Around 796 b.c., King Amaziah musters his conscripts under a blinding Judean sun. Men grip heavy bronze spears and iron shields in the choking dirt. Constant border threats force leaders into a state of endless guard. A hired army marches through the brutal chalk canyons of the Valley of Salt. Sweat and grit cake their skin. Profound physical exhaustion settles deep into the infantry before the slaughter even begins. The surviving men find only brief consolation in their violent plunder.
Amaziah needs more men to secure his southern flank against Edom. He hires 100,000 Israelite mercenaries for 7,500 pounds of silver. A prophet warns the king to send the hired killers away because the God of Heaven will not bless the northern tribes. Amaziah obeys and leads his own troops to slaughter 10,000 Edomites. His soldiers throw another 10,000 captives off a jagged rock cliff. The dismissed mercenaries loot Judean towns on their angry march north. Amaziah drags captured Edomite stone idols back to his capital and bows to them.
The 600-foot breach torn in the city wall stands as a physical marker of reckless diplomacy. Amaziah challenges King Jehoash of Israel to open combat after his southern victory. The northern army routs Judah at Beth-shemesh and hauls the defeated king back to his own capital. Enemy soldiers rip apart the heavy masonry from the Gate of Ephraim to the Corner Gate. They cart away all the gold and silver from the temple treasuries.
Hiring foreign swords ensures those same blades will eventually tear down the buyer's own gates.
The massive gap in the limestone wall remained a stark reminder of military overreach. Amaziah fled a conspiracy in his broken city and died by an assassin's blade in Lachish.