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and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and carried them captive to Assyria" (2 Kings xv. 29). This, therefore, was the first shock, though but a faint one, felt by the nation of Israel from the invasion of the Assyrians, and happened in or about the year 740 B. C.

The remaining part of the reign of TiglathPileser was a respite from any further appearance of encroachment or molestation. However, it lasted not beyond his death; for on the accession of his successor, Shalmaneser, which might be in the year 731 B. C., he, in the first year of his reign, invaded the land of Israel, because, it was said, he "found conspiracy in Hoshea" king of Israel; "for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and brought no present to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year: therefore the king of Assyria shut him up, and bound him in prison. Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes" (2 Kings xvii. 3-6). And so complete was this invasion in rooting out the inhabitants from their own land, that it is generally considered as the final destruction of the

of Israel; which alliance to destroy the house of David is noticed at length under the Second Period. From this circumstance it would appear that Ahaz, who was a wicked king, was not satisfied with the assurance of deliverance given him by the prophet Isaiah, but he must call in human help; for it is said that “Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria, saying, I am thy servant and thy son: come up, and save me out of the hand of the king of Syria, and out of the hand of the king of Israel, which rise up against me. And Ahaz took the silver and gold that was found in the house of the Lord, and in the treasures of the king's house, and sent it for a present to the king of Assyria. And the king of Assyria hearkened unto him for the king of Assyria went up against Damascus, and took it, and carried the people of it CAPTIVE to Kir, and slew Rezin" (2 Kings xvi. 7-9).

This fatal step was the herald of Israel's destruction it gave an introduction to that formidable power, that terrible "lion from the north," which ultimately swept desolation and ruin over all the land-it was inviting a serpent that was to sting them to death. It was the first appearance of the "head of gold." It appears, that, after taking Damascus from the king of Syria, the king of Assyria took from the king of Israel "Ijon, and Abel-beth-maachah,

a treaty with him, and demanded a very great sum of silver and gold. The king exhausted both the treasury of the temple and his own coffers to pay it. But Sennacherib, regarding neither the sanction of oaths nor treaties, still continued the war, and pushed on his conquests more vigorously than ever. Nothing was able to withstand his power; and of all the strong places of Judah none remained untaken but Jerusalem, which was reduced to the utmost extremity" (Rollin).

These particulars are related in the 2d of Kings, chaps. xviii. xix., where, in this great emergency in which Hezekiah was placed, one of those interesting and remarkable displays of Divine mercy, which are often found recorded in the word of God, was manifested for although Samaria, the capital of Israel, had been taken but a few years before, the time was not yet arrived when Jerusalem should be given into the hands of its enemies: therefore, in the last extremity, when the city seemed to be inevitably lost, when it was so reduced that its insulting foe challenged Hezekiah's ability to set two thousand riders on horses with which he in that case would furnish him-then the Lord appeared on their behalf, and the blasphemies uttered by the Assyrians against God met with awful and condign punishments. For "it came to pass on that night that the angel

kingdom; and were it not that this decisive calamity is by the "second prophetical period" unerringly fixed at a later date, under the reign of Esarhaddon; and also by some expressions in the history of Josiah, noticed under the consideration of the same "Period," proved not to have been final; it would no doubt have been the universal opinion. So difficult is it accurately to fix upon dates, when we have not the certain guidance of the Holy Spirit!

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In this intermediate space of time, between the first destruction of Israel by Shalmaneser in 727, and its final ruin by Esarhaddon in 677, Judah was brought to the very verge of ruin by Sennacherib, and saved only by a miracle. In the year B. C. 715, on some pretext or other, Judah-as if ever to cohere and participate in the calamities of Israel, as she had participated in her sins-under Hezekiah, the son and successor of Ahaz, felt the bitter consequence of Ahaz having called in the help of Assyria; for Sennacherib for four or five years with merciless cruelty ravaged the whole country. "Now in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah did Sennacherib king of Assyria come against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them" (2 Kings xviii. 13). "Hezekiah, distressed to see his kingdom thus pillaged, sent ambassadors to desire peace on any terms he would prescribe. Sennacherib, seemingly mollified, entered into

a treaty with him, and demanded a very great sum of silver and gold. The king exhausted both the treasury of the temple and his own coffers to pay it. But Sennacherib, regarding neither the sanction of oaths nor treaties, still continued the war, and pushed on his conquests more vigorously than ever. Nothing was able to withstand his power; and of all the strong places of Judah none remained untaken but Jerusalem, which was reduced to the utmost extremity" (Rollin).

These particulars are related in the 2d of Kings, chaps. xviii. xix., where, in this great emergency in which Hezekiah was placed, one of those interesting and remarkable displays of Divine mercy, which are often found recorded in the word of God, was manifested: for although Samaria, the capital of Israel, had been taken but a few years before, the time was not yet arrived when Jerusalem should be given into the hands of its enemies: therefore, in the last extremity, when the city seemed to be inevitably lost, when it was so reduced that its insulting foe challenged Hezekiah's ability to set two thousand riders on horses with which he in that case would furnish him-then the Lord appeared on their behalf, and the blasphemies uttered by the Assyrians against God met with awful and condign punishments. For "it came to pass on that night that the angel

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