1 2: strength of the whole nation with less and less restraint. This led Amos first, and then Hosea more definitely still, to announce the impending ruin, not only of the house of Jehu, but of the monarchy and the kingdom itself; but Hosea also based the necessity of the fall of the house of Jehu on the blood-guilt once contracted by it in the valley of Jezreel, when it seized the throne, so that this crime, too, received its eternal sentence from the new prophecy.3 Indeed, the inmost life of the kingdom of the Ten Tribes was extinguished when the house of Jehu, which was the mightiest of all and had been raised to power by the utmost exertions of all the better elements of the nation, had fallen into essentially the same position as that occupied by the earlier dynasties which had decayed more rapidly. It was impossible for the kingdom to return to its first principles, for the house of Jehu had exerted itself to the utmost, yet in vain, to bring this about; nor could it further develope itself, for this could only have been effected by the rejected prophets of the higher type. Nothing was left for it but destruction. Deep grief, no doubt, seized the noble prophets when they were driven to predict the impending ruin of a state which, from an external point of view, still shone in all its power and glory; but yet the Spirit compelled them ever to proclaim this destruction as close at hand, and as irrevocably decreed by Jahveh. 4 5. As long as Jeroboam II., who had been so victorious in his youth, and who certainly preserved his valour and prudence to the last, remained on the throne, the external condition of the kingdom continued satisfactory. But his son Zachariah was only able to maintain himself in power for six months. He fell with all his house by a conspiracy in the army; and this conspiracy was only the parent of an endless series of others, which would have been enough to destroy the kingdom within half a century at the most, even if the Assyrians, a powerful people of quite a fresh type, had not appeared upon the battle-field. But before we take a closer survey of the final convulsions of the kingdom of the Ten Tribes, we must bring up the history of the other kingdom to about the same epoch,-that at which the Assyrians cause an entirely fresh agitation among all the kingdoms of the south. 1 Amos vii. 9, ix. 8, Hos. i. 4, iii. 4, X. 3, xiii. 10 sq. and elsewhere. 2 P. 97 sqq. 3 Cf. p. 35. Hos. ix. 13, x. 1. B. THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH TO THE DEATH OF KING UZZIAH. I. CONSEQUENCES OF THE REVOLUTION UNDER Jehu.-Joash, AMAZIAH, AND UZZIAH. 2 1. The revolution under Jehu and its immediate results threw even the house of David' into the greatest danger of utter destruction; and while the house of Omri was exterminated on its own ground, at Jerusalem on the contrary it seemed to flourish anew with all its principles and objects in the person of the haughty queen-mother Athaliah. At first sight it seems surprising that she should have reigned for six years, since we find no other instance in the ancient history of Israel of a woman being queen. But, generally speaking, woman had not yet sunk to the dependence and insignificance to which she was afterwards reduced by Islam; and the Phoenician Dido, who stands near to Athaliah both in chronology and race, was not the only celebrated female ruler of the ancient East. Besides this, Athaliah, as queen-mother, could easily abuse her great power so as even to maintain herself and her followers at the helm of the state. 4 We have little detailed information about the six years' reign of this bold woman. Her supporters would consist of the party inclined to heathenism, which had been formed at Jerusalem under the short reigns of the two preceding kings, as well as of the faithful followers of the house of Omri, who may have fled to her at Jerusalem when persecuted in the kingdom of the Ten Tribes. But in the kingdom of Judah the attachment to the austere old religion had become too strong since the days of Asa and Jehoshaphat, and the partiality to the house of David could not long be repressed. That the ancient order of priests, which in this kingdom was well consolidated," must have constituted the next strongest body of opposition to the patronage of heathenism after the genuine prophets of Jahveh, is easily intelligible; and we see at this point the first indication of the great power which this order, in its present condition, could exert. Joash, the only son of the last king Ahaziah who escaped the massacre," was rescued, with his nurse, when an infant hardly two months old, by Joshebah, a sister of Ahaziah, but probably not a daughter of Athaliah. She concealed him at first I P. 101. 2 Pp. 63, 101. Cf. Miriam, Deborah, Abigail, and the Shulamite in the Song of Solomon. 6 P. 101. 2 in the bed-chamber of the royal palace among the mattrasses which were kept in store there,' and then removed him with equal secrecy into the building adjoining the temple, the overseer of which, the high priest Jehoiada, was her husband. When Athaliah, who knew nothing of this (for Joash might pass for a son of the high priest), had reigned for more than six years, Jehoiada thought the time ripe for overthrowing her power and having the young prince publicly recognised as the true sovereign of the country. He accordingly consulted with the captains of the royal body-guard3 in the temple itself, showed them the young Joash, secured their allegiance to him under a sacred promise, and concerted with them the following plan for placing him on the throne. Every Sabbath it was customary for one division of the body-guard to remain at its post by the royal palace, to protect it, while the two other divisions marched out to preserve order at the temple where there were always great streams of people. On these occasions the first division took up its position at the northern entrance of the temple, or the so-called foundation-gate, the other at the southern entrance, also called the gate behind the runners' gate. On a given Sabbath, then, the first division was to occupy its customary position at the palace, so as to deceive Athaliah, who did not frequent the temple of Jahveh, by the appearance of doing everything in the usual order; but the two other divisions were on this occasion to occupy the temple in the interest of the king, forming a compact circle from north to south round the court of the priests, attending to nothing but the safety of the king, and slaying on the spot anyone who attempted to pass the boundaries of the royal platform. This plan was completely successful. When the two divisions which were to 1 In 2 Kings xi. 2, we must insert n from 2 Chron. xxii. 11, before 2 It is true that the fact of her being the wife of the high priest only rests on 2 Chron. xxii. 11, but it is certainly a genuinely historical statement. That Jehoiada was high priest is clear from 2 Kings xii. 11. The Kari and the Runners,' 2 Kings xi. 4, 19, elsewhere in this narrative still more briefly the Runners,' no doubt because no great number of foreigners were any longer included among them. Cf. iii. p. 143, and i. p. 248. Probably the six hundred Gibborim were amalgamated with these runners in the kingdom of Judah after the time of Solomon. At any rate, in the existing narratives we only find officers of the rank of Shâlîsh (iii. p. 140 4 accomplish their task at the temple, came to Jehoiada, he gave their leaders the spear and shield' which were preserved as weapons of David, consecrated by him to the temple, as though to commence and to consecrate the work of the restoration of the Davidic house with the sacred arms of the great founder himself. Then he placed the young prince before the assembled army, and had him anointed as the true king with all the customary solemnities; and after the successful termination of this ceremony, and as the trumpets sounded, a great shout of joy was raised, at first by the body-guard and then in everwidening circles by the whole people. Athaliah, roused by the disturbance, hastened boldly into the middle of the temple, but she came too late to prevent what had happened, and at Jehoiada's order she was quietly removed beyond the limits of the sanctuary, and then, at a considerable distance from the temple and west of the palace, put to death. The high priest took advantage of this victory to bind the people once more by oath to faithful maintenance of the worship of Jahveh, and the joyous festival of homage to the youthful king became on this occasion identical with that of renewed allegiance to Jahveh. He further derived powerful assistance from the awakened zeal of the whole people, who destroyed the temple of Baal in Jerusalem3 and slew its high priest Mattan. 2 also signifies a change or transfer from one to another. That , vv. 8, 15, may denote the boundaries of the royal platform has been shown iii. p. 251. The whole narrative c. xi., together with that of the repair of the temple, c. xii., may be taken from the State-annals. The Chronicler, however, chose to think it more worthy of a high priest to call the Levites and the elders of the whole country to his assistance in such an undertaking. So he tells us, 2 Chron. xxiii., that the captains called in by Jehoiada had previously made the circuit of Judah to draw to Jerusalem all the Levites and the other heads of the people, and that the Levites then formed the inmost circle round the king in the temple, while the laity accomplished the actual deed of blood. From his usual method elsewhere, it is easy to recognise what is peculiar to the Chronicler in the whole of this representation. The three divisions of the men who conducted the revolution, mentioned by the ancient historical work, assume quite a different aspect under the Chronicler, ver. 4 sq.; in particular he forms the first of these three divisions of Levites of every kind, a supposition which is only a result of the altered conception of the whole affair. If we discard everything which only shows the colouring of the Chronicler's representation, no historical addition to the narrative of 2 Kings xi. remains, except the five names of the captains of the runners given in ver. 1; these he must certainly have found in some ancient document. The Chronicler, ver. 9, multiplies the number of these weapons; but it would be a mistake to suppose that in the original narrative the soldiers of the captains came to the temple without weapons, and that there the high priest distributed the weapons of David to them through the captains. This is not implied in the words of the narrative, nor, under the circumstances, can it be supposed possible.-For the rest, the conjecture that Joash may perhaps have been a supposititious representative of the royal family is quite unfounded. 2 But, according to 2 Kings xi. 18, 2 Chron. xxiii. 18 sq., they had for a long time to keep watch in the temple, to prevent surprise by the heathenising party. 3 P. 95. The dominion of the ancient religion was settled again for a long period, and all the foreign elements which the close alliance of Jehoshaphat with the house of Omri had introduced, were thrust away. The high priest became the teacher and guide of the king, who was only seven years old; and the latter adopted with such docility the principles of his instructor that even after he had attained his majority he always remained loyal to them. But from childhood upwards he never showed any enterprise or courage; and besides this the royal authority in general was at that time already greatly impaired. It is not surprising, therefore, that under him the kingdom could not at once recover from the enfeebled condition into which it had fallen since Jehoshaphat's death, and even experienced further humiliations and losses. 2 The occasion of fresh wars and disasters was probably given by the Philistine city of Gath, which may have regained its territory and its freedom under Jehoram. Its reconquest may have been deemed a point of honour by the new government at Jerusalem, and the attempt must at first have succeeded. But at this point the other little Philistine states appear to have called in the aid of the powerful Aramean king Hazael,3 and, in the humiliation to which he had reduced it, the kingdom of the Ten Tribes was certainly not in a position to refuse him permission to pass through its territory. Accordingly he came with a small but valiant army, conquered it, but presented it with its freedom, and thence pressed forward at once towards 4 At any rate, this is clearly implied in the words of the older historical work 2 Kings xii. 3 [2] comp. with 1 Kings xv. 14,2 Kings xv. 18, since there signifies because. If indeed the last letter of be cut off, there would result the very different meaning as long as Jehoiada instructed him' or directed him, as though he had afterwards become unfaithful to Jahveh. At least the LXX already translated, and the Chronicler, 2 Chron. xxiv. 2, understood it so. But had this been so, then the older historical work must have told us how Joash showed himself faithless afterwards; but so far is this from being the case, that the piety of his successor is afterwards compared with his own, and that of both regarded as inferior to David's alone, 2 Kings xiv. 3 (the Chronicles omit this passage); even Uzziah is only treated as their equal, 2 Kings xv. 3, 2 Chron. xxvi. 4. A complete change in the king's disposition after Jehoiada's death would be the more surprising because we know from 2 Kings xii. 7 [6] that the latter was 3 P. 93 sq. Hence it is mentioned as independent by Amos vi. 2. All the other statements in the text follow from 2 Kings xii. 18 sq. [17 sq.], 2 Chron. xxiv. 23 sq., compared with all that we know with tolerable certainty of these circumstances from other sources. An alliance of the Arameans and Philistines against Israel or Judah is seen even later, after the time of Jeroboam II.; see below. The Hellenists call the Damascene king Afahλ, and in Jos. Gen. Hypomn. c. 124, he is confused with an |