The new king continued the war with Jeroboam, and made a determined effort to recover the ten tribes. At Mount Zemaraim, in the range of Ephraim, he confronted with 400,000 troops twice that number of the enemy; and previously to the battle endeavoured by a solemn address to win over the subjects of his rival to their former allegiance. He reminded them of the Divine election of David to the throne of the entire nation, and the emphatic manner in which the monarchy had been covenanted to him; he recounted the circumstances under which Jeroboam had usurped the regal power, and contrasted the idolatrous worship he had established with the time-honoured ritual of the Temple, and its divinely-ordained priests. While he thus sought to awaken the loyalty of the tribes, his rival had posted an ambuscade behind the men of Judah, who found themselves entrapped. But, nothing daunted, they cried unto the Lord, and, while the priests sounded with the silver trumpets, raised a shout, and fell upon the foe. The forces of Jeroboam were utterly routed, and Abijah succeeded in capturing the towns of Bethel, Jeshanah, and Ephraim with the surrounding villages. From this signal defeat the king of Israel never _recovered strength again_ (2 Ch. xiii. 20), and soon after died, bequeathing his throne to his son NADAB, while his rival Abijah, after a brief reign of three years, also died, and was succeeded by his son ASA, B.C. 954. CHAPTER III. _ASA AND BAASHA, ELAH, ZIMRI, OMRI._ 1 KINGS XV. XVI. 2 CHR. XIV.–XVI. B.C. 955–918. THE reign of NADAB was very brief, lasting only two years. As he was besieging Gibbethon, a town allotted to Dan (Josh. xix. 44), and afterwards given to the Kohathite Levites (Josh. xxi. 23), but which was now in the hands of the Philistines, BAASHA, the son of Abijah, of the house of ♦Issachar, conspired ♦against him, and, usurping the throne, smote all the house of Jeroboam till he left none that breathed, thus fulfilling the words of Ahijah, and destroying the first Israelitish dynasty, B.C. 953.