=Home of the Prophet Micah.= Sennacherib, the successor of Sargon, after putting down the rebellion in southern Babylonia, advanced with a large army to the reconquest of the eastern Mediterranean states. It was probably while the Assyrian king was advancing from the north that Isaiah's contemporary, Micah, uttered his warning against the venal and greedy nobles of Judah. The home of the prophet was Moresheth-gath. Eusebius and Jerome describe it as a small village a little east of the modern Beit-Jibrin, which commands the entrance to the Valley of Zephathah, through which ran the highway from Jerusalem to Gaza. Another important road ran from Hebron past the mound which represents without reasonable doubt the ancient Gath, and thence along the coast plains to the north. It was the centre of a prosperous agricultural life and at the same time shared the peculiar characteristics of these frontier towns. From his home among the foot-hills^{(108)} Micah was able to watch the movement of Assyrian armies and to keep in close touch with the world-politics of his day. Like Amos, he was inspired by the sense of approaching danger to turn his attention to conditions within the nation and to endeavor with all his prophetic power to prepare it for the coming crisis. The note of alarm sounds through all his early utterances. In imagination he pictures the effects of the coming invasions and in the sound of the names of the villages about his home he finds suggestions of the calamity about to overtake them. His eyes fall first on Gath, which lay to the northwest on the highway along which the Assyrian army would naturally approach. His vision sweeps southward, including Shaphir, the modern Suafir, five miles southeast of Ashdod on the Philistine Plain, Zaanan and Lachish to the southwest, and other small villages on the western borders of Judah. His eye rests last of all upon Mareshah, which has recently been identified beyond doubt with the large Tell es-Sandahannah, one mile south of Beit-Jibrin. The latter was the most important city near Micah's home, for it guarded the pass and stood near the junction of the great highways that radiate from this point. =Judah's Fate in 701 B.C.= Judah experienced in 701 B.C. the calamities that Isaiah and Micah had predicted. The annals of Sennacherib state that the Assyrian king conquered forty-six of the cities of Judah, together with innumerable fortresses and small towns in their neighborhood; over two hundred thousand captives, and horses, mules, asses, camels, oxen, and sheep without number were carried away as spoils. In the picturesque language of the conqueror, "Hezekiah was shut up like a bird in a cage in the midst of Jerusalem" until he was forced to surrender and to pay a huge tribute of gold and silver.