y, Qaral and Panammu, shared Yaudi equally between them. Barzur,
son of Panammu I., had reigned there since about 765 B.C., and there can
be little doubt that he must have passed through the same vicissitudes
as his neighbours; faithful to Urartu as long as Sharduris kept the
upper hand, and to Assyria as soon as Tiglath-pileser had humiliated
Urartu, he had been killed in a skirmish by some rival. His son, Panammu
IL, came to the throne merely as a nominee of his suzerain, and seems to
have always rendered him faithful service; unfortunately, Yaudi was no
longer subject to the house of Panammu, but obeyed the rule of a certain
Azriyahu, who chafed at the presence of an alien power.*

* Azriyahu of Yaudi was identified with Azariah of Judah by
G. Smith, and this identification was for a long time
accepted without question by most Assyriologists. After a
violent controversy it has finally been shown that the
_Yaudi_ of Tiglath-pileser III.'a inscriptions ought to be
identified with the _Yadi_ or _Yaudi_ of the Zinjirli
inscriptions, and consequently that Azriyahu was not king of
Judah, but a king of Northern Syria. This view appears to me
to harmonise so well with what remains of the texts, and
with our knowledge of the events, that I have had no
hesitation in adopting it.

Azriyahu took advantage of the events which kept Tiglath-pileser fully
occupied in the east, to form a coalition in favour of himself among the
states on the banks of the Orontes, including some seventeen provinces,
dependencies of Hamath, and certain turbulent cities of Northern
Phoenicia, such as Byblos, Arka, Zimyra, Usnu, Siannu, Coele-Syria,
and even Hadrach itself. It is not quite clear whether Damascus and the
Hebrews took part in this movement. Jeroboam had died in 740, after a
prosperous reign of forty-one years, and on his death Israel seems
to have fallen under a cloud; six months later, his son Zechariah was
assassinated at Ibleam by Shallum, son of Jabesh, and the prophecy
of Amos, in which he declared that the house of Jeroboam should fall
beneath the sword of Jahveh,* was fulfilled. Shallum himself reigned
only one month: two other competitors had presented themselves
immediately after his crime;** the ablest of these, Menahem, son of
Gadi, had come from Tirzah to Samaria, and, after suppressing his
rivals, laid hands on the crown.*** He must have made himself master
of the kingdo