In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

THE DIVIDED NATION 83 ZECHARIAH, SHALLUM, MENAHEM, PEKAHIAH, PEKAH, HOSHEA 747–724 BCE During the quarter century before its final destruction, the northern Jewish kingdom came to be overwhelmed by crisis and existential anxiety. None of those who would be Israel’s last six kings was of exceptional character or significant achievement. The prophet Hosea conveyed God’s lament that Israel had made kings, “but not with My sanction; they have made officers, but not of My choice.”[28] But divine intercession would have been required for any ruler, no matter how gifted, to hold back the tide that was about to engulf the land or to have exercised much control over its people and their fate. While Judah to the south repeatedly bounced back from recurring difficulties, the time of even a semblance of selfdetermination for the Israelites was drawing to a turbulent conclusion. The Assyrians deployed armies more powerful by far than any other in the region and they were casting an ever-more-ominous shadow. Straddling the landbridge between them and the treasures and wonders of Egypt, Israel became a primary Assyrian target. Its subjugation had become inevitable. The widened gap and growing hostility between rich and poor stoked domestic ferment, compounding the external threat. The territorial conquests and general sense of good times during the reign of Jeroboam II had done much to paper over unrest. But upon his death, Israel’s cohesion began to dissolve. It became plagued by open discord at a time when the Assyrian menace loomed largest. Jeroboam’s son, Zechariah, was allowed little time to influence the situation in any way. He wore Israel’s crown a mere six months, long enough only to recognize the dimensions of his difficulties. The most notable aspect of his reign was his assassination. His death snuffed out the longest lasting dynasty in Israel’s mercurial history, established by Jehu a century earlier. The prophet Micah brought word from God that He had given up on Israel because of its sinfulness. I will turn Samaria into a ruin in open country, into grounds for planting vineyards .… I will tumble her stones into the valley and lay her foundations bare. All her sculptured images shall be smashed and all her harlot’s wealth will be burned. KINGS OF THE JEWS 84 And I will make a waste heap of her idols.… I will lament and wail; I will go stripped and naked.… For her wound is incurable.[29] ✶ ✶ ✶ Only four things are known about Shallum who succeeded Zechariah as king of Israel, and none of those are known in any detail. He was probably a senior Israelite military commander; he assassinated Zechariah; he then seized the throne of Israel for himself; and he was in turn killed a month later by Menahem who then succeeded him as king. Rival figures competed for power as Assyria’s expansionist pressures grew ever more menacing. How to deal with the situation became a subject of raging controversy among Samaria’s leading figures—its officials, aristocrats, and plutocrats —and a source of anguish among its people. Shallum may have assassinated Zechariah because he responded too timidly to the Assyrian menace. Menahem, Shallum’s own assassin and successor as king, may have killed him for fear that his defiance of the Assyrians exposed Israel to immediate military devastation. That Menahem had marched on the capital of Samaria from the former capital of Tirzah to seize the crown suggests he had been a figure of authority there and that fragmentation of the kingdom was well under way by then. ✶ ✶ ✶ Caught up in a frenzy of factional and regional rivalries, Israel’s central administrative control had largely broken down. To establish and maintain his authority as ruler after eliminating his predecessor, Menahem resorted to brutal suppression. The Bible tells of his massacre of all inhabitants of the town of Tappuah who had scorned his claim to be their ruler. But the breakdown of law and order was well beyond repair and his ruthless insistence on obedience failed to restore the cohesion of a society in the process of breakdown. Even Samaria, the capital, was in a state of social disintegration. The prophet Hosea told of the Lord’s despair over the behavior of the people. There is no honesty and no goodness And no obedience to God in the land. [False] swearing, dishonesty, and murder, THE DIVIDED NATION 85 And theft and adultery are rife. Crime follows upon crime.[30] When the Assyrians...

Share