The Expositor's Bible Part 22

Nor did Pekah escape. Tiglath-Pileser advanced against the northern part of his dominions, and afflicted the land of Zebulon and Naphtali. Ijon; Abel-beth-Maachah, the city of Elisha; Zanoah, the ancient sanctuary of Kedesh-Naphtali, the home of the hero Barak; Hazor, the former capital of the Canaanitish king Jabin; Gilead; Galilee,--all submitted to him, apparently without striking a serious blow. He dealt with the miserable inhabitants in the way familiar to kings of a.s.syria. He deported them _en ma.s.se_ into a strange country of which they did not understand the language, and in which they were reduced to hopeless subjection, while he supplied their places by aliens from various parts of his own dominions. There could be no securer method of reducing to paralysis all their national aspirations. Strangers in a strange land, they forgot their nationality, forgot their religion, forgot their language, forgot their traditions. Their sole resource was to plunge into material pursuits, and to melt away into indistinguishable obliteration among the neighbouring heathen. It was the beginning of the Northern Captivity--of the loss of the Ten Tribes.

As Tiglath-Pileser thus permanently subdued and depopulated the land of the Northern Tribes, it is a Jewish tradition that at this time he carried away the golden "calf" from Dan among his spoils.[385]

Scripture does not record the fact, though in Hosea (viii. 5) there may be an allusion to the fate of that at Bethel, whether the right version be "He hath cast off thy calf, O Samaria," or "Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off."[386] "The workman made it," he continues; "therefore it is not G.o.d: for the calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces." And again (x. 5): "The people of Samaria shall fear because of the heifer of the House of Vanity: for the people thereof shall mourn over it, and the _chemarim_ [_i.e._, the black-robed false priests thereof] shall tremble for it, for the glory thereof, because it is departed. It [the idol] shall also be carried to a.s.syria for a present to King Combat."

For a time Pekah escaped; but unsuccess is fatal to a murderous usurper, weakened by the loss and plunder of dominions which he is unable to defend. Instead of wasting time in the siege of a strong city like Samaria, Tiglath-Pileser in all probability stirred up Hoshea, the son of Elah, to rise in conspiracy against his master and slay him. For Pekah and Israel seem to have made light of the Northern raid. They said in their pride and stoutness of heart, "The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with new stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars." Such pretence of security was ill-timed and senseless, and Isaiah denounced it. "Therefore," he said, "Jehovah hath set up against Israel the adversaries of Rezin [_i.e._, the a.s.syrians], and hath stirred up his enemies; the Syrians on the east, and the Philistines on the west; and they have devoured Israel with open mouth.

For all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still. Yet the people have not turned unto Him that smote them, neither have they sought the Lord of hosts. Therefore Jehovah hath cut off from Israel palm-branch and rush in one day. The elder and the honourable man, he is the head; and the prophet that speaketh lies, he is the tail.

For they that lead this people cause them to err, and they that are led of them are swallowed up."[387]

The following verses furnish one of the numerous pictures of the anarchy and abounding misery of these evil days. "For wickedness burneth as the fire: it devoureth the briers and thorns; yea, it kindleth in the thickets of the forest, and they roll upwards in thick clouds of smoke.

Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts is the land burnt up; the people also are the fuel of fire: _no man spareth his brother_. And one shall s.n.a.t.c.h on the right, and be hungry; and he shall eat on the left hand, and they shall not be satisfied: they shall _eat every man the flesh of his own arm_: Mana.s.seh, Ephraim; and Ephraim, Mana.s.seh: and they together shall be against Judah. For all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still."

We are told in the Book of Kings that Pekah reigned for twenty years; but some of these later reigns must be shortened to suit the exigencies of known chronological data. It seems probable that he occupied the throne for a much shorter time.[388]

Such was the weakened, hara.s.sed, va.s.sal kingdom--the gaunt spectre of itself--to the throne of which, after a period of anarchy and chaos, Hoshea, by conspiracy and murder, succeeded as the miserable feudatory of a.s.syria.

FOOTNOTES:

[354] Amos viii. 2.

[355] Amos iv. 1-3.

[356] It is probable that our present Book of Zechariah is composed of the works of three prophets of different dates, each of whom may have borne that name. See my _Minor Prophets_ ("Men of the Bible" Series).

[357] Zech. xi. 8. In 2 Kings xv. 10 the LXX. read ?a? ep?ta?e? a?t??

?? ?e?a?; and Ewald thinks that "before the people" (?????????) is really a proper name of the third king in one month--"and _Kobolam_ slew him." There is insufficient ground for this; though a similar name is found in a.s.syrian records.

[358] Hos. viii. 3, vii. 7.

[359] Zachariah, Shallum, Kobolam (?).

[360] Zech. xi. 1-17 (Heb. 13).

[361] That this was Thapsacus on the Euphrates (1 Kings iv. 24), and that Menahem was in a position to march northward three hundred miles, and offer so deadly and wanton an insult to the might of a.s.syria, is out of the question. The name means "a ford," and might apply to any town on a river. Thenius thinks the name is a clerical error for _Tappuach_, between Ephraim and Mana.s.seh (Josh. xvii. 7, 8).

[362] Josephus says, ??t?t?? ?pe????? ?? ?ata??p?? ??d? ?????t?t??.

It is said that the same crime was committed in 1861 by a Mexican bandit. Machiavelli says, "He who violently and without just right usurps a crown must use cruelty, if cruelty becomes necessary, once for all" (_De princ._, 8).

[363] 2 Kings viii. 12; Hos. xiii. 16.

[364] Amos i. 13.

[365] Hos. x. 14. This allusion is, however, uncertain. Shalmaneser III.

is not elsewhere found abbreviated into Shalman. Some suppose him to be a Moabitish king, Salamannu, who was a va.s.sal of Tiglath-Pileser. The LXX., Vulg., etc., identify him with the Zalmunna of Judg. viii. 18.

Psalm lx.x.xiii. 11 renders the word _ex domo ejus qui judicavit Baal_ (_i.e._, Gideon). Beth-Arbel is either Arbela in Galilee, or Irbid, north-east of Pella.

[366] Nah. iii. 10.

[367] Isa. xiii. 16.

[368] The two predecessors of Tiglath-Pileser (_Tuklat-abal-isarra_) were a.s.surdayan and a.s.surnirari.

[369] Isa. v. 26-29.

[370] Comp. Job xx. 15; Ruth ii. 1.

[371] Hos. v. 11-13. Comp. x. 6: "It [Samaria] shall be carried to a.s.syria for a present unto King Jareb." Sayce (_Bab. and Orient.

Records_, December 1887) thinks that Jareb may have been the original name of Sargon, and so too Neubauer, _Zeitschr. fur a.s.syr._, 1886. The Vulg. renders King Jareb _ad regem ultorem_, and so too Symmachus.

Aquila and Theodotion have d??a??e???. It may be the name of an unknown king of a.s.syria, or of Pul, or of Sargon--R.V., margin, "a king that should contend."

[372] Hos. vii. 8-12.

[373] Josephus says, t? t?? pat??? ????????sa? ??t?t?.

[374] 2 Kings xv. 25, A.V., "in the palace of the king's house"

(_armon_), rather "fortress." For the character of the Gileadites see 1 Chron. xii. 8, xxvi. 31.

[375] The length of Pekah's reign is most doubtful. If the periods a.s.signed to the reigns in the Northern and Southern Kingdoms be added together up to the Fall of Samaria in the sixth year of Hezekiah (2 Kings xviii. 9, 10), it will be found that the Southern chronology is twenty years longer than the Northern. G. Smith would alter the text, and make Jeroboam II. reign fifty-one years and Pekah thirty years; others invent an interregnum of eleven years between Jeroboam II. and Zachariah, and an anarchy of nine years before Hoshea's accession; others shorten Pekah's reign to _one_ year.

[376] 2 Kings xv. 37.

[377] Vide _infra_.

[378] Deut. x.x.xiii. 19: "They [Zebulon] shall call the peoples unto the mountain: there shall they offer the sacrifices of righteousness."

[379] Isa. viii. 6, 7.

[380] Perhaps we should read Edomites (2 Kings xvi. 6).

[381] The bar of its city gate.

[382] Bikath-Aven--"The cleft of Aven"--Cle Syria, or Hollow Syria, still called by the Arabs El-Bukaa. Comp. Josh. xi. 17, xii. 7. Aven--or "Vanity"--is perhaps Heliopolis or Baalbek. Comp. Ezek. x.x.x. 17.

[383] Perhaps Beit el Jame, "House of Paradise"--about eight hours from Damascus (Porter, _Five Years in Syria_, i. 313).

[384] Kir, in Armenia--the land of their origin (Amos ix. 7).

[385] But, after all, was there a golden calf at Dan? It is scarcely ever alluded to, and the notion that there was one may have arisen (1) from a corruption or mistaken rendering of the text in 1 Kings xii.

29, and (2) from the existence there of the idolatrous ephod. See Klostermann, _ad loc._; Isa. ix. 8-17.

[386] LXX., ?p?t???a? t?? ?s??? s??, Sa??e?a; Vulg., _Projectus est vitulus tuus, Samaria_. Orelli renders it, "Abscheulich ist dein Kalb, O Samaria." In Jer. xlvi. 15 we read (of Egypt), "Why is thy strong one swept away?" where the true reading may be, "Hath Khaph [_i.e._, Apis], thy chosen one, fled?" LXX., ?p?? ? ?s??? s??, ? ???e?t??. So Amos had prophesied that the "G.o.d of Dan" and the "way of Beersheba"

should fall for evermore (Amos viii. 14).

[387] Isa. ix. 11-16. With this pa.s.sage comp. 2 Kings xxiii. 5; Zeph.

i. 4; Hos. vii. 9, 10.

[388] Tiglath-Pileser says: "Pakaha, their king, I killed: Ausi [Hoshea] I placed over them. The distant land of Bit-Khumri [the "house of Omri"]--_the whole of its inhabitants_, with their goods--I carried away to a.s.shur" (B.C. 734). In this year he mentions Ahaz among his tributaries.