* [Not the Nile, but the Wady el Arish, the frontier between
     Southern Syria and Egypt.  Cf.  Josh. xv. 47; 2 Kings xxiv. 7,
     called “river” of Egypt in the A.V.—­Tr.]

Had the Assyrian monarch thrown himself more seriously into the enterprise, and reappeared before the ramparts of the capital in the following year, refusing to leave it till he had annihilated its armies and rased its walls to the ground, then, no doubt, Israel, Judah, the Philistines, Edom, and Ammon, seeing it fully occupied in its own defence, might have forgotten the ruthless severity of Hazael, and have plucked up sufficient courage to struggle against the Damascene yoke; as it was, Bamman-nirari did not return, and the princes who had, perhaps, for the moment, regarded him as a possible deliverer, did not venture on any concerted action.  Joash, King of Judah, and Jehoahaz, King of Israel, continued to pay tribute till both their deaths, within a year of each other, Jehoahaz in 797 B.C., and Joash in 796, the first in his bed, the second by the hand of an assassin.*

* Kings xii. 20, 21, xiii. 9; cf. 2 Citron, xxiv. 22-26, where the death of Joash is mentioned as one of the consequences of the Syrian invasion, and as a punishment for his crime in killing the sons of Jehoiada.

Their children, Jehoash in Israel, Amaziah in Judah, were, at first, like their parents, merely the instruments of Damascus; but before long, the conditions being favourable, they shook off their apathy and initiated a more vigorous policy, each in his own kingdom.  Mari had been succeeded by a certain Ben-hadad, also a son of Hazael,* and possibly this change of kings was accompanied by one of those revolutions which had done so much to weaken Damascus:  Jehoash rebelled and defeated Ben-hadad near Aphek and in three subsequent engagements, but he failed to make his nation completely independent, and the territory beyond Jordan still remained in the hands of the Syrians.** We are told that before embarking on this venture he went to consult the aged Elisha, then on his deathbed.  He wept to see him in this extremity, and bending over him, cried out, “My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof!” The prophet bade him take bow and arrows and shoot from the window toward the East.  The king did so, and Elisha said, “The Lord’s arrow of victory *** over Syria; for thou shalt smite the Syrians in Aphek till thou have consumed them.”

     * 2 Kings xiii. 24, 25.  Winckler is of opinion that Mari and
     Ben-hadad, son of Hazael, were one and the same person.

** 2 Kings xiii. 25, The term “saviour” in 2 Kings xiii. 5 is generally taken as referring to Joash:  Winckler, however, prefers to apply it to the King of Assyria.  The biblical text does not expressly state that Joash failed to win back the districts of Gilead from the Syrians, but affirms that he took from them the cities which Hazael “had taken out of the hand of Jehoahaz, his father.”  Ramah of Gilead and the cities previously annexed by Jehoahaz must, therefore, have remained in the hands of Ben-hadad.

     *** [Heb. “salvation;” A.V. “deliverance.”—­Tr.]