succeeded in making serious encroachments upon the northern kingdom, and it was only with their assistance that King Ahaz of Judah succeeded in defending himself against Israel and Syria. He, as well as his successor Hezekiah, paid tribute to the Assyrians. In 722 the kingdom of Israel was destroyed, the inhabitants sent to the east, and colonists substituted for them. In spite of the warnings of Isaiah, Hezekiah entered into an alliance with Egypt and Ethiopia, in consequence of which Sennacherib of Assyria proceeded to attack the allies. The conquest of Jerusalem, however, was prevented by the well-known incident of the destruction of Sennacherib's army.
Meanwhile the worship of Yahweh was essentially advanced by the writings of Amos, Hosea, Micah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and other prophets. The advance consisted mainly in loftier ideas of the moral and spiritual nature of the Deity, leading to the conception of Yahweh as the God, not merely of Israel, but of the whole world. This was a basis on which the religion of Israel could be preserved and developed amid the coming troubles. One of the most important events in the history of the religion of Israel is the centralization of the worship of Yahweh in Jerusalem in the days of Josiah (620 B.C.), a movement consequent on the introduction of the new book of the law, Deuteronomy.
The Captivity.—At length, in 597, the kingdom of Judah was virtually destroyed, and Nebuchadnezzar carried off King Jehoiakin with 10,000 of the principal inhabitants, including the prophet Ezekiel, to Babylon. A revolt by the last king, Zedekiah, resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 and a second deportation of its inhabitants. Soon after this many Jews, Jeremiah among them, migrated to Egypt.
During the Captivity, besides Ezekiel and Jeremiah, there flourished the sublime anonymous prophet who wrote chapters 40–66 of the book of Isaiah. In the year 538 Cyrus, after having conquered Babylon, permitted the Jews to return to their native country. Only some of these, however, availed themselves of this permission, and the
