By far the most delightful parts of it are those which relate to the lives of the prophets, who were raised up at intervals to warn the nation and its rulers of the fate which they incurred by forsaking the religion of their fathers. These inspired men sometimes sprang up from among the humblest classes of the community: one from the ‘herdsmen of Tekoa,’ another from ‘ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen;’ several were of the priestly order, and one (Isaiah) is said to have been of royal lineage; but the works of all are marked with the same sacredness, force, and authority. They reprehend their countrymen, in the most eloquent strains, at one time for idolatry, and at another for hypocrisy; and their indignation is expressed with the same freedom and dignity against the vices of the highest and the lowest. Of the two kingdoms into which Palestine divided itself after the death of Solomon (B. C. 975), the northern, called the Kingdom of Israel, was conquered by the Assyrians of Nineveh (B. C. 722), who carried off many thousand of the people into captivity. Little is known of their fate. By some they are supposed to have been carried to India, by others to Tartary: ‘what became of all the Israelites of the ten tribes,’ is still a question with historians. The southern kingdom, called the kingdom of Judah, retained its independence till B. C. 588, when it was invaded and subdued by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who destroyed Jerusalem, and carried away a great number of the principal Jews into captivity at Babylon. On the subversion of the Babylonian dominion by Cyrus, seventy years afterwards, the captives, to the number of 42,360, were permitted to return to their own land, and rebuild Jerusalem. At this period, the whole of Palestine merged in the growing Persian empire.