Alliance with the neighbouring kingdom of Phoenicia brought with it the worship of the Phoenician Baal, and Yahveh was forsaken for a foreign god.

In B.C.722 Samaria, the later capital of the country, was taken by the Assyrian king Sargon, and northern Israel ceased to be a nation.
Judah, on the other hand, successfully defied the Assyrian power.

The invasion of Sennacherib was rolled back from the walls of Jerusalem, and though the Jewish kings paid tribute to Nineveh, they were left in possession of their territories.

Edom, indeed, had long since been lost, and with it the trade with the Arabian seas, but the Philistines continued to acknowledge the supremacy of Judah, and commercial relations were kept up with Egypt.

It was not until the Babylonian empire of Nebuchadrezzar had arisen on the ruins of that of Assyria that Jerusalem and its temple were destroyed, and the Davidic dynasty passed away.