The two kings thereupon invested Ramoth, and Ben-hadad hastened to the defence of his fortress.  Selecting thirty-two of his bravest charioteers, he commanded them to single out Ahab only for attack, and not fight with others until they had slain him.  This injunction happened in some way to come to the king’s ears, and he therefore disguised himself as a common soldier, while Jehoshaphat retained his ordinary dress.  Attracted by the richness of the latter’s armour, the Syrians fell upon him, but on his raising his war-cry they perceived their mistake, and turning from the King of Judah they renewed their quest of the Israelitish leader.  While they were vainly seeking him, an archer drew a bow “at a venture,” and pierced him in the joints of his cuirass.  “Wherefore he said to his charioteer, Turn thine hand, and carry me out of the host; for I am sore wounded.”  Perceiving, however, that the battle was going against him, he revoked the order, and remained on the field the whole day, supported by his armour-bearers.  He expired at sunset, and the news of his death having spread panic through the ranks, a cry arose, “Every man to his city, and every man to his country!” The king’s followers bore his body to Samaria,* and Israel again relapsed into the position of a vassal, probably under the same conditions as before the revolt.

* 1 Kings xxii. 28-38 (cf. 2 Ohron. xviii. 28-34), with interpolations in verses 35 and 38.  It is impossible to establish the chronology of this period with any certainty, so entirely do the Hebrew accounts of it differ from the Assyrian.  The latter mention Ahab as alive at the time of the battle of Qarqar in 854 B.C. and Jehu on the throne in 842 B.C.  We must, therefore, place in the intervening twelve years, first, the end of Ahab’s reign; secondly, the two years of Ahaziah; thirdly, the twelve years of Joram; fourthly, the beginning of the reign of Jehu—­in all, possibly fourteen years.  The reign of Joram has been prolonged beyond reason by the Hebrew annalists, and it alone lends itself to be curtailed.  Admitting that the siege of Samaria preceded the battle of Qarqar, we may surmise that the three years which elapsed, according to the tradition (1 Kings xxii. 1), between the triumph of Ahab and his death, fall into two unequal periods, two previous to Qarqar, and one after it, in such a manner that the revolt of Israel would have been the result of the defeat of the Damascenes; Ahab must have died in 835 B.C., as most modern historians agree.  On the other hand, it is scarcely probable that Jehu ascended the throne at the very moment that Shalmaneser was defeating Hazael in 842 B.C.; we can only carry back his accession to the preceding year, possibly 843.  The duration of two years for the reign of Ahaziah can only be reduced by a few months, if indeed as much as that, as it allows of a full year, and part of a second year (cf. 1 Kings xxii. 51, where it is said that Ahaziah ascended the