THE CAPTIVITY, AND ITS MEMENTOES.* THE appointed destiny of the Hebrews was not to exhibit valor, not to teach philosophy, but to be ministers of true religion. Instead of this, however, they plunged into all the absurdities and crimes In this narrative, the autobiographic form of which has been chosen as that which admitted of the greatest condensation of fact and implication, in union with the greatest amount of interest, the writer, under the general guidance of Professor Lepsius, has combined the substance of what may be learned alike from Manetho and the monuments, from Herodotus, Diodorus, Pliny, and other Greek and Latin authorities, together with the inspired and invaluable records of the Pentateuch. The antiquity and reliableness of the latter divine records come into prominence the more carefully and thoroughly they are compared with other sources of information, and without them it would be impossible to reproduce, in living outline, the age of the Pharaohs of the nineteenth dynasty. The best justification of the narrative now submitted to the reader is to be found in its consistency. If these parts so combine as to form a living whole, we may regard that whole as representing a reality that once passed over the stage of the world. The view which underlies the signs and wonders of the narrative is strictly the Biblical view-namely, that the plagues were inflicted by the very hand of God, and that the doings of the magicians were bungling attempts, manifest failures, and, so far as they had any accomplishment, the results of merely superior scientific skill. Believing in the Bible, the author believes in miracles, and consequently is not forced to any idle endeavors to bring about a compromise between supernaturalism and naturalism. of idolatry. Because of this it was that God appointed them to an ordeal of captivity and chastisement. The reason of their captivity is as plainly declared as the fact of the captivity itself. And it is to this great event in sacred history that the present article is devoted, in which our object will be not only to unfold the Scripture account of it, but also to point out how that account is confirmed and illustrated by recent discoveries. In a former paper, we remarked how in the eighth century, before the Christian era, Assyria and Egypt were the two great eastern powers contending for the mastery of the world, and that, as Palestine lay between them, there was the great battle-field where the question of lordship was to be settled by the issues of war. That fact is a key to the relations subsisting between the Jews and the Egyptians on the one hand, and the Jews and the Assyrians on the other. The story of the Captivity brings us into contact with the For some account of their extraordinary character, exploits, civilization, and monuments, we refer to the paper already mentioned. last of these. As early as 771 B. C. we notice Menahem, king of Israel, in a position of dependency upon the empire of Assyria. "And Pul," we are told in 2 Kings xv, 19, 20, "came against the land and Menahem gave Pul a thousand talents of silver, that his hand might be with him to confirm the kingdom in his hand. And Menahem exacted the money of Israel, even of all the mighty men of wealth, of each king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria man fifty shekels of silver, to give to the turned back, and stayed not there in the land." From this passage it appears that the Assyrian monarch invaded the Israelitish frontier, probably for the express purpose of levying tribute on it, and that Menahem, in paying it, sought his friendly protection and help. It implies that his government was feeble, and his position anything but independent; and though this is the earliest allusion in the sacred volume to any connection between Palestine and Assyria, Mr. Layard observes that "the Jewish tribes, as long suspected by Biblical scholars, can now be proved to have held their dependent position upon the Assyrian king from a very early period; indeed, long before the time inferred from any passage of Scripture." This invasion, then, in the days of Menahem, may have | been only to enforce the payment of a tribute imposed before, as repeated expeditions against the same country simply to exact revenue, neglected or refused, form a staple subject of history in the sculptured records of Nineveh. But, however this might be in regard to Israel, we find Pul plainly enough treating that kingdom, at the time just noticed, as a lord would his vassal. The beginning of the Captivity was now at hand. The verse just quoted rings the death-knell of the nation. In a cursory review of the past history of the world, we often compress into a point, or generalize in one emphatic statement, some grand event which it took many years to evolve. Thus, for example, we give one fixed date to the fall of the Roman empire. We refer to the taking of Rome by Alaric; whereas a long succession of incidents must be included in any just view of that catastrophe. So the taking of Israel and Judah captive is often noticed as if it were a single occurrence, whereas it was in reality a transaction which spread itself over a century and a half. In pursuing the subject, our first purpose is to notice the successive deportations of the Jewish tribes which took place during this extended period. It does not appear from the Scripture narrative that any of the Israelites were carried away captive by Pul, when he made his inroads on the territory of Menahem. Immunity, in that respect, seems to have been purchased by the payment of tribute. The earliest account of the people being carried into exile occurs in the history of the itants of Gilead and Galilee. The former were of the tribes of Gad and Reuben, the latter of Zebulon and Napthali. Lying on the east of the Jordan, and to the north of Samaria, they were among the most exposed of the Israelitish population. Chiefly of pastoral habits, addicted to feeding their flocks on the banks of the river so dear to their tribes, and on the slopes of the mountains so hallowed in their country's songs-they were simple and helpless, and unable to defend themselves against the military forces which swept over their terri reign of Pekah, who succeeded Menahem, | tories: nor had they that firm faith in the next but one. Pekahiah, the intermediate monarch, who occupied the throne but two years, received the crown in 761, and formed an alliance with Rezin, the king of Syria, against the royal house of David. A war ensued. Elath, a town in Judea, was seized by the Syrian king. Pekah gained a great victory over his brethren of Israel, and led multitudes away captive. These wars were fratricidal. Brothers were slaying brothers; but nature and religion, at least for a little while, subdued the cruel passions of jealousy and revenge, when, in consequence of the humane and pious appeal of the prophet Obed, the Israelites took the captives, "and from the spoil clothed all that were naked among them, and arrayed them, and shod them, and gave them to eat and drink, and anointed them, and carried all the feeble of them upon asses, and brought them to Jericho, the city of palm-trees, to their brethren." This event was a prelude to another captivity, unalleviated by such touches of tenderness. Ahaz, king of Judah, and his people, trembled before the alliance of the monarchs of Syria and Israel, like "the trees of the wood moved by the winds." He sought the aid of the king of Assyria, Tiglath Pileser. These two smoking firebrands were soon quenched by the great power under whose protection the frightened prince of Judah thus heedlessly placed himself and his people. As one of the results of the collisions that ensued, a large number of Pekah's subjects were carried away captive. They were chiefly inhab Divine Ruler of Israel, which was Israel's only true protection; for long had they been debased by their intermixture with the idolatrous Canaanites. As to the portion of the captives dwelling in the northern cities or towns, they must have been a poor and miserable class of men, at least in the eyes of the victors; seeing that Solomon so readily offered those cities or towns as a gift to Hiram, king of Tyre, and he so unwillingly received them. "They pleased him not," we are informed in the first Book of Kings: and he said, "What cities are these which thou hast given me, my brother? And he called them the land of Cabul;" that is, the land of dirt. Such were the people who were first carried into foreign exile, out of Palestine; and it is to their calamities that Isaiah alludes when speaking of the vexation which debased the land of Zebulon and the land of Napthali. Twenty years after the first deportation of Israel, a far more serious one took place in the reign of Hoshea. In 721, Shalmaneser invaded that monarch's territory. He had withheld his tribute, as seems to have been common with the dependents upon the Assyrian throne; and the Assyrian king, as was also his wont, forthwith marched an army against his recusant vassal. Hoshea had sought alliance with Egypt, the great rival of Assyria-a circumstance which increased the exasperation excited by the neglect of the accustomed payments. So the great eastern sovereign came and wreaked his vengeance on Samaria, shutting up Hoshea in prison, and carrying away, in all probability, the court and the flower of the people into Assyria, where they were placed in Halah and Habor, by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. This was the end of the Israelitish monarchy after it had lasted nearly two hundred and seventy years. Amos, who had fulfilled his inspired ministrations about half a century before, had foretold this final catastrophe, which was to demolish the commonwealth of Israel. "The Lord God," he exclaimed, "hath sworn by his holiness, that, lo! the days shall come upon you, that he will take you away with hooks, and your posterity with fish-hooks; and ye shall go out at the breaches," or, according to the Syriac and Chaldee, toward the mountains of Armenia and again, "Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus." The figure here drawn from the practice of the angler is very striking. But there was more than a mere figure here. It was customary with the Assyrian conquerors to put hooks or rings through the lip and nose of their captives, of which there is an example in a bass-relief from Khorsabad; and other representations, while they testify to the Assyrian habit of removing large portions of the people in a subjugated territory to another and distant part of the dominions, also enable us to picture the melancholy scenes witnessed when the monarch with his nobles and inferior subjects were dragged away from the gates of Samaria. We see the victorious monarch, attended by his eunuchs and other officers, seated on a throne in a conspicuous spot within the walls of the captured city. The chief personages among the prisoners prostrate themselves before him, and receive his lordly foot upon their necks, in token of surrender and subjection. Inferior captives appear with their feet in fetters, and their hands laden with manacles. Their sluggish march is hastened by their new masters, who goad them on with their spears and swords. Women are carried away in carts, accompanied by thin miserable children, who vent their agony by tearing their hair, and throwing dust on their heads. Scribes are meanwhile employed taking an inventory of the spoil. There they stand by the gates, writing down on leather the booty that is brought out, and the number of sheep and oxen as well as prisoners. The whole of the mournful spectacle is revived; and mourning, lamentation, and wo, seem to gush out afresh as we ponder these old Assyrian sculptures, coeval with the times when the daughter of Israel was cast down by God for her idolatries, and given into the hands of her enemies for chastisement. Sir Robert K. Porter discovered some sculptures on the rocks of Be-sitoon, in the vale of Merdasht, on the borders of ancient Assyria, which he thinks refer to the captivity of the ten tribes by Shalmaneser. A chain of captives is represented brought before the king. The skirts of the garments are covered with arrow-headed characters, and the last of |