But in spite of this obedience of the princes of Syria and Cyprus, Esarhaddon had to undergo contests in Syria after this time, _i.e._ after the year 674 B.C., which brought him beyond the borders of Syria. In the year 697 B.C. Manasses succeeded his father Hezekiah in Judah; he was then a boy of 12 years of age.[343] But when he came of age he did not follow in the steps of his pious father; therefore, we are told in the Chronicles, Jehovah caused the captains of the army of the king of Assyria to come upon him; they took Manasses prisoner with thorns, and bound him in chains, and carried him to Babel. And when he was in distress he besought Jehovah, and humbled himself before the God of his fathers, and Jehovah heard his prayer, and caused him to return to Jerusalem, to his kingdom.[344] The Books of the Hebrews further tell us that Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, settled people from Persia, Erech and Babel, from Susa and Elam, in Samaria.[345] The carrying away of Manasses, and strengthening of the foreign population in Israel, can only have been caused by attempts at rebellion in the kingdom of Judah and land of Israel. These attempts must have taken place after 674 B.C., with which year the cylinders close, which narrate the deeds of Esarhaddon down to this point, without any mention of such rebellions; on the contrary, we saw that these cylinders at the close of this epoch describe Manasses of Judah and Abibaal of Samaria as among the obedient and tributary vassals of Esarhaddon. The fragment of an inscription of Esarhaddon, which narrates the events of his tenth campaign, and which we cannot place before the year 673 B.C., as there is no mention of the campaign in the inscriptions dated from that year, informs us of a rebellion of Baal, king of Tyre, who was mentioned at the close of the inscriptions previously quoted at the head of the vassals of Esarhaddon in Syria. We can assume the more certainly that Judah and Samaria joined this rebellion, as the fragment adds: King Baal of Tyre "threw off the yoke of Assyria, trusting in king Tarku (Tirhaka) of Cush."[346]