the slaughter, and the line of
David narrowly escaped extinction with the house of Omri.*

* 2 Kings x. 12-14. Stade has shown that this account is in
direct contradiction with its immediate context, and that it
belonged to a version of the events differing in detail from
the one which has come down to us. According to the latter,
Jehu must at once have met Jehonadab the son of Rechab, and
have entered Samaria in his company (vers. 15-17); this
would have been a poor way of inspiring the priests of Baal
with the confidence necessary for drawing them into the
trap. According to 2 Chron. xxii. 8, the massacre of the
princes of Judah preceded the murder of Ahaziah.

Athaliah assumed the regency, broke the tie of vassalage which bound
Judah to Israel, and by a singular irony of fate, Jerusalem offered an
asylum to the last of the children of Ahab. The treachery of Jehu, in
addition to his inexpiable cruelty, terrified the faithful, even while
it served their ends. Dynastic crimes were common in those days, but the
tragedy of Jezreel eclipsed in horror all others that had preceded it;
it was at length felt that such avenging of Jahveh was in His eyes too
ruthless, and a century later the Prophet Hosea saw in the misery of his
people the divine chastisement of the house of Jehu for the blood shed
at his accession.

The report of these events, reaching Calah, awoke the ambition of
Shalmaneser. Would Damascus, mistrusting its usurper, deprived of
its northern allies, and ill-treated by the Hebrews, prove itself as
invulnerable as in the past? At all events, in 842 B.C., Shalmaneser
once more crossed the Euphrates, marched along the Orontes, probably
receiving the homage of Hamath and Arvad by the way. Restricted solely
to the resources of Damascus, <Hazael did not venture to advance into
Coele-Syria as Ben-hadad had always done; he barricaded the defiles of
Anti-Lebanon, and, entrenched on Mount Shenir with the flower of his
troops, prepared to await the attack. It proved the most bloody battle
that the Assyrians had up to that period ever fought. Hazael lost 16,000
foot-soldiers, 470 horsemen, 1121 chariots, and yet succeeded in falling
back on Damascus in good order. Shalmaneser, finding it impossible to
force the city, devastated the surrounding country, burnt numberless
villages and farms, and felled all the fruit trees in the Hauran up to
the margin of the desert. This