Part 111

But Abner, the strong warrior and the faithful kinsman of Saul's family, took Ishbosheth, the oldest surviving son of his dead king, and throned him in the city of Mahanaim, beyond the Jordan, proceeding gradually to gather a kingdom for him by reconquest from the Philistines. Thus the Israelite nation was first divided into the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and there was bitter war between them. But that first division was not to endure long. Abner and Ishbosheth fell victims to treachery, and the tribes which had held by them offered allegiance to David, who then became king over "all Israel and Judah." By the conquest of the city of Jebus from its Canaanite founders and possessors, he acquired a new, impregnable capital, which, under the name of Jerusalem, grew to be the most reverently looked upon of all the cities of the world. "History has been completely distorted in representing David as the head of a powerful kingdom, which embraced nearly the whole of Syria. David was king of Judah and of Israel, and that was all; the neighboring peoples, Hebrews, Canaanites, Arameans and Philistines, as far as Mahul Hermon and the desert, were sternly subjected, and were more or less its tributaries. In reality, with the exception, perhaps, of the small town of Ziklag, David did not annex any non-Israelite country to the domain of Israel. The Philistines, the Edomites, the Moabites, the Ammonites, and the Arameans of Zoba, of Damascus, of Rehob and of Maacah were, after his day, very much what they were before, only a little weaker. Conquest was not a characteristic of Israel; the taking possession of the Canaanite lands was an act of a different order, and it came to be more and more regarded as the execution of a decree of Iahveh. As this decree did not extend to the lands of Edom, of Moab, of Ammon and of Aram, the Israelites deemed themselves justified in treating the Edomites, the Moabites, the Ammonites and the Arameans with the utmost severity, in carrying off their precious stones and objects of price, but not in taking their land, or in changing their dynasty. None of the methods employed by great empires such as Assyria was known to these small peoples, which had scarcely got beyond the status of tribes. They were as cruel as Assur, but much less politic and less capable of a general plan. The impression produced by the appearance of this new royalty was none the less extraordinary. The halo of glory which enveloped David remained like a star upon the forehead of Israel."

_E. Renan, History of the People of Israel, book 3, chapter 4 (volume 2)._

David died about 1000 B. C. and was succeeded by his son Solomon, whose mother, Bathsheba, secured the throne for him by intrigue. "Solomon was a younger son, to whom the throne had been allotted contrary to ordinary laws of succession, whilst Adonijah, whom a portion of the people had recognised as king, was considered the rightful heir. So long as the latter lived. Solomon's government could not be on a firm basis, and he could never feel himself secure. Adonijah had therefore to be removed; the leader of the body guard, Benaiah, forcibly entered his house and killed him. As an excuse for this act of violence, it was asserted that Adonijah had attempted to win the hand of Abishag, the young widow of David, and thus had revealed his traitorous intention of contesting the throne with his brother. No sooner had he fallen than Joab, the former adherent of Adonijah, feared that a similar fate would overtake him. This exemplary general, who had contributed so considerably to the aggrandisement of the people of Israel and to the power of the house of David, fled to the altar on Mount Zion, and clung to it, hoping to escape death. Benaiah, however, refused to respect his place of refuge, and shed his blood at the altar. In order to excuse this crime, it was circulated that David himself, on his death-bed, had impressed on his successor the duty of preventing Joab's grey head from sinking in peace to its last rest. … Adonijah's priestly partisan, Abiathar, whom Solomon did not dare to touch, was deprived of his office as high priest, and Zadok was made the sole head of the priesthood. His descendants were invested with the dignity of high priest for over a thousand years, whilst the offspring of Abiathar were neglected. The Benjamite Shimei, who had attacked David with execrations on his flight from Jerusalem, was also executed, and it was only through this three-fold deed of blood that Solomon's throne appeared to gain stability. Solomon then directed his attention to the formation of a court of the greatest magnificence."

_H. Graetz, History of the Jews, volume 1, chapter 9._

"The main characteristic of Solomon's reign was peace. The Philistines, allies of the new dynasty, and given profitable employment by it as mercenaries, were no longer tempted to cross the frontier. … The decay of military strength was only felt in the zone of countries which were tributary to the kingdom. Hadad, or Hadar, the Edomite, who had been defeated by Joab and had taken refuge in Egypt, having heard of David's death, and that of Joab as well, left Pharaoh, whose sister-in-law he had married. We have no details of this war. … We only know that Hadad braved Israel throughout the whole of Solomon's reign, that he did it all the injury he could, and that he was an independent ruler over a great part at all events of Edom. A still more formidable adversary was Rezon, son of Eliadah, an Aramean warrior who, after the defeat of his lord, Hadadezer, king of Zobah, had assembled about him those who had fled before the sword of David. … A lucky 'coup-de-main' placed the city of Damascus at their mercy, and they succeeded in maintaining themselves there. During the whole of Solomon's reign Rezon continued to make war against Israel. The kingdom of Zobah does not appear, however, to have been re-established. Damascus became henceforth the centre and capital of that part of Aramea which adjoined Mount Hermon. David's horizon never extended beyond Syria. With Solomon, fresh perspectives opened up for the Israelites, especially for Jerusalem. Israel is no longer a group of tribes, continuing to lead in its mountains the patriarchal life of the past. It is a well-organised kingdom, small according to our ideas, but rather large judged by the standard of the day. The worldly life of the people of Iahveh is about to begin. If Israel had no other life but that it would not have found a place in history. … An alliance with Egypt was the first step in that career of profane politics which the prophets afterwards interlarded with so much that was impossible. … {1903} The king of Egypt gave Gezer as a dowry to his daughter, and married her to Solomon. … It is not too much to suppose that the tastes of this princess for refined luxury had a great influence upon the mind of her husband. … The relations of Solomon with Tyre exercised a still more civilising influence. Tyre, recently separated from Sidon, was then at the zenith of its activity, and, so to speak, in the full fire of its first foundation. A dynasty of kings named Hiram, or rather Ahiram, was at the head of this movement. The island was covered with constructions imitated from Egypt. … Hiram is the close ally of the king of Israel; it is he who provides Solomon with the artists who were lacking at Jerusalem; the precious materials for the buildings in Zion; seamen for the fleet of Eziongeber. The region of the upper Jordan, conquered by David, appears to have remained tributary to Solomon. What has been related as to a much larger extension of the kingdom of Solomon is greatly exaggerated. … The fables as to the pretended foundation of Palmyra by Solomon come from a letter intentionally added to the text of the ancient historiographer by the compiler of the Chronicles. The construction of Baalbec by Solomon rests upon a still more inadmissible piece of identification. … In reality, the dominion of Solomon was confined to Palestine. … What was better than peoples kept under by force, the Arab brigands were held in check from pillage. The Amalekites, the Midianites, the Beni-Quedem and other nomads were confronted with an impassable barrier all around Israel. The Philistines preserved their independence. … When it is surmised that Solomon reigned over all Syria, the size of his kingdom is exaggerated at least fourfold. Solomon's kingdom was barely a fourth of what is now called Syria. … Solomon … built 'cities of store,' or warehouses, the commercial or military object of which cannot well be defined. There was, more especially, a place named Tamar, in the direction of Petra, of which Solomon made a city, and which became a calling-place for the caravans. … With very good reason, too, Solomon had his attention constantly fixed upon the Red Sea, a broad canal which placed the dawning civilisation of the Mediterranean in communication with India, and thus opened up a new world, that of Ophir. The Bay of Suez belonged to Egypt, but the Gulf of Akaba was, one may say, at the mercy of anyone who cared to take it. Elath and Asiongaber, according to all appearances, had been of very little importance in earlier times. Without regularly occupying the country, Solomon secured the route by the Valley of Araba. He built a fleet at Asiongaber, though the Israelites had never much liking for the sea. Hiram provided Solomon with sailors, or, what is more probable, the two fleets acted together. On leaving the Straits of Aden, they went to Ophir, that is to say, to Western India, to Guzarate, or to the coast of Malabar."

E_. Renan, History of the People of Israel, book 3, chapter 10 (volume 2)._

The government of Solomon was extravagant and despotic; it imposed burdens upon the people which were borne impatiently until his death; and when his son Rehoboam refused to lessen them, the nation was instantly broken again on the lines of the earlier rupture. The two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, only, remained faithful to the house of David and constituted the kingdom of Judah. The other ten tribes made Jeroboam their king and retained the name of Israel for their kingdom. The period of this division is fixed at 978 B. C. Jerusalem continued to be the capital of the kingdom of Judah. In the kingdom of Israel several changes of royal residence occurred during the first half century, until Samaria was founded by King Omri and thenceforth became the capital city. "Six miles from Shechem, in the same well-watered valley, here opening into a wide basin, rises an oblong hill, with steep yet accessible sides, and a long level top. This was the mountain of Samaria, or, as it is called in the original, Shômeron, so named after its owner Shemer, who there lived in state, and who sold it to the King for the great sum of two talents of silver."

_Dean Stanley, Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church, lectures 29-30 (volume 2)._

For two centuries, until the overthrow of the kingdom, Samaria continued to be the queen of the land, and the seat of government, often giving its name to the whole state, so that the kings were called "Kings of Samaria." "Under the dynasties of Omri and Jehu [10th-8th centuries, B. C.] the Northern Kingdom took the leading part in Israel; even to the Judæan Amos it was Israel 'par excellence.' Judah was not only inferior in political power, but in the share it took in the active movements of national life and thought. In tracing the history of religion and the work of the prophets, we have been almost exclusively occupied with the North; Amos himself, when charged with a message to the whole family that Jehovah brought up out of Egypt, leaves his home to preach in a Northern sanctuary. During this whole period we have a much fuller knowledge of the life of Ephraim than of Judah; the Judæan history consists of meagre extracts from official records, except where it comes into contact with the North, through the alliance of Jehoshaphat with Ahab; through the reaction of Jehu's revolution in the fall of Athaliah, the last scion of the house of Ahab, and the accompanying abolition of Baal worship at Jerusalem, or, finally, through the presumptuous attempt of Amaziah to measure his strength with the powerful monarch of Samaria. While the house of Ephraim was engaged in the great war with Syria, Judah had seldom to deal with enemies more formidable than the Philistines or the Edomites; and the contest with these foes, renewed with varying success generation after generation, resolved itself into a succession of forays and blood-feuds such as have always been common in the lands of the Semites (Amos i.), and never assumed the character of a struggle for national existence. It was the Northern Kingdom that had the task of upholding the standard of Israel; its whole history presents greater interest and more heroic elements; its struggles, its calamities, and its glories were cast in a larger mould. It is a trite proverb that the nation which has no history is happy, and perhaps the course of Judah's existence ran more smoothly than that of its greater neighbor, in spite of the raids of the slave-dealers of the coast, and the lawless hordes of the desert. But no side of national existence is likely to find full development where there is little political activity; if the life of the North was more troubled, it was also larger and more intense. {1904} Ephraim took the lead in literature and religion as well as in politics; it was in Ephraim far more than in Judah that the traditions of past history were cherished, and new problems of religion became practical and called for solution by the word of the prophets. So long as the Northern Kingdom endured Judah was content to learn from it for evil or for good. It would be easy to show in detail that every wave of life and thought in Ephraim was transmitted with diminished intensity to the Southern Kingdom. In many respects the influence of Ephraim upon Judah was similar to that of England upon Scotland before the union of the crowns, but with the important difference that after the accession of Omri the two Hebrew kingdoms were seldom involved in hostilities. … The internal condition of the [Judæan] state was stable, though little progressive; the kings were fairly successful in war, though not sufficiently strong to maintain unbroken authority over Edom, the only vassal state of the old Davidic realm over which they still claimed suzerainty, and their civil administration must have been generally satisfactory according to the not very high standard of the East; for they retained the affections of their people, the justice and mercy of the throne of David are favourably spoken of in the old prophecy against Moab quoted in Isaiah XV., xvi., and Isaiah contrasts the disorders of his own time with the ancient reputation of Jerusalem for fidelity and justice (i. 21). … The religious conduct of the house of David followed the same general lines. Old abuses remained untouched, but the cultus remained much as David and Solomon had left it. Local high places were numerous, and no attempt was made to interfere with them; but the great temple on Mount Zion, which formed part of the complex of royal buildings erected by Solomon, maintained its prestige, and appears to have been a special object of solicitude to the kings, who treated its service as part of their royal state. It is common to imagine that the religious condition of Judah was very much superior to that of the North, but there is absolutely no evidence to support this opinion."

_W. Robertson Smith, The Prophets of Israel, lecture 5._

In the year B. C. 745 the throne of Assyria was seized by a soldier of great ability, called Pul, or Pulu, who took the name of Tiglath-pileser III. and who promptly entered on an ambitious career of conquest, with imperial aims and plans. "In B. C. 738 we find him receiving tribute from Menahem of Samaria, Rezon of Damascus, and Hiram of Tyre. … The throne of Israel was occupied at the time by Pekah, a successful general who had murdered his predecessor, but who was evidently a man of vigour and ability. He and Rezon endeavoured to form a confederacy of the Syrian and Palestinian states against their common Assyrian foe. In order to effect their object they considered it necessary to displace the reigning king of Judah, Ahaz, and substitute for him a creature of their own. … They were aided by a party of malcontents in Judah itself (Isaiah viii. 6), and the position of Ahaz seemed desperate. … In this moment of peril Isaiah was instructed to meet and comfort Ahaz. He bade him 'fear not, neither be fainthearted,' for the confederacy against the dynasty of David should be broken and overthrown. … But Ahaz … had no faith either in the prophet or in the message he was commissioned to deliver. He saw safety in one course only—that of invoking the assistance of the Assyrian king, and bribing him by the offer of homage and tribute to march against his enemies. In vain Isaiah denounced so suicidal and unpatriotic a policy. In vain he foretold that when Damascus and Samaria had been crushed, the next victim of the Assyrian king would be Judah itself. The infatuated Ahaz would not listen. He 'sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, saying, I am thy servant and thy son: come up and save me out of the hand of the king of Syria, and out of the hand of the king of Israel, which rise up against me.'" The king of Assyria responded to the call (B. C. 734). He defeated Rezon in battle, laid siege to Damascus, swept the tribes east of the Jordan into captivity, overran the territory of Israel, captured Samaria and put to death Pekah the king. In place of Pekah he set up a vassal-king Hoshea. Six years later, Tiglath-pileser having died, and the Assyrian throne having been seized by another strong soldier, Shalmaneser IV., Hoshea attempted a revolt, looking to Egypt for help. But before Sabako king of Egypt could move to his assistance, "Hoshea was defeated by the Assyrian king or his satraps, and thrown into chains. The ruling classes of Samaria, however, still held out. An Assyrian army, accordingly, once more devastated the land of Israel, and laid siege to the capital. For three years Samaria remained untaken. Another revolution had meanwhile broken out in Assyria; Shalmaneser had died or been put to death, and a fresh military adventurer had seized the crown, taking the name of Sargon, after a famous monarch of ancient Babylonia. Sargon had hardly established himself upon the throne when Samaria fell (B. C. 722). … He contented himself with transporting only 27,280 of its inhabitants into captivity, only the upper classes, in fact, who were implicated in the revolt of Hoshea. An Assyrian satrap, or governor, was appointed over Samaria, while the bulk of the population was allowed to remain peaceably in their old homes."

_A. H. Sayce, Life and Times of Isaiah, chapter 3._

"Much light is thrown upon the conditions of the national religion then and upon its subsequent development by the single fact that the exiled Israelites were absorbed by the surrounding heathenism without leaving a trace behind them, while the population of Judah, who had the benefit of a hundred years of respite, held their faith fast throughout the period of the Babylonian exile, and by means of it were able to maintain their own individuality afterwards in all the circumstances that arose. The fact that the fall of Samaria did not hinder but helped the religion of Jehovah is entirely due to the prophets."

_J. Wellhausen, Sketch of the History of Israel and Judah, chapter 6._

"The first generation of the exiles lived to see the fall of their conquerors. … After this it is difficult to discover any distinct trace of the northern tribes. Some returned with their countrymen of the southern kingdom. … The immense Jewish population which made Babylonia a second Palestine was in part derived from them; and the Jewish customs that have been discovered in the Nestorian Christians, with the traditions of the sect itself, may indicate at any rate a mixture of Jewish descent. That they [the 'lost Ten Tribes'] are concealed in some unknown region of the earth, is a fable with no foundation either in history or prophecy."

_Dean Stanley, Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church, lecture 34 (volume 2)._

See, also, JERUSALEM.

{1905}

JEWS: B. C. 724-604. The kingdom of Judah to the end of the Egyptian domination.

Three years before Sargon's destruction of Samaria, "Hezekiah had succeeded his father Ahaz upon the throne of Jerusalem. … Judah was tributary to Assyria, and owed to Assyria its deliverance from a great danger. But the deliverer and his designs were extremely dangerous, and made Judah apprehensive of being swallowed up presently, when its turn came. The neighbouring countries,—Phœnicia on the north, Moab, Ammon, and the Arabian nations on the east, Philistia on the west, Egypt and Ethiopia on the south,—shared Judah's apprehensions. There were risings, and they were sternly quelled; Judah, however, remained tranquil. But the scheme of an anti-Assyrian alliance was gradually becoming popular. Egypt was the great pillar of hope. By its size, wealth, resources, pretensions, and fame, Egypt seemed a possible rival to Assyria. Time went on. Sargon was murdered in 705; Sennacherib succeeded him. Then on all sides there was an explosion of revolts against the Assyrian rule. The first years of Sennacherib's reign were spent by him in quelling a formidable rising of Merodach Baladan, king of Babylon. The court and ministers of Hezekiah seized this opportunity for detaching their master from Assyria, for joining in the movement of the insurgent states of Palestine and its borders, and for allying themselves with Egypt. … In the year 701, Sennacherib, victorious in Babylonia, marched upon Palestine."

_M. Arnold, Isaiah of Jerusalem, introduction._