Jerusalem, avoided entangling wars, and enjoyed the love and veneration of the people.  Most of them, unlike the kings of Israel, were true to their exalted mission, were loyal to Jehovah, and discouraged idolatry, if they did not root out the scandal by persecuting violence.  Some of these kings were poets, and others were saints, like their great ancestor David; and yet, in spite of all their efforts, corruption, and infidelity gained ground, and ultimately undermined the state and prepared the way for Babylonian conquests.  Though Jerusalem survived the fall of Samaria for nearly five generations, divine judgment was delayed, but not withdrawn.  The chastisement was sent at last at the hands of warriors whom no nation could successfully resist.

The old enemies who had in the early days overwhelmed the Hebrews with calamities under the Judges had been conquered by Saul and David,—­the Moabites, the Edomites, the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Philistines,—­and they never afterward seriously menaced the kingdom, although there were occasional wars.  But in the eighth century before Christ the Assyrian empire, whose capital was Nineveh, had become very formidable under warlike sovereigns, who aimed to extend their dominion to the Mediterranean and to Egypt.  In the reign of Jehoash, the son of Athaliah, an Assyrian monarch had exacted tribute from Tyre and Sidon, and Syria was overrun.  When Pul, or Tiglath-pileser, seized the throne of Nineveh, he pushed his conquests to the Caspian Sea on the north and the Indus on the east, to the frontier of Egypt and the deserts of Sinai on the west and south.  In 739 B.C. he appeared in Syria to break up a confederation which Uzziah of Judah had formed to resist him, and succeeded in destroying the power of Syria, and carrying its people as captives to Assyria.  Menahem, king of Samaria, submitted to the enormous tribute of one thousand talents of silver.  In 733 B.C. this great conqueror again invaded Syria, beheaded Rezin its king, took Damascus, reduced five hundred and eighteen cities and towns to ashes, and carried back to Nineveh an immense spoil.  In 728 B.C.  Shalmanezer IV. appeared in Palestine, and invested Samaria.  The city made an heroic defence; but after a siege of three years it yielded to Sargon, who carried away into captivity the ten tribes of Israel, from which they never returned.

Judah survived by reason of its greater military skill and its strong fortresses, with which Asa, Jehoshaphat, and Uzziah had fortified the country, especially Jerusalem.  But the fate of western Asia was sealed when Rezin of Damascus, Menahem of Samaria, Hiram of Tyre, and the king of Hamath moodily consented to pay tribute to the king of Assyria; the downfall of the sturdy Judah was in preparation.

Greater evils than those of war threatened the stability of the state.  In Judah as in Ephraim drunkenness was a national vice, and the nobles abandoned themselves to disgraceful debauchery.  There was a general demoralization of the people more fearful in its consequences than even idolatry.  Judah was no exception to the ordinary fate of nations; the everlasting sequence—­pertaining to institutions as well as nations, to religious as well as merely political communities—­was here seen,—­“Inwardness, outwardness, worldliness, and rottenness.”