The Divided Monarchy – 14 / Epilogue

September 22, 2009The predicament of Judah in the final years before the destruction of Jerusalem was similar to that of Israel before the fall of Samaria. Both were small states swallowed up by great imperial powers, and both had attempted to avoid this fate and maintain some measure of independence by oscillating between policies of appeasement and defiance. In the northern kingdom of Israel this pattern began as soon as Assyria, under Shalmaneser III (859–824 BCE), became a direct threat. Ahab and his Omride successors adopted the policy of defiance. They resisted Shalmaneser’s incursions through military action in alliance with Damascus and other regional states. In 841 BCE, however, Jehu switched to a policy of appeasement, submitting to Shalmaneser and buying Israel’s independence by payment of heavy tribute. The pattern was renewed a century later when Assyria threatened Israel once again under Tiglath-pileser III (745–727 BCE) and his successors. Menahem of Israel chose the safe path of appeasement, paying tribute at the end of Tiglath-pileser’s first western campaign (738 BCE), but after the 737 BCE coup of Pekah son of Remaliah, the policy shifted abruptly, and Israel once again took up a position of resistance, based as before on an alliance with Damascus and other local states. This was a dangerous step, and Israel was territorially decimated by Tiglath-pileser’s second western campaign (734–732 BCE), in which the anti-Assyrian coalition was crushed and Damascus was captured. Israel survived, however, because of a hasty resumption of the policy of appeasement following the 732 BCE coup of Hoshea, who assassinated Pekah and quickly offered his fealty to Assyria. The rapidly vacillating policies of Hoshea epitomize the predicament of the northern kingdom in its final years and foreshadow that of Judah a century and a half later. A loyal vassal of Assyria in 732 BCE, Hoshea defied Assyria when Tiglath-pileser died in 727 BCE and once again joined neighboring states in revolt. When Shalmaneser V marched west in 727 B.C.E., however, Hoshea shifted positions again, buying a few more years for Israel by submitting and paying tribute. Then in about 725 BCE Hoshea tried again to break free, rebelling against Assyria and seeking safety in yet another alliance of local states. But this time Hoshea had pushed his luck too far. His revolt brought the Assyrian siege engines to the walls of Samaria, and the city fell in 722 BCE. Before the decline of the Assyrian Empire, Judah’s policy towards the Assyrian threat was essentially the same as that of Israel in its oscillation between defiance and appeasement. Hezekiah’s revolt after the death of Sargon II in 705 BCE followed the Israelite pattern of defiance, a policy of resistance to Assyria secured by an alliance with neighboring states, in this case Sidon and Ashkelon. But when Sennacherib invaded Judah in 701 BCE and placed Jerusalem under siege, Hezekiah was forced to shift to a policy of appeasement, paying a heavy tribute to ensure the survival of his kingdom. This policy continued through most of the long reign of Manasseh (697–642 BCE), whose loyalty to Sennacherib and his successors kept Judah secure. The Assyrian Empire collapsed in the last decades of the seventh century BCE, but the result was that Judah’s position became more precarious rather than less. The vacuum left by Assyria’s demise was now filled by not one but two great powers. The kings of the XXVIth Egyptian Dynasty, who had been allied with Assyria, asserted their power along the coast of Palestine. At the same time Babylon rose to preeminence under Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar and began to take an interest of its own in the affairs of Palestine. These developments left Judah in the treacherous position of having to conduct its policies of resistance and appeasement in relation to two competing superpowers. Assyria’s demise seemed at first to present Judah with an opportunity to enlarge its territory, but Josiah’s expansion of Judah to the north and west brought him into conflict with Egypt and may ultimately have led to his death at the hand of Pharaoh Necho II at Megiddo in 609 B.C.E. Josiah’s succession by his like-minded son Jehoahaz signalled a policy in Judah of continued defiance of Egypt. Almost immediately, however, Necho replaced Jehoahaz with his pro-Egyptian brother Jehoiakim. Judah was now an Egyptian vassal state, and a policy of appeasement towards Egypt spared Judah the full measure of Necho’s wrath. Soon after, however, Nebuchadnezzar asserted the power of Babylon in Palestine, capturing Ashkelon in 604 BCE Despite his Egyptian leanings, Jehoiakim concluded that it was now Babylon that needed to be appeased, and he began paying tribute to Nebuchadnezzar. When Nebuchadnezzar was repulsed trying to invade Egypt in 601/600 BCE, however, Jehoiakim switched allegiances again, withholding tribute in defiance of Babylon. This proved to be a fatal error of judgment. When Nebuchadnezzar returned to Palestine in 598/597 BCE, Jehoiakim died—possibly by foul play—and was replaced by Jehoiachin, signalling a return in Judah to a policy of appeasement towards Babylon. Jerusalem capitulated to the Babylonian army, and Nebuchadnezzar followed a relatively lenient policy towards the captured city, exiling Jehoiachin and placing Zedekiah on the throne of Jerusalem. Zedekiah, however, now faced the predicament that had doomed Jehoiakim, and he made the same mistake. Probably encouraged and pressured by Egypt, he revoked his vassalship to Nebuchadnezzar and rebelled, perhaps in 589 BCE When Nebuchadnezzar returned to Jerusalem he was no longer in a lenient mood, and the Babylonian army besieged and destroyed the city in 587 to 586 BCE In this way the kingdom of Judah suffered the same fate as the kingdom of Israel. Like Hoshea before them, Jehoiakim and Zedekiah were unable to find the right combination of resistance and appeasement that would permit their small kingdom to survive in an international arena dominated by two larger and more aggressive superpowers.