In the days of Pekah king of Israel came Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, and took Ijon, and Abel-beth-maacah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali; and he carried them captive to Assyria. And Hoshea the son of Elah made a conspiracy against Pekah the son of Remaliah, and smote him, and slew him, and reigned in his stead.
DAMASCUS--THE RIVER ABANA.
From a picture in the possession of the Detroit Photograph Company and used by kind permission.
Damascus is one of the oldest cities of the world. It is on the edge of the desert and is made possible by the river Abana, which "bursts full born from the heart of Lebanon, runs a course of ten miles in a narrow gorge, and from the mouth flings itself abroad in seven streams and after watering the greater part of the plain it dies a way in a large marsh. Damascus was easily conquered by Nineveh, Babylon, and Memphis--she probably preceded them and she has outlived them. She has been twice supplanted,--by Antioch, and she has seen Antioch decay; by Bagdad, and Bagdad is forgotten. She has been many times sacked and twice at least the effective classes of her population have been swept into captivity, but this has not broken the chain of her history."--G. A. Smith.
HOSHEA.
(In spite of all the warnings of the prophets the people of Israel continued to disobey God and to do the things which were evil in his sight. The nation had its chance, and it threw that chance away. Then a terrible fate overtook it. A great wave of invasion came sweeping down from the North, and submerged the Northern kingdom. Samaria, the capital city, was destroyed, and the people were carried away by thousands into captivity.)
In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah began Hoshea the son of Elah to reign in Samaria over Israel, and reigned nine years. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, yet not as the kings of Israel that were before him. Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria; and Hoshea became his servant, and brought him tribute. And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea; for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year: therefore the king of Assyria shut him up, and bound him in prison. Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away unto Assyria, and placed them in the Assyrian cities. And it was so, because the children of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, which brought them up out of the land of [{412}] Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods, and walked in the statutes of the nations, whom the Lord cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they made. And the children of Israel did secretly things that were not right against the Lord their God, and they built them high places in all their cities. And they set them up pillars and sacred symbols upon every high hill, and under every green tree: and there they burnt incense in all the high places, as did the nations whom the Lord carried away before them; and wrought wicked things to provoke the Lord to anger: and they served idols, whereof the Lord had said unto them, "Ye shall not do this thing."