* This seems to be an obvious inference from the words of Isaiah (viii. 6):  “Forasmuch as this people hath refused the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and lose courage because of Rezin and Bemaliali’s son.” [The R.V. reads “rejoice in” Rezin, etc.—­Tr.]

Ahaz looked around him in search of some one on whom he might call for help.  All his immediate neighbours were hostile; but behind them, in the background, were two great powers who might be inclined to listen to his appeal—­Egypt and Assyria.  Ever since the expedition of Sheshonq into Asia, Egypt seemed to have lost all interest in foreign politics.  Osorkon had not inherited the warlike propensities of his father, and his son, Takeloti I., and his grandson, Osorkon II., followed his example.*

* The chronology of this period is still very uncertain, and the stelae of the Serapseum, which enable us to fix the order of the various reigns, yield no information as to their length.  Sheshonq I. did not reign much longer than twenty-one years, which is his latest known date, and we may take the reign of twenty-one years attributed to him by Manetho as being substantially correct.  The latest dates we possess are as follows:  Osorkon I., twelfth year, and Takeloti I., sixth year or seventh year.  Lastly, we have a twenty-ninth year in the case of Osorkon II., with a reference in the case of the twenty-eighth year to the fifth year of a Takeloti whose first cartouche is missing, and who perhaps died before his father and co-regent.  In Manetho, Osorkon I. is credited with a reign of fifteen years, and his three next successors with a total of twenty-five years between them, which is manifestly incorrect, since the monuments give twenty-nine years, or twenty-three at the very least, if we take into account the double date in the case of the first two of these kings.  The wisest course seems to be to allow forty-five years to Osorkon and his two successors:  if Sheshonq, as I believe, died in 924, the fifty years allotted to the next three Pharaohs would bring us down to 880, and it is in this year that I am, for the present, inclined to place the death of Osorkon II.

[Illustration:  242.jpg BRONZE]

     Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from.  Lanzone’s statuette.

[Illustration:  243.jpg THE GREAT TEMPLE OF BUBASTIS DURINGNAVILLE’s EXCAVATIONS]

     Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Naville.

These monarchs regarded themselves as traditionary suzerains of the country of Kharu, i.e. of Israel, Judah, Ammon, and Moab, and their authority may perhaps have been recognised by the Philistines in the main, but they seldom stirred from their own territory, and contented themselves with protecting their frontiers against the customary depredations of the Libyan and Asiatic nomads.*