Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/153

History of the Israelites and their Religion. 135 new countries, together with the cultus of the Tyrian Baal (Mel- karth), Phoenician artificers, thus continuing the traditions initiated by Solomon in the building and beautifying of extensive works. Despite the narrow limits of the kingdom, opportunities were not wanting the Israelites for exercising the knowledge they had acquired ; whether in raising fresh structures to meet the demands of a population on the increase, or in repairing and extending con- structions around the temple and the walls that begirt the city. Jewish technical skill at this time was not contemptible, since " craftsmen and smiths " were included with " the men of might," that were transported to Babylon. 1 Had the internal affairs of Assyria permitted following up her victories, another expedition, like that of Sennacherib against Jerusalem, must have worked her destruction almost on the same day as that of Samaria. The rapid decay and downfall of the Ninevite empire (625 b.c.), however, gave Judah a short respite, until the beginning of the fifth century b.c., when Babylon occupied the place vacated by the Sargonides, and when the pretensions of the Sait princes upon Syria, which had been an Egyptian province under the Theban dynasty, brought the armies of the two great powers to the plains of Judaea. The chariots of Egypt had been too long the terror of the Israelites to allow them to discriminate between the rival parties and to perceive that Chaldaea was in the ascendant. They fought on the losing side. Jerusalem was sur- rounded and obliged to surrender after a siege of eighteen months. What had escaped the Assyrian war-engines was destroyed by fire ; the sacred utensils of the temple were taken, the better portion of the people scattered in the cities of Chaldaea, the land given to the peasantry, and Judaea inscribed as a province of Babylon 586 b.c. The existence of the Israelites as a nation was ended. A cer- tain amount of independence was seen later under the Asmonaean princes, but their action was on too narrow a field to be taken into historic account. The work begun in Palestine by the prophets, notably in Jerusalem by Isaiah, the greatest of all, was continued on a grander sphere in the cities of their exile ; be it on the Euphrates, the Tigris, or the Nile. It is a work that ranks among the most stupendous efforts ever accomplished by man, and which may be defined as the long inner working of the Jewish mind ere it awoke to the inadequacy of sacrifices and burnt offerings, cul- 1 2 Kings xxiv. 16.