of
Naphtali and Gilead laid waste, and their inhabitants carried off into
Assyria without his being able to prevent it; he himself being obliged
to evacuate Samaria and take refuge in the mountains almost unattended.
Judah followed, with mingled exultation and disquietude, the
vicissitudes of the tragic drama which was thus enacted before its
eyes, and Isaiah foretold the speedy ruin of the two peoples who had but
yesterday threatened to enslave it. He could already see the following
picture in his mind's eye: "Damascus is taken away from being a city,
and it shall be a ruinous heap. The cities of Aroer are forsaken: they
shall be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them
afraid."*

* Both of these Aroers lay beyond Jordan--one in Reuben,
afterwards Moab (Judg. xi. 26; Jer. xlviii. 19); the other
in Amnion, afterwards Gad (Josh. xiii. 25; 2 Sam. xxiv. 5);
here they stand for the countries beyond Jordan which
Tiglath-pileser had just laid waste. The tradition preserved
in 1 Citron, v. 26 stated that these inhabitants of Gad and
Reuben were led into captivity by Pul, i.e. Tiglath-pileser.

"The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from
Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the
children of Israel, saith the Lord of hosts! And it shall come to pass
in that day, that the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness
of his flesh shall wax lean. And it shall be as when the harvestman
gathereth the standing corn, and his arm reapeth the ears; yea, it shall
be as when one gleaneth ears in the valley of Ephraim. Yet there shall
be left therein gleanings, as the shaking of an olive tree, two or three
berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outmost
branches of a fruitful tree, saith Jahveh, the God of Israel!... In that
day shall his strong cities be as the forsaken places in the wood, and
on the mountain top, which were forsaken from before the children of
Israel:* and it shall be as a desolation. For thou hast forgotten the
God of thy salvation."**

* This is probably an allusion to the warlike exploits
performed during Rezin and Pekah's invasion of Judaea, a
year or two previously.

** Isa. xvii. 1-6, 9, 10.

Samaria was doomed to helplessness for many a day to come, if not for
ever, but it had taken a whole year to lay it low (733); Tiglath-pileser
returned in 732, and devote