These are known from the excavations of Nelson Glueck. Surprisingly the Bible does not mention them. Cf. N. Glueck, The Other Side of the Jordan (New Haven: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1940), pp. 89-113.
34 The work of A. Alt, Die Staatenbildung der Israeliten in Palästina, is basic. For a brief discussion of the Davidic state in English see my article, “The Age of King David,” Union Seminary Review, LIII-2 (1942), 87-109.
35 For further reading on the architecture and symbolism of the temple the following may be suggested: W. F. Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel, pp. 142-55; G. E. Wright, “Solomon’s Temple Resurrected,” The Biblical Archaeologist, IV-2 (1941), 17-31; idem, “The Significance of the Temple in the Ancient Near East,” Part III, ibid., VII-4 (1944), 65-77; P. L. Garber, “Reconstructing Solomon’s Temple,” ibid., XIV-1 (1951), 2-24; also F. M. Cross, “The Tabernacle,” ibid., X-3 (1947), 45-68.
36 Strong arguments have been made, especially by certain Scandinavian scholars, for the existence of the notion of the divine king in Israel, and of an annual Enthronement Festival patterned upon the Babylonian New Year. Discussion of this complex issue is forbidden, but the evidence for these things seems to me tenuous in the extreme. See the judicious remarks of G. E. Wright, The Old Testament Against Its Environment, pp. 62-68. Cf. also H. Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948), pp. 337-44; A. Alt, “Das Königtum in den Reichen Israel und Juda,” Vetus Testamentum, I-1 (1951), 19-22; M. Noth, “Gott, König, Volk im Alten Testament,” Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche, 47-2 (1950), 157-91.
37 Egypt as well as Canaan would be a likely source of such ideas (cf. Alt, ibid.). Solomon was a son-in-law of the pharaoh, and at least some of the organization of the court at Jerusalem was patterned on Egyptian models. See the writer’s article mentioned in note 34 (pp. 93, 98) and references there, especially K. Elliger, “Die dreissig Helden Davids,” Palästinajahrbuch, 31 (1935), 29-75; R. de Vaux, “Titres et fonctionnaires égyptiens à la cour de David et de Salomon,” Revue Biblique, XLVIII (1939), 394-405.
CHAPTER TWO
A Kingdom Under Judgment
WE HAVE SEEN HOW THE VERY NATURE OF HER COVENANT FAITH HAD GIVEN ISRAEL A DEEP SENSE OF DESTINY AS THE PEOPLE OF GOD AND, WITH IT, THE hope and the confidence that God would bless her and establish his rule over her in the Promised Land. We have also seen how the rise of the Davidic monarchy, although it drastically altered the tribal structure of Israel and made changes which effected every aspect of her society—changes bitterly resented by some—nevertheless made much of that hope a reality. God had indeed established his people and made them great. This left us with the question: Would all the hope of Israel, and all her sense of destiny, be transferred bodily to the Davidic state and find its fulfillment in terms of it? In short, would the Kingdom of God be made equal to the Kingdom of Israel?
I
The danger was very real, but it was not to be. Israel’s heritage was such that she could never rest content with such an identification. On the contrary there were many in Israel who found Solomon’s state an intolerable institution: not only was it not a kingdom established by God; it was not even compatible with the Israelite ideal.
1. There was a grave sickness in the state; the schism of society had begun, and there was severe social tension. As was previously mentioned, the simple democracy of the tribal order had increasing difficulty in maintaining itself amid the changes which the monarchy brought. An ever wider rift between those that had and those that had not was inevitable. The royal court had by this time nurtured a whole generation born to the aristocracy; as Solomon consolidated power under the crown, there are hints of that nepotism and favoritism which one would expect.1 There grew up a privilege, insulated from popular feeling and imbued with the notion that the people were subjects to be possessed body and soul, of which Prince Rehoboam and his cronies (I Kings 12:1-15) are sufficient illustration. There also grew in many an Israelite heart the feeling: “What portion have we in David?” (I Kings 12:16.)
This tension was only accentuated by a fiscal crisis which developed. It was probably as simple as only arithmetic can be: Solomon’s court, his harem, his building projects, and his army had to be paid for. David seems to have supported the state by the plunder and the tribute which he was able to exact from conquered peoples (II Sam. 8:2-12; 12:30-31). So far as we know, he levied no systematic taxes from his own people, although his census (II Sam. 24) was no doubt a prelude to such, as well as to military conscription. But with Solomon the state ceased to grow; there were no new lands to loot, and there was no doubt—even in those days—a limit to the plunder which could be taken from already subject peoples. Meanwhile, we may imagine, expenses mounted far above income.
At any rate Solomon laid a heavy hand on his people. His reorganization of the land (I Kings 4:7-19), no doubt based on David’s census, was certainly for the purposes of taxation and probably of conscription—things hitherto unknown in Israel. What was worse, in order to recruit the labor force needed for his building projects he introduced the hated corvée. While this was at first laid on non-Israelites (I Kings 9:20-22),2 it was subsequently extended to Israelites as well (I Kings 5:13-14; 11:28; 12:18) and was a heavy drain upon manpower.3 No dose more bitter for a freeborn Israelite could be imagined. As if this were not enough, Solomon ceded certain towns in Galilee to Hiram, king of Tyre, in order to raise much-needed cash (I Kings 9:10-14).4 A part of the Promised Land traded to a Canaanite! It is unthinkable that this could have been a popular transaction.
Nor could Solomon’s state have been the Israelite ideal religiously. For in spite of its lavish patronage of the national religion, it made many adjustments to the pagan world and was tolerant of it. True, it was remembered by posterity for the temple it built in Jerusalem to Yahweh, God of Israel. But at the same time, in pursuit of its commercial policy, it turned outward into the wide world and concluded treaties and alliances with many foreign peoples. Far the most profitable of these, of course, was that with Tyre, trade emporium of the world and center of Canaanite culture. Now religious isolationism can hardly go hand in hand with internationalism in trade and politics. Nor did it in Israel. Solomon’s alliances were mostly sealed by judicious marriages, and Solomon did not compel his highborn foreign wives to discontinue their native religions upon coming to Jerusalem. That would have been poor politics indeed! On the contrary, he saw to it that the state fostered these religions (I Kings 11:4-8)—much, we may imagine, to the disgust of the purists. And were there even some who had their misgivings about that magnificent temple on Mount Zion? After all, it was built on a Canaanite pattern by Canaanite architects on an erstwhile Canaanite high place.5 Almost certainly there were men to be found in Israel who thought it a gaudy, parvenu structure: Yahweh the God of the tent-dwelling ancestors has no need for fine churches of cedar and stone (II Sam. 7:5-7).
2. In any case we are not surprised that there was a violent reaction against Solomon’s state. The monarchy had never escaped tension. The old antimonarchic feeling of Gideon, Jotham, and Samuel never died out. The feeling persisted in many circles that the new order was a departure from, or at best a compromise with, Israel’s proper destiny. This feeling, nurtured by popular grievances, had fed the rebellions of Absalom and of Sheba even in the lifetime of David (II Sam. 15–20). Prophets, themselves on good terms with the state, were alive to these dangerous trends and attempted to act as a brake upon them. Gad the seer pronounced the judgment of God upon David for taking the census (II Sam. 24:11-13); and Nathan the prophet, when David had done his faithful retainer—Uriah the Hittite—to death in order to have his wife, called
