soon brought Shalmaneser, the son of Tiglath-pileser, with a mighty host into Palestine. Having easily subdued the country, he advanced to lay siege to the metropolis, in which Hoshea had shut himself with the remnant of his forces. It was not taken until the third year, and in the interval the inhabitants endured great privation and distress. At length it fell; and Shalmaneser extinguished the kingdom of Israel; and sent Hoshea in chains to Nineveh. Thus perished the kingdom of Israel, which was annexed to the Assyrian crown under an Assyrian governor, after it had endured, as a separate state, 271 years, under seventeen kings.

Lion

6. The king of Assyria adopted the policy which appears to have been usually followed in those times with regard to such countries or provinces as the conqueror designed to incorporate with his own dominions. The flower of the nation, composed of all who were distinguished for their rank or wealth, for their abilities or personal qualifications, and for their knowledge of arms and useful arts, were taken away to the region beyond the Euphrates, in which the three tribes carried off by Tiglath-pileser were already settled. Their place was partly supplied by the inhabitants of other conquered countries in distant parts. In the present case, the new settlers in Israel were brought from the region of the Lower Tigris and Euphrates; and being intended merely to keep the land occupied, were a far less numerous and valuable population than that which they had displaced. This design was more fully worked out by Esarhaddon, the son of Sennacherib, who gleaned the remnant left in the land, and substituted more foreigners. The new comers gradually combined with the dregs of the Israelites who remained in the country, and the population thus formed took the name of Samaritans from the city of Samaria. They were all idolaters; but, according to the notions of local and national deities which then prevailed, they deemed themselves bound to know something of “the god of the country” in which they had settled. To this they were further impelled by the increase and boldness of lions and other beasts of prey in the depopulated country, which they ascribed to His anger against them. The desired knowledge they obtained from a priest who fixed his residence at Bethel; and the result was, that they combined the worship of the true God with that of their own idols. Very gradually, however, their system purified itself from the idolatrous dross, and the Samaritans at length rested in a system of belief as pure as that of the Jews, although less regular in some of its observances. In some respects their creed may have been the purer of the two, seeing that it was based entirely upon the Books of Moses, whereas that of the Jews became encumbered with a great mass of oral traditions.

7. As henceforth the Jews only, that is, the inhabitants of the kingdom of Judah, have historical existence, it may be well to offer a few concluding remarks regarding the ten tribes, who were earlier brought under the yoke of bondage by the Assyrians. They were settled in Assyria and Media, and nothing of their further history is known. Much, however, has been conjectured; and their destiny has often been made a subject of inquiry and dispute. Many believe that they are destined to take part in those purposes of divine mercy for which their brethren of Judah have been kept for so many ages separate and apart among the nations, a wonder and a byword in them all. In this belief they have sought for them, and have found in various countries, and under a variety of disguising circumstances, races or tribes of men whom, from analogous customs, rites, and features, they have supposed to be descendants of the ten tribes. Such have been found in Asia, Europe, and America, among heathens, Moslems, Jews, and Christians. All these identifications cannot be true; and there are none of them which quite satisfy the mind, for many of the analogies rest on circumstances which belonged to the Israelites, not as the sons of Abraham, but only as Orientals.

8. It is to be borne in mind that the land of Israel was not altogether divested of its inhabitants, as many of the poorer people were allowed to remain. Then, also, the proclamation of Cyrus, under which the Jews eventually returned to build again their city and temple, was addressed not to the tribes of Judah and Benjamin alone but to all the people of Jehovah (Ezr 1:1; Ezr 1:3); and being proclaimed throughout the Persian empire, which included the former dominions of Assyria, it is probable that not a few of the ten tribes were induced to return to Palestine. Those who were inclined to remove, would naturally attach themselves here and there to a caravan of merchants, and return to the land of their fathers. But as they arrived one after another, in small parties, no mention of their return could be expected in a history so concise. There might have been Israelites in the great caravan of Zerubbabel; and, at all events, it is more than probable that most of them returned when they heard of the prosperity of their brethren in Palestine. At whatever time it may have been, it is certain that many did return; for the history mentions Israelites as settled in Galilee and Perea before the time of Christ. (1Ma 5:9; 1Ma 5:24).But connecting themselves with the tribe of Judah, they finally lost the distinctive name of Israelites, and all the Hebrews were indiscriminately designated as Jews.

9. Something similar may very safely be supposed to have occurred beyond the Euphrates, where a very large proportion of the Judahites thought proper to remain. It is likely that still greater numbers of the Israelites who had lived in these countries two centuries longer, would feel little inclination to exchange the comforts they had accumulated for the prospects which Palestine offered. But as the old jealousy between Judah and Israel had by this time ceased, those Israelites who remained east of the Euphrates joined themselves to the tribe of Judah, which was in possession of the Temple, and consequently they too received the name of Jews. If this view as to the amalgamation of the ten with the two tribes rests upon better grounds than that which reserves for the former a separate existence, all inquiry after the “lost tribes” must needs be superfluous.