messengers to Tiglath Pileser, to say, "I am thy servant and thy son,"
and to beg him to protect him from his two enemies, promising to pay him
tribute. Tiglath Pileser did indeed take Damascus, and put the king to
death, destroying the old Syrian kingdom for ever, and he carried away
the calf of Dan, and severely chastised Samaria, where Pekah was shortly
after murdered by his servant Hoshea; so that Isaiah's prophecy of the
ruin of "these two tails of smoking firebrands," Pekah and Rezin, was
fulfilled; but as Ahaz had tried to bring it about in his own way, he
gained nothing. Though he went to pay his service to the conqueror at
Damascus, Tiglath Pileser did not help him, but only distressed him;
and instead of learning Who was his true Guardian, Ahaz only came
home delighted with the Syrian temples, and profanely altered the
arrangements in the Temple, which Moses and Solomon had ordained by
God's command, as patterns of the greater and more perfect Tabernacle
revealed to Moses in Heaven. He soon died, in the year 725, when only
thirty-six years old, leaving his crown to Hezekiah, then only sixteen,
the king whose heart was more whole with God than had been that of any
king since his father David, and whose first thought was to purify the
Temple, and to destroy all corrupt worship, breaking down idols, and
destroying the high places and groves, which had stood ever since
Solomon's time.

Hoshea, too, was the best King of Samaria that had yet reigned, for he
encouraged his subjects to go to worship at Jerusalem, whither Hezekiah
invited them to keep the Passover, and that feast had not been held so
fully since Solomon's time. They came back full of zeal, and destroyed
many of the idols; but the reformation came too late; the measure of
Israel's sin was full. Hoshea offended Shalmaneser, who had succeeded
Tiglath Pileser, by making friends with So, King of Egypt, and the
Assyrian army came down upon Israel in the year 722, and killing Hoshea,