queen, courted Assyria, and encouraged her to press ever harder on
Damascus. It was a suicidal policy; for in the continued existence of a
strong Aramaean state on her north lay Israel's one hope of long life.
Jeroboam II and his Prophet Jonah ought to have seen that the day of
reckoning would come quickly for Samaria when once Assyria had settled
accounts with Damascus.

To some extent, but unfortunately not in all detail, we can trace in the
royal records the advance of Assyrian territorial dominion in the west.
The first clear indication of its expansion is afforded by a notice of
the permanent occupation of a position on the eastern bank of the
Euphrates, as a base for the passage of the river. This position was Til
Barsip, situated opposite the mouth of the lowest Syrian affluent, the
Sajur, and formerly capital of an Aramaean principate. That its
occupation by Shalmaneser II in the third year of his reign was intended
to be lasting is proved by its receiving a new name and becoming a royal
Assyrian residence. Two basaltic lions, which the Great King then set up
on each side of its Mesopotamian gate and inscribed with commemorative
texts, have recently been found near Tell Ahmar, the modern hamlet which
has succeeded the royal city. This measure marked Assyria's definite
annexation of the lands in Mesopotamia, which had been under Aramaean
government for at least a century and a half. When this government had
been established there we do not certainly know; but the collapse of
Tiglath Pileser's power about 1100 B.C. so nearly follows the main
Aramaean invasion from the south that it seems probable this invasion
had been in great measure the cause of that collapse, and that an
immediate consequence was the formation of Aramaean states east of
Euphrates. The strongest of them and the last to succumb to Assyria was
Bit-Adini, the district west of Harran, of which Til Barsip had been the
leading town.