"I am become to them as a lion; As a leopard will I watch by the way; I will meet them as a bear bereaved of her whelps, And rend the caul of their heart, And there will I devour them like a lioness: The beast of the field shall tear them.... Where now is thy king, that he may save thee in all thy cities And thy judges, of whom thou saidst, 'Give me a king and prince'? I give thee a king in Mine anger, And take him away in My wrath." For three years Samaria held out. During the siege Shalmaneser died, and was succeeded by Sargon, who--though he vaguely talks of "the kings his ancestors," and says that he had been preceded by three hundred and thirty Assyrian dynasts--never names his father, and seems to have been a usurping general.[400] Sabaco remained inactive, and basely deserted the miserable people which had relied on his protection. In this conduct Egypt was true to its historic character of untrustworthiness and inertness. Both in Israel and in Judah there were two political parties. One relied on the strength of Egypt; the other counselled submission to Assyria, or--in the hour when it became necessary to defy Assyria--confidence in God. Egypt was as frail a support as one of her own paper-reeds, which bent under the weight, and broke and ran into the hand of every one who leaned on it. Sargon did not raze the city, and we see from the _Eponym Canon_ that its inhabitants were still strong enough some years later to take part in a futile revolt. But we have one dreadful glimpse of the horrors which he inflicted upon it. They were the inevitable punishment of every conquered city which had dared to resist the Assyrian arm. "Samaria shall bear her guilt, For she hath rebelled against her God. They shall fall by the sword: Their infants shall be dashed in pieces, And their women in child shall be ripped up."[401]