and then predicts their long servitude and captivity in Assyria. Osee is also known for many predictions of the times of the Messias, and for one of the future conversion of the Hebrew people.

But all was in vain. "The Lord was very angry with Israel,' says the sacred writer, and removed him from His sight, and there remained only the tribe of Juda.' To fill up the room of the families of Israel who were carried away from Samaria, Salman, the Assyrian king, brought people from Babylon, Cutha, Avah, Emoth, and Sepharvaim, and placed them. in the cities of Samaria. And when the Lord sent lions among them which killed them, Salman, attributing this to the new comers not knowing the manner of the God of the land, sent one of the priests who had been carried away from Samaria to teach them. The result of this teaching was that the people learned to mix up the worship of the God of Israel with that of their own idols, and they became in consequence an object of so far greater abhorrence to the Jews of Jerusalem than any other of the Gentile people, that it was forbidden to a Jew to speak to a Samaritan. In our Lord's time His enemies said to Him in the same breath, 'Thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil.'

Third Subdivision.-The Kingdom of Juda to the Captivity in Babylon.

§ 69. History of the kingdom of Juda up to the time of Isaias the

prophet.

God, as we have seen, did not wholly abandon the people of Israel because of the sin of Jeroboam, in separating them from the worship of His chosen altar in Jerusalem, by substituting a state religion in the calves of Bethel and Dan. He continued to send them prophets, to whom they refused to hearken, up to the hour when the Assyrian army executed the final judgment upon Israel, by carrying them into captivity. We must now see what came to pass in the kingdom of Juda.

Roboam, the son of Solomon, had been succeeded by his son Abia, who appears to have inherited his great-grandfather David's piety and wisdom. In his reign the service of the Temple flourished and the kingdom prospered. He was succeeded on the throne by his son Asa. Asa, in the early part of his reign, showed great faith in the Lord God of his ancestor David, and gained a signal victory, with a small force, against a large invading army of Ethiopians; but in the latter part of his reign he lost his faith, and despoiled the Temple of its riches to send a bribe of gold to the king of Damascus, to induce him to make war on the king of Israel, who was threatening an attack. God was displeased at this, and sent to rebuke the king by the mouth of a prophet named Hanani. Because thou hast had confidence in the king of Syria, and not in the Lord thy God, therefore hath the army of the king of Syria escaped out of thy hand. Were not the Ethiopians and the Lib-hand?

yans much more numerous in chariots, and horsemen, and an exceeding great multitude; yet because thou trustedst in the Lord, He delivered them into thy

For the eyes of the Lord behold all | Wherefore thou hast done foolishly, and the earth, and give strength to those for this cause from this time wars shall who with a perfect heart trust in Him. arise against thee.

Asa, soon after this, fell sick and died. The kings who succeeded him were Joram his son and Ochozias his grandson. On the death of Ochozias, who was slain by Jehu as being a grandson of Achab by the mother's side, Athaliah the queen-mother seized the throne. Her reign however was not long; she was put to death, and Joas, an infant son of Ochozias, was placed on the throne at the age of seven years. Towards the close of his long reign the idolatries of the neighbouring people began to creep into Jerusalem, and more than one prophet came and cried out against them; but in vain. At length the Spirit of God came upon Zacharias, the son of Joiada the priest, and he cried out in the Temple against the idolatries, but was stoned to death by the king's commandment in the court of the house of the Lord. Amasias, who succeeded Joas, introduced the idols of Edom into Jerusalem, and was murdered by his own servant. His son Ozias who succeeded him was so puffed up by the prosperity of his reign, that he determined to take upon himself to burn incense in the house of the Lord. As he drew near with the censer in his hand, Azarias the high-priest with eighty of the priests withstood him, and said, 'It doth not belong to thee, Ozias, to burn incense before the Lord, but to the priests that are consecrated to this ministry, the sons of Aaron.' Ozias, being angry, threatened the priests; but presently there rose a leprosy in his forehead, and Ozias being terrified made haste to escape. He remained a leper for the rest of his life, Joatham his son acting as regent and succeeding him on the throne after his death. Joatham was succeeded by his son Achaz, in whose reign the prophet Isaias exercised his ministry, of which we proceed to give a brief account.

$70. The prophet Isaias in the reigns of Achaz, Ezechias, and Manasses.

The prophet Isaias had complained in the previous reign of Joatham, that the land was full of idols; but the sin of the kingdom now became worse, for Achaz publicly gave idolatry the sanction of the royal example. He offered his son in sacrifice to Moloch, the god of the children of Ammon, whose altar and image had been set up in the valley of Ben-Hinnom. God was so displeased with Juda for these sins, that He humbled them before their brethren of Israel, who under Phacee, the son of Romelia, slew 120,000 men of the army of Juda in one day. Achaz, fearing for his kingdom, sent messengers to Theglath the king of Assyria, saying, 'I am thy servant and thy son; come and save me out of the hands of the kings of Syria and Israel.' Isaias hereupon denounced in the strongest terms this alliance, and told both the king and people, that their own vices and sins were their only real enemies, and that the Assyrian empire was not their dependence, but merely the rod of the anger and the staff of the wrath of the God of Israel, whom they

had provoked. 'Be not afraid of Israel and Syria,' said the prophet. Thus saith the Lord, "Syria hath taken counsel against thee, and the

And when

son of Romelia. It shall not stand; this shall not be."' Achaz refused either to listen or to ask a sign of God, Isaias uttered on this occasion his memorable prophecy of the coming of Messias :

ISAIAS PROPHESIES OF CHRIST.

Hear ye therefore, O house of David: Is it a small thing for you to be grievous to men, that you are grievous to my God also?

Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign. BEHOLD, A VIRGIN SHALL

CONCEIVE, AND BEAR A SON, AND HIS
NAME SHALL BE CALLED EMMANUEL.

He shall eat butter and honey, that He may know to refuse the evil, and to choose the good.

During the whole of the reign of Achaz, Isaias continued to denounce the alliance with Assyria; but neither king nor people would listen, for God was angry with Juda and Jerusalem, and had commanded Isaias to go and say of this people, Hearing hear and understand not; see the vision and know it not. Blind the heart of the people, make their ears heavy, shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I heal them.'

Achaz suffered for his contempt of the warning of Isaias, and, in a fit of blind despair, he shut up the house of the Lord, and began to sacrifice to all the gods of Syria and Damascus, thinking, as he said, to appease them; whereas, says the sacred writer,' they were his ruin.' In this state of apostasy he died, and was succeeded by his son Ezechias. Ezechias was a very different man from his father. He was a personal friend of the prophet Isaias, and had learned from bitter experience the truth of the prophet's warnings against the alliance with Assyria; and he firmly believed that the hope and strength of Juda was in the God of their fathers, who had delivered them out of the hand of Pharao, and not in the Assyrian empire, which the prophet had taught him was a mere rod of the anger of their God for their sins. His first act, therefore, was to bring about a reform, and for this purpose he called the priests of Israel together and proposed to them a complete reformation of the service of the Temple, and of the religious habits of the people, if perhaps it might please God, as he said, to turn away the wrath of His indignation from us. The high-priest and all the priests of the Temple responded to this call, and Ezechias sent letters to the princes of Israel, inviting them to join with the people of Juda in keeping the Pasch; but the people of Israel had lost their faith to such a degree that they did little else but laugh. In Juda, however, the feast was kept with great solemnity, and Ezechias sought the Lord with all his heart, and prospered in his work. Seeing that the Lord was with him, he put his trust in the God of his fathers, and cast off the Assyrian yoke.

The faith of Ezechias was now to be tried. Salman the conqueror of Samaria died, and his son Sennacherib reigned in his stead. Sennacherib prepared to conquer Egypt, and in order to this end, the kingdom of Juda, which stood in the way, must first fall into his hands. Sennacherib therefore entered Juda with a large army, and for a moment Ezechias's faith failed him. He stripped the gold plates from the gates of the Temple in order to offer Sennacherib a bribe, saying, 'I have offended; depart from me.' Sennacherib, perceiving that Ezechias showed symptoms of fear, increased his demands and sent three captains to require that the city should be given up. Rabsaces, the chief of the three captains, held a parley with the messengers of king Ezechias on the walls of the city, saying:

Hearken not to Ezechias, who deceiveth you, saying, The Lord will deliver us.

Have any of the gods of the nations delivered their land from the hand of the king of Assyria?

Who are they among all the gods of the nations that have delivered their country out of my hand, that the Lord Where is the god of Emath, and of may deliver Jerusalem out of my hand? When these words were brought to Ezechias, he rent his garments and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of his Lord and he sent Eliacim to Isaias the prophet, saying, 'This eat day of tribulation, and of rebuke, and of blasphemy. In the mean time

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Rabsaces returned to Sennacherib, who, hearing that Theraca king of Ethiopia was marching against him with a large army, wrote a letter to Ezechias with his own hand, to the same effect as Rabsaces had already spoken by word of mouth. Ezechias received the letter from the messengers, and when he had read it, he went up to the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord, and he prayed in His sight, saying:

O Lord God of Israel, who sitteth upon the cherubim, Thou alone art the God of all the kings of the earth: Thou madest heaven and earth:

Incline Thy ear, and hear: open, O Lord, Thy eyes, and see and hear all the words of Sennacherib, who hath sent unto us to upbraid the living God.

Isaias, the son of Amos, now sent to Ezechias, saying, 'I have heard the prayer thou hast made to Me concerning Sennacherib king of the Assyrians. This is the word that the Lord hath spoken of him :

The virgin the daughter of Sion hath | despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem hath wagged her head behind thy back.

Whom hast thou reproached, and whom hast thou blasphemed? against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thy eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel.

By the hand of thy servants thou hast reproached the Lord, and hast said, With the multitude of my chariots I have gone up to the height of the mountains, to the top of Libanus, and have cut down its tall cedars, and its choice fir-trees. And I have entered into the furthest parts thereof, and the forest of its Carmel.

I have cut down, and I have drunk

strange waters, and have dried up with the soles of my feet all the shut-up waters.

Thou hast been mad against me, and thy pride hath come up to my ears: therefore I will put a ring in thy nose and a bit between thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest.

Wherefore thus saith the Lord concerning the king of the Assyrians, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow into it, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a trench about it.

By the way that he came, by the same he shall return; and into this city he shall not come, saith the Lord.

And I will protect this city, and will save it for my own sake, and for David my servant's sake.

That same night an angel of the Lord came and slew in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand. And when the king arose early in the morning, he saw all the bodies of the dead. And Sennacherib king of the Assyrians departing went away, and he returned and abode in Ninive.

Ezechias had a long and prosperous reign, and was succeeded by his son Manasses. This prince reigned five and fifty years, during which he undid all the reforms of Ezechias, and built altars to Baalim and all the host of heaven in the very court of the house of the Lord. This apostasy of the king and people Isaias boldly resisted, telling them that God would send them for punishment into captivity beyond the river to Babylon, where they would remain for seventy years, and that only a small remnant should return, as the gleaning of grapes when the vintage is over. Thus saith the Lord God of Israel:

Behold, I will bring evils on Jerusalem and Juda, that whosoever shall hear of them, both his ears shall tingle.

I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the weight of the house of Achab (4 Kings xxi, 12);