** 1 Kings xv. 1-8; cf. 2 Chron. xiii.  The Booh of Kings describes his mother as Maacah, the daughter of Absalom (xv. 10), which would seem to indicate that he was the brother and not the son of Abijam.  The uncertainty on this point is of long standing, for the author of Chronicles makes Abijam’s mother out in one place to be Micaiah, daughter of Uriel of Gibcah (xiii. 2), and in another (xi. 20) Maacah, daughter of Absalom.

     *** 1 Kings xv. 27-34.

Baasha pressed forward resolutely his campaign against Judah.  He seized Eamah and fortified it;* and Asa, feeling his incapacity to dislodge him unaided, sought to secure an ally.  Egypt was too much occupied with its own internal dissensions to be able to render any effectual help, but a new power, which would profit quite as much as Judah by the overthrow of Israel, was beginning to assert itself in the north.  Damascus had, so far, led an obscure and peaceful existence; it had given way before Egypt and Chaldaea whenever the Egyptians or Chaldseans had appeared within striking distance, but had refrained from taking any part in the disturbances by which Syria was torn asunder.  Having been occupied by the Amorites, it threw its lot in with theirs, keeping, however, sedulously in the background:  while the princes of Qodshu waged war against the Pharaohs, undismayed by frequent reverses, Damascus did not scruple to pay tribute to Thutmosis III. and his descendants, or to enter into friendly relations with them.  Meanwhile the Amorites had been overthrown, and Qodshu, ruined by the Asiatic invasion, soon became little more than an obscure third-rate town;** the Aramaeans made themselves masters of Damascus about the XIIth century, and in their hands it continued to be, just as in the preceding epochs, a town without ambitions and of no great renown.

     * 1 Kings xv. 17; cf. 2 Ghron. xvi. 1.

** Qodshu is only once mentioned in the Bible (2 Sam. xxiv. 6), in which passage its name, misunderstood by the Massoretic scribe, has been restored from the Septuagint text.

We have seen how the Aramaeans, alarmed at the sudden rise of the Hebrew dynasty, entered into a coalition against David with the Ammonite leaders:  Zoba aspired to the chief place among the nations of Central Syria, but met with reverses, and its defeat delivered over to the Israelites its revolted dependencies in the Hauran and its vicinity, such as Maacah, Geshur, and even Damascus itself.* The supremacy was, however, shortlived; immediately after the death of David, a chief named Rezon undertook to free them from the yoke of the stranger.  He had begun his military career under Hada-dezer, King of Zoba:  when disaster overtook this leader and released him from his allegiance, he collected an armed force and fought for his own hand.  A lucky stroke made him master of Damascus:  he proclaimed himself king there, harassed the Israelites with impunity during the reign of Solomon, and took