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three victories of Joash were however the means of reinstating his affairs, and the provinces which the Syrians had conquered were recovered.

Describe the reign of Amaziah in Judah.

A. C. 839.

AMAZIAH, who succeeded his father Joash in the kingdom of Judah, and who signalized the commencement of his reign, with the execution of the murderers of his predecessor, had hired of the king of Israel a hundred thousand warriors to assist him in an expedition against the Edomites-an expedition which was crowned with the most signal success, the Edomites being defeated with great slaughter, and their capital city being taken by storm. Before however he commenced his march, in accordance with the representations of a prophet of God, he dismissed his Israelite auxiliaries. These troops pillaged some of the cities of Judah on their return to Samaria. When Amaziah returned from his expedition against Edom, puffed up with all the pride of victory, he sent an insolent defiance to Joash in Samaria. Joash answered the challenge of Amaziah by the significant allegory, "The thistle that was in Lebanon sent to the cedar that was in Lebanon, saying, Give thy daughter to my son to wife: and there passed by a wild beast that was in Lebanon, and trod down the thistle. Abide now at home, why shouldest thou meddle to thine hurt, that thou shouldest fall, thou and Judah with thee?" Amaziah rejected the salutary advice, the armies met at Bethshemesh, the troops of Judah were defeated with terrible slaughter, Amaziah was taken prisoner, his freedom was purchased at the expense of the treasures of the temple and the palace, and Joash, after having taken hostages for the preservation of peace, and rendered Jerusalem defenceless by breaking down a considerable part of the wall, returned to Samaria. Most melancholy was the end of Amaziah. Fifteen years after the death of Joash, who survived his victory at Bethshemesh only a single year, he fled from Jerusalem to Lachish to avoid a dangerous conspiracy; there he was murdered by the conspirators, and UZZIAH or Azariah his son, succeeded him in the government of Judah.

A. C, 810,

What was the condition of Israel under the government of Jeroboam II.?

After the death of Joash at Samaria, his son and successor JEROBOAM the Second, zealously A. C. 825. endeavoured to raise his kingdom to its former power and glory. In a great measure he succeeded; he took possession of Damascus the Syrian metropolis, and Hamath, and restored the old frontier of Israel. But notwithstanding the great successes of Jeroboam, the representations of the prophets Amos and Hosea, who flourished in his reign, show that his subjects had sunk to the lowest stage of moral degeneracy and corruption; that idolatry, licentiousness, and every description of vice, universally prevailed; that the detestable wickedness of the Israelites was almost full; that such was their obdurate insensibility, that the most pathetic appeals, the most wonderful mercies, the most appalling judgments, were insufficient to bring them to repentance before God; and that therefore their punishment would be speedy, and their ruin irretrievable.

What revolutions occurred in Israel after the death of Jeroboam II.?

A. C, 772.

After a reign of forty-one years Jeroboam II. was succeeded by his son ZECHARIAH, and from A. C. 784. this period the history of Israel presents a series of rebellions, treasons, and murders, until the kingdom disappeared before the victorious Assyrians. Zechariah was assassinated by SHALLUM, one of his domestics; and Shallum was slain by MENAHEM, who established himself upon the throne. The reign of Menahem, a bloody and tyrannical usurper, was memorable for the first appearance of the Assyrians on the borders of Canaan. Pul the king of Nineveh, had exacted the submission of Syria and other neighbouring nations; and Menahem was compelled, to avoid utter subjugation, to pay tribute to the conqueror. PEKAHIAH succeeded his

A. C. 761. father Menahem, and after a short reign of two years he was murdered by PEKAH, who usurped his throne.

How did Uzziah king of Judah reign?

UZZIAH or Azariah, who followed his father Amaziah in the government of Judah, was a prince of uncommon prudence, ability, and piety. He subdued the Philistines, Arabians, and other neighbouring nations ; he reconquered Elath, a port on the Red Sea; he fortified Jerusalem, and placed his kingdom in the strongest posture of defence; he encouraged agriculture and every useful art; and proved himself to be one of the best, one of the most able, and one of the most religious monarchs that ever reigned over Judah. But unmindful of the punishment of Saul, the first of his predecessors, for the same crime, Uzziah intruded upon the sacerdotal office; he was struck with leprosy while he was profaning the sacred rites by the altar of incense; his disease excluded him from the exercise of the regal functions, and in fact from all society; and he lived in retirement until his death, which took place in the fifty-second year of his reign and the sixty-eighth of his age. JorHAM, who assu

med the management of the government when A. C. 758. Uzziah his father was incapacitated for his royal station, persevered in the profession and practice of the true religion, brought the Ammonites to pay him tribute, devoted himself to the equal administration of justice and the happiness of his subjects, and died one of the greatest and most prosperous of the sovereigns of Judah.

Describe the calamities of Judah in the reign of Ahaz.

AHAz, the son of Jotham, one of the most A. C. 742. unprincipled, impolitic, and unhappy monarchs in the whole list of the kings of Judah or Israel, assumed the government of a territory which his father had rendered rich and populous, but which he soon desolated by his crimes. His accession took place in the seventeenth year of Pekah who then reigned in Samaria, and in the sixth of Tiglath-Pileser king of Nineveh. In wickedness and in idolatry, he exceeded the worst of his predecessors; he offered sacrifices and incense upon the high places and in the groves; and, with unnatural barbarity, he made one

of his sons pass through the fire in honour of Moloch. He was soon visited with exemplary punishment. Pekah king of Israel, and Rezin king of Damascus, besieged him in Jerusalem. Although according to the declaration of the prophet Isaiah, the confederated sovereigns were divinely prevented from taking the city, yet they cruelly ravaged and desolated the country. When the Syrian monarch had returned with his plunder and his captives to Damascus, Ahaz thought himself strong enough to engage in battle with the Israelites; he was defeated with the loss of one hundred and twenty thousand men; one of the king's sons, the governor of his house, and his immediate personal attendant were slain by Zichri, the celebrated warrior of Ephraim; two hundred thousand inhabitants of Judah were led by the conquerors into captivity. But a prophet of the Lord rebuked Pekah and his men for their barbarity to their brethren; the heads of the children of Ephraim refused to allow the slavery of the captives; they were liberated, clothed, fed, and sent to their homes; and those who, from weakness or disease were unable to walk, were conveyed upon asses as far as Jericho. A furious irruption of the Philistines and Edomites threw Ahaz into despair; with an extraordinary infatuation he cast himself upon the protection of Tiglath-Pileser the Assyrian king; and promised him large sums of money, if he would assist him against his enemies in Israel and Syria. Tiglath-Pileser gladly availed himself of this opportunity to gratify his ambition; he vanquished and killed Rezin, took Damascus, and annihilated the kingdom of the Syrians; he then marched against Pekah, and seized all the territories belonging to Israel, which extended beyond Jordan to Galilee; and then he proceeded to Jerusalem to demand more money from the miserable Ahaz, who to satisfy the craving cupidity of his new ally, was compelled to melt down the consecrated vessels of the temple. The king of Judah, as base as he was wicked, and as mean as he was unprincipled, followed Tiglath-Pileser to Damascus, constructed an altar similar to one he saw in that city, became wholly devoted to the idolatry of the Syrians, and, by waging war against the Almighty, exposed himself to those terrible judgments, which

no human power can withstand, and no human prudence can avoid.

A. C. 739.

How was the kingdom of Israel finally destroyed? The kingdom of Israel was now finally extinguished. After a reign of twenty years, Pekah was murdered by HOSHEA the son of Elah. The new king endeavoured to establish himself upon his throne by becoming tributary to Shalmaneser the king of Assyria; but his obedience was not sincere, he meditated the recovery of his independence by the assistance of So, king of Egypt. Shalmaneser discovered, and determined to punish, the correspondence; he besieged, and after the expiration of three years, took, the city of Samaria; threw Hoshea into pri- A. C. 721. son, and carried away the population of the

kingdom into captivity beyond the Euphrates. From this period the ten tribes disappear from the researches of the historian. Plausible and ingenious conjectures have been formed relative to their destiny and their descendants, and different nations have been pointed out as the posterity of the Israelites. But no satisfactory result has been obtained; the ten tribes have not yet been discovered; and whether, after the lapse of so many ages, and the occurrence of so many revolutions, they will ever again be found, a distinct and peculiar people, is a problem too difficult for any human investigation at present to solve. The country of the Israelites was colonized by a strange people usually called Cuthæans, whose history will soon be presented to the reader.

SECTION V.

FROM THE CAPTIVITY OF THE TEN TRIBES TO THE DEATH OF JOSIAH.

HOW did Hezekiah king of Judah commence his reign?

WHEN HEZEKIAH, the son and successor of the weak

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