Undoubtedly the first fifty years of that century were an era of sudden and unexpected prosperity.Overnight,villages were turned into cities.Shepherds left their flocks that they might share the abundance of the nearest market-place.The old trade-routes were restored and caravans once more passed from east to west and from south to north.
But with this return to wealth,came the evils of an economic system which was built upon speculation.
The simple ways of the patriarchs which had survived in many of the remote villages came to an end.
The days of Solomon had returned in the worst sense of the word.
Jehovah was neglected.Soon he was forgotten.With infinite patience and courageous tenacity,Amos and Isaiah and Hosea,the great prophets of the eighth century,laboured to convince their fellow citizens that they were worshipping false ideals and that wealth alone could never make men happy.
Elijah and Elisha had denounced the wickedness of the world amidst the clang of thunder and the flashing strokes of lightning.
Amos,Hosea and Isaiah belonged to a different type of men.They not only preached.They also wrote.
For by this time the Jews had learned the art of writing from their Babylonian neighbours,and they were beginning to make collections of stories from the past and they were copying the words of the prophets that they might teach wisdom to their children and to their grandchildren.
Endlessly Isaiah,Hosea and Amos repeated their warning that the unreasoning accumulation of gold and silver was not the only purpose of life.With untiring energy they tried to persuade the younger generation that pleasure,while not wicked in itself,did not produce that mysterious spiritual contentment without which existence is barren and devoid of true interest.
When they noticed that their talk was in vain and when they began to foresee,with ever increasing clearness,the inevitable loss of their country's independence,they changed the tone of their warning and uttered words of burning shame,the like of which had not been heard in the land since the days of Elijah.
During the greater part of their career,however,they kept away from politics and contented themselves with a discussion of the Truth.
In modern times,we probably would have called them “social reformers.”
They admonished the rich to be charitable and the poor to be patient.
They spread a new doctrine of forbearance and cheerful helpfulness.
And drawing a logical conclusion from their original ideas,they finally preached the novel doctrine of a kindly Jehovah who loved all his faithful followers like his own son and who demanded that all his children should do the same unto each other.
Alas!very few people cared to listen to them.
The Jews were so happy with their newly found prosperity;with the conquests of their king,Jeroboam;with the increasing volume of trade and commerce;that they had no time to waste upon a few queer people who stood on the corners of the marketplace and talked of coming disasters,just when the whole country was booming with wealth.
When finally they began to suspect that there might be some truth in these words of warning,it was too late.
In the distant city of Nineveh,a soldier of fortune of remarkable ability and great shrewdness,had made himself master of the throne.He called himself Tiglath Pileser,in honour of a national hero who had lived five hundred years before.He dreamed of an empire that would stretch from the Tigris to the Mediterranean.
Sooner than he had expected,the Jews gave him the chance to realise this ambition.
Ahaz,the King of Judah,engaged in one of those obscure quarrels of which we do not know the details,was on the point of war with Aram.Ahaz asked Tiglath Pileser to help him.When this became known,the Prophet Isaiah went to Ahaz to warn him against such an alliance with a heathen.The King of Judah ought to place his confidence in Jehovah and in no one else.Ahaz answered that he did not believe this.He even refused to ask for a token from Heaven.He knew what he was doing.His expedition against Aram simply could not fail.
But Isaiah disagreed with him and foretold the downfall of both Judah and Israel.It would take place very shortly.Before the children then born should have reached the age of manhood,both countries would have lost their independence.
Even then,Ahaz was not convinced.He took all the gold and silver he eould find in the temple and sent it to Nineveh as a present for Tiglath Pileser.And when he travelled northward to do homage to his august ally,he even took the brass altar,which had been standing in front of the Holy of Holies ever since the days of Solomon,and had it carried to Damascus,where he offered it to the Assyrian King.
Tiglath Pileser was much pleased.
Whether these gifts changed his mind and made him more friendly towards the Jewish people than the Assyrians had been before,we do not know for death made an end to all the King's plans.
We have good reason,however,to suppose that Tiglath would at least have spared Judah.
His successor,Shalmaneser,who no doubt inherited his foreign policies from his predecessor,was very lenient to the little kingdom,but he showed no mercy towards Israel.
When Hoshea,the last wicked king of Israel,heard that his country was about to be invaded,he tried to make a hasty alliance with Egypt,but before an expeditionary army from the banks of the Nile could reach him,Shalmaneser had crossed the frontier,had defeated the Israelite armies and had sent the king himself back to Nineveh as a prisoner of war.
Then he laid siege to the city of Samaria.
The Samarians defended their last stronghold with the courage of despair.
They held out for more than three years.
Shalmaneser,so it seems,was wounded during a sally and died under the walls of the town.
But Sargon,who followed him,pushed the attack with great vigour,and Samaria was taken.
The last resistance of the Israelites had been broken.
