It also will be carried to Assyria for a present to a great king. Ephraim will receive shame, And Israel will be ashamed of his own counsel.
"It should have been fundamental, however, for Israel that no foreign alliances were possible. The reason was quite simply that in those days the secular state did not exist, and so in practice it was impossible to distinguish between a state and its gods. In an extant treaty of peace between Rameses II of Egypt and Hattusilis the Hittite king it is a thousand of their gods on either side who are the witnesses to and guarantors of it. [Note: Footnote 1: James B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, pp. 200-201.] So even a treaty on equal terms with a neighbouring country would have involved for Israel a recognition of the other country’s deities as having reality and equality with Jehovah. To turn to Assyria or Egypt for help implied of necessity that their gods were more effective than the God of Israel." [Note: Ellison, p. 131.] 