call came at an opportune period, and not too suddenly.  The downfall of the nation did not take place until the truths and precepts of religion were already strong enough to be able to live on alone; to the prophets belongs the merit of having recognised the independence of these, and of having secured perpetuity to Israel by refusing to allow the conception of Jehovah to be involved in the ruin of the kingdom.  They saved faith by destroying illusion.

The event which Amos had foreseen was not long in coming.  The Israelites flew spontaneously, like “silly doves,” into the net of the Assyrians.  Zechariah ben Jeroboam was overthrown after a short reign, Shallum his murderer and successor was also unable to hold his own, and was followed after the horrors of a civil war by Menahem ben Gadi (745 B.C).  But Menahem, in the presence of domestic (and perhaps also foreign) assailants, 1 had no other

********************************** 1.  It is not inconceivable that the wars carried on by Tiglath-pileser II. against Hamath had some connection with his interventions in favour of Menahem.  The kingdom of Hamath, which may have been threatened by Jeroboam II., may have availed itself of the state of matters which followed his death to secure its own aggrandisement at Israel’s expense; in correspondence with this attack from the northern side another by Judah in concert with Hamath may well have been made from the south.  In this way, though not without the aid of pure hypothesis, it might be possible to fit into the general historical connection the fragmentary Assyrian notices about Azariah of Judah and his relations to Hamath; the explanations suggested by the Assyriologists have hitherto been total failures.  But in that case it would certainly be necessary to assume that the Assyrians were badly informed as to the nature of the relations between Hamath and Judah, and also as to the individual who at that time held the throne of Judah.  Uzziah (= Azariah), who in his old age had become a leper, could only nominally at best have been king of Judah then. *************************************

resort than to purchase by payment of a great tribute the assistance of King Tiglath-pileser II., who at that time was giving new force to the Assyrian predominance in these regions.  By such means he succeeded in attaining his immediate end, but the further consequence was that the rival party in the state turned for support to Egypt, and Palestine now became the arena of conflict between the two great world-powers.

Menahem transmitted his kingdom to Pekahiah; Pekahiah was murdered about 735 B.C. by Pekah, and Pekah himself shortly afterwards was overthrown.  All this happened within a few years.  It would have been possible to conjecture the state of the country in these circumstances, even if we had not been informed of it by means of the prophetical book of Hosea, which dates from the time when the Assyrians had begun indeed