n the whole with virtuous rulers, and
comparatively free from idolatry, continually increased in wealth and
political power. Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, after the rebellion of
the ten tribes, seems to have changed somewhat his course of life,
although the high places and graven images were not removed; but his
grandson Asa destroyed the idols, and made fortunate alliances. Asa's
son Jehoshaphat terminated the civil wars that had raged between Judah
and Israel from the accession of Rehoboam, and almost rivalled Solomon
in his outward prosperity. Jerusalem became the strongest fortress in
western Asia; the Temple service was continued in its former splendor;
all that was vital in the strength of nations pertained to the smaller
kingdom. The dark spot in the history of Judah for nearly two hundred
years was the ascendency gained by Athaliah, the daughter of Jezebel,
over her husband Jehoram, who introduced the gods of Phoenicia. She
seems to have exercised the same malign influence in Jerusalem that
Jezebel did in Samaria, and was as unscrupulous as her pagan mother. She
even succeeded in usurping the throne, and in destroying the whole race
of David, with the exception of Joash, an infant, whom Jehoiada the
high-priest contrived to hide until the unscrupulous Athaliah was slain,
having reigned as queen six years,--the first instance in Jewish history
of a female sovereign.

Both Judah and Israel in these years had the danger of a Syrian war
constantly threatening them. Under Hazael, who reigned at Damascus,
great conquests were made by the Syrians of Jewish territory, and the
capture of Jerusalem was averted only by buying off the enemy, to whom
were surrendered the gifts to the Temple accumulating since the days of
Jehoshaphat. The whole land was overrun and pillaged. Nor were
calamities confined to the miseries of war. A long drouth burned the
fields; seed rotted under the clods; the cattle moaned in the barren and
dried-up pastures; while locusts devoured what the drouth had spared.
Says Stanley: "The purple vine, the green fig-tree, the gray olive, the
scarlet pomegranate, the golden corn, the waving palm, the fragrant
citron, vanished before them, and the trunks and branches were left
bare and white by their devouring teeth,"--a brilliant sentence, by the
way, which Geikie quotes without acknowledgment, as well as many others,
which lays him open to the charge of plagiarism. Both Stanley and
Geikie, however, seem t