Ahaz4
And the Philistines had made raids on . . . Judah. . . .
[2 Chron. 28:18]
We are now within ten years of the collapse of Israel as a nation. In Judah, Ahaz (735-715 B.C.), the son of Jotham and grandson of Uzziah, was crowned king. Whereas Uzziah had been able to take over parts of Philistia, Ahaz lost territory, and the Philistines raided Judah. Ahaz also encountered difficulties with Edom to the south and Israel and Syria to the north. All these troubles for Judah occurred presumably because Ahaz "did not do what was right in the sight of the Lord his God, as his ancestor David had done, but he walked in the way of the kings of Israel" (2 Kings 16:2-3).
It was during a direct assault on Jerusalem by Syria and Israel that the prophet Isaiah went to Ahaz and told him to have faith in the Lord and to ask the Lord for a sign. Ahaz refused to ask for a sign, but Isaiah gave him one anyway: "Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel" (Isa. 7:14 RSV). Isaiah also prophesied that Assyria would attack Syria and that both Syria and the Philistines would attack Israel (Isa. 9:11-12). However, Ahaz refused to believe the word of the Lord and appealed to Assyria for aid. Tiglath-pileser III did not need an invitation to invade Israel, but he probably used Ahaz's appeal as an excuse. The precise chronology is difficult (ANET, 282-83; Tadmor 1966, 88-89; Pfeiffer 1973, 334-35; Bright 1981, 273-74), but after attacking Phoenicia, Tiglath-pileser invaded Philistia, destroying Gaza and causing its king, Hanno, to flee south to Egypt (ANET, 283). Hanno had previously been required to pay tribute to Assyria. An Assyrian list reveals that Ammon, Moab, "Mitinti of Ashkelon, Jehoahaz [Ahaz] (Ia-u-ha-zi) of Judah (Ia-u-da-a-a)," as well as Edom and a Mu-she-hu (or Mu-su-[ri]) of Ekron or Ashdod were also required to pay (ANET, 282; Tadmor 1966, 89). Other texts speak of the Assyrian invasion of Syria and Israel. These texts fit accurately the description recorded in 2 Kings 16 of Ahaz's trip to Damascus, the former Syrian capital, to pay homage to the Assyrian conqueror. It was then that Ahaz, impressed by an altar in Damascus, ordered one like it to be constructed and placed in the temple courtyard in Jerusalem.
Ahaz was not the only ruler paying homage and tribute in Damascus. Gezer, which had by then come under the influence of Ekron (Tadmor 1966, 89 n. 15), also is depicted on one of Tiglath-pileser's reliefs. Isaiah predicted that Judah would again swoop down on the Philistines (Isa. 11:14); this did not happen in Ahaz's lifetime, but Isaiah's prediction remains:
In the year that King Ahaz died this oracle came:
Do not rejoice, all you Philistines,
that the rod that struck you is broken,
for from the root of the snake will come forth an adder,
and its fruit will be a flying fiery serpent.
The firstborn of the poor will graze,
and the needy lie down in safety;
but I will make your root die of famine,
and your remnant I will kill.
Wail, O gate; cry, O city;
melt in fear, O Philistia, all of you!
For smoke comes out of the north,
and there is no straggler in its ranks.
[Isa. 14:28-31]
When Tiglath-pileser died, Israel was dying and almost dead, but the Philistines and others could not relax, for another Assyrian king, one perhaps harsher than Tiglath, was coming south -- Sargon II (see Yadin 1963, 2:414-27 for pictures of Sargon's reliefs). Although the prophets of God, such as Isaiah, had told the people to lean on the Lord and not on the Assyrians, Judah probably viewed the destruction of Israel as merely a direct result of Ahaz's unwise cooperation with Tiglath-pileser.