[507] Josh. xix. 44, xxi. 23; 1 Kings xv. 27, xvi. 15.
[508] His father therefore could not have been Ahijah the prophet, who was an Ephraimite. He was the only ruler who came from slothful Issachar (Gen. xlix. 14, 15) except the unknown Tola (Judg. x. 1).
[509] For any other records of Nadab the writer refers to "the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel."
[510] 2 Chron. xvi. 7-10.
[511] 2 Chron. xx. 34.
[512] Comp. Hosea vii. 3-7.
[513] If Zimri was a descendant of the House of Saul, as is possible from the occurrence of the name in the number of Saul's descendants (1 Chron. viii. 36), we perhaps see an excuse for his ill-considered conspiracy. He acted, says Grotius, upon the principle, "Νήπιος ὃς πατέρα κτείνας υιοὺς καταλείπει."
[514] Comp. 2 Kings ix. 7 with Hosea i. 4. Thus Babylon is at once commissioned to punish, and condemned for ruthlessness: Isa. xlvii. 6.
1 KINGS xiv. 21-31, xv. 1-24.
The history of "_the Jews_" begins, properly speaking, from the reign of Rehoboam, and for four centuries it is mainly the history of the Davidic dynasty.
The only records of the son of Solomon are meagre records of disaster and disgrace. He reigned seventeen years, and his mother, the Ammonitess Naamah, occupied the position of queen-mother.[515] She was, doubtless, a worshipper in the shrine which Solomon had built for her national god, Molech of Ammon, who was the same as the Ashtar-Chemosh of the Moabite stone--the male form of Ashtoreth.[516] Whether her son was twenty-one or forty-one when he succeeded to the throne we do not know.[517] His attempted expedition against Jeroboam was forbidden by Shemaiah;[518] but ineffectual and distressing war smouldered on between the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. If Jeroboam sinned by the erection in the old sanctuaries of the two golden calves, Rehoboam surely sinned far more heinously. He not only sanctioned the high places--which in him may have been very venial, since they held their own unchallenged till the days of Hezekiah--but he allowed stone obelisks (_Matstseboth_) in honour of Baal, and pillars (_Chammanim_) of the Nature-goddess (_Asherah_) to be set up on every high hill and under every green tree.[519] Worse than this, and a proof of the abyss of corruption into which the evil example of Solomon had beguiled the nation, there were found in the land the _Kedeshim_, the infamous eunuch-ministers of a most foul worship.[520] In spite of Temple and priesthood, "they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the Lord drave out before the children of Israel."[521] Since Rehoboam thus sinned so much more heinously than his northern compeer we can hardly admire the conduct of the Levites, who, according to the chronicler, fled southward in swarms from the innovations of the son of Nebat. The Scylla of calf-worship was incomparably less shameful than the Charybdis of these heathen abominations.
Such atrocities could not be left unpunished. Where the carcase is the eagles will gather. In the fifth year of Rehoboam, Shishak, King of Egypt,[522] put an end to the shortlived glories of the age of Solomon. Of his reason for invading Palestine we know nothing. It was probably mere ambition and the love of plunder, stimulated by stories which Jeroboam may have brought to him about the inexhaustible riches of Jerusalem. He is the first Pharaoh whose individuality was so marked as to transcend and replace the common dynastic name.[523] He was astute enough to seize the opportunity of self-aggrandisement which offered itself when Jeroboam took refuge at his court; but the conjecture that former friendly relations induced Jeroboam to invite the services of Shishak for the destruction of his rival, is rendered impossible if Egyptologists have correctly deciphered the splendid memorial of his achievements which he twice carved on the great Temple of Amon at Karnak. There the most conspicuous figure is the colossal likeness of the king. His right hand holds a sword;[524] his left grasps by the hair a long line which passes round the necks of a troop of thirty-eight mean and diminutive Jewish captives. The smaller figure of the god Amon leads other strings of one hundred and thirty-three captives, and the third king from his left hand bears a name which Champollion deciphered _Yudeh-Malk_, which he took to mean King of Judah.[525] If the interpretation were correct, we should here have a picture of the son of Solomon. On the other figures are the names of the cities of which they were kings or sheykhs. Among these are not only the names of southern towns, like Ibleam, Gibeon, Bethhoron, Ajalon, Mahanaim, but even of Canaanite and Levitic cities in the Northern Kingdom, including Taanach and Megiddo.[526] Shashonq (as the monuments call him) came with a huge and motley army of many nationalities, among whom were Libyans, Troglodytes, and Ethiopians. This host was composed of twelve hundred chariots, sixty thousand horsemen, and a numberless infantry of mercenaries. Such an invasion, though it was little more than an insulting military parade and predatory incursion, rendered resistance impossible, especially to a people enervated by luxury. Shishak came, saw,--and plundered. His chief spoil was taken from the poor dishonoured Temple and the king's palace.[527] Judah specially grieved for the loss of the shields of gold which hung on the cedar pillars of the house of the forest of Lebanon,[528]--apparently both those which Solomon had made, and those which David had consecrated from the spoils of Hadadezer, King of Zobah.[529] Perhaps a great soul would hardly have been consoled by putting mean substitutes in their place. Rehoboam, however, made bronze imitations of them in the guard-room,[530] and marched in pomp to the Temple preceded by his meanly armed runners,[531] "as though everything was the same as before." "The bitter irony with which the sacred historian records the parade of these counterfeits," says Stanley, "may be considered as the keynote to this whole period. They well represent the 'brazen shields' by which fallen churches and kingdoms have endeavoured to conceal from their own and their neighbours' eyes that the golden shields of Solomon have passed away from them."[532] The age of pinchbeck follows the age of gold, and a Louis XV. succeeds Le Grand Monarque.[533]