Nevertheless, though Shalmaneser and his dynastic successors down to Adadnirari III were unable to enter Palestine, the shadow of Assyrian Empire was beginning to creep over Israel. The internal dissensions of the latter, and its fear and jealousy of Damascus had already done much to make ultimate disaster certain. In the second generation after David the radical incompatibility between the northern and southern Hebrew tribes, which under his strong hand and that of his son had seemed one nation, reasserted its disintegrating influence. While it is not certain if the twelve tribes were ever all of one race, it is quite certain that the northern ones had come to be contaminated very largely with Aramaean blood and infected by mid-Syrian influences, which the relations established and maintained by David and Solomon with Hamath and Phoenicia no doubt had accentuated, especially in the territories of Asher and Dan. These tribes and some other northerners had never seen eye to eye with the southern tribes in a matter most vital to Semitic societies, religious ideal and practice. The anthropomorphic monotheism, which the southern tribes brought up from Arabia, had to contend in Galilee with theriomorphic polytheism, that is, the tendency to embody the qualities of divinity in animal forms. For such beliefs as these there is ample evidence in the Judaean tradition, even during the pre-Palestinian wanderings. Both reptile and bovine incarnations manifest themselves in the story of the Exodus, and despite the fervent missionary efforts of a series of Prophets, and the adhesion of many, even among the northern tribesmen, to the more spiritual creed, these cults gathered force in the congenial neighbourhood of Aramaeans and Phoenicians, till they led to political separation of the north from the south as soon as the long reign of Solomon was ended. Thereafter, until the catastrophe of the northern tribes, there would never more be a united Hebrew nation. The northern kingdom, harried by Damascus and forced to take unwilling part in her quarrels, looked about for foreign help. The dynasty of Omri, who, in order to secure control of the great North Road, had built himself a capital and a palace (lately discovered) on the hill of Samaria, relied chiefly on Tyre. The succeeding dynasty, that of Jehu, who had rebelled against Omri's son and his Phoenician queen, courted Assyria, and encouraged her to press ever harder on Damascus. It was a suicidal policy; for in the continued existence of a strong Aramaean state on her north lay Israel's one hope of long life. Jeroboam II and his Prophet Jonah ought to have seen that the day of reckoning would come quickly for Samaria when once Assyria had settled accounts with Damascus.