01_Dubovský_321_346 28/10/14 10:32 Pagina 345 WHY DID THE NORTHERN KINGDOM FALL? 345 Kingdom as well. In particular he listed the struggle over sover- eignty that caused some noble families to take sides with one faction or another, the elimination of opponents, a request for total loyalty and death threats in the case of defection or betrayal, concession of privileges, and finally famines and demographic crises 53. Another reason for instability of a given region was heavy tax- ation. K. Radner has listed various types of taxes and tributes the Assyrians imposed upon their subordinates or partners 54. Heavy tributes, on the one hand, brought in capital to Assyria, and, on the other hand, they drained a given region and usually triggered re- bellions and coups d’état. An illustrative example is the rebellion of the Arabs. The continuous increase in taxes brought the Arabs to desperation and then to rebellion against Assyria. The rebellion was considered a transgression (sin) and was violently suppressed by Esarhaddon (RINAP 4 1 iv 1-31). These examples illustrate that some dynamics decoded in the rhetoric of 2 Kings 15 were tools that the Assyrians often employed to buttress their military campaigns. In particular, the Assyrians willingly supported political factions and fomented the instability of a given region. Naturally, similar dynamics were not invented by the Assyrians, but also occurred in other periods and regions. * * * The annalistic passages of the Bible, such as 2 Kings 15, have been studied mainly for the purpose of the reconstruction of political history of a given period. In this paper I have tried to demonstrate that such kind of passages convey not only a description of the events that can be more or less reliable, but also an interpretation of 53 M. GIORGIERI, “Kingship in Ḫatti during the 13th Century: Forms of Rule and Struggles for Power before the Fall of the Empire”, Pax Hethitica. Studies on the Hittites and Their Neighbours in Honour of Itamar Singer (eds. Y. COHEN – A. GILAN) (Wiesbaden 2010) 136-157. 54 K. RADNER, “Abgaben an den König von Assyrien aus dem In- und Ausland”, Geschenke und Steuern, Zölle und Tribute. Antike Abgabenformen in Anspruch und Wirklichkeit (eds. H. KLINKOTT – S. KUBISCH) (Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 29; Leiden – Boston, MA 2007) 213-230.