45. § 7. History of the Kingdom of Israel to the Time of Its Complete Dissolution

§ 7. History of the Kingdom of Israel to the Time of Its Complete Dissolution

Shallum maintained the throne, to which he had made his way by murder, only for a month. He was slain by Menahem, a general, who usurped the reins of government. Under his reign the Assyrians first marched into the Israelitish kingdom, and the king was obliged to buy them off by a heavy tribute. Our first historical knowledge of the Assyrians dates from this period, when they begin to enter into Israelitish history. There can be no doubt that a powerful Assyrian kingdom existed in very early times. This is equally confirmed by biblical, Egyptian, and Greek accounts. With regard to the first, according to Genesis 2:14, the Euphrates flows “towards the east of Assyria.” This presupposes that at the time of its composition an Assyrian monarchy was already in existence; for it is impossible to predicate of Assyria in the narrower sense that it lay west of the Euphrates. Moreover, the Assyrians appear in Balaam’s last prophecy as one of the most important peoples of Asia, who should extend their conquests in the future as far as the Mediterranean Sea. On the Egyptian monuments the Assyrians, under the name Shari, appear as already engaged in war with the Egyptians, under the reign of the great Raamses, so that even at that early time they must have possessed that tendency towards the west which afterwards brought them into violent and lengthened conflict with the Egyptians. The Greek accounts, notwithstanding their prevailing unhistorical character, yet lead to the conclusion that a primitive Assyrian kingdom did exist. But not only is this older Assyrian kingdom little known in history, but it seems also that in the post-Mosaic time it had lost much of its importance. In the time of which we now treat, the Assyrian kingdom received a new impulse. Favoured by the wars of the Syrians, Israelites, and Judaites among themselves, it succeeded in gaining supremacy over western Asia. This it maintained, yet without being able to swallow up Judea altogether, till it was supplanted by the Chaldeans, who founded a new world-empire, making Babylon, which had till then been subject to the Assyrians, their capital. The motive which led the Assyrians and Chaldeans to turn their eyes constantly to Israel and Judah, is shown by the following words of Schlosser, Universal Historical Survey of the History of the Old World, part i. p. 213: “From this time Palestine became the battle-field of the two powers, who marched against each other from the Euphrates and Tigris, and from the Nile, with immense armies. Whoever had occupied Palestine was certain of his retreat, for all marches necessarily led through it.” The following is the order of the Assyrian kings mentioned in Scripture: Pul, to whom Menahem was tributary, 773 B.C.; Tiglath-pileser, about 740; Shalmaneser, about 720; Sennacherib, about 714; and Asarhaddon. Sargon also is frequently put between Tiglath-pileser and Shalmaneser, on the authority of Isaiah 20:1. But an examination of Assyrian monuments has led to the conclusion that this Sargon was identical with Shalmaneser. He here appears under the name Sargina, and the same acts are attributed to him which Holy Scripture attributes to Shalmaneser; comp. Niebuhr, The History of Assyria and Babylonia, p. 160. “The reign of Sargina,” he says, “whom the Jews called Shalmaneser, was very brilliant, and under him the kingdom of Nineveh stood on the highest summit of its power after its restoration and before its fall.” We meet with the same king in Hosea 10:14 under the abbreviated name Shalman.

After a reign of ten years, in the fiftieth year of Azariah, Menahem was succeeded by his son Pekahiah, who was slain, however, after having reigned for two years, by one of his captains, Pekah the son of Remaliah. Pekah reigned for a period of twenty years. Of his alliance with Rezin, the Syrian king, we shall speak hereafter. One consequence of this alliance was the carrying away captive by the Assyrians of a portion of the two and a half tribes beyond the Jordan. Ahaz had appealed to the Assyrians for help, and in the same campaign they conquered Damascus also. This was only the prelude to the total destruction of the Israelitish kingdom. Pekah was slain by Hoshea, the last king of Israel, who reigned for nine years. Hoshea, though otherwise comparatively worthless, at least distinguished himself above his predecessors by the circumstance that he gave his subjects freedom to make pilgrimages to Jerusalem. He was made tributary by Shalmaneser, but sought to throw off his dependence by entering into a treaty with the king of Egypt, the natural enemy of the Assyrian, as afterwards of the Babylonian kingdom. This gave rise to a new expedition on the part of Shalmaneser, in which Samaria was conquered after a siege of three years. The Assyrians now followed the universal policy by which Asiatic conquerors sought to render themselves secure in the possession of conquered territory. They led away all the Israelites of whom they could gain possession into exile in Assyria and the countries subject to them. The pain which Judah felt on the captivity of the ten tribes found its expression in Psalms 77 and Psalms 80, psalms which bear remarkable witness to the catholic spirit which has at all times pervaded the Church of God. Probably the king of Assyria intended from the beginning to people the country by a new colony, and it is uncertain what caused the execution of this project to be deferred until the reign of Asarhaddon, his second successor. In the interval, the Israelites who had concealed themselves in forests and caves, or had fled to neighbouring countries, reassembled and occupied the unappropriated land, whose desolation and depopulation occasioned a great increase of beasts of prey in it. It was not until Asarhaddon colonized the country from Babylonia, Syria, and other lands, on which occasion, in all probability, the remnant of the old inhabitants were also led away captive, that the Israelitish kingdom entirely ceased to exist. Asarhaddon is the Israelitish name of the king; in Ezra 4:10 the Aramaean colonists call him by another name, Asnapper, which, however, makes no difficulty, since the oriental kings had several names or titles. At first the new heathen colonists established their idolatry in the land, but soon resolved to worship Jehovah also, the former God of the country, as one among many; and at a later period they entirely abandoned the worship of idols, but without ever being able altogether to renounce their heathen nature. These heathen colonists, covered with a thin Israelitish varnish, are either called Cuthites, after the former dwelling-place of some of their number—Cutha was a town in the vicinity of Babylon—or Samaritans, after their later habitation. Between them and the Judaites there was irreconcilable enmity, because the Judaites neither would nor could allow their claim to an independent part in the kingdom of God.