II. Population. — A singular gauge of the growth of the kingdom of Judah is supplied by the progressive augmentation of the army under successive kings. In David's time (2 Sam. xxiv, 9, and 1 Chron. xxi, .5) the warriors of Judah numbered at least 500,000. But Re- hoboam brought into the field (1 Kings xii, 21) only 1«0,()00 men ; Abijah, eighteen years afterwards, 400,000 (2 Chron. xiii, ",) ; Asa (2 Chron. xiv, 8), his successor, 580,000, exactly ciiual to the sum of the armies of his two predecessors: .lehoshaphat (2 Chron. xvii, 14-19), the next king, numbered his warriors iu five armies, the aggregate of which is 1,100,000, exactly double the army of his father, and exactly equal to the sum of the armies of his three predecessors. After four inglorious reigns, the energetic Amaziah could muster only 300,000 men when he set out to recover Edom. His son Uzziah had a standing (2 Chron. xxvi, 11) force of 307,500 fighting men. It would be out of place here to discuss the question which has been raised as to the accuracy of these numbers. See Numbeu, So far as thev are authentic, it may be safely reckoned that the popula-
tion subject to each king was about four times the num- ber of the fighting men in his dominions. See Israel.
KIXGDOM OF.
III. Resources. — Unless Judah had some other means of acquiring wealth besides pasture and tillage — as by maritime commerce from the Red Sea ports, or (less probably) from Joppa, or by keeping up the old trade (I Kings X, 28) with Egypt — it seems difficult to ac- count for that ability to accumulate wealth which sup- plied the Temple treasury with sufficient store to invite so frequently the hand of the spoiler. Egypt, Damascus, Samaria, Nineveh, and Babylon had each in succession a share of the pillage. The treasury was emptied by Shishak (1 Kings xiv, 26), again by Asa (1 Kings xv, 18), by Jehoash of Judah (2 Kings xii, 18), by Jehoash of Israel (2 Kings xiv, 14), bj' Ahaz (2 Kings xvi, 8), by Hezekiah (2 Kings xviii, 15), and by Nebuchadnez- zar (2 Kings xxiv, 13).
IV. Advantages of Position. — In Edom a vassal-king probably retained his fidelity to the son of Solomon, and guarded for Jewish enterprise the road to the mari- time trade with Ophir. PhUistia maintained, for the most part, a quiet independence. S\Tia, in the height of her brief power, pushed her conquests along the northern and eastern frontiers of Judah, and threatened Jerusalem ; but the interposition of the territory of Is- rael generally relieved Judah from an}' immediate con- tact with that dangerous neighbor. The southern bor- der of Judah, resting on the uninhabited desert, was not agitated by any turbulent stream of commercial activity like that which flowed by the rear of Israel, from Da- mascus to Tyre. Though some of the Egyptian kuigs were ambitious, that ancient kingdom was far less ag- gresive as a neighbor to Judah thaii Assyria was to Is- rael.
The kingdom of Judah thus possessed many advan- tages whicii secured for it a longer continuance than that of Israel. A frontier less exposed to powerful ene- mies, a soil less fertile, a population hardier and more united, a fixed and venerated centre of administration and religion, a hereditary aristocracy in the sacerdotal caste, an army ahvays subordinate, a succession of kings whicli no revolution interrupted, many of whom were wise and good, and strove successfully to promote the moral and spiritual as well as the material prosperity of their people ; still more than these, the devotion of the people to the One True God, which, if not always a pure and elevated sentiment, was yet a contrast to such de- votion as could be inspired by the worship of the calves or of Baal ; and, lastly, the popular reveronce for and obedience to the divine law so far as they learned it from their teachers — to these and other secondary' causes I is to be attributed the fact that Judah survived her I more populous and more powerful sister kingdom by 135 years, and lasted from B.C. 975 to B.C. 586. (See Bernhardy, De causis quihus e£'ectuin sit quod rerpmm JudcB diutius persisteret quam re(jn. Israel, in the A nnal. Acad. Groning. 1822-23, p. 124 "sq. ; also Lovan. 1824; Schmeidler, Der Untergang d.Reichs Juda, Bresl. 1831.)
V. Tlistor;/. — For the circumstances that led to the schism, and for a comparison with the history of the rival kingdom, see Israel, kingdom of. For a further examination of the many chronological difficulties aris- ing from the double list of kings, see CiiiiONOLOGY. The annals of the kingdom will be found detailed under the name of the several kings, and a general view un- der the articles Jerusalem, and Palestine. (See Wiutc. A'/////.s- of Judah and Lvael, Lond. 1863; Hessey,
■'.'/'■"/
•j' h'i/ii/.i of' Judah, Lond. 1865; Hess, Ge-
xrhirhli- div Kinufje Jmla und Israel, Zurich, 1787; also Gesch. der liegenten Juda nach dem Exil, ib. 1788.) It will be sufficient, as a resume, here to notice the fact that the kingdom of Judah, in the course of its historj', acted u])on three different lines of policy in succession.
1. Animosity against the rival Kingdom of Israel. — The first three kings of Judah seem to have cherished the hope of re-establishing their authority over the Ten