inscriptions has revealed the existence of a northern land called Jâdi (or Jaudi), where a language much resembling Hebrew was spoken. The close contiguity of this country

to the nineteen districts mentioned in the mutilated inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser renders it far more probable that this is the land whose king is meant rather than that of so distant a country as Judah'. The effect of this discovery has been to place the death-year of Uzziah (Isa. vi. 1) earlier in the difficult chronology of this period. This tends in a certain degree to simplify its problems.

2

In the year 738 the pressure exercised by the Assyrian power upon the northern states, including Tyre, began to be felt in Israel. Menahem followed the ignoble precedent set by Jehu just one century earlier at the opening of his reign (842 B. C.), and purchased exemption from molestation by paying the enormous tribute of 1,000 silver talents, or about £400,000 (2 Kings xv. 19, 20). To this Tiglath-Pileser III makes reference in his annals, which thereby confirms the statement of Scripture (COT., i. p. 215; KIB., ii. p. 30). Hiram (Hirumu) King of Tyre and Rezin of Damascus are mentioned as tributaries in the same list. This pusillanimous policy of Menaḥem was followed by his son Pekaḥiah, and cost him his life. An insurrectionary movement, headed by Pekaḥ, was directed against this abject vassallage to Assyria, and Pekahiah became its victim. We cannot but sympathize with the patriotic energy of Pekaḥ, who endeavoured to put an end to a policy which was as fatal as it was timid. Not much is said about him in the narrative of 2 Kings, and what is said is of an unfavourable character, since the moral

1 These arguments against the earlier view were first brought forward by Dr. Hugo Winckler in a masterly essay in his Alttestamentliche Forschungen, i. (1893), pp. 1-23. For further details see the article' Uzziah' by the present writer in Hastings' DB.

2 No reference is made to this in Scripture, but the fact is definitely recorded in the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser II.

estimates about Israelite kings are all conceived from the standpoint of the later Deuteronomic legalism which marked the close of the seventh century. This legislation regarded Jerusalem as the only lawful place of worship and the High Places as contrary to God's enactment. In 2 Kings xv. 37, xvi. 5 we read that Pekaḥ formed an alliance with Rezin of Damascus. The reason for this step is perfectly clear and intelligible, and shows sound statesmanship. If a strong confederacy of Palestinian states could have been organized against Assyrian aggression it is quite possible that the untoward events of the following years might have been averted. Such a strong combination was all the more needed, because Egypt at that time (under the twenty-fourth dynasty) was disunited and weak, and the Palestinian kingdoms and states were consequently obliged to depend on their own resources in confronting Assyrian aggression. Philistia appears to have joined the 'Bund,' and possibly Edom; but Jotham and his successor Aḥaz refused to join the confederacy. The biblical record is silent respecting the causes or motives which led up to the Syro-Ephraimite war, but some such series of circumstances and political considerations must have co-operated in bringing about this coalition against the kingdom of Judah. The political conditions were analogous to those which led up to the coalition of Ahab and Ben-hadad (Hadadezer) King of Syria against Shalmaneser II, which terminated in the disastrous battle of Karkar (854 B. C.)1 and issued in a war between the allies in which Ahab lost his life at Ramoth-Gilead. Here again the data of the cuneiform inscriptions enable us to supply the missing links of historical causation that render the sequence of recorded events in the biblical narrative more intelligible.

1 See Hastings' DB. article' Ahab' and Schrader's COT., i. pp. 183-90, where the monolith inscription of Shalmaneser II is cited and interpreted. A more correct version will be found complete in Schrader's KIB., i. pp. 151–74.

Jotham and his successor Aḥaz had fallen under the spell of this evil tradition of national policy, inaugurated by Jehu and continued by Menahem, compliance with Assyria. We find a decisive indication of this in the inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser. In a list of vassal princes who paid tribute to Tiglath-Pileser about this time, inscribed on a clay tablet (ii. Rawl. 67, line 61), we find mention of Mitinti of Ashkelon, Joaḥaz of Judah1, and Kosmelech of Edom. Joaḥaz is evidently the longer form of Aḥaz, in which the prefix, a shorter form for the name of the deity Jahu (for Yahweh) or Jah (cf. Ahaziah), was omitted by the Jews in later days on account of the notorious idolatry of the king who bore the sacred name of their God (2 Kings xvi. 10-18). This identification is, moreover, rendered absolutely certain by the geographical contiguity of Philistia (Ashkelon) on the one side, and of Edom on the other 2.

Aḥaz evidently had a secret understanding with TiglathPileser, or was meditating such a policy at the moment when the prophet Isaiah met him at the conduit of the upper pool (chap. vii). This enables us to understand the underlying reserve with which he met the prophet's admonitions. Probably Tiglath-Pileser had been already informed by secret messengers of the serious predicament in which the King of Judah found himself. It is even possible that the king's royal as well as temple treasures had been already despoiled in the payment of tribute to the Assyrian king (2 Kings xvi. 8 foll.). From the statements of Scripture we gather that the message to TiglathPileser produced an immediate effect. The arms of Assyria were turned upon the adversaries of Aḥaz. Tiglath-Pileser was the 'Saviour' of Ahaz in precisely the same way as Rammân-nirâri III had been to Jehoa

1 In the original: Ja-u-ḥa-zi (mâtu) Ja-u-da-ai. With this statement in the clay document cf. 2 Kings xvi. 8 foll. 'COT., i. p. 258 foll.; KIB., ii. p. 20.

haz at the close of the preceding century (2 Kings xiii. 5 ; cf. § 1).

It is by no means clear what was the precise sequence of Tiglath-Pileser's operations in these years 734-732 B.C. If we follow the indications given in one of the eponym lists, viz. the List of Governors, which places a campaign against Philistia in 734 B.C., we may be following the true chronological order 1. In the following years Tiglath-Pileser turned his arms against Rezin of Damascus. This may have been the actual course of events, and it seems to be definitely suggested by the List of Governors. It is difficult, however, to understand how operations against Philistia, in which Israel must be included, could have been securely undertaken while Rezin of Damascus, a powerful, unvanquished adversary, was strongly posted in the rear, for the most practicable route for attacking Southern Palestine lay through Syria 2. The exact order of events must remain obscure for the present, since the Assyrian documents are so fragmentary and mutilated. We gather, however, that Gaza was one of the chief objects of Assyrian attack, since it was the chief Philistine ally of Rezin. On the approach of TiglathPileser's armies its king, Ḥanno (Ḥanunu), fled to North Arabia near Edom, a region which the recent researches of Glaser, Hommel, and Winckler have enabled us to identify. It is the land Muşri (or Muşrân), a region

1 The succession of events recorded is as follows (cf. COT., ii. p. 194 foll.):

734. Bêl-dan-ilu of Kalah... to the land Pilista (Philistia). 733. Ašur-danin-ani of Mazamua.. to the land Damascus. 732. Nabû-bel-uşur of Si'mê . . . to the land Damascus.

2 See Winckler in Schrader, KAT.3, p. 56 foll. and footnote 4. It may be true, as Winckler suggests, that Rezin avoided a collision with Tiglath-Pileser. Moreover, it may have been owing to the despairing and urgent appeal of Ahaz that the Assyrian king directed his forces at once to Palestine for his relief. It is quite possible that Rezin detached some portion of his forces for the defence of his allies in Philistia and Northern Israel.

frequently confused with Egypt in the biblical records. In the same year, and probably before these operations were undertaken against Ḥanno, Tiglath-Pileser invaded the northern kingdom of Israel ruled by Pekaḥ. The passage in which these military achievements are recorded is sadly mutilated, especially in the portion that relates to Israel1, which reads in translation thus: 'The town Gil[ead]. Abel [Maacha] which are above the land Beth Omri (Samaria) . . . the broad I turned in its entire extent] into the territory of Assyria and placed my [officers] as viceroys over them.' Further on in the same inscription (lines 28 foll.) we read: 'The land Beth-Omri the whole of its inhabitants together with their property I deported to Assyria, Pekaḥ their king I slew, Hoshea (Ausi) I appointed to rule over them.' The once prosperous and powerful kingdom of Northern Israel was thus shorn of the northern frontier districts of Zebulon, Asher, and Naphtali, while the eastern transjordanic territories were also taken away. Moreover, the inhabitants of these border provinces were deported to Assyria, while Assyrian inhabitants were brought over as settlers to take their place, in accordance with a practice which the Assyrians frequently adopted in conquered territories 3.

These events of the years 734-2 B. C. seem to have produced an indelible impression on the mind of Isaiah. He may indeed have beheld with his own eyes those advancing hosts of Assyrian warriors, whom the inhabitants of Canaan now beheld for the first time and were destined to behold again not once nor twice before the century closed. We refer to the vivid description contained in Isa. v. 26–30, probably composed some eight years later.

1 iii. Rawl. 10. 2, lines 17 foll.; Schrader, KIB., ii. p. 30 foll. 2 Respecting the towns of Iyyôn, Abel bêth Ma'achah, &c., mentioned in 2 Kings xv. 29, see Hastings' DB. sub voce Pekaḥ, P. 737 footnote.

To this the Assyrian inscriptions bear witness, Schrader, COT., p. 268 foll.