Shalmaneser did not again attack Damascus. His sphere of influence was therefore confined to North Syria. He found it more profitable, indeed, to extend his territories into Asia Minor. For several years he engaged himself in securing control of the north-western caravan road, and did not rest until he had subdued Cilicia and overrun the Hittite kingdoms of Tabal and Malatia. Hazael of Damascus avenged himself meanwhile on his unfaithful allies who had so readily acknowledged the shadowy suzerainty of Assyria. "In those days the Lord began to cut Israel short: and Hazael smote them in all the coasts of Israel; from Jordan eastward, all the land of Gilead, the Gadites, and the Reubenites, and the Manassites, from Aroer, which is by the river Arnon, even Gilead and Bashan."[458] Israel thus came completely under the sway of Damascus. Jehu appears to have cherished the ambition of uniting Israel and Judah under one crown. His revolt received the support of the orthodox Hebrews, and he began well by inaugurating reforms in the northern kingdom with purpose apparently to re-establish the worship of David's God. He persecuted the prophets of Baal, but soon became a backslider, for although he stamped out the Phoenician religion he began to worship "the golden calves that were in Bethel and that were in Dan.... He departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, which made Israel to sin."[459] Apparently he found it necessary to secure the support of the idolators of the ancient cult of the "Queen of Heaven". The crown of Judah had been seized by the Israelitish Queen mother Athaliah after the death of her son Ahaziah at the hands of Jehu.[460] She endeavoured to destroy "all the seed royal of the house of Judah". But another woman thwarted the completion of her monstrous design. This was Jehoshabeath, sister of Ahaziah and wife of the priest Jehoiada, who concealed the young prince Joash "and put him and his nurse in a bedchamber", in "the house of God". There Joash was strictly guarded for six years.[461] In time Jehoiada stirred up a revolt against the Baal-worshipping queen of Judah. Having secured the support of the captains of the royal guard and a portion of the army, he brought out from the temple the seven years old prince Joash, "the king's son, and put upon him the crown, and gave him the testimony, and made him king. And Jehoiada and his sons anointed him, and said, God save the king. "Now when Athaliah heard the noise of the people running and praising the king, she came to the people into the house of the Lord: and she looked, and, behold the king stood at his pillar at the entering in, and the princes and the trumpets by the king: and all the people of the land rejoiced, and sounded with trumpets, also the singers with instruments of musick, and such as taught to sing praise. Then Athaliah rent her clothes, and said, Treason, Treason.