her down, and some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall and on the horses; and he trode her under foot.  And when he was come in he did eat and drink; and he said, See now to this cursed woman and bury her; for she is a king’s daughter.”  But nothing was found of her except her skull, hands, and feet, which they buried as best they could.  Seventy princes, the entire family of Ahab, were slain, and their heads piled up on either side of the gate.  The priests and worshippers of Baal remained to be dealt with.  Jehu summoned them to Samaria on the pretext of a sacrifice, and massacred them before the altars of their god.  According to a doubtful tradition, the brothers and relatives of Ahaziah, ignorant of what had happened, came to salute Joram, and perished in the confusion of the slaughter, and the line of David narrowly escaped extinction with the house of Omri.*

* 2 Kings x. 12-14.  Stade has shown that this account is in direct contradiction with its immediate context, and that it belonged to a version of the events differing in detail from the one which has come down to us.  According to the latter, Jehu must at once have met Jehonadab the son of Rechab, and have entered Samaria in his company (vers. 15-17); this would have been a poor way of inspiring the priests of Baal with the confidence necessary for drawing them into the trap.  According to 2 Chron. xxii. 8, the massacre of the princes of Judah preceded the murder of Ahaziah.

Athaliah assumed the regency, broke the tie of vassalage which bound Judah to Israel, and by a singular irony of fate, Jerusalem offered an asylum to the last of the children of Ahab.  The treachery of Jehu, in addition to his inexpiable cruelty, terrified the faithful, even while it served their ends.  Dynastic crimes were common in those days, but the tragedy of Jezreel eclipsed in horror all others that had preceded it; it was at length felt that such avenging of Jahveh was in His eyes too ruthless, and a century later the Prophet Hosea saw in the misery of his people the divine chastisement of the house of Jehu for the blood shed at his accession.

The report of these events, reaching Calah, awoke the ambition of Shalmaneser.  Would Damascus, mistrusting its usurper, deprived of its northern allies, and ill-treated by the Hebrews, prove itself as invulnerable as in the past?  At all events, in 842 B.C., Shalmaneser once more crossed the Euphrates, marched along the Orontes, probably receiving the homage of Hamath and Arvad by the way.  Restricted solely to the resources of Damascus, Hazael did not venture to advance into Coele-Syria as Ben-hadad had always done; he barricaded the defiles of Anti-Lebanon, and, entrenched on Mount Shenir with the flower of his troops, prepared to await the attack.  It proved the most bloody battle that the Assyrians had up to that period ever fought.  Hazael lost 16,000 foot-soldiers, 470 horsemen, 1121 chariots, and yet succeeded in falling back on Damascus in good order.