The leaders of the opposition to the king,—the national patriots—in Samaria, hoped that Pekaiah, Menahem's son and successor, would prove himself a truer son of his country than his father. They looked to him to refuse the payment of the Assyrian tribute and to re-establish the independence of the Kingdom of Israel; but they were disappointed. Pekaiah followed in the political footsteps of his father and the hopes of the Samarian patriots waned when he succeeded his father on the throne.
Rezin, however, was not to be denied in the plan he had laid out for himself and for the other Assyrian tributaries. Pekaiah reigned in Samaria less than two years, when, in 735, through the assistance of Rezin and the connivance of the patriotic party in Samaria, he was assassinated by one of his generals, Pekah, the son of Remaliah.
Pekah was thus raised to the throne of Israel with the avowed purpose of uniting with Rezin in the proposed rebellion against Tiglath-Pileser. Israel wanted, and needed, the help of Judah in the desperate conflict that awaited them. The smaller countries north of Israel and Syria, crushed under the burden of their Assyrian tribute, gladly joined the Syro-Israelitish coalition; but the embassy to Jerusalem returned empty-handed. Rezin and Pekah, however, were not dismayed by the refusal of Judah to join them. They bided their time for a better opportunity.
This opportunity came the very next year when Jotham died, suddenly, and his son, Ahaz, a young man of twenty, came to the throne of Judah.
Without any notice whatever, Rezin and Pekah united their armed forces and marched upon Jerusalem. This sudden invasion of Judah had been carefully planned beforehand. It was so arranged that, when the Syro-Israelitish forces attacked Jerusalem, a certain man, the son of Tabeal, who was willing to play the traitor, was to assassinate Ahaz, proclaim himself king, admit the enemy into the city and throw all the power and wealth of Judah into the scale with Syria and Israel in the war against Tiglath-Pileser.
Ahaz was entirely unprepared for such a move on the part of Pekah and Rezin. The news that the two armies were on the march caused consternation, not alone in the palace of the king, but in Jerusalem and in the entire country.
The northern part of Judah, as far as Jerusalem, was unprotected and at the mercy of the enemy. Neither Uzziah nor Jotham looked for a foe from that direction. In fact, the Syro-Israelitish forces met no opposition whatever until they came within sight of Jerusalem.
The very first thing that Ahaz and his generals did, when they had recovered from their consternation, was to prepare the capital for a siege. The fortifications were examined and strengthened. The water supply to the south of the city, without which Jerusalem could not have withstood a siege for three months, was especially looked after.
Now, Ahaz was like that ancient Pharaoh who did not know Joseph, or like his own predecessor, Rehoboam, who "took council with the young men that were grown up with him." Ahaz did not call Isaiah, the old friend and counsellor of the royal house, to advise him in his great extremity.
Isaiah, however, called to God to save his nation—if the nation would be saved—and did not wait for an invitation from the young king. While Ahaz, his advisors and the commanders of his army, were examining the water supply of Jerusalem, preparatory to the inevitable siege, Isaiah went out to meet him. The prophet came upon the royal party at the end of the conduit of the upper reservoir, in the highway of the Fuller's field.