phet's death, fell away and became irreligious. Still, no act of sin is recorded against him until nearly the close of his long life. Then, we are told, he became puffed up with pride on account of his continuous and extraordinary prosperity—“his heart was lifted up to his destruction, and he transgressed against the Lord his God" (2 Chron. xxvi. 16). Wantonly and without excuse, he invaded the priestly office, not, like Saul, assuming priestly duties because the priest was absent (1 Sam. xiii. 8-12), but, when there were scores of priests in and about the Temple, and the high-priest himself was within call, Azariah, intent on self-exaltation, entered the sanctuary, advanced towards the Holy of Holies, and proceeded himself to offer incense on the golden altar of incense, which stood directly before the vail that shrouded the inner chamber. The act was a flagrant assumption, not only of the priestly, but of the high-priestly office (Exod. xxx. 7, 8), and, if tamely submitted to, would have practically subordinated the entire priesthood to the monarch, and have gone far to destroy the whole Mosaic system, so carefully handed down hitherto from generation to generation. Azariah, the high-priest of the time, a namesake of the monarch, understood the gravity of the crisis, and was equal to meeting it. With a band of eighty ordinary priests (2 Chron. xxvi. 17) he followed the king into the sacred building, and hastening to the golden altar, there "withstood" his sovereign. “It appertaineth not to thee, Uzziah," he said, " to burn incense unto the Lord, but to the priests, the sons of Aaron, that are consecrated to burn incense: go out of the sanctuary; neither shall it be for thine honour from the Lord God" (ibid. ver 10). The king was in the act of offering; the censer was "in his hand to burn incense" (ver. 19); a fierce passion of rage was kindled in him at the opposition of the priests; what he would have done in his passion, had he been left to himself, we do not know; but he was not left to himself: suddenly he was struck with the terrible scourge of leprosy-leprosy of so pronounced a form that it was visible to all-" the leprosy rose up in his forehead before the priests in the house of the Lord. . . . And Azariah the chief priest, and all the priests, looked upon him, and, behold, he was leprous in his forehead, and they thrust him out from thence; yea, himself hasted also to go out, because the Lord had smitten him" (ibid. vers. 19, 20). The king himself felt and knew what had happened, and dared no longer to

...

resist; he acknowledged the Divine hand, and yielded; but the priests would not spare him the indignity of being "thrust out." They drove him from the Temple, and made him take up his abode in a "several house" (2 Kings xv. 5), or "house of separation," where he lived during the remainder of his days. It was impossible for a leper to discharge the kingly office, and the regency was consequently conferred on Azariah's eldest son, Jotham, who lived in the royal palace and exercised the royal functions, while his unhappy father endured a species of living death. Azariah's reign is reckoned to have lasted fifty-two years (2 Kings xv. 2, 27 ; 2 Chron. xxvi. 3); so that, as he was sixteen on his accession, he must have died at the age of sixtyeight. We are not told whether during his incarceration he repented of the sin that he had committed ; but we may perhaps assume that he did so, since he certainly left behind him the character of a good, rather than a wicked, king. (See 2 Kings xv. 3, 34; 2 Chron. xxvi. 4, xxvii. 2). He was buried in the royal burial-place (2 Kings xv. 7), but apparently in a sepulchre of his own (2 Chron. xxvi. 23).

CHAPTER XXIV.

ZACHARIAH, SHALLUM, AND MENAHEM.

Corruption of Israel under the dynasty of Jehu-Six months' reign of Zachariah, its last prince-Thirty days' reign of Shallum--Accession of Menahem-His expedition against Tiphsach-Its importance-Change in the condition of Assyria-Accession of Tiglath-Pileser, or Pul-His invasion of Palestine-Menahem submits to him-Ransoms SamariaBecomes an Assyrian tributary-Dies.

THE destruction of his house, wherewith Jeroboam II. had been threatened (Amos vii. 9) during his lifetime, was not very long delayed after his death. The house of Jehu had been tried and found wanting. Its "zeal for Jehovah” (2 Kings x. 16) had proved shortlived. No attempt had been made by the dynasty from first to last to undo the sin of Jeroboam. Moral corruption had been allowed to creep in, and to prevail more and more. What Isaiah said of Judah towards the close of the reign of Azariah was still more true of Israel: "The whole head was sick, and the whole heart faint; from the sole of the foot even unto the head there was no soundness" in the body politic; "but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores" (Isa. i. 5, 6). It was time to make an end of the experiment. "Israel was an empty vine" (Hos. x. 1), “a backsliding heifer" (ibid. iv. 16); there was no longer any hope of her recovery, at any rate under the dynasty of Jehu. Moreover, the fated time prophesied to the founder of the dynasty (2 Kings x. 30), probably by Elisha, had arrived-with the accession of Zachariah the fourth generation of Jehu's descendants sat upon the throne of Israel-the promise of continuance was fulfilled-a change was to be expected. Six months only after Zachariah's coronation a rebellion broke out against his authority, unpro

voked, so far as appears, by any special misconduct on the part of the prince, who had simply followed in the steps of his father, maintaining the worship of the calves in the two sanctuaries of Dan and Bethel (2 Kings xv. 9), but not otherwise guilty of any offence either towards God or towards the people. The adventurer who headed the movement was a certain Shallum, the son of Jabesh, a man otherwise unknown to us, but successful in his bold undertaking. Shallum "conspired against Zachariah, and smote him before the people" (ibid. ver. 10)—¿.e., not secretly, but openly—" and slew him, and reigned in his stead." But he held the crown for no more than a month. Menahem, the son of Gadi, a native of the old capital, Tirzah (1 Kings xiv. 17; xvi. 6, 9, 23), rose up against Shallum, and marching at the head of an army1 upon Samaria, where Shallum had established himself, took the city, and put the usurper to death on the scene of his crime (2 Kings xv. 14). He then naturally became king, and is said to have reigned for ten years (ibid. ver. 17) with a certain amount of military glory. He undertook an expedition against a city called Tiphsach, which some suppose to have been in Palestine, but which may have been the famous city of "Thapsacus" on the Euphrates. The inhabitants resisted his attack, whereupon he laid siege to the place, took it by assault, and treated it with a severity which was, even according to the ideas of the time, barbarous-" Menahem smote Tiphsach, and all that were therein; because they opened not unto him, therefore he smote it; and all the women therein that were with child he ripped up" (ibid. ver. 16). If the Tiphsach intended was really the Euphratean city, the expedition must have been one of extreme importance, transcending even that of Jeroboam II. against Hamath (2 Kings xiv. 28). It must have constituted a defiance to Assyria, which claimed sovereignty over all the upper and middle Euphrates valley, and it must have required an effort such as no previous king of Israel had ever put forth. Thapsacus must have been reached either by way of Tadmor, or by way of Aleppo, a march from Tirzah, in either case, of above three hundred miles.3 It is difficult to

I Josephus represents him as Captain of the host, and as being with the army at Tirzah when he heard of Zachariah's death ("Ant. Jud." ix. II, §1). 2 So Ewald ("History of Israel," vol. iv. p. 154, note 4).

3 By way of Aleppo the march could not have fallen much short of four hundred miles.

imagine that the Israelite kingdom could have been equal, in the time of Menahem, to such an undertaking, and could have carried it through successfully. On the other hand, the bold aggression would account for the expedition of Pul, which so soon followed, since Assyria would feel bound to resent and revenge the indignity offered her.

The power of Assyria, which had been great in the time of Ahab and Jehu, and which had then seemed to threaten seriously the independence of the Palestinian kingdoms,' had soon afterwards begun to decline, and for nearly a century the pressure of the mighty inland empire on the states situated towards the coast had relaxed, and, except on rare occasions, was scarcely felt. Either the kings had been unenterprising, or internal troubles had occupied them, or the nations of the north and east had been aggressive, and the armed force of the empire had had to be employed in keeping them in check. The western states had been left to themselves; and it was probably the known decline of Assyria which had encouraged Jeroboam II., and which now encouraged Menahem, to make their expeditions. Assyria seems to have reached her lowest point of weakness about the time that Menahem made himself king; but very soon afterwards a reaction took place; instead of the fainéants who had occupied the throne for the preceding twenty or thirty years, an energetic prince was raised to power; the period of internal trouble and external inaction came to an end; foreign expeditions were resumed; aggressors were chastised; and Assyria once more entered upon a course of conquest, and absorption of her neighbours. For an entire century-from B.C. 745 to B.C. 645-her policy was directed by ambitious and warlike monarchs, who carried her arms into regions never before even threatened, and greatly enlarged her dominions in every direction. The acmé of Assyrian glory is reached during these hundred years, towards the close of which her influence extended from the highlands of Armenia to the furthest limits of Egypt, and from the Persian desert to the shores of the Egean. The monarch who effected the change, and inaugurated the most brilliant period of Assyria's history, bore the two names of Tiglath-Pileser and Pul. Properly, Tiglath-pileser (Tiglathi

2

See "Ancient Monarchies," vol. ii. pp. 360-364.

2 As Shalmaneser III., Asshur-dayan, and Asshur-nirari—especially the two latter.