The efficacy of the sacrifice is hereby admitted although it was offered to Camos and not to Yahweh. The ancient historian says nothing in extenuation of the effect. Ewald suggests that Yahweh, full of bitterness[245] against Israel for having driven the King of Moab to such a deed of fearful bravery, filled the army full of terror. Renan, however, suggests that though they did not then offer human sacrifices themselves, the Israelites still had the fullest faith in their efficacy and retired lest they be defeated. Coming nearer, to a period that is contemporaneous with that which is revealed in the excavations at Gezer and Tell Ta’Annek, we have the direct statement in Kings and Chronicles[246] that Ahaz, the eleventh King of Judah (about 741 to 725 B. C.), “made his son pass through the fire.” To gain the aid of Tiglath-Pileser against the Edomites and the Philistines he became a vassal of the Assyrian monarch and his name appears among the names of those who acknowledged his sovereignty and paid tribute. Manasseh was another King of Judah (697 to 642 B. C.) who sacrificed his son,[247] emulating Ahaz in this as in other heathenish customs, increasing the popularity of the foreign gods and causing the streets of Jerusalem to run with the blood of the prophets whom he put to death. In every way he tried to make the heathen religions more acceptable and accessible to the whole nation by providing them with temples and altars. In addition to sacrificing one of his own sons to Moloch, he revived that religion on a large scale, building for it a magnificent burning place (Tophet) in the valley of Hinnom on the southern wall of Jerusalem. The tortures to which the children were subjected soon associated themselves in the minds of the pious with what punishment beyond the grave must be like, so that the name of hell itself was taken from this valley, Ge-Hinnom.[248] With the reforms of Josiah we hear no more of such treatment of children but we must not suppose that while barbarous practices were going on the prophets had remained silent. The latter day writers revolted against the entire idea of sacrifice, Hosea declaring: “I desired mercy and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of Yahweh more than burnt offerings.”[249] Jeremiah even declared that the Lord had not commanded the people to sacrifice when they came forth from Egypt: “For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices.”[250] To Micah, however, it was reserved to express in those early days the vigorous protest that was to become the ethical keynote of the future religion: “Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old?