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STATE OF JUDAH UNDER JOSIAH.

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B. C. 624.. Saddened, but not rendered desperate by the prospects which were thus opened for him, Josiah applied himself more and more earnestly to the religious and moral improvement of his people. He caused copies of the law to be made and distributed throughout all the towns and cities of Judah. He called upon the people, by public proclamation, to come up and assist at the great national festivals; and, at the appointed time, he held such a passover at Jerusalem, as had not been witnessed in that city since the days of David or Solomon. He was rewarded by a peace which suffered no interruption throughout the whole course of his reign. For while neighbouring nations groaned under the pressure of hostile armies marching through them, the soil of Judah was not once violated for one and thirty years. At last, however, this happy state of things underwent a change,

of the causes which led to which, a few words will suffice to give my young readers a sufficiently clear idea.

I explained, in another place, how civil war broke out in Assyria, and how Esar-haddon, after a struggle of nine and twenty years, conquered Babylon, and re-annexed it to the empire. He was not so successful in his wars with the Medes; for they not only maintained their independence throughout the whole of his reign, but defied the utmost efforts of his successor, called Nidus, to reduce them. The Medes fought under the leadership first of one Artæus, who established his capital or seat of government at Ecbatana; and next of Phraortes, who mounted the throne about the year B. C. 663.

In B. C.658, Ninus, king of Assyria, died, and was succeeded by his son Nebuchodonosor. He seems

to have spent about twelve years in consolidating his power at home; and then he prepared to apply his whole strength to the conquest of Media. Accordingly, all the states which had ever paid tribute to his ancestors were called upon to furnish troops; and Syria, Phoenicia, and Judah he included in the list. But Egypt was on bad terms with Assyria; and the king of Egypt prevailed upon these three powers to withhold the troops which Assyria demanded. Nevertheless, Nebuchodonosor set out upon his expedition against Media, and prevailed. He defeated the Medes in the open country, laid siege to Ecbatana, and in the year B. C. 621, took it.

Having finished the war, Nebuchodonosor determined to punish Syria, Phoenicia, and Judea, for the contumacy of which they had been guilty. He overran the two first in person, and then, departing home, sent Holofernes, one of the most renowned of the officers in his service, to conquer Judea. Holofernes advanced at the head of a large and well-appointed army; and not desiring to leave Bethulia, a small but well fortified town in his rear, laid siege to it. The place was sore beset, for the Assyrians cut off all the supplies, and there was much talk of surrender, when Judith, a woman of great courage and surpassing beauty, determined to hazard more than life for the welfare of her country. She stated her plan to the magistrates, and, having secured their sanction, she threw herself in the way of the Assyrian patrols, and was by one of them carried to Holofernes. She told him a tale of plots that had no existence, and, under a pretext of working out her treason, obtained the privilege of passing to and fro beyond the outposts at pleasure. At last, when Holofernes had

DEATH OF HOLOFERNES.

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become entirely enslaved by her beauty, she consented to be present at a banquet; and, finding him by and by stupified with wine, she slew him in his bed. With the head of this redoubted warrior in a bag, she returned to the city, and was received with shouts of welcome by the people.

B. C. 640. - The death of its leader usually dissolves an eastern army, even in the present day. The murder of Holofernes, when discovered on the morrow, threw the Assyrians into complete disorganisation. A panic seized them, and they fled, each as if from certain destruction, and were closely pursued and harassed by the Jews, over a large extent of country.

We hear no more of Nebuchodonosor for about four years. It was a season to him of trouble and anxiety; for Babylonians and Medes, encouraged by the rout of Holofernes, rushed again into rebellion; and Egypt, recovering from an anarchy under which she had for some time laboured, did her best to feed the flame. At last, in B. C. 630, Nebuchodonosor died, and was succeeded by Sardanapalus, his son, one of the most luxurious and effeminate princes of whom ancient history makes mention. He made no head against the rebels. Defeated in the field, he shut himself up in Nineveh, which, after a long and obstinate defence, was taken. Sardanapalus burned himself and all his family in the palace, to which he set fire; and so ended, after a continuance of nineteen centuries, the great Assyrian empire.

Out of that colossal structure new states arose, the kingdom of Babylon and the kingdom of Media. Nabopolassar governed the first, from his capital the city of Babylon; Cyaxares I. governed the second, after he had rebuilt and restored Ec

batana. There was a strict alliance between them, which they cemented by the marriage of Nebuchadnezzar, the son of the former, to one of the daughters of the latter; but Babylon and Egypt were at war, and out of this struggle arose that calamity to Judah, to which, in a preceding paragraph, I have referred.

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B. C. 608. Josiah had no wish to mix himself up in the troubles which shook the Assyrian empire. His feeling was rather in favour of the house which had acted with so much tenderness towards his grandfather; and hence, when Pharaoh-Necho, king of Egypt, sent to ask a safe passage for his army into Assyria, Josiah refused to grant it. The Egyptians, however, would take no denial, and Josiah, jealous of the rights of his crown, armed to oppose their progress. The armies met at Megiddo, and Josiah was slain. Deep and well-founded was the lamentation of the people over the fall of their beloved sovereign. Jeremiah the prophet, who flourished in his day, wept for him as for the last prop of Israel, and his funeral was conducted with more than royal pomp, all classes of men attending it as mourners.

CHAP. XXXVII.

SECOND BOOKS OF KINGS AND OF
CHRONICLES- continued.

JEHOAHAZ (OR SHALLUM). JEHOIAKIM.

THE vacant throne was immediately seized by Jehoahaz, or Shallum (for he is known by both mes), the son, but not the eldest son, of Josiah.

NEBUCHADNEZZAR TAKES JERUSALEM.

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He did not keep his seat three months, for PharaohNecho, following up his successes at Megiddo, marched upon Jerusalem; and, deposing the weak youth, sent him into Egypt, where he died. His elder brother, Eliakim, consented, upon this, to accept the crown from Pharaoh's hand, and to wear it as a tributary; his name was accordingly changed to Jehoiakim; and during an interval of about eleven years he oppressed his own people and outraged God's laws. But the hour of retribution was approaching; and the alliance with Egypt, to which Jehoiakim looked as his best safeguard, hurried it forward.

Pharaoh-Necho's success in Judea and against the Babylonians encouraged the Syrians and the people of many of the adjacent provinces to try the issue of another rebellion. They rose in arms and pressed Nabopolassar hard. But he, associating with himself in the government his son Nebuchadnezzar, made gigantic efforts to retrieve the fortunes of the empire. They were not made in vain. In a great battle fought on the banks of the Euphrates, Nebuchadnezzar entirely defeated the Egyptians, and, after reducing Syria and Palestine to obedience, he turned upon Judea. There, everything went down before him. Jerusalem was invested. It made but a feeble resistance, and then yielded. Jehoiakim was deposed, and, with many of the chiefs of tribes and families, loaded with chains and sent to Babylon. The temple, likewise, was robbed of much of its wealth, and the city oppressed with a heavy contribution. Indeed, so severe was the visitation, both in its immediate effects and in its remote consequences, that from it the prophets date the beginning of the Captivity. The first

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