Stories of the Wars of the Jews

The works which I have chiefly consulted in compiling the following sketch, have been (in addition to the Holy Scriptures) the books of the Apocrypha, Josephus’ Wars of the Jews, the elaborate writings of Prideaux, and a small volume on the history of the Hebrews, published some years ago in India.

For the sins of His people the Lord had stricken Jerusalem, and given up Judea into the hands of the heathen. The judgments of God had first fallen on the kingdom of the ten tribes; as they had been foremost in the sin of idolatry, so they had first met its awful punishment. Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, had attacked Samaria (724 b.c.), and after a siege of nearly three years had taken the city, and carried Israel into captivity, with Hoshea its king.