ATTRIBUTED TO SALMANESER. 
161 
Tiglath-pileser, he carried away only part of three tribes; and 
on the second by Salmaneser, he not only confirmed Hoshea on 
the throne, but spared the remaining people. Therefore, on this 
determined rebellion of king and people, he punishes the ingra¬ 
titude of both, by putting both in the most abject bonds, and 
bringing away the whole of the ten tribes into captivity; or, at 
least, the principal of the nation ; in the same manner, probably, 
as was afterwards adopted by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, with 
regard to the inhabitants of Judea. " And he carried away all 
from Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of 
valour, even ten thousand captives; and all the craftsmen and 
smiths: none remained, save the poorest sort of people of the 
land.” 2 Kings, chap. xxiv. — Besides, it may bear on our 
argument, to remark, that, including the prostrate monarch, 
there are precisely ten captives ; which might be regarded as the 
representatives, or heads, of each tribe; beginning with the 
king, who, assuredly, would be considered the chief of his ; and 
ending with the aged figure at the end, whose high cap may 
have been an exaggerated representation of the mitre worn by 
the sacerdotal tribe of Levi; a just punishment of the priest¬ 
hood at that time, which had debased itself by every species of 
idolatrous compliance with the whims, or rather wickedness of 
the people, in the adoption of pagan worship. Hence, “ having 
all walked in the statutes of the heathen, the Lord rejected 
Israel, and delivered them into the hand of the spoilers.” 
Doubtless, the figure with the inscription on his garments, 
from the singularity of the appendage, must have been some 
noted personage in the history of the event; and, besides, it 
seems to designate a striking peculiarity of the Jews, who were 
accustomed to write memorable sentences of old, in the form 
VOL. II. 
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