with its territories upon Euphrates, because they opened not to him:  and therefore Israel continued in its greatness ’till Pul, probably grown formidable by some victories, caused Menahem to buy his peace. Pul therefore Reigning presently after the prophesy of Amos, and being the first upon record who began to fulfill it, may be justly reckoned the first conqueror and founder of this Empire.  For God stirred up the spirit of Pul_, and the spirit of Tiglath-pileser King of Assyria_, 1 Chron. v. 20.

The same Prophet Amos, in prophesying against Israel, threatned them in this manner, with what had lately befallen other Kingdoms:  Pass ye, [346] saith he, unto Calneh_ and see, and from thence go ye to Hamath the great, then go down to Gath of the Philistims.  Be they better than these Kingdoms?_ These Kingdoms were not yet conquered by the Assyrians, except that of Calneh or Chalonitis upon Tigris, between Babylon and Nineveh. Gath was newly vanquished [347] by Uzziah King of Judah, and Hamath [348] by Jeroboam King of Israel:  and while the Prophet, in threatning Israel with the Assyrians, instances in desolations made by other nations, and mentions no other conquest of the Assyrians than that of Chalonitis near Nineveh; it argues that the King of Nineveh was now beginning his conquests, and had not yet made any great progress in that vast career of victories, which we read of a few years after.

For about seven years after the captivity of the ten Tribes, when Sennacherib warred in Syria, which was in the 16th Olympiad, he [349] sent this message to the King of Judah:  Behold, thou hast heard that the Kings of Assyria_ have done to all Lands by destroying them utterly, and shalt thou be delivered?  Have the Gods of the nations delivered them which the Gods of my fathers have destroyed, as Gozan and Haran and Reseph, and the children of Eden which were in [the Kingdom of] Thelasar?  Where is the King of Hamath, and the King of Arpad, and the King of the city of Sepharvaim, and of Hena and Ivah_?  And Isaiah [350] thus introduceth the King of Assyria boasting:  Are not my Princes altogether as Kings?  Is not Calno [or Calneh]_ as Carchemish?  Is not Hamath as Arpad?  Is not Samaria as Damascus?  As my hand hath found the Kingdoms of the Idols, and whose graven Images did excel them of Jerusalem and of Samaria; shall I not as I have done unto Samaria and her Idols, so do to Jerusalem and her Idols?_ All this desolation is recited as fresh in memory to terrify the Jews, and these Kingdoms reach to the borders of Assyria, and to shew