committed impurity in the service of the idols. The men of Cuth made Nergal—the "lion-god-their national deity1; those of Hamath worshipped Ashima, perhaps the Phenician goat-god Esmun; 2 the Avites, Nibhazapparently a dog-headed god-and Tartak, seemingly an eribodiment of the evil principle. Still worse, the men of Sepharvaim, true to their ancestral worship of the sun-god, Baal, burned their children alive as sacrifices to Adrammelech and Annamelech, the male and female idols of Moloch worship. Judah was now all that remained of Israel, except a scattered remnant of the various tribes, who had escaped deportation, and lingered here and there in the north. Jerusalem, henceforth, became the centre of the true religion; on its fidelity the future history of the Church depended.

The ultimate fate of the Ten Tribes has been a subject of endless controversy. It seems beyond doubt, however, that they were ultimately lost-by intermarriage and the loss of tribal exclusiveness-among the nations to whose lands they were carried, in successive deportations, extending through many years. Some were settled in the districts already named; others were transported to Media, where we find them in the time of Tobit, at Rages, not far from Teheran in Persia. But while the Book of Kings indicates the regions to which the main stream of captives was turned, many were sent to widely distant parts of the vast Assyrian empire, as for instance to Hamath, in Northern Syria. Elam and

1 Schrader, p, 167.

This is the idea of the Jewish Rabbis, but Schrader says it bas no foundation.

2 Chron. xxx. 1-18; xxxiv. 6. Judah seems from this time to have assumed the name of Israel. 2 Chron. xxxv. 3

Babylonia became the home of multitudes. Many more were carried prisoners to Egypt by the Nile kings, and many went thither voluntarily, while there was hardly a land of the Mediterranean whither vast numbers had not been sold as slaves.1

In 1 Chron. v. 26 it is said that the Eastern tribes were carried off to Halah, and Khabour, and Hara ("the mountain land" of Media) and to the river of Gozan, and that they remained there at the time when Chronicles were compiled-that is, apparently in the days of Ezra, about B.C. 536, or nearly 250 years after their deportation. In this verse Pul and Tiglath-pileser are mentioned as distinct monarchs, but this Schrader thinks is, beyond doubt, a corruption of the text. Keilinschriften, p. 133. On the whole subject, see Keil, Die Bücher d. Könige, p. 323. Menant, Babylone et la Chaldea, p. 141. The subject of the fate of the Ten Tribes will be treated more fully in the next volume

THE

long anarchy of fifty years from the death of Jeroboam II. King after king had been murdered, and the throne had been seized at each new revolution by some fierce soldier chief, under whom matters went steadily from bad to worse. Rival factions had broken out as confusion and trouble increased. Old tribal jealousies had set neighbour against neighbour; Ephraim devoured Manasseh, and Manasseh devoured Ephraim. Yet the nation, as we have seen, did not sink without a desperate struggle for life. Hosea speaks of a massacre at Betharbel, perhaps beyond Jordan; perhaps at Irbid or Arbela, west of the Sea of Galilee, among the almost inaccessible hill caves in which, centuries later, the remnant of the people sought refuge from the Roman soldiery. The fortresses had been taken only after a fierce defence, in which many had preferred death to surrender. Mothers had thrown their children from the walls and flung themselves down to perish with them. But at last the bow of Israel had been finally broken in the great plain of Jezreel or Esdraelon, which had seen so many desperate struggles. The fall of Samaria after its heroic

1 Isa. ix. 21. 2 Hitzig.

3 Hos. x. 14.

4 Hos. i. 5.

resistance, had been followed by all the horrors of Eastern warfare. Children were dashed in pieces, and matrons ripped open;1 the maidens and surviving men le off into captivity. As the end drew near, anarchy added its terrors within the walls to those impending without. The rich broke out into wild revellings and debau chery, to drown their despair, and tumult and riot held carnival. The city on its surrender was forthwith levelled to the ground; its site made like "a heap of the field;" the stones of its proud palaces hurled down the hill side into the valley below; its very foundations laid bare; the gods in which it trusted carried off or beaten to pieces, and its spoil seized or burnt.3 Palace and hovel perished together; the places where its idol statues had stood were left desolate.5

4

Such an appalling catastrophe had not come without abundant warning. Men like Amos, Hosea, Micah, and Isaiah had watched its approach and raised their voices, strong in the might of inspiration, to bring about a timely repentance, and thus save the guilty land. But besides them, there must have been many others, true to Jehovah, but now unknown, who strove in their own. sphere that the evil might be averted. Some Psalms still remain which bear internal evidence of having been composed in the last years of Israel.

"Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel," wails out an unknown singer;

6

"Thou who leadest Joseph like a flock,

Thou who sitt'st enthroned between the Cherubim-shine forth Before Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh,

1 Hos. xiii. 16.

• Micah i. 6, 7.

Micah i. 7.

2 Gesenius, Iesaia, p. 829.

Amos vi. 11.

Ps. lxxx.

Wake up Thy mighty strength and come to save us.

O God, restore us, once again;

Cause Thy face to shine on us, and we shall be saved!

"O Jehovah, God of Hosts,

How long will Thine anger smoke at the prayer of Thy people! Thou givest them bread of tears to eat;

Thou lettest them drink a full measure of tears;

Thou makest us a subject of dispute to our neighbours; (who

shall take our land—)

Our enemies mock us among themselves.

O God of Hosts, restore us once again,

Cause Thy face to shine on us, and we shall be saved!

"Thou broughtest out a vine from Egypt;

Thou didst drive out the heathen, and planted it.
Thou didst make clear room for it;
It took deep root and filled the land.
The hills were covered with its shade;
Its branches were like cedars of God.
It stretched its boughs to the Sea,
Its shoots to the Great River.1

Why hast Thou broken down the walls round it,
That all wanderers by the way can pluck it?
The boar 2 from the forest roots it up;

The wild brood of the field make it their pasture!

"O God of Hosts, turn back, even now; Look down from heaven, and behold,

And come to this Vine ;

The stock which Thy right hand has planted;
The sapling which Thou didst choose for Thyself!

The hills of the south-the cedars of the north-the sea on the west--the Euphrates on the east. So widely had it spread. 2 Assyria.

Or, Son. So Gesenius, Hitzig, Delitzsch and others. "Son" was used by the Hebrews, from the simplicity and poverty of their language, in many ways strange to us now. Hence, in the A.V. it is translated, Gen. xxxii. 15, colts; xlix. 22, bough; Job iv. 11, whelps; v. 7, sparks; Ps. lxxx. 15, branch; Isai. xxi. 10, corn; Lam. i. 16, arrows.