to tamper with the country, but had not yet shown their full design.  After the death of Jeroboam II. there had been wild outbursts of partisan war; none of the kings who in quick succession appeared and disappeared had real power, none established order.  It was as if the danger from without, which was only too obviously threatening the existence of the kingdom, had already dissolved all internal bonds; every one was at war with his neighbour.  Assyrians and Egyptians were called in to support this or that government; by such expedients the external confusion was, naturally, only increased.  Was there any other quarter in which help could yet be sought?  The people, led by the priests, turned to the altars of Jehovah, and outdid itself in pious works, as if by any such illusory means, out of all relation to the practical problem in hand, the gangrene of anarchy could possibly be healed.  Still more zealous than Amos against the cultus was Hosea, not merely on the ground that it had the absurd motive of forcing Jehovah’s favour, but also because it was of heathenish character, nature-worship and idolatry.  That Jehovah is the true and only helper is certainly not denied by Hosea.  But His help is coupled with the condition that Israel shall undergo a complete change, and of such a change he sees no prospect.  On this account the downfall of the state is in Hosea’s view inevitable, but not final ruin, only such an overthrow as is necessary for the transition to a new and fair recommencement.  In Hosea’s prophecies the relation between Jehovah and Israel is conceived of as dissoluble, and as actually on the point of being dissolved, but it has struck its roots so deep that it must inevitably at last establish itself again.

The first actual collision between Israel and Assyria occurred in 734.  Resin, king of Damascus, and Pekah, king of Samaria, had united in an expedition against Judah, where at that time Ahaz ben Jotham occupied the throne.  But Ahaz parried the blow by placing himself under the protection of the Assyrians, who perhaps would in any case have struck in against the alliance between Aram and Israel.  Tiglath-pileser made his first appearance in 734, first on the sea-coast of Palestine, and subsequently either in this or in the following year took up his quarters in the kingdom of the ten tribes.  After he had ravaged Galilee and Gilead, he finally concluded a peace with Samaria conditionally on his receiving the head of King Pekah and a considerable yearly tribute.  Hosea ben Elah was raised to the throne in Pekah’s place and acknowledged by the Assyrian as a vassal For some ten years he held his position quietly, regularly paying his dues.  But when at the death of Tiglath-pileser the Syro-Palestinian kingdoms rebelled en masse, Samaria also was seized with the delirium of patriotic fanaticism (Isaiah xxviii.).  Relying upon the help of Seve, king of Ethiopia and Egypt, Hosea ventured on a revolt from Assyria.  But the Egyptians