The Historians' History of the World 02

Thus the two sections of that large part of Israel which had rejected the Davidic Dynasty were all but annihilated, for history can take no further account of the remnants which survived both in northern Israel and in the Negeb, remnants which, though they retained the divine name Yahveh, in their cultus, were in no essential respect different from the non-Israelites with whom they mingled. We do, indeed, gather from 2 Kings xvii. 25-33 that the North Arabian colonists in the Negeb combined the ritual worship of Yahveh with that of their own gods, and we may assume that they learned the “manner” or ceremonial prescriptions of Yahveh, not from a single priest—the sole representative of Israel in the wide land of the Negeb—but from a scanty remnant of Israelites left by the conqueror (compare 2 Kings xxiii. 20). But of what value or significance for the history of Israel or of Israel’s history, is this poor and uninteresting fact? Henceforth the world-historical mission of Israel was confined to that portion of the people which was loyal to the Davidic Dynasty, and in which, thanks to prophets largely drawn from the Negeb (a land of opposites in religion), the elements of progress were still active in spite of great hindrances.

LATER FORTUNES OF JUDAH

We return to Athaliah, and her bold attempt to naturalise more fully the sensuous religious developments of North Arabia in Judah. After six years, both she and her movement came to a sudden end. The only surviving male representative of David was set upon the throne. The priest Jehoiada won over the “prætorian guard” on which Athaliah had relied; the usurper was slain and the house of Baal broken down. The new king Jehoash conformed to the directions of the priests. This did not, however, avert a serious calamity. A Cushamite invasion took place, and the retirement of Hazael had to be bought at a high price. Jehoash was succeeded by his foolhardy son Amaziah, who seems to have had a dream of throwing off the suzerainty of North Israel. As the first step to this, he tried his martial prowess on the Jerahmeelites, whom he encountered in a valley in the Negeb, but when Joash of Israel, who had no mind to let Judah become predominant in that region, came down upon him with his army, the result was disastrous for Judah. Jerusalem was taken, so that the suzerainty of northern Israel was secured, and the king, Amaziah, met with a violent death. His son and successor, Azariah (or Uzziah), is to some extent a mystery; we have two narratives respecting him, one of which surprises us as much by its brevity as the other (2 Chronicles xxvi.) by its particularity. The probability, however, is that the account in 2 Kings xv. 1-7 omits all detailed reference to Azariah’s wars in the south because of a great humiliation which he received in the course of them. That heavy blow was probably nothing less than captivity in Mizrim, from the record of which, accidentally or deliberately, the later tradition extracted the statement that Azariah was smitten with leprosy. During his father’s enforced absence, Jotham acted as regent. We can hardly believe that the period of these two reigns was in any sense a prosperous one for Judah. No special misfortune, indeed, is put down to Jotham, but we are informed that the king of Aram or Cusham began those incursions into Judah which became such a serious danger in the next reign. Whether either Azariah or Jotham succeeded in becoming independent of Israel, we cannot say.

AHAZ AND ISAIAH

It was Ahaz, so well known to us from the prophet Isaiah, who succeeded Jotham. The editors of the Books of Kings and of Isaiah believed that the “Aram,” which became so troublesome to Ahaz, was the North Aramæan kingdom of Damascus, and that the ruler of this state in conjunction with Pekah, king of Israel, fearing the aggressions of Assyria, sought to force Judah into alliance with them. It was notorious that Ahaz favoured a different policy, but the allies thought themselves strong enough to capture Jerusalem and to place a nominee of their own upon the throne of Judah.