The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Kings — Section 4

o.n extensive sway in Western Allia. from about B.C. 1300 to B.C. 1070, in the latter part of the eleventh cent·ary B.C. passed under a cloud, and did not emerge from it until about B.C. 900. Egypt, on the other hand, about n.a. 1100, began to increase in strength, and soon after B.C. 1000, resumed her role of Asiatic conqueror under the Sheshonks and Osarkons. It is quite in accordance with theso facts that, in the first period of the Israelite monarchy, from the accession of David to the usurpations of Jehu and Athaliah, the historical Scriptures contain no mention at all of .Assyria,1 which lay entirely without the sphere of Hebrew influence, having· lost all its authority over any part of the tract west of the Euphrates. Egypt, on the contrary, comes once more to the front. Unmentioned in the history from the date of the Exodus to the accession of Solomon, she then ren.p- pears as a, power friendly to Israel, and anxious to make alliance with the new kingdom which has been established at no great distance from her borders.. Who the Pharaoh was who gave his daughter to Solomon (1 Kinga iii. 1), and_ with her the city of Gezer as a, dowry (1 Kings ix. 16), is uncel'tain; but there can be no doubt that he was one of the kings oE Manetho's twenty-first dynasty, and it is probable that he was one of the later kings, either Pinetem II., the last but one, or Hor-Pasebensha, the last. The union of the two royal houses led to much intercourse between the two peoples, and a, brisk trade was est,ablished between Palestine and the vall€y of the Nile, -w.hich included a large importation of Egyptian horses and chariots into -Palestine, and even into Syria (1 Kings x. 28, 29), where the Hittite kings purchased them. Political refugees passed from one country to the other without question (eh. xi. 17-19), and sometimes those from Asia obtained considerable influence at the Egyptian court. The twenty-first Egyptian dynasty was succeeded by the twenty-second, probably somewhat late in the reign of Solomon, The new dynasty con- tinued the policy of receiving Asiatic refugees, and Sheshonk ( or Shishak), the first monarch, gave an asylum to Jeroboam (1 Kings xi. 40) not many years before Solomon's death. There was nothing in this to disturb the relations between. the,two countries; but when Jeroboam, after the death of Solomon, returned to Palestine; and the two rival kingdoms of Judah and Israel were established side by side in a relation of m11tual hostility, Egypt could not well remain friendly to both. Not unnaturally sheleant to the state which was. the larger,. a,nd appeared to be the more powerful of the two, and which had, moreover, been founded by the Israelite refugee to whom she had given an asylum, and who had probably lived in Egypt on t1;;.:'!"ll' of personal intimacy with: the reigning monarch. 2 Accordingly, the greai. expedition of Shishak into Asia (2 Chron. xii. 2-4) in Rehoboam's fifth 1 In the Psalms there is one mention of Assyria (Assur) which may belong to this time (see Ps. lxxxiii. 8). David's Syrian conquests, pLlrhaps, brought him on one occasion into con bet with the Assyriuns (2 Sam. x. 15-18). • 'l'he Septuagint 'Additions to Kings' have not the authority of history, bnt they show what the Alcxandricm Jows believed to hnvo been Jeroboam's pcsitiou at tho court ol Bhishnk (see the additions to l Kingo x..ii. after ver. 2-1) yijj INTRODUCTION TO ----------------------------~~ year, which is recorded on the walls of tho temple at Karnak:,1 appears to ha,e been undertaken, in groat part, in the interest of Jeroboam, whose hands were thereby greatly strengthened against his adversary. Rehoboam became for a time an Egyptian tributary (2 Chron. xii. 8) ; and though the Yiiteh rnalk of the Karnak inscription may not especially designate him,• yet the war WM certainly directed mainly against the J udooan kingdom, and resulted in its degradation. Sheshonk had probably entertained designs of wider conquest, and he actually subjected many of the Arab tribes in the trans-J ordanic region, and in the tract between Egypt and Palestine; but his military ardour was not sufficient to urge him to further efforts, and it was left for one of his successors to invade Asia with a greater force (comp. 2 Chron. xiv. 9 with xii. 3) in the hope of sweeping all before him. Zerach the Ethiopian, who in the eleventh year of Asa (2 Chron. xiv, 1, 9) made an expedition into Palestine at the head of an army of a million men, is probably identical with Osarkon 8 (Ua-sar-ken) II., the great-grandson of Sheshonk I., and the fourth king of the twenty-second Manethonian dynasty. Zerach's army consisted of Cnshites and Lubim (2 Chron. xvi. 8), as Sheshonk' s (Shishak's) did of Cnshites, Lubim, and Sukkyim (2 Chron. xii. 3). He invaded Judooa in the south, and marched upon Jerusalem by .the way of Mareshah. Here, however, Asa met him, with forces not much exceeding hali the number of his adversary's, and defeated him in a pitched battle-one of the most glorions in all Hebrew history-entirely dis- comfiting his host and pursuing it to Gerar, on the extreme south of Palestine, and returning with an immense spoil to Jernsalem. The Egyptian aspirations after Asiatic conquests were crushed by this terrible blow; and it was not till the advance of Assyria menaced Egypt herseli with conquest that the soil of Palestine was again trodden by an Egyptian army. Assyria's advance to greatness, which commenced about B.C. 900, upon Egypt's decline, is not noticed so early in the scriptural narrative as might have been expected. We find by the Assyrian annals that the contact of Assyria with the northern kingdom began as early as the reign of J ehu, if not even in that of Ahab. .An" Ahab," described as" Ahab of Samha]a" or" Sirhala," is engaged in battle with Shalmaneser II. about n.c. 854, and suffers defeat.• But chronological considerations render it extremely doubtful whether the person thus designated can have been the son of Omri. J ehu, however, seems certainly to have come within the sphere oi Shalmaneser's influence, and to have been induced to send him presents, which Shalmaneser regarded as a tribute,6 not later than the year B.C. 842, 1 See :Mr. Reginald Stuart Poole's article on "Shishak" in Smith's 'Dictionary of the Bible,' vol. iii pp. 1293, 1294. • Max Millier, in the' Proceedings of the Society of Diblice.l Archreology' for December 6! 1887, pp. 81-83. • Ewald, 'History of Ismel,' vol. iv. p. 51, Eng. trana. • • G. Smith, • Eponym Ca.non,' p. 108, Ra.wlinao0t, '_Ancient Mo11a.rchie11,' vol ii. p. 103, 2nd edit. • • • •:J!;pon)'Ill Ca.11011,' p. 114,.  'l'HE SECOND BOOK OF 'i'HE KINGS.