A Coward on the Throne.

King Jotham was wise enough to follow the advice of the Prophet Isaiah in his reply to the embassy from Rezin and Pekah. At the Council of State, called to consider the message from the kings of Syria and Israel, Isaiah counselled an unhesitating and decisive refusal of their demand. While, therefore, the ambassadors were received and entertained royally in Jerusalem, they returned to their respective sovereigns, their mission unaccomplished.

The answer that Jotham sent back to Damascus and Samaria was plain, simple and to the point. Judah, he said, had no interest in the political policies and intrigues of Syria and Israel and would not join a coalition against Assyria.

Both Rezin and Pekah stormed against Jotham and his advisors, but to no avail. Judah was strong, independent and at peace, and Jotham would not involve his country in a quarrel with which he had nothing to do.

Conditions in Israel were different, however. The majority of the people chafed under the indignity of being tributary to Assyria. They hated King Menahem who, in his fear, sent the tribute to Tiglath-Pileser and became his voluntary subject. Menahem was hated by the rich merchants and large landowners as well as by the people generally, because on them the burden of the tribute fell the heaviest. The powerful Samarians, therefore, formed themselves into a party to oppose the king.

King Rezin, of Syria, who was watching his opportunity to rebel against Assyria, kept alive this hostile spirit against Menahem in Samaria and Israel. Rezin was working toward a coalition of all the countries along the Mediterranean sea that were tributary to Tiglath-Pileser, so that in their combined strength they might rise and throw off the Assyrian yoke.

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.

Isaiah, who had been quietly and carefully studying the entire situation since the embassy came to Jotham, understood well enough that an intrigue must be brewing in Jerusalem against the young King. When the report reached the city that the enemy was on the march, Isaiah's searching inquiries and careful observation of the leaders of the capital resulted in the discovery that the son of Tabeal was in league with Rezin and Pekah. It was Isaiah at this meeting, who informed Ahaz that his immediate danger was as much within his own city as from the enemy that was approaching. No wonder, then, that "his heart trembled, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the forest tremble with the wind."

But Isaiah immediately reassured the trembling Ahaz in the following words:

"Take heed and keep thyself calm; fear not, neither be fainthearted because of these two fag ends of smoking firebrands, because of the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria and of the son of Remaliah. Syria, with Israel, hath purposed evil against thee, saying, 'Let us go up against Judah and distress it and overpower it and appoint the son of Tabeal king in its midst.' But thus saith the Lord God: It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass, for, the head of Syria is Damascus and the head of Damascus is Rezin, and the head of Israel is Samaria and the head of Samaria is Remaliah's son. Verily, if you will not hold fast, ye shall not stand fast."

Ahaz laughed at the idea of keeping quiet and having no fear, under the conditions. He turned away impatiently from the prophet and proceeded with his business of examining the reservoir. Isaiah, however, would not be put off with mere impatience.

"Ask thee a sign of the Lord, thy God," he cried to Ahaz. "Ask it either in the depths of Sheol or in the heights above."

But Ahaz replied, "I will not ask, neither will I put the Lord to the test."

Then Isaiah said:

"Hear now, O House of David! Is it too small a thing for you to weary men, that ye must also weary my God? Therefore the Lord, Himself, will give you a sign. Behold, a young woman will bear a son and call his name Immanuel (God is with us). Before this child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good those two kings before whom thou tremblest shall be deserted."

Ahaz was tired of mere words. Advice he had enough; he wanted now to act. In fact, when the knowledge of the political intrigue in Jerusalem became known to him, he immediately made up his mind what to do. He, therefore, again turned from Isaiah and ordered his retinue to continue the examination of the water supply.

Isaiah then tried another form of argument with this cowardly young king, in order to bring him to his senses. He, himself, was positive that Tiglath-Pileser, who was at that time in Asia Minor, had, no doubt, been informed by his spies of the action taken by Rezin and Pekah. Isaiah felt sure, also, that Tiglath-Pileser would immediately invade Syria. He knew, in addition, that neither Rezin nor Pekah was strong and powerful enough, at this time, to wage a protracted war with Assyria; that is why he described them as "two fag ends of smoking firebrands." He, therefore, concluded that, at the first information of Tiglath-Pileser's march into the northern country, Rezin and Pekah would have to return to defend their own lands.

On the other hand, Isaiah knew that, if Ahaz did anything that would in any way displease the mighty King of Assyria, the latter would, after finishing his campaign in Syria and Israel, attack Judah. Therefore, he warned Ahaz in these words:

"God will bring upon thee and upon thy people and upon thy
father's house days such as have not been, since the day
Ephraim departed from Judah, through the King of Assyria.
Curds and honey will be that child's food (in the wilderness)
when he knows to refuse evil and choose the good."

Isaiah ceased. He had delivered his message, had counseled and warned the king. He made it clear to Ahaz that, if he did anything except trust in the power and care of God for his people, Judah, like Syria and Israel, was destined to become a wilderness in the short time that it takes a child to reach that age when it can begin to think for itself.

Ahaz, however, acted upon his own and his young men's counsel. Hardly had he returned to the palace that day, when he sent messengers carrying the following letter to Tiglath-Pileser, King of Assyria:

"I am your servant and your son. Come up and save me from
the power of the King of Assyria and from the power of the
King of Israel, who have attacked me."

Ahaz followed up this message by ransacking the Temple in Jerusalem and the treasures of the royal palace, sending both as a gift and bribe to Tiglath-Pileser.

Then exactly what Isaiah foresaw happened. Tiglath-Pileser immediately invaded Syria and attacked Damascus. Rezin and Pekah were forced to hurry back to defend their own countries, and Judah was saved from Syro-Israelitish attack; but Ahaz had already thrown himself at the feet of the great Assyrian conqueror, with terrible results to his own country.