Azriyahu took advantage of the events which kept Tiglath-pileser fully occupied in the east, to form a coalition in favour of himself among the states on the banks of the Orontes, including some seventeen provinces, dependencies of Hamath, and certain turbulent cities of Northern Phoenicia, such as Byblos, Arka, Zimyra, Usnu, Siannu, Coele-Syria, and even Hadrach itself. It is not quite clear whether Damascus and the Hebrews took part in this movement. Jeroboam had died in 740, after a prosperous reign of forty-one years, and on his death Israel seems to have fallen under a cloud; six months later, his son Zechariah was assassinated at Ibleam by Shallum, son of Jabesh, and the prophecy of Amos, in which he declared that the house of Jeroboam should fall beneath the sword of Jahveh,* was fulfilled. Shallum himself reigned only one month: two other competitors had presented themselves immediately after his crime;** the ablest of these, Menahem, son of Gadi, had come from Tirzah to Samaria, and, after suppressing his rivals, laid hands on the crown.*** He must have made himself master of the kingdom little by little, the success of his usurpation being entirely due to the ruthless energy invariably and everywhere displayed by him; as, for instance, when Tappuakh (Tiphsah) refused to open its gates at his summons, he broke into the town and slaughtered its inhabitants.**** * Amos vii. 9. ** The nameless prophet, whose prediction is handed down to us in Zech. ix.--xi., speaks of three shepherds cut off by Javeh in one month (xi. 8); two of these were Zechariah and Shallum; the third is not mentioned in the Book of Kings. *** 2 Kings xiv. 23-29; xv. 8-15. **** 2 Kings xv. 16. The Massoretic text gives the name of the town as Tipsah, but the Septuagint has Taphot, which led Thenius to suggest Tappuakh as an emendation of Tipsah: Stade prefers the emendation Tirzah.