the king might flout the law of the covenant God with impunity. To these men there was an older and higher order than the state, God’s order, to which the state must simply be made to conform.
But the tension continued, and Solomon’s oppressive policy brought matters to a head. This tension was particularly severe among the northern tribes. How far Solomon’s favoritism to his own household, to Jerusalem, and to Judah, may have carried him is not clear,6 but a feeling of profound alienation from the house of David was abroad in the north.
The corvée was the nub of their quarrel, as subsequent events were to show (I Kings 12:4, 18). The leader of the unrest was one Jeroboam, who was himself the labor gang boss for the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh (I Kings 11:28), and who had no doubt been thoroughly sickened by his job. And although Solomon’s police got wind of the plot, so that Jeroboam had to flee to Egypt (I Kings 11:40), all the makings of an explosion were present. Solomon’s death touched it off. The northern tribesmen, with Jeroboam at their head, presented their petition to Rehoboam (I Kings 12:1-4) for an amelioration of their burdens; and when this was insolently refused (vss. 6-15), they forthwith seceded from the state. The royal taskmaster, Adoram, was lynched on the spot (vs. 18).
Now we must understand that this was not merely a social revolution, although economic grievances set it off. It had strong prophet backing. One remembers that a prophet, Ahijah of Shiloh (I Kings 11:26-39), was the one who in the name of God put Jeroboam up to the whole thing in the first place. And when Rehoboam mustered his forces to quash the uprising, another prophet—Shemaiah (I Kings 12:21-24)—commanded him to desist, declaring that the rebellion was God’s will. We may easily guess what these prophets hoped to gain. They certainly stood opposed to the excesses of the new order and hoped for an abatement of them; they probably favored a return to the charismatic principle as against the dynasty of David; it is probable, too, that they disliked the toleration of the state toward foreign cults and desired that these be removed.7 It should be noted that in all this there was no rejection of the institution of monarchy as such. The north itself set up a monarchy. But the feeling was deep-seated in northern circles, a feeling reflected in the law of Deuteronomy (17:14-17), that a king ought to be as little like Solomon as possible.
In short, the majority of Israelites could not view the Solomonic state as the fulfillment of Israel’s destiny. On the contrary, it was felt that Israel could find her destiny only by correction in the light of a more ancient pattern. And the feeling existed that this could be brought about by political action.
3. But we do not need to be told that mere revolution could not realize Israel’s destiny as the people of God. The price of that revolution was total political disaster from which Israel never recovered. The schism was followed by some fifty years of intermittent sectional warfare, fought to no conclusion. In the course of it the land was dealt a devastating blow by Egypt, whose pharaoh was now Shishak—Libyan noble and founder of the XXII Dynasty. Apparently hoping to recoup Egyptian power in Asia, and possibly in response to a plea from Jeroboam—who had once found asylum at his court (I Kings 11:40)—for aid against Rehoboam, Shishak invaded Palestine. His armies ranged far and wide, ravaging Judah and its dependencies and looting Jerusalem (I Kings 14:25-28). If Jeroboam was indeed implicated, he had cause to rue his action: for the Egyptians then proceeded to lay waste the northern state as well.8 Suicidal madness reached its climax a generation later when Asa of Judah (913-873),9 hard pressed by Baasha (900-877), bought in the aid of Ben-hadad—king of the Aramean state of Damascus. The latter cheerfully ravaged much of northern Galilee (I Kings 15:16-22). In the course of this fraternal throat-cutting the empire which David had built collapsed like a house of cards. Damascus succeeded to the dominant position which Israel had held. Two centuries later Isaiah could still remember the schism as the worst disaster that had ever befallen his people (Isa. 7:17).
In such a situation Jeroboam could not, even had he wished, deliver what his prophet backers expected. An amelioration of taxes and conscription in the midst of war could hardly have been hoped for. On the contrary, expenses must have mounted. And to return to the loose charismatic leadership would have been to compound disaster. To bring stability to his state Jeroboam sought to found a dynasty. But the north apparently did not want a dynasty. No sooner did Nadab the son of Jeroboam take the throne (901-900) than he was murdered by Baasha. And when Baasha’s son, Elah (877-876), attempted to succeed his father, he in turn was murdered by a cavalry officer, Zimri.10 And both plots were prophet inspired (I Kings 14:6-16; 15:25-29; 16:1-12).
What was worse, Jeroboam was obliged to set up his own state cult to rival Jerusalem. It is clear (I Kings 12:26-29) that Jeroboam realized the enormous prestige of Solomon’s temple—housing as it did the sacred Ark of the tribal league—and knew that if he could not wean his people from it, he would lose them. So he set up a rival shrine in Bethel. Now this shrine was a temple of Yahweh, God of Israel (in spite of the language of vs. 28), and the golden bulls which adorned it were not idols but—like the cherubim in the Jerusalem temple—pedestals for the throne of the invisible Yahweh.11 But the bull motif was apparently too closely associated with the symbolism of the Baal cult for the taste of purists. No doubt ignorant people did come to worship them. Jeroboam was to live in the hearts of posterity as the man who “made Israel to sin” (I Kings 15:34). His cult was probably the entering wedge for all sorts of paganism. In any case pagan practices did enter (as the reader of Hosea well knows). What was worse, Yahweh—God of Israel—became, in the minds of many, all too very much like Baal.
So the northern state did not succeed at all in breaking with the new order. It broke from the Davidic dynasty—and never ceased to try to found a dynasty. It rebelled from the tax policy of Solomon—and itself followed exactly the same administrative pattern, as the ostraca of Samaria show.12 It parted company with Solomon’s state cult—and got Jeroboam’s. One day prophets would be silenced in the name of that cult (Amos 7:10-13). And the schism of society went on unchecked. By the time of Amos we see a society torn asunder.
II
1. In the northern state, therefore, to the end of its existence, there was tension between the old order and the new. The gravest crisis came in the middle of the ninth century B.C. The able Omri (876-869) had seized the throne (I Kings 16:15-28), to be succeeded by his notorious son, Ahab (869-850). These kings sought to recapture a measure of the prosperity of Solomon, and to do that they had to recreate his policy. This called for internal unity, a strong hand in Transjordan—particularly against Damascus—and, above all, a close liaison with Phoenicia. Omri and Ahab achieved their goal by a series of steps which we cannot here trace. Suffice it to say that in a succession of victories the Arameans (Syrians) were repressed, while alliance with Phoenicia was sealed by the marriage of Ahab to Jezebel, the daughter of Ittobaal, king of Tyre (I Kings 16:31).13 Meanwhile the fratricidal quarrel with the southern state was patched up by the wedding of Athaliah, daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, to Jehoram, son of Jehoshaphat—king of Judah (II Kings 8:18, 26). That the purpose of this alliance was partly commercial is shown by the abortive attempt to recreate the Red Sea trade out of Ezion-geber (I Kings 22:48).14
This might have been all to the good had it not been for Jezebel. Born and raised a worshiper of the Tyrian Baal, she was allowed by Ahab—it being the custom, and he not being narrow-minded—to continue her native religion in Samaria, and a temple of Baal was built for her there (I Kings 16:32). But it did not stop at that. Jezebel was a strong-minded woman who appears to have been no less than a missionary for her god. Infuriated by those that opposed her (notably Elijah), she turned all the repressive measures at her command against them, even the threat of death (I Kings 18–19). It was a question who should be the God of Israel: Yahweh or Baal Melqart (18:20-24).
The danger to Israel was immense. The more we know of Canaanite paganism the clearer this becomes.15 Here was a paganism of the most degrading sort. Its gods and goddesses—Baal, Astarte, Asherah, Anat, and the rest—represented for the most part those forces
