The Kingdom Divides: 931 BC

the political geography of the Divided Kingdom

Solomon's son Rehoboam became the fourth king of the United Monarchy – but it would be a short-lived tenure, not least because of his own ineptitude in dealing with the growing secession crisis. Jeroboam, who had sought sanctuary with Shoshenq to the southwest, returned to Israel after Solomon’s death (according to one theory, he was dispatched back to Israel as Shoshenq’s pawn; but we’re getting ahead of ourselves). Jeroboam made a bid to rule the northern tribes; his ambitions weren’t without precedent, as such splits had happened absent staying power. Jeroboam hoped to change this. The northern tribes resented Solomon’s heavy-handed policies of conscription and burdensome taxation, so they weren’t keen on a continuation of the status quo under Rehoboam. The elders of the northern tribes issued their grievances to Rehoboam and made Jeroboam their spokesman; the fact that they chose Jeroboam, a known insurrectionist, to be their champion showed they meant business and couldn’t be ignored. Rehoboam, who knew of Jeroboam’s capabilities and popularity, had no choice but to respond to their request for an audience. The elders of the northern tribes complained about how Solomon had put them under ‘heavy burdens,’ and they wanted Rehoboam to lighten the ‘harsh labor’ and ‘heavy yoke’ (as that worn by draft animals) that the last king had put on them. Rehoboam knew he was in a pickle: if he complied with their request, he was (in effect) accepting the crown on conditional terms; but if he denied their request, he faced the danger of revolt.

Rehoboam took the question to his older advisors first. These were probably those who’d been in office during the days of Solomon; some probably came from the royal family (as Solomon’s half brothers and cousins) and others likely belonged to the civil services. These ‘older men’ – who were experienced in statecraft – advised Rehoboam to be a servant of the people and to accede to their demands; they believed that a little humility shown now could earn Rehoboam a loyal base and consolidate his hold on the kingdom. Solomon’s policies may have enriched Israel, but they’d created a breeding-ground for revolt and discontent. Rehoboam didn’t like this advice, so he turned to the ‘younger men’ of his entourage. These ‘young men’ were likely those who served as Rehoboam’s personal courtiers and counselors; they’d grow up with Rehoboam in Solomon’s harem and were used to the extravagant living of the ‘rich and famous’ they’d enjoyed during Solomon’s reign. They knew that if Rehoboam acceded to northern Israel’s requests, taxes would be reduced – and they, in turn, would have to trim down their extravagant living. They also feared that placating the northern tribes would be a sign of weakness, and that just would not do. The Hebrew wording of Rehoboam’s question to his younger advisors – in effect, ‘Should we do this?’ – hints at Rehoboam’s deep-seeded contempt at northern Israel’s audacity. The younger men insisted that Rehoboam adopt a ‘get tough’ policy; they suggested that he use a proverbial expression – ‘My little finger is thicker than the loins of my father’ – to get the right message across (roughly translated, this is like Rehoboam saying his little finger was thicker than his father’s cock). The idea was that Rehoboam’s weakness would be stronger than his father’s strength. 

Rehoboam 'tells off' the elders of northern Israel

Rehoboam took the advice of his younger men and compatriots, and he replied to the northern Israelite inquest, informing them that whereas his father had chastised them with whips, he would use scorpions. ‘Scorpions’ is probably a reference to a particular kind of whip, one with barbed points resembling the tip of a scorpion’s stinger (as attested in Akkadian literature). The northern tribes had better get in line and get their act together or they’d experience even harsher consequences than they had under Solomon. Thus not only did Rehoboam take the advice of his younger advisors, he took it a step further, promising drastic, scarring punishment if the northern tribes didn’t bend to his will. The northern tribes, unsurprisingly, couldn’t stomach this response, and they defiantly replied to Rehoboam, ‘We’re receiving no consideration from David’s seed, so why should we pay him homage? His tribe is not ours; his interests are not ours. Let the seed of David henceforth reign only over the tribe of Judah!’ The ten tribes of northern Israel thus officially seceded from the lordship of Jerusalem – and henceforth in the biblical narrative they are identified as ‘Israel’ (and then, in the days of the Omride Dynasty and after, ‘Samaria’) as separate from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin (which are identified, collectively, as Judah). An enraged Rehoboam sent Adoniram, an aged royal official, to northern Israel to mend the split, but the Israelites killed him. Adoniram’s stoning was like the first shot of a civil war, though it was a sort of poetic justice that the man in charge of public works (including the movement of rocks) died in a hail of stones. Adoniram no doubt had a bad reputation in northern Israel, for he’d been the one who enforced Solomon’s brutal and heavy-handed conscription policies. At the news of Adoniram’s death, Rehoboam planned on retaking northern Israel by military force – but a prophet of Yahweh stopped him, informing him that the split was the will of God. 

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The prophet told Rehoboam that the splitting of the United Kingdom into northern Israel and Judah was the will of God. But why did it happen? There are several answers to this, and they overlap. From an historian’s perspective, the most likely are economic factors, tribal infighting, and political maneuverings. The biblical narrative couches the split as a physical punishment for religious sins. More often than not, Yahweh orchestrates human events to bring about the changes He desires. In a sense (and in an analogy that can only break down the more you look at it), human beings, cultures, and nations are puppets upon God’s strings. He may enact an event for religious reasons, but the tools He uses are often irreligious in nature. Here we will examine the ‘brick-and-mortar’ factors playing into the split of the United Kingdom, and then we will look at why Yahweh orchestrated the split using human means and measures.

The Economic Perspective. Solomon may be hailed as the wisest of the United Monarchy’s kings, but that wisdom had a downside. ‘Wisdom’ as the Bible portrays it isn’t so much ‘knowledge of right living’ as ‘how to live shrewdly.’ Solomon applied his wisdom to Israel’s economics and statecraft, and the result was magnificent – at least for Israel’s economy. The people of Israel, however, had a different take on things. The very policies that vaulted Israel to international prestige also laid a heavy burden on the people. Solomon’s commercial enterprises and building projects – excluding the Temple, for David had provided most of the funds and material needed to construct it – were built on the backs of heavy-handed conscription and burdensome taxes. The northern tribes especially felt this burden, as Judah and Jerusalem were the prized epicenters of the kingdom and received more lax treatment. The complaints and accusations leveled against Rehoboam by the people of northern Israel reveal that one of the driving forces of their secession was a desire for more economic freedom. 

The Tribal Infighting Perspective. One must bear in mind that Israel, collectively, wasn’t a coherent state: she was a patchwork of tribes. In the same way that the United States is a patchwork of state governments in submission to an overarching federal government, so, too, was the case in Israel. Just as the United States’ state governments are often at variance, so, too, was the case with the tribes of Israel. As a case in point, the tribes of Judah and Ephraim (Rehoboam was of Judah; Jeroboam was of Ephraim) had bad history stretching back to the days of Egyptian bondage. Judah, the largest tribe, was given precedence in leading the Israelites in the wilderness; Ephraim, though much smaller, had matching prestige, as she was descended from Joseph’s lineage and had been given special honor by the patriarch Jacob. Joshua, the last great leader of pre-monarchial Israel, had been from Ephraim. In Judges, Ephraim’s pride rears its ugly head in the stories of the judges Gideon and Jephthah; in the monarchial period, this enmity was heightened when God chose Saul from the tribe of Benjamin (a small tribe wedged between Judah and Ephraim). After Saul’s death, when David was crowned king, Ephraim and the northern tribes pledged allegiance to Ishbosheth, Saul’s son; during Absalom’s rebellion and the rebellion of Sheba of Benjamin, the northern tribes turned against Judah. Jeroboam was just one of many who wanted to wiggle free of Judean domination, and when Solomon’s son showed no tact in dealing with the northern tribes, he exacerbated a long-lasting and deep-seeded situation, inflamed already broiling tribal jealousies, and opened the door to the inevitable split of the United Kingdom.

The Political Perspective. A more recent analysis of the split of the United Kingdom focuses not on the immediate parties involved but on a rising force to the west: the 22nd Egyptian dynasty and its clever-minded ruler, Pharaoh Shoshenq I (called ‘Shishak’ in the biblical narratives). Shoshenq had inherited a weakened Egyptian state, and if he wanted to bring it back to prominence, he had to deal with Israel. The Solomonic Empire – along with David’s continuing Tyro-Israel Alliance – had crippled Egyptian dominance in the region. Shoshenq may have put money and agents into catapulting Israel into civil war; with the kingdom weakened by infighting, he could launch a marauding invasion and bring her northeastern neighbor to her knees. The Bible tells us that Jeroboam found sanctuary with Shoshenq, and he may have even had financial support from the pharaoh. Shoshenq wouldn’t have harbored Jeroboam out of the goodness of his heart: he was looking to counter the Solomonic Empire that was putting a dent in his ambitions of a glorious new dynasty. When news came that Solomon was on his deathbed, Shoshenq may have dispatched Jeroboam with some pretty pennies and shrewd undercover Egyptian agents to enact a change in Israel’s status quo. He may have financed Jeroboam’s revolt and helped to win Jeroboam favors and support from the Israelite elders via monetary enticements. Though the biblical text doesn’t explicitly say this, the fact that Jeroboam side-stepped – without any attempt to oppose – Shoshenq’s raids of northern Israel around 935 BC hints at some sort of deal struck: if Jeroboam were successful, Shoshenq may have required him to ‘step aside’ when the Egyptians raided northern Israel; Egypt would need to make good on their financial losses in financing the insurrection, anyways. Judah put up a fight against Pharaoh Shoshenq but Jeroboam didn’t; because Jeroboam was a new king – the first of northern Israel – it would’ve made sense for him to at least make a show of opposing the foreign invader; the fact that he didn’t implies that he knew what was coming, that the elders of northern Israel were keyed in to the fact; they suffered the humiliation because they had no choice – it may have been the price of their autonomy. In this sense, then, the split of the United Kingdom may have been prompted by an outsider who wanted to fracture Israel in order to advance an Egyptian agenda. 

The Undercurrent: Religious Corruption. The biblical narrative explicitly links the degradation of Solomon’s kingdom with his many wives. Solomon, in marrying lots of women (especially foreigners), was just doing what he felt needed to be done to keep his kingdom on the right track. In his day and age, nations and commerce were often evaluated by the size of the royal harem. Solomon, who was hailed as the most well-to-do ruler of his time, was expected to keep a large harem. His marriages, however, didn’t just earn Israel prestige; they also served a political rule: marital alliances built peace with one’s neighbors. By marrying lots of foreign princesses, he was able to secure the Pax Hebraica (the Hebrew Peace). Solomon’s marriages to princesses from Egypt, Moab, Ammon, Edom, Phoenicia, and the Hittite states helped to establish and pacify Israel’s borders. Egypt was located to the southwest; Edom, Moab, and Ammon were to the east; the Phoenician city-states were to the northwest; and the Hittite city-states lie to the far north. If other princesses were daughters of Arab sheiks and tribal chiefs located south of Judah and in the city-states of inner Syria (Aram), then his marriage alliances would’ve ringed Israel with friendly borders and helped cement her subject states as part of the Hebrew Empire. Peaceful borders meant peaceful trade, and peaceful trade meant an ever-increasing national wealth. Thus Solomon’s marriages served multiple purposes for the operation of the Israelite state, but they came with a heavy downside: Solomon’s foreign wives worshipped other gods, and over time Solomon’s fidelity to Yahweh eroded. Solomon followed international custom by building shrines for his wives to worship their foreign gods, but the Hebraic language in the text implies that he went much further and involved himself in their pagan worship. Some of his wives worshipped detestable gods: he tolerated the worship of Ashtoreth (a.k.a. Ishtar, Astarte, and Venus) who was a goddess of sex and war (the Bible alters her name from Astarte to Astoreth by vocalizing with the vowels of the Hebrew word bosheth, meaning ‘shame’). Solomon tolerated the worship of Chemosh, the national god of Moab, who was sometimes worshipped with child sacrifices. Molech (or Moloch) was an Ammonite deity who could also be worshipped with child sacrifice. Solomon built high places for Chemosh and Molech on the Mount of Olives (1 Kings 11.7). Anath, Astarte, and Asherah were three Canaanite goddesses of sex and war that weren’t always indistinguishable; these fertility goddesses serve as ‘sacred prostitutes,’ and the immorality of Canaanite religion, with its male and female prostitution, was far worse than elsewhere in the Near East of Solomon’s day. The worship of Canaanite gods had been present in Canaan before the Conquest, and though it’d been almost abolished under Saul and David, it began making a comeback under Solomon and would plague both Israel and Judah henceforth. The Bible states that Solomon’s kingdom would be torn because of his toleration (and, dare we say it, participation in) pagan religion. Though God no doubt used human means to orchestrate the split of the kingdom, the main catalyst behind it was the divinely-wrought punishment on Solomon and his dynasty for his religious corruption.

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Eight of Judah’s nineteen kings (plus one queen) would be identified as ‘good’ in that they tried to adhere to the Mosaic Law and, to some extent, follow God’s decrees. In contrast to this, none of northern Israel’s kings would be called good. The House of David in Judah would rule about 415 years, from around 1010 BC (an approximate date for David’s crowning as king) to 586 BC (the end of the Kingdom of Judah); this 415 rule would be broken by a short interregnum by Queen Athaliah, but excepting this, the House of David lasted over four centuries. This is a remarkable achievement: of all the ancient Near Eastern dynasties we know of, only one other dynasty – that of the Assyrian dynasty that vaulted Assyria to the height of her power and which lasted 471 years – had such a long rule. Given Judah’s relative weakness, a dynasty of 415 years is incredible; even more so, in all of world history, a family rule of 415 years is seldom surpassed. 

In contrast to this, Israel had five dynasties with four unaffiliated kings (Zimri, Shallum, Pekah, and Hoshea). The five dynasties of Israel were the House of Jeroboam (which included Jeroboam I and Nadab), the House of Baasha (which included Baasha and Elah), the House of Omri (also known as the Omrides, which included Ahab, Ahaziah, Jehoram, and Queen Athaliah of Judah), the House of Jehu (which included Jehu, Jehoahaz, Jehoash, Jeroboam II, and Zechariah), and the House of Gadi. The nineteen Israelite kings came from nine different families, and eight of its kings were either assassinated or committed suicide. Six of Israel’s kings died by assassination and a seventh probably did; an eighth died by suicide during a rebellion; a ninth died in battle, and the last was taken prisoner at the fall of Samaria to the Assyrians in 722 BC. Thus only ten (or half) of the Israelite monarchs died a natural death while in power. In addition to this, there were three ‘mass executions’ of entire dynastic lineages by usurping kings. The constant overturn in Israelite dynasties was largely due to unending turmoil from the competing interests of the various tribes with their individual agendas and jealousies; these fueled the political and social factions and rivalries for the throne. This dynastic instability is highlighted in the fact that Israel had four capitals during its tenure (Shechem, Penuel, Tirzah, and Samaria) whereas Judah only had one. 

In Judah, the name of the king’s mother is given for every king, likely because the position of Queen Mother was influential in the southern kingdom. The Judean kings, though faring far better than those of Israel, weren’t spectacular when it came to adherence to God’s Law. In general terms, Judah’s kings and her people didn’t regularly practice the national observances and festivals prescribed in the Law. Only two special Passovers are singled out: one in the days of Hezekiah (2 Chron 30) and one in the days of Josiah (2 Chron 34). Regular observance of the Sabbath isn’t mentioned. The Law wasn’t regularly taught; it’s noteworthy when kings (such as Jehoshaphat) instituted programs to actually teach the Law; and the Law even disappeared for a time, being rediscovered during the reign of Josiah around 620 BC (2 Kings 22). The Temple wasn’t properly maintained, and at times kings stripped its revenues and gold to pay tribute to foreign invaders. During much of Judah’s history, idolatry was rampant and Yahweh was displeased. It was this rampant idolatry and stubbornness towards God that would result in Judah being ‘divinely disciplined’ and cast into Babylonian exile in 586 BC.