[255] This interesting discovery was first announced in the Athenæum of Jan. 3, 1852.
[256] These three kings came against Israel (2 Kings, xv. 19, and 29, and 1 Chron. v. 26); but Pul is particularly mentioned as receiving tribute from Menahem, and Tiglath Pileser, as carrying away Israelites into captivity in the time of Pekah, between whose reign and that of Menahem only two years elapsed. (2 Kings, xv. 23.)
[257] See an interesting note on this subject in Rich’s Narrative, vol. ii. p. 123.
[258] 2 Chron. xxxiii.
[259] We have a curious illustration of the magnificent suicide of Sardanapalus in the history of Zimri, king of Israel. “And it came to pass, when Zimri saw that the city was taken, that he went into the palace of the king’s house, and burnt the king’s house over him with fire and died.” 1 Kings xvii. 18. There is nothing, therefore, improbable in the romantic history of the Assyrian king.
[260] The reading according to Col. Rawlinson is marked R—that according to Dr. Hincks, H.
[261] Nineveh and its Remains, vol. ii. p. 185.
[262] It was not necessary to the effect of his preaching that Jonah should be of the religion of the people of Nineveh. I have known a Christian priest frighten a whole Mussulman town to tents and repentance by publicly proclaiming that he had received a divine mission to announce a coming earthquake or plague.
[263] 2 Kings, xx. 19.
[264] 2 Kings, xxv. 19.