respect there was no essential difference between Israel and Judah.  It was in Israel that the reaction against Baal-worship originated which afterwards passed over into Judah; the initiative in all such matters was Israel’s.  There the experiments were made from which Jerusalem learned the lesson.  How deep was the interest felt in the affairs of the larger kingdom by the inhabitants even of one of the smaller provincial towns of Judah is shown in the instance of Amos of Tekoah.

Step by step with the decline of Israel after the death of Jeroboam II. did Judah rise in importance; it was already preparing to take the inheritance.  The man through whom the transition of the history from Israel to Judah was effected, and who was the means of securing for the latter kingdom a period of respite which was fruitful of the best results for the consolidation of true religion, was the Prophet Isaiah.  The history of his activity is at the same time the history of Judah during that period.

Isaiah became conscious of his vocation in the year of King Uzziah’s death; his earliest discourses date from the beginning of the reign of Ahaz.  In them he contemplates the imminent downfall of Samaria, and threatens Judah also with the chastisement its political and social sins deserve.  In chapter ix., and also in chapters ii.-v., he still confines himself on the whole to generalities quite after the manner of Amos.  But on the occasion of the expedition of the allied Syrians and Ephraimites against Jerusalem he interposed with bold decision in the sphere of practical politics.  To the very last he endeavoured to restrain Ahaz from his purpose of summoning the Assyrians to his help; he assured him of Jehovah’s countenance, and offered him a token in pledge.  When the king refused this, the prophet recognised that matters had gone too far, and that the coming of the Assyrians could not be averted.  He then declared that the dreaded danger would indeed be obviated by that course, but that another far more serious would be incurred.  For the Egyptians would resist the westward movement of Assyria, and Judah as the field of war would be utterly laid waste; only a remnant would remain as the basis of a better future.

The actual issue, however, was not yet quite so disastrous.  The Egyptians did not interfere with the Assyrians, and left Samaria and Damascus to their fate.  Judah became indeed tributary to Assyria, but at the same time enjoyed considerable prosperity.  Henceforward the prophet’s most zealous efforts were directed to the object of securing the maintenance, at any price, of this condition of affairs.  He sought by every means at his command to keep Judah from any sort of intervention in the politics of the great powers, in order that it might devote itself with undivided energies to the necessities of internal affairs.  He actually succeeded in maintaining the peace for many years, even at times when in the petty kingdoms around the spirit of revolt was abroad.  The ill success of all attempts elsewhere to shake off the yoke confirmed him in the conviction that Assyria was the rod of chastisement wielded by Jehovah over the nations, who had no alternative but to yield to its iron sway.