089. LXI. The Division Of The Hebrew Empire
§ LXI. THE DIVISION OF THE HEBREW EMPIRE
1. Jero boam’s return (1 Kings 12:2). Now as soon as Jeroboam the son of Nebat heard [that Solomon was dead]—for he was still in Egypt, whither he had fled from the presence of King Solomon, and he dwelt in Egypt—he returned at once to his native town, Zeredah in Mount Ephraim.
2. De mands of the north erners (1 Kings 12:1;1 Kings 12:3-5). And Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had come to Shechem to make him king. And they said to Rehoboam, Your father made our yoke intolerable. Now therefore make the intolerable service of your father and the heavy yoke he laid upon us lighter, and we will serve you. And he said to them, Go away for three days, then come again to me. So the people went away.
3. Counsel of the old men (1 Kings 12:6-7). And King Rehoboam took counsel with the old men who had stood before Solomon his father during his lifetime, saying, What answer do you advise me to give this people? And they said to him, If now you will be a servant to this people, and will serve them, and give them a favorable answer, then they will be your servants forever.
4. Counsel of the young men (1 Kings 12:8-11). But he rejected the counsel which the old men had given him, and took counsel with the young men who had grown up with him and had stood before him. And he said to them, What answer do you advise us to give to this people, who have spoken to me, saying, ‘Make the yoke that your father put upon us lighter’? And the young men who had grown up with him said to him, Thus must you answer this people who have said to you, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, but you make it lighter for us’; thus must you say to them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins! And now, whereas my father loaded you with a heavy yoke, I will make your yoke heavier; my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scourges.’
5. Rehoboam’s tyrannical reply (1 Kings 12:12-15). So when all the people came to Rehoboam the third day, as the king bade, saying, Come to me the third day, the king answered the people harshly, and did not follow the counsel which the old men had given him, but spoke to them according to the counsel of the young men, saying, My father made your yoke heavy, but I also will make your yoke still heavier; my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scourges. So the king gave no heed to the people; for it was a thing brought about of Jehovah to confirm his word, which Jehovah spoke by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat.
6. Rejection of Rehoboam by the northern tribes (1 Kings 12:18-19). And when all Israel saw that the king gave no heed to them, the people answered the king, saying, What share have we in David?
We have no claim in the son of Jesse! To your tents, O Israel!
Now care for your own house, O David! So the Israelites went to their homes. Then King Rehoboam sent Adoniram, who was over the men subject to forced labor; but all Israel stoned him to death. Thereupon King Rehoboam quickly mounted his chariot in order to flee to Jerusalem. So Israel rebelled against the house of David to the present day.
7. Election of Jeroboam king (1 Kings 12:20;1 Kings 12:25). And as soon as all Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, they sent and called him to the assembly of the people and made him king over all Israel. None remained loyal to the house of David except the tribe of Judah. And Jeroboam fortified Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and dwelt there. Afterwards he went out from there and fortified Penuel.
8. Establishment of royal sanctuaries (1 Kings 12:26-27a,1 Kings 12:28-30). Then Jeroboam said to himself, Now the sovereignty will revert to the house of David. If this people go up to offer sacrifices in the temple of Jehovah at Jerusalem, then will the heart of this people turn again to their lord, even to Rehoboam king of Judah; and they will kill me. So the king took counsel with himself, and made two calves of gold, and said to the people, You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Behold your gods, O Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt! And he set up the one in Bethel, and the other in Dan. And this thing became a sin to Israel, for the people went to worship before the one, even to Dan.
9. Appointment of priests (1 Kings 12:31;1 Kings 12:12). And he made houses of high places, and made priests from among all the people, who were not of the sons of Levi. And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast that is in Judah, and he went up to the altar; so he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves that he had made; and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places that he had made.
10. Jeroboam’s reign (1 Kings 14:19-20). Now the other acts of Jeroboam, how he carried on wars, how he ruled, they are already recorded in the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. And the time during which Jeroboam reigned was twenty-two years. Then he slept with his fathers, and Nadab his son became king in his place.
I. The Records of Northern Israel’s History. From the period of the division onward, the late prophetic editor of the books of Kings weaves together the history of the two Hebrew kingdoms. For the first two centuries he devotes his chief attention to Northern Israel. His method is that of the earlier Hebrew historians. Where ancient histories were available, he quotes verbatim the sections adapted to his purpose. In addition to the state annals of Northern and Southern Israel, to which he frequently refers, he evidently had access to certain originally independent biographies of the more important kings and prophets, such as Jeroboam, Ahab, Jehu, Hezekiah, Elijah, Elisha and Isaiah. The result is that his history is very brief and incomplete at certain points and very full and detailed at others. Fortunately the more important epochs are those most fully treated. The citations from the older sources are incorporated by the editor in a stereotyped framework, which gives the date of the accession of each king, the length of the reign, and certain other important facts which he seems to have drawn from the state annals of the two kingdoms. To these data he adds his own estimate of the character and policy of each ruler. His basis of judgment is that of the Deuteronomic law which makes Jerusalem the only centre where Jehovah could be rightly worshipped. Hence all the kings of Northern Israel, and most of the kings of Judah, who regarded the local sanctuaries outside Jerusalem as perfectly legitimate, are condemned by him as traitors to the religion of their race. The historical records in the books of Kings are richly supplemented by the sermons of contemporary prophets like Amos and Hosea. These sermons are like mirrors, reflecting in detail the many-sided life of the nation, and make it possible to view political, social, and moral conditions in Israel through the eyes of its most enlightened statesmen and leaders, and to interpret the real significance of facts and forces with the aid of their inspired insight. The voluminous contemporary literature which has been discovered in the ruins of ancient Babylonia and Assyria also furnishes the data for studying Israel’s history from the point of view of the conquerors, whose approach aroused the prophets to speak and precipitated the great crises which made Israel’s history forever significant.
II. Rehoboam’s Fatal Policy. The immediate cause of the division of the Hebrew empire was the short-sighted policy of Solomon’s successor, Rehoboam. According to Hebrew usage, a king could not be finally established on the throne until his choice was approved by his subjects. Thus David had been chosen by the elders of Israel, and his son Solomon had been introduced to the people to receive popular acceptance and approval. Resting on their constitutional rights, the tribes of the north demanded that Rehoboam should meet them at the leading northern city of Shechem; and to their demand he was obliged to accede. Before accepting him as their king, they asked him to give them a definite assurance that he would not continue his father’s policy of onerous taxation and forced labor. Unfortunately, Rehoboam did not listen to the counsel of his oldest and most experienced advisers, but followed instead the advice of the young men who, like himself, had been brought up in the enervating and artificial atmosphere of Solomon’s court, and who were ignorant of the actual conditions and the dominant forces in the empire. His blunt assertion that he would rule as an absolute despot naturally led to his rejection by the northern tribes. He also committed the fatal error of sending Adoniram, who had charge of the forced labor, to treat with them. The result was that Rehoboam was obliged to flee ignominiously back to Jerusalem, king only of Judah and of the territory of Benajmin lying immediately adjacent to his capital.
III. The Underlying Causes of the Division. The division was but the reopening of the old breach between the northern and southern tribes. In the earlier days of the settlement, each group of tribes had independently fought its own battles and conquered its own territory. A zone of Canaanite cities, with Jebus (Jerusalem) as its centre, had, even to the days of David, separated the north and the south. The physical characteristics of the land and the natural products of Northern Israel were so different from those of the south that they produced a distinct type of life and civilization. The broad fertile fields of the north supported a prosperous, luxury-loving people. Their highways of commerce were open wide to the traders who came from the adjacent lands, bringing the products, the customs, and the ideas of the neighboring Semitic nations. Judah, on the contrary, faced toward the desert and kept in closer touch with the life and thought of its nomadic ancestors; while its rocky, barren hills produced a more austere and hardy type of civilization and religion. The strong ancient rivalry between the tribes of the north and of the south had repeatedly found expression in the days of David. Solomon’s policy, however, crystallized the jealousy latent in the north into bitter discontent. In refusing to accept Solomon’s son as king, the northerners evidently had the support of their prophets. Ahijah’s act in tearing his mantle asunder, in order to give ten parts to Jeroboam, symbolizes the deliberate conviction and choice of the prophets. With their profound insight into the politics of their age, they could not have been blind to the dangers and disadvantages which would inevitably result from the disruption of the empire; yet they chose it as the lesser of two evils. Solomon’s policy threatened to wrest from the people the hereditary rights of the individual and to crush that noble democratic spirit which Israel had inherited from its nomadic past. It also meant disloyalty to Jehovah; for, in the minds of his people, he was fast being placed on an equality with the gods of the neighboring nations. To preserve their faith and freedom, the religious and political leaders of the north were therefore ready to turn their backs upon the splendor and glories of a united Israel and to face the hostile world alone.
IV. Events of Jeroboam’s Reign. Having rejected the house of David, the northern tribes naturally turned to their most prominent leader. Jeroboam, although of humble origin, had already shown himself the champion of the people against Solomon’s despotic policy. Like Saul and David, he was called by popular choice to lay the foundations of the kingdom over which he ruled. Shechem, the largest city of central Israel, was at first made the capital of the new kingdom. It was beautifully situated in the broad valley which separated Mount Gerizim from Mount Ebal, and was watered by the rushing streams which gushed forth from the overhanging mountain to the south. It was impossible, however, to defend it from hostile attack. Although the biblical narrative is silent, it is clear from the Egyptian records that both Northern and Southern Israel, early in the reign of Jeroboam I, were overrun by an army led by Shishak, king of Egypt, whose conquests extended to the plain of Esdraelon on the north and Mahanaim east of the Jordan. The object of this invasion was plunder rather than conquest, and both of the Hebrew kingdoms appear to have suffered severely (cf. § LXXIII ii). The statement that Jeroboam “went out from Shechem and fortified Penuel” may reflect the fact that he was forced in the presence of this Egyptian invader to transfer his capital to the famous old sanctuary east of the Jordan.
V. Jeroboam’s Religious Policy. The late prophetic editor of the books of Kings bitterly condemns Jeroboam because he set up two calves of gold at the ancient sanctuaries of Bethel and Dan. The act, however, was undoubtedly commended by the political and religious leaders of his day. In so doing he was but following the precedent of Gideon and Solomon. The calves or bulls overlaid with gold were probably similar in form to the cherubim which guarded the ark in the temple at Jerusalem. The bull appears to have been a common object in ancient Semitic symbolism. Whether they were intended to represent the clouds on which Jehovah was borne, as he came to deliver his people, or symbolized the strength and creative power of the Deity, it is clear that Jeroboam had no intentions of setting aside the national worship of Jehovah. In selecting two sanctuaries, one in the north and the other in the extreme south of his kingdom to suit the convenience of his subjects, and in making these sacred places national shrines, he showed his zeal for the worship of Israel’s God. Many other sanctuaries continued to exist in the land; but henceforth those at Dan and Bethel were provided with special priests appointed and doubtless supported by the king. They stood in the same relation to the other high places of Israel, as did Solomon’s temple to the sanctuaries of Judah. In offering the public sacrifices in behalf of the nation on the great feast days, Jeroboam, like Solomon before him, was simply discharging one of his duties as the religious head of the nation.
VI. Character of Jeroboam’s Reign. Analyzing the later biblical testimony in the light of contemporary customs and conditions, it seems clear that Jeroboam was devoted to the welfare of his kingdom. The oft-repeated condemnation of the later prophetic author of the books of Kings is from the point of view of the southern kingdom and the Jerusalem temple which this writer regarded as the one legitimate sanctuary.
Jeroboam’s dynasty, however, enjoyed none of the prestige which had gathered about the house of David. His kingdom also lacked coherence and natural defences. Instead, on every side its broad valleys invited the attack of foreign invaders. Chance references indicate that the Philistines again renewed their intermittent attacks upon Northern Israel. Hence, to maintain his position and to hold together the loosely connected tribes of the north, Jeroboam was obliged to contend constantly with difficult problems within, as well as with foes without his kingdom. The proof of the strength of his character and policy is the fact that for over two decades he maintained himself against these many odds, and was able at his death to hand down his kingdom intact to his son Nadab.
VII. Effects of the Division. The division of the empire was one of the great turning points in Hebrew history. By one stroke it largely undid the work of Saul and David. The old breach between the north and the south, thus opened, was never again permanently closed. The Hebrews never ceased to dream of world-wide conquest; but the actual course of history bore them to a very different goal. Each of the two Hebrew kingdoms, weakened by civil war, was henceforth exposed to almost constant attack from strong foes. As a result of these protracted wars, their strength was exhausted and they became weaker and weaker until they were ground down under the iron heel of the Assyrians and Babylonians. The division ultimately meant for the Hebrews political ruin and exile; but to each of the kingdoms in turn it brought tragic yet profoundly significant experiences, which opened the eyes of the race to new visions of Jehovah’s character and demands, and impressed indelibly upon their consciousness the great ethical and spiritual principles which made them a prophet nation. In the bitter school of experience, they learned at last to pity and succor the afflicted. Victims of injustice and greed, they became the champions of ethical righteousness. Disappointed in their national and political hopes, they found the eternal God of love and those spiritual joys which far transcend all material glories.