REVOLT OF TEN TRIBES--JEROBOAM--REHOBOAM--AHAB

REVOLT OF TEN TRIBES--JEROBOAM--REHOBOAM--AHAB
REHOBOAM ANNOUNCES TAX INCREASES
The effects of the arbitrary policy and inordinate expense which had prevailed in the court of Solomon during the last years of his reign, began to appear as soon as his death was announced. The rulers of the tribes assembled at the city of Shechem, in the tribe of Ephraim--which tribe, it will be remembered, was always disposed to regard with strong jealousy the superiority of Judah. Here they wished to enter into a new stipulation with the heir to the throne--a precaution which had been neglected under the excitement and extraordinary circumstances which attended the accession of Solomon. If Rehoboam had been wise, the place which had been chosen for this congress, and the presence of Jeroboam--who had hastened from Egypt when he heard of Solomon's death, and took a prominent part in the present matter--were circumstances, which among others, might have apprized him that the occasion was one of no ordinary moment, and required the most careful and skilful management. Rehoboam was not equal to this crisis; for when the rulers demanded, as the condition of their submission, that he should abrogate a portion of the burdens which his father had imposed upon them, he failed to discern what might be gained by a ready and cheerful concession, and required three days on which to deliberate on their demand. In this time he decided to reject the counsel of the older and more prudent counsellors, who enforced the necessity of compliance with this demand; and chose rather to adopt the advice of the young and headstrong courtiers--warm advocates of the royal prerogative--who exhorted him to overawe the remonstrants[302] by his majesty, and to drive them back like yelping dogs to their kennels. Accordingly when the three days had expired, his fatal and foolish answer was, that his little finger should be heavier upon the nation than his father's loins; and that whereas his father had only chastised them with whips, he would chastise them with scorpions. Nothing could more clearly than this answer evince the unfitness of Rehoboam for the crisis which had now occurred, and his utter ignorance of the spirit which was in Israel; while it at the same time indicates the arbitrary notions of the royal prerogative which he found occasion to imbibe during the later years of his father's reign.
[302] Those who argue against or oppose.
TEN TRIBES WITHDRAW
On receiving this answer ten of the tribes instantly renounced their allegiance to the house of David, and chose Jeroboam for their king. Two of the tribes, Judah and Benjamin, alone adhered to Rehoboam, Judah had the good reason that the family of David was of their tribe; and both these tribes were advantaged by the presence of the metropolis on their respective borders, and had necessarily derived peculiar benefits from that profuse expenditure of the late king of which the other tribes had cause to complain.
Thus was the great and powerful empire which David had erected, and which Solomon had ruled, already divided into two very unequal parts. Jeroboam had ten of the tribes, and his dominion extended over the tributary nations eastward, toward the Euphrates; while Rehoboam only retained the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, which are henceforth, from their strict identity of interest to be regarded as one tribe, under the name of Judah. To this division belonged also the subject territories of Philistia and Edom. But notwithstanding the more than equal figure which this kingdom makes in the further history of the Hebrew nation, it may be well to bear in mind that what is henceforth to be called the kingdom of Judah, ruled by the house of David, formed not above a fourth part of the dominions of Solomon.
TAX COLLECTOR KILLED
Rehoboam was not disposed to submit quietly to this proceeding. At first, affecting to suppose that his authority over the ten tribes would still be recognized, he sent, at the usual season, the officer who was “over the tribute” to collect the taxes which had been exacted in the last years of his father's reign. But the people rose, and testified their indignation and defiance by stoning this obnoxious personage to death. On this Rehoboam resolved to attempt to reduce the revolted tribes to his obedience by force of arms, and collected a large army for that purpose. But when the prophet Shemaiah announced to him the Lord's command to relinquish this enterprise, he manifested some sense of his true position by disbanding his army. This, it must be allowed, was a signal example of submission, and may intimate that when thus reminded of it he became sensible of the propriety of the requisition. No definite treaty of peace was, however, concluded, and the frontiers of the two kingdoms continued to present a hostile aspect.
PRICE OF IDOLATRY
In the preceding history we have seen that Jehovah, from the time of Moses to the death of Solomon, always governed the Hebrews according to the promises and threatenings which he delivered from Mount Horeb. If they deviated from the principle of worshipping Jehovah as the only true God, that is, if they revolted from their lawful king, he brought them by suitable chastisements, to reflect on their obligations, to return to Jehovah, and again to keep sacred the fundamental law of their church and state. The same course we shall find pursued in the government of the two kingdoms. If the monarchs of both had viewed the late great revolution, the sundering of the empire, as a consequence of the idolatrous and unlawful practices of Solomon's court, as a warning (for such it really was) to them not to break the fundamental law of the state, but to govern their subjects according to the law, and to treat them as the subjects of Jehovah; then both kingdoms might have enjoyed uninterrupted prosperity. Even Jeroboam, though he had received no promise of an eternal kingdom, as David had, yet the assurance was given him that if he obeyed the law as David did, the throne should long continue in his family. (1 Kings 11:37-38; 2 Chronicles 11:1-4.) But as the kings of both kingdoms often disregarded the fundamental laws of the commonwealth--by idolatry rebelled against their divine sovereign, carried their disorders so far, and treated their subjects in such a manner, that they are aptly described by Isaiah and Ezekiel (Isaiah 56:9; Ezekiel 34) under the image of wicked shepherds--there arose a succession of prophets, who, by impressive declarations and symbolic actions, reminded both rulers and subjects of their duties to Jehovah, and threatened them with punishment in case of disobedience.
Even the rebellious backslidings from God which more particularly distinguished the kingdom of Israel, did not prevent Jehovah from governing the kingdom according to his law. We shall see in the sequel how he exterminated, one after another, those royal families who not only retained the arbitrary institutions of Jeroboam, and tolerated and patronized idolatry, with its concomitant vices, but even introduced and protected it by their royal authority. The extermination of the reigning family he announced beforehand by a prophet, and appointed his successor. We shall see that the higher their corruptions rose, so much the more decisive and striking were the declarations and signs made to show the Israelites that the Lord of the universe was their Lord and King, and that all idols were as nothing when opposed to him. Even Naaman, the Syrian, acknowledged, and the Syrians generally found to their sorrow, that the God of the Hebrews was not a mere national god, but that his power extended over all nations. The history represents a contest between Jehovah, who ought to be acknowledged as God, and the idolatrous Israelites; and everything is ordered to preserve the authority of Jehovah in their minds. At last, after all milder punishments had proved fruitless, these rebellions were followed by the destruction of the kingdom, and the captivity of the people, which had been predicted by Moses, and afterward by Ahijah, Hosea, Amos, and other prophets (Deuteronomy 28:36; 1 Kings 14:15; Hosea 9; Amos 5).
Ancient Egyptian Worship

DAVID'S THRONE
We shall also find that the divine Providence was favorable or adverse to the kingdom of Judah, according as the people obeyed or transgressed the law; only here the royal family remained unchanged, according to the promise given to David. We shall here meet indeed with many idolatrous and rebellious kings, but they were always succeeded by those of purer mind, who put a stop to idolatry, re-established theocracy in the hearts of their subjects, and, by the aid of prophets, priests, and Levites, and the services of the temple, restored the knowledge and worship of God. Judah, therefore, although much smaller than Israel, continue her national existence one hundred and thirty-four years longer; but at last, as no durable reformation was produced, she experienced the same fate as her sister kingdom, in fulfillment of the predictions of Moses and several other prophets.
The following account of the two kingdoms, therefore, should be viewed as that of a real theocracy; and thus, as a continued execution of the determination of God, that the true religion should be preserved on the earth. In this view it certainly deserves our most attentive study.[303]
[303] The above, is adopted, with some abridgment, from Jahn, book v. sect. 35.
SHECHEM MADE CAPITAL
Shechem being one of the most important towns in his own tribe of Ephraim, was made by Jeroboam the metropolis of the new kingdom. He had also a summer residence at Tirzah,[304] in the tribe of Manasseh, which, therefore, seems in the history to share the metropolitan dignity with Shechem.
[304] From the manner in which it is mentioned, Tirzah must have enjoyed a very fine situation, and have made a fair appearance ; but even its site is not now known, and that it was in Manasseh is little more than a conjecture. It had been one of the royal cities of the Canaanites (Joshua 12:24).
JEROBOAM ESTABLISHES IDOLATRY
The new king, little regarding the unconditional promises which had been made to him, applied himself to such operations of human policy as might tend to establish his kingdom, and confirm its separation from that of Judah. Viewing them as measures of policy in the abstract, the praise of much political sagacity and foresight need not be denied to their author; and it is certain that they were successful in promoting the object he had in view. But they were, in his peculiar position, as a king in Israel--that is, a vicegerent of Jehovah, not only improper, but in the highest degree criminal; for they involved an interference with matters far above the prerogative of Jehovah's vassal, and the abrogation of institutions which the Supreme King had established as essential to the good government and subordination of his kingdom, with the introduction of other institutions of a nature abhorrent to the Mosaic law, and of a tendency against which that law had most jealously guarded the people. Jeroboam is therefore to be regarded, not as gratuitously and from abstract reference of evil, leading the people into wrong courses; but as being careless whether the course he took were good or evil, so that it tended, in his judgment, to the security of his kingdom; for he had failed to learn that hard truth--that implicit obedience to the behests of his Almighty superior, not tortuous courses of political expediency, offered the true security of his peculiar kingdom.
Jeroboam was much annoyed at the obligation which the law imposed, of the resort of all the Israelites three times a year to Jerusalem. He clearly perceived that this concourse and frequent meeting of all the tribes to the same place, and for the same object, was a strong uniting circumstance among them; and he feared that the continuance of this usage might ultimately tend to the reunion of the several kingdoms under the house of David. Undoubtedly it was an awkward circumstance that the subjects of one king should be obliged thus often to resort to the metropolis of a neighboring and unfriendly monarch; and still more, that his own kingdom should be drained of a considerable portion of its wealth for the support of a service which was exclusively confined to the now adverse metropolis, and for the maintenance of priests and Levites whose services were rendered at Jerusalem, in the presence and under the authority of the rival sovereign. This was a state of things for which, it must be allowed, Jeroboam was under strong and natural inducements to seek a remedy. His duty was to have trusted that God, who had promised to continue his kingdom if he were obedient, and who had, indeed, already interposed his authority to prevent Rehoboam from warring against him, would provide a remedy for these difficulties, or take measures to prevent the consequences which he apprehended. But Jeroboam wanted that trust in God which it behooved the vassal of Jehovah to exhibit; and he applied himself to devise measures of his own to meet these exigencies. The measures which he took were so bold and decisive, that they at once took root, and became in their development so interwoven with the political constitution of the country, that even the more pious successors of this king in the throne of Israel did not venture to abolish them, or re-establish the authority of the fundamental law.
CALVES IN DAN AND BETHEL
Under the pretence that Jerusalem was too distant for the resort of his subjects, he established two places of resort at the opposite extremities of his kingdom, the one in the north, at Dan, and the other in the south, at Bethel. Both of these places, it will be remembered, had been previously places of public resort--Bethel as a place of sacred stones, and Dan on account of the ephod and teraphim which the Danites had reft[305] from Micah and established at that place. Then, to give this resort an object, he established at these places golden or gilded calves, in unquestionable imitation of the Apis and Mnevis of the Egyptians, among whom he had spent the years of his exile. We are not at all to suppose that he intended to introduce the worship of other gods. These images were doubtless intended as symbols of Jehovah; and the worship rendered before them was held to be in his honor. But on account of the danger of idolatry, the use of all 'such symbols had been interdicted by the fundamental law of the state; and the use in particular of this very symbol of a golden calf, to which, from Egyptian contaminations, the Israelites were (as Jeroboam must have known) more attached than to any other, had in former times brought signal punishment upon the Hebrews in the wilderness. It was, then, not the worship of other gods, but the worship of the true God in an irregular, dangerous, and interdicted manner, which constituted the crime of Jeroboam, who “sinned and made Israel to sin.”
[305] Robbed, carried or torn away
LEVITES REJECT IDOLATRY
Nor did the irregularities end here. Jeroboam made his system a complete one. He not only changed the place of concourse to the people, but also altered the time, directing that all the festivals should be observed a month later than the law commanded, an alteration by which considerable confusion must have been at first produced, as the law had appointed these festivals with a reference to the seasons of the year. For this new worship, temples and altars were erected at Dan and Bethel, and to its support the tithes and other sacerdotal dues accruing within the ten tribes were directed; thus at once cutting off the greater part of the income of the establishment of Jerusalem. It is probable that this wealth might still have been retained by the Levites whose cities were within the limits of the kingdom, and by such of the Aaronic priests as might have chosen to conform to the new order of things. But to the eternal honor of this much-calumniated[306] body, they all refused to sanction these proceedings, or to take any part in such violation of the Divine law; in consequence of which they not only forfeited the dues which had afforded them subsistence in the ten tribes, but found it prudent and necessary to abandon also the cities which belonged to them in those tribes, and withdraw into the kingdom of Judah. There they were cheerfully received, although the two tribes forming that kingdom, thus became burdened with the whole charge which had hitherto been shared among twelve tribes. This fact is very valuable, as showing that the Levitical tribe had conciliated, and was entitled to, the esteem and respect of the people. In the end many persons belonging to the other tribes, who disapproved of Jeroboam's innovations, and were disposed to maintain their own fidelity to the spirit of the Mosaical institutions, followed the example of the Levites, and withdrew into the kingdom of Judah. It is not necessary to point out how seriously these migrations lessened the true strength of Jeroboam's kingdom, and increased that of his rival.
[306] Maligned, falsely accused or spoken of
Jeroboam was thus left to establish a new priesthood for his new worship. Priests, were accordingly appointed from all the tribes indiscriminately; but as to the important office of high-priest, his prudence and ambition suggested its annexation to the crown, as was the case in Egypt and some other heathen countries.
ALTAR CRACKS
Jehovah was not slow in manifesting his displeasure at these proceedings. At one of the periodical feasts (that of tabernacles) the time for which had been altered by him, Jeroboam was discharging the priestly act of offering incense on the altar at Bethel, when a prophet of God from Judah appeared on the spot, and denounced destruction upon this altar, to be executed by a future king of Judah, Josiah by name and, in proof of his mission, announced that it should even now receive such a crack that its ashes should be scattered abroad. Hearing this, the king stretched forth his hand to seize the prophet, when his arm stiffened in the act, and could not be again drawn back, until the prophet himself interceded with God for him. At the same time the altar was rent, and the ashes strewed abroad, as the prophet had said.
PROPHET KILLED BY LION
This message seems to have produced no good effect either on the king or the people; and this may have been partly owing to the misconduct of the prophet himself; for after having publicly declared that he was forbidden to eat or drink in Bethel, or to make any stay there, he allowed himself, after having departed, to be imposed upon and brought back, and to be feasted in Bethel, by a sort of Balaamite prophet; for which he was slain by a lion on his return home, and his body was brought back and buried in Bethel. As the prophet had thus acted against his own avowed orders, and had in consequence been destroyed with manifest marks of the Divine displeasure, the occasion was doubtless taken to diminish the credit and effect of the mission with which he had been charged.
JEROBOAM'S DOOM FORETOLD
Jeroboam lived to see three kings upon the throne of Judah. There arose a skirmishing warfare between the two kingdoms in the latter years of Rehoboam; and in the reign of his successor the war was brought to a great pitched battle, the result of which was adverse to Jeroboam. In the latter years of his reign, the prophet Ahijah; who had originally communicated the Divine appointment to him, was commissioned to denounce the death of his most hopeful son, Abijah, about whose sickness the wife of Jeroboam went to consult him in disguise. The prophet, though blind with age, knew her by the prophetic impulse which came upon him; and he not only told her this, but declared the approaching destruction of Jeroboam's race by a succeeding king of Israel, and also announced the ultimate captivity of the tribes of Israel beyond the Euphrates for their manifold iniquities.
JEROBOAM DIED
Jeroboam himself died in the year 968 B.C., after a reign of twenty-two years.
BAASHA TAKES THRONE
His son Nadab ascended the throne in the second year of Asa, king of Judah. He reigned two years, during which he adhered to the system of his father and at the end of which an intimate of his own, named Baasha, of the tribe of Issachar, conspired against him and slew him as he was laying siege to Gibbethon, a fortress which the Philistines retained in their possession. According to the policy of the East, Baasha having slain the head of the house of Jeroboam, hastened to destroy all its other members, who might prove disturbers of his safety in the throne. Thus was the denunciation of the prophet Ahijah against the house of Jeroboam speedily accomplished.
ASA PAYS SYRIANS FOR WAR
The government of Baasha proved not only offensive to God, but oppressive to the people, on both which grounds great numbers of the subjects of this kingdom sought repose in that of Judah. It was probably partly in consequence of the alarm which this constant migration of his people produced, that Baasha entered into a skirmishing warfare with Asa, king of Judah, and ultimately laid siege to, and took the town of Ramah, seven miles to the north of Jerusalem, which he began to rebuild and fortify, with the view of leaving a garrison in it to check the communication with Jerusalem, and to become a point from which excursions might be made into the kingdom of Judah. This bold proceeding occasioned much alarm in Judah; but instead of opposing it by force of arms, King Asa collected all the gold he could find in his own treasury, and that of the temple, and sent it to Ben-Hadad, the king of Syria, to induce him to make a diversion in his favor. Accordingly the Syrians fell upon the north of Israel, and took all the fenced cities of Naphtali; which obliged Baasha to relinquish his enterprise in the south, and march to the defence of his own territories.
BAASHA DIES
Time only confirmed Baasha in the evil courses which had proved the ruin of the house of Jeroboam; in consequence of which a prophet, named Jehu, the son of another prophet called Hanani, was sent to declare for his house the same doom which he had himself been the agent of inflicting upon that of Jeroboam.
Baasha died in 966 B.C., after a reign of twenty-three years.
ZIMRI TAKES CROWN
After the death of Baasha, Israel became the prey of a series of sanguinary revolutions. His son Elah remained only two years on the throne, at the expiration of which he was assassinated during a feast by one of his generals, of the name of Zimri, who then assumed the crown. Zimri, during the few days of his reign, found time to extirpate the whole family of his predecessor, thus accomplishing upon the house of Baasha the doom which the prophet had declared.
ZIMRI DIES
The army, which was engaged against the Philistines, no sooner heard of the murder of their king than they declared in favor of Omri, their own commander, and proclaimed him king. This new king immediately marched with all his forces against his rival, and used such diligence that he shut him up in the summer capital of Tirzah. Zimri made no resistance, but fled to his harem, which he set on fire, and perished in the flames. He had reigned only seven days; and this signal and speedyend gave occasion to the proverb in Israel, “Had Zimri peace, who slew his master?”
Samaria

Omri had another competitor: for while the army had elected him, a portion of the people, equally disgusted at the deed of Zimri, had made Tibni king. The kingdom was thus split into factions, and it was only after a civil war of six years that the faction of Omri prevailed, and Tibni was put to death. Omri reigned above five years after this. He was more guilty before God than any of his predecessors, for he appears to have taken pleasures to turn into actual idolatry that which under the former kings had only been an irregular and interdicted form of worship and service. Finding some disadvantages in the situation of Tirzah, however pleasant, for a metropolis, Omri purchased a hill of a person called Samar for two talents of silver ($3,750), and built thereon a city, which, after the name of the previous owner of the site, he called Samaria,[307] and made it the capital of his dominion. So well was the situation chosen, that the city remained the metropolis of the kingdom while the kingdom endured, and was still a place of importance when the Hebrews ceased the second time to be a nation. There are some respects in which its site is deemed by travelers preferable to that of Jerusalem.
[307] Samaria--The text to which this note is appended sufficiently indicates the origin of Samaria. It remained the capital of Israel until the ruin of that kingdom by the Assyrians, after which it became the chief seat of the people whom the king of Assyria planted in the desolated country, and who are hence, in the subsequent history, known by the name of Samaritans. Between them and the restored Jews there was always a bitter and not always bloodless enmity, which subsisted down to the extinction of the Hebrew commonwealth. The town was utterly destroyed by Hyrcanus, the king-priest of the Jews, in the year 129 B.C.; and in this state it remained until the time of Herod the Great, who, being much pleased with its situation, rebuilt it in a very beautiful manner, and gave it the name of Sebaste, a Greek word equivalent to the Latin Augusta, in honor of the Emperor Augustus. Under this name it continued to flourish until the Jews were finally expelled from Palestine by the Emperor Adrian, after which the place went gradually to decay; and at present the inhabited part of the site forms a mean and miserably poor village, named Subusta, containing not more than thirty dwellings.
“The situation,” says Dr. Richardson, “is exceedingly beautiful, and strong by nature--more so, I think, than Jerusalem. It stands on a fine large insulated hill, compassed all round by a broad deep valley; and when fortified, as it is stated to have been, by Herod, one would have imagined that in the ancient system of warfare nothing but famine could have reduced such a place. The valley is surrounded by four hills, one on each side, which are cultivated in terraces to the top, sown with grain, and planted with fig and olive trees, as is also the valley. The hill of Samaria itself, likewise, rises in terraces to a height equal to any of the adjoining mountains.”
The first view of the place, even in its present state, is highly imposing. And there are sufficient remains of Herod's city to enforce the impressions which the history of the site has prepared the mind to receive. These, however, consist chiefly of numerous limestone columns, still standing, on the upper part of the hill, but without their capitals. Hardy counted eighty that were standing, besides many that lay prostrate. There are also some remains of fortifications; but the most conspicuous ruin is that which appears in the cut on. This was a large church, attributed to the Emperess Helena, and said to have been built over the dungeon in which John the Baptist was confined and afterward beheaded by order of Herod. This cave or dungeon is still pointed out; besides which there are under the church several vaults, which probably opened into the sides of the hill. The building itself is in a very elaborate but fantastic style of architecture; the columns used in which are of no known order, although the capitals approach nearer to the Corinthian than to any other. The east end, with its pentagonal projection, is nearly perfect, confirming a remark of Maundrell, that if any portion of a church is let standing in these parts it is sure to be the eastern end.
OMRI DIES
After his reign of eleven completed years, counted as twelve in the Scriptures, because he had entered on the twelfth, Omri died in the year 931 B.C., being the thirty-ninth year of Asa king of Judah.