their demand. While, therefore, the ambassadors were received and
entertained royally in Jerusalem, they returned to their respective
sovereigns, their mission unaccomplished.

The answer that Jotham sent back to Damascus and Samaria was plain,
simple and to the point. Judah, he said, had no interest in the
political policies and intrigues of Syria and Israel and would not
join a coalition against Assyria.

Both Rezin and Pekah stormed against Jotham and his advisors, but to
no avail. Judah was strong, independent and at peace, and Jotham would
not involve his country in a quarrel with which he had nothing to do.

Conditions in Israel were different, however. The majority of the
people chafed under the indignity of being tributary to Assyria. They
hated King Menahem who, in his fear, sent the tribute to Tiglath-Pileser
and became his voluntary subject. Menahem was hated by the rich merchants
and large landowners as well as by the people generally, because on
them the burden of the tribute fell the heaviest. The powerful Samarians,
therefore, formed themselves into a party to oppose the king.

King Rezin, of Syria, who was watching his opportunity to rebel against
Assyria, kept alive this hostile spirit against Menahem in Samaria and
Israel. Rezin was working toward a coalition of all the countries along
the Mediterranean sea that were tributary to Tiglath-Pileser, so that in
their combined strength they might rise and throw off the Assyrian yoke.

The leaders of the opposition to the king,--the national patriots--in
Samaria, hoped that Pekaiah, Menahem's son and successor, would prove
himself a truer son of his country than his father. They looked to him