left him in the lurch as soon as Shalmaneser IV., Tiglath-pileser’s successor, invaded his territory.  Before his capital had fallen, Hosea himself fell into the hands of the Assyrians.  Samaria offered a desperate resistance, and succumbed only to Sargon, Shalmaneser’s successor (72I).  Energetic measures were adopted by the victor for the pacification of the country; he carried all the inhabitants of mark into captivity to Calachene, Gozanitis, and Armenia.  Much light is thrown upon the conditions of the national religion then and upon its subsequent development by the single fact that the exiled Israelites were absorbed by the surrounding heathenism without leaving a trace behind them, while the population of Judah, who had the benefit of a hundred years respite, held their faith fast throughout the period of the Babylonian exile, and by means of it were able to maintain their own individuality afterwards in all the circumstances that arose.  The fact that the fall of Samaria did not hinder but helped the religion of Jehovah is entirely due to the prophets.  That they had foreseen the downfall of the state, and declared in the name of religion that it was inevitable, was a matter of much greater historical importance than the actual downfall itself.

7.  THE DELIVERANCE OF JUDAH.

Hitherto the small kingdom of Judah had stood in the background.  Its political history had been determined almost exclusively by its relation to Israel.  Under the dynasty of Omri the original enmity had been changed into a close but perhaps not quite voluntary friendship.  Judah found itself drawn completely into the train of the more powerful neighbouring state, and seems even to have rendered it military service.  The fall of the house of Omri was an ominous event for Judah as well as Israel; Jehu, as he passed to the throne, put to death not only Ahaziah the king but also two and forty other members of the royal house of David who had fallen into his hands; and those who still survived, children for the most part, were murdered wholesale by the regent Athaliah for reasons that are unknown.  Only one little boy, Joash, was concealed from her fury, and by a successful conspiracy six years afterwards was placed upon the throne of his ancestors.  At that time the Syrians were extending their incursions to Judah and Philistia, and Joash bought them off from Jerusalem with the temple treasures.  Perhaps it was this disgrace that he expiated with his death; in like manner perhaps the assassination of his successor Amaziah is to be accounted for by the discredit he had incurred by a reckless and unsuccessful war against Israel.  Just as Israel was beginning to recover itself after the happy termination of the Syrian wars, Judah also experienced its period of highest prosperity.  What Jeroboam II. was to the northern kingdom, Uzziah was to that of the south.  He appears to have obtained possession of Edom, and for a considerable time to have held that one province of David’s