There was, in the lirst place, the political ques- tion. It was the normal condition of things that Kjihraim should envy Judah, and Judah vex Ephraim. From the time of the earliest settle- ment in Canaan the North and the South had stood ajiart. The Bk. of Judges exhibits the northern tribes welded together by common resistance to the various oppressors. Judah never joins them, even when the attack comes from the south. It may have been that co-o])eration was difficult owing to the line of Canaanitish fortresses, such as Jebus, Gezer, and Ekron, that extended across the country from east to west. It may have been that the spirit of nationality was weaker in Judah and Simeon as a consequence of their greater laxity with regard to intermarriage with and adoption of native families; if indeed we should not rather regard it as a cause of this laxity. Be that as it may, we find tlie distinction between Israel and Juilali noted in the Krst army raised by Saul (1 S II*), and immediately after Saul's death an open l)reach occurred. David laboured hard to break down this antagonism. His transference of the seat of government from the purely Judahite Hebron to Jerusalem was a compromise with the northern tribes. Yet in his reign Israel twice rebelled. David's policy was continued by his successor ; Solomon's division of the land for com- missariat purposes (1 K 4'") was evidently an attempt to obliterate the old tribal boundaries. Tliat this attemiit was in some degree successful may be infened from the fact that the boundary between the dominions of Kehoboamand .leroboam so ran as to include in tlie southern kingdom a l)ortion of Benjamin, and the greiiter part of the southern settlement of Dan. A succession of nionarchs of the commanding personality of David or Solomon might have completed the unification of the tribes, but Solomon presumed too much on his personal prestige. The odious levy of forced labour, and that, too, for the adornment of an upstart capital, and the ceaseless exactions for the supniy of the royal table (LXX 1 K IS^-"'), had long rankled in the liearts of the proud Ephraimites. Add to this that the character of Solomon's sue- '
cesser, as one ' not fit to be a ruler nor to be a prince ' (LXX 1 K 12-'"), must have been well known for many years. Everything, indeed, indicates that all preparations had been made for :„ revolution the moment Solomon should die. The Ephraimite Jero- boam, supported by a prophet's nomination and the favour of his tribe, was biding his time in Egypt, and treated there not as a runaway official, hut aa an exiled prince (LXX 2 K V2:-*'). Tlie temper of the northern tribes was further shown in their de- termination to appoint Itehoboam independently, if at all, and in their selection of Shechem, the chief sanctuary of Ephraim, as the place of as- sembly, thus ignoring the recent centralization of civil and religious administration at Jerusalem.
This political movement was supported by a religious agitation in which two elements, ecclesi- astical and prophetical, may be discerned : on the l)art of the priests of the high places jealousy of the exclusive claims of the new temple at Jeru- salem, and on the part of the prophets a nobler zeal for Jehovah, called forth by the lax eclecticism of Solomon in his later years. As we see from the attitude of Nathan, the prophets had not cordially approved of the building of the temple, and they now probably thought that there was more chance of the national worship being preserved in its purity in the north. Rehoboam's subsequent con- duct, indeed, quite justified these alarms. He added to his father's innovations by sanctioning the erection of pillars of Baal and the worst abomi- nations of heathenism (1 K 14^- "), such as did not find a place in the northern kingdom until the reign of Ahab fifty years later. The Chronicler's account of Jeroboam's expulsion of priests and Levites, and of the rallying of the orthodox Israelites round Rehoboam (2 Ch 11'""'), is quite unsupported by Kings, which (12") merely states that Rehoboam's subjects included some residents of northern extraction. The special animus of the revolting tribes against the temple at Jerusalem possibly underlay their parting taunt, ' Now see to thine own house, David.' .losephus {Ant. vill. viii. 3) understood it thus, ' We only leave to Rehoboam the temple which his father built.' Ahijah and Shemaiah were right. ' It was a thing brought about of the LoKD ' ; the pure monotheism of which Israel was privileged to be the exponent would have been sapi)ed and destroyed by foreign cults, if the later Solomonic policy had received no check. In after times this was forgotten; and the later prophets, thinking solely of the political consequences of the disruption, refer to it as a supreme calamity (Is 7", Zee ll").
The most important event in this reign is the invasion of Palestine by Shishak. This was one of the direct consequences of the division of tlie nation. Sesonchis, as Manetho calls him, the first monarch of the 22nd dynasty, reversed tlie policy of his predecessor Psusennes, and displayed un- friendliness towards Solomon by sheltering hia adversaries Haiiad and Jeroboam. Notwithstand- ing tlie fact that Shemaiah had forbidden the employment of the huge army (reduced in LXX, B, to i20,0U0 men) which Hilmlioam had mustered by the following j-ear (LXX 1 K 12'-"') in order to recover the kingdom he had lost, yet 'there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continu- ally' (1 K 14'°). In all probability Jeroboam, harassed by these border forays, called in the aid of his former protector. The fifteen towns which Rehoboam is said to have fortified (2 Ch 11""'") are, with two exceptions, south of .Jerusalem, as though an attack might be expected from that quarter. The invasion took place in Rehoboam's fifth year, and the prophetical historian justly sees in this humiliating calamity the scourge of God for the continued and aggravated national apostasy. Th9