these was sent a picked force of three hundred war-chariots, probably Egyptian; and the entire host was placed under the command of an Ethiopian general, who is called Zerah.  The host set forth from Egypt, confident of victory, and proceeded as far as Mareshah in Southern Judaea, where they were met by the undaunted Jewish king.  What force he had brought with him is uncertain, but the number cannot have been very great.  Asa had recourse to prayer, and, in words echoed in later days by the great Maccabee (1 Mac. iii. 18, 19), besought Jehovah to help him against the Egyptian “multitude.”  Then the two armies joined battle; and, notwithstanding the disparity of numbers, Zerah was defeated.  “The Ethiopians and the Lubim, a huge host, with very many chariots and horsemen” (2 Chron. xvi. 8) fled before Judah—­they were “overthrown that they could not recover themselves, and were destroyed before Jehovah and before His host” (ib. xiv. 13).  The Jewish troops pursued them as far as Gerar, smiting them with a great slaughter, taking their camp? and loading themselves with spoil.  What became of Zerah we are not told.  Perhaps he fell in the battle; perhaps he carried the news of his defeat to his Egyptian master, and warned him against any further efforts to subdue a people which could defend itself so effectually.

The direct effect of the victory of Asa was to put an end, for three centuries, to those dreams of Asiatic dominion which had so long floated before the eyes of Egyptian kings, and dazzled their imaginations.  If a single one of the petty princes between whose rule Syria was divided could defeat and destroy the largest army that Egypt had ever brought into the field, what hope was there of victory over twenty or thirty of such chieftains?  Henceforth, until the time of the great revolution brought about in Western Asia through the destruction of the Assyrian Empire by the Medes, the eyes of Egypt were averted from Asia, unless when attack threatened her.  She shrank from provoking the repetition of such a defeat as Zerah had suffered, and was careful to abstain from all interference with the affairs of Palestine, except on invitation.  She learnt to look upon the two Israelite kingdoms as her bulwarks against attack from the East, and it became an acknowledged part of her policy to support them against Assyrian aggression.  If she did not succeed in rendering them any effective assistance, it was not for lack of good-will.  She was indeed a “bruised reed” to lean upon, but it was because her strength was inferior to that of the great Mesopotamian power.

From the time of Osorkon II., the Sheshonk dynasty rapidly declined in power.  A system of constituting appanages for the princes of the reigning house grew up, and in a short time conducted the country to the verge of dissolution.  “For the purpose of avoiding usurpations analogous to that of the High-Priests of Ammon,” says M. Maspero, “Sheshonk and his descendants made a rule to entrust all positions