Years B.C. 1. Rhehoboam 17 990 2. Abijah 3 973 3. Asa 41 970 4. Jehoshaphat 25 929 5. Jehoram or Joram 8 904 6. Ahaziah 1 896 7. Queen Athaliah 8 895 8. Joash or Jehoash 40 889 9. Amaziah 29 849 Interregnum 11 820 10. Uzziah or Azariah 52 809 11. Jotham 16 757 12. Ahaz 18 741 13. Hezekiah 29 725 14. Manasseh 55 696 15. Amor 2 641 18. Josiah 31 639 17. Jehoahaz 3 months 18. Jehoiakim 11 608 19. Coniah or Jehoiachin 3 months 20. Zedekiah 11 597 --- --- Jerusalem taken 404 586 The desolation inflicted upon Jerusalem by the hands of her enemies excited the deepest sorrow, and gave rise to the most gloomy apprehensions in regard to the future. Considering themselves under the special protection of Jehovah, the inhabitants could not by any means be induced to believe that the throne of David would be overturned by the armies of the heathen. It was in vain that Jeremiah, at the imminent peril of his life announced the approaching judgment, assuring the monarch and his princes that the King of Babylon would certainly besiege and lay waste their holy city, unless the evil were averted by an immediate change of manners. All his remonstrances were greeted with contempt; and at length the prophet had to bewail the misery which thus overtook his people, and the varied sufferings, the contumely, and the degradation, which they were doomed to endure in the land of their conquerers. "How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people! How is she become as a widow! She that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, is become tributary! She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks! Judah is gone into captivity; she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest."[43] These sentiments, although applied to a later period, are beautifully expressed by a modern poet, to whom was granted no small share of the pathetic eloquence of the prophetic bard whose words have just been quoted.