transportation alluded to was the second - that under Shalmaneser, or rather than Sargon (compare

2 Kings 17:6) - we can only suggest that by some confusion caused by the two names Pul and

Tiglath-pileser, the later has by a clerical error, crept into the text, instead of Shalmaneser or else

The advance of Tiglath-pileser, marked by the occupation of those towns in a straight line from

north to south, concerted Galilee and the adjoining trans-Jordanic district into an Assyrian

province, which served as a basis for further operations. These terminated - perhaps after passing

near or through Jerusalem - with the occupation of Samaria, where a revolution ensued, in which

Pekah fell. He was succeeded by the leader of the rising, Hoshea, who became tributary to

Assyria. The easier part of his undertaking accomplished, Tiglath-pileser turned his arms against

Damascus. Here he met with a stubborn resistance. Holy Scripture only records (2 Kings 16:9)

that Damascus was taken, Rezin killed, and the people carried captive to Kir - a district not yet

certainly identified, but apparently belonging to Media (compare Isaiah 21:2; 22:6). It was thence

that the Syrians had originally come (Amos 9:7), and thither they were again transported when

their work in history was done (Amos 1:5).

Unfortunately, the Assyrian tablets which record this campaign are mutilated, that in which the

death of Rezin was recorded being lost. But we learn that the siege of Damascus occupied two

years; that Rezin was shut up in his capital, into which he had been driven; that not only was every

tree in the gardens round Damascus cut down, but, in the language of the tablet, the whole land

desolated as by a flood. With the capture of Damascus, the Damasco-Syrian empire, which had

hitherto been a scourge for the punishment of Israel, came to an end. Henceforth it was only a

province of Assyria. It is in the light of all these events that we have to read such prophec ies as

those in Isaiah 7 and the firs part of chapter 8.

The majestic divine calm of these utterances, their lofty defiance of man's seeming power, their

grand certitude, and the withering irony with which what seemed the irresistible might of these

two "smoking friebrands" is treated - all find their illustration in the history of this war. Such

prophecies warrant is in climbing the heights of faith, from which Isaiah bids us to look, to where,

in the dim distance the morning glow of the new Messianic day is seen to fill the sky with glory.

But in Damascus the conquered did Tiglath-pileser gather, as for an Eastern durbar, the

vanquished and subject priunces. Thither also did King Ahaz go "to meet" the king of Assyria; and

thence, as the outcome of what he had learned from prophecy and seen as its fulfillment in history,

did this king of Judah send the pattern of the heathen altar to Jerusalem (2 Kings 16:10, 11). On

the Assyrian monuments he is called Joachaz (Ja -u-ha- zi). But scared history would not join the

name of the Lord with that of the apostate descendent of David. For all time it points at him the

finger, "This is that King Ahaz" (2 Chronicles 28:22); and he sinks into an unhonored grave, "not

into the sepulchers of the kings of Israel" (ver. 2 7). And yet other and still wider-reaching lessons

come to us from this history.

CHAPTER 9 - HOSHEA, (TWENTIETH) KING OF ISRAEL.

Summary of this History - Accession of Hoshea - Religious Character of his Reign - Death of

Tiglath-pileser and Accession of Shalmaneser IV. - Expedition into Palestine and Submission of

Hoshea - Attempted Alliance of Israel with Egypt - Hoshea made a Prisoner - Siege of Samaria -

Account of it in the Assyrian Inscriptions - Accession of Sargon - Capture of Samaria -

Deport ation of Israel - Localities of their Exile - The new Colonists of Samaria and their Religion

- Lessons of this History. (2 KINGS 17)