The Babylonian Captivity.--When _Sargon_, the object of general dread, died, _Hezekiah_, king of Judah (727-699 B.C.), flattered himself that it was safe to disregard the warnings of Isaiah, and, in the hope of throwing off the Assyrian yoke, made a treaty of alliance with the king of Egypt, and fortified Jerusalem. He abolished, however, the heathen worship in "the high places." _Sennacherib_, Sargon's successor, was compelled to raise the siege (p. 46). _Manasseh_ (698-643 B.C.), in defiance of the prophets, fostered the idolatrous and sensual worship, against which they never ceased to lift their voices. _Josiah_ (640-609 B.C.) was a reformer. As a tributary of Babylon, he sought to prevent _Necho_, king of Egypt, from crossing his territory, but was vanquished and slain at _Megiddo_, on the plain of Esdraelon. _Nebuchadnezzar's_ victory over Necho, at _Carchemish_, enabled the Babylonian king to tread in the footsteps of the Assyrian conquerors. The revolt of _Zedekiah_, which the prophet _Jeremiah_ was unable to prevent, and his alliance with Egypt, led to the Babylonian captivity of the Jews. In this period of national ruin, the prophetic spirit found a voice through _Jeremiah_ and _Ezekiel_. It was during the era of Assyrian and Babylonian invasion that the predictions of a MESSIAH, a great Deliverer and righteous Ruler who was to come, assumed a more definite expression. The spiritual character of _Isaiah's_ teaching has given him the name of "the evangelical prophet." _Cyrus_, the conqueror of Babylon, opened the way (538 B.C.) for the return of the exiles. A small part first came back under _Zerubbabel_, head of the tribe of Judah, who was made Persian governor. They began to rebuild the temple, which was finished in 516 B.C. Later (458 B.C.) _Ezra_ "the scribe" and _Nehemiah_ led home a larger body. The newly returned Jews were fired with a zeal for the observance of the Mosaic ritual,--a zeal which had been sharpened in the persecutions and sorrows of exile. The era of the _"hagiocracy,"_ of the supreme influence of the priesthood and the rigid adherence to the law, with an inflexible hostility to heathen customs, ensued. The spirit of which prophecy had been the stimulant, and partially the fruit, declined. The political independence of the land was gone for ever. The day of freedom under the _Maccabees_, after the insurrection (168 B.C.) led by that family against the Syrian successors of Alexander, was short. But Israel "had been thrown into the stream of nations." Its religious influence was to expand as its political strength dwindled. Its subjugation and all its terrible misfortunes were to serve as a means of spreading the leavening influence of its monotheistic faith. In the year 63 B.C., _Pompeius_ made the Jews tributary to the Romans. In the year 40 B.C., _Herod_ began to reign as a dependent king under Rome.