Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/421

 ISRAEL 405 ful king of Suba. 1 David took the initiative, and sent his army under command of Joab against Ixabbath-Ammon. The Syrians advanced to the relief of the besieged city ; but Joab divided his forces, and, leaving his brother Abishai to hold the Ammonites in the town in check, proceeded himself against the Syrians and repulsed them. On their afterwards threatening to renew the attack in increased force, David went against them in strength and defeated them at Ilelam &quot; on the river.&quot; It seems that as a result of this the kingdom of Soba was broken up and made tributary to Damascus. Rabbath-Ammon could not now hold out any longer, and the Ammonites shared the fate of their Moabite brethren. Finally, Edorn was about the same time coerced and depopulated ; and thus was fulfilled the vision of Balaam, the youngest of the four Hebrew nationalities trod the three elder under his feet, mestic So far as external foes were concerned, David hencefor- mbles. ward had peace; but new dangers arose at home within his own family. At once by ill-judged leniency and equally ill-timed severity he had completely alienated his son isalom. Absalom, who, after Amnon s death, was heir-apparent to the throne. Absalom organized a revolt against h;s father, and to foster it availed himself of a misunderstand ing which had arisen between David and the men of Judah, probably because they thought they were not treated with sufficient favour. The revolt had its focus in Hebron ; Ahitliophel, a mm of Judah, was its soul ; Amasa, also of Judah, its arm; but the rest of Israel was also drawn into the rebellion, and only the territory to the east of Jordan rem lined faithful. Thither David betook himself with pre cipitancy, for the outbreak had taken him completely by surprise. At Mahanairn, which had once before been the centre from which the kingdom was regained, he collected his faithful followers around him with his 600 Cherethites and Pelethitas for a nucleus, Absalom against Ahithophel s advice allowing him time for this. In the neighbourhood of Mahanaim, in the wood of Ephraim, the decisive blow was struck. Absalom fell, and with his death the rebellion was at an end, It was Joseph that, in the first instance, penitently sent a deputation to the king to bring him back. Judah on the other hand continued to hold aloof. Ulti mately a piece of finesse on the king s part had the effect of bringing Judah also to its allegiance, though at the cost of kindling such jealousy between Israel and Judah that Sheba the Benjamite raised a new revolt, this time of Israelites, which was soon, however, repressed by Joab. itimate David seems to have died soon afterwards. His histori- David. cal importance is very great. Judah and Jerusalem were wholly his creation, and, though the united kingdom of Israel founded by him and Saul together soon fell to pieces, the recollection of it nevertheless continued in all time to be proudly cherished by the whole body of the people. His personal character has been often treated with undue disparagement. For this we must chiefly blame his canoni zation by the later Jewish tradition which made a Levitical saint of him and a pious hymn-writer. It then becomes a strange inconsistency that he caused military prisoners to be sawn asunder and burnt, and the bastard sous of Saul to be hanged up before the Lord in Gibeon. But if we take him as we find him, an antique king in a barbarous age, our judgment of him will be much more favourable. The most daring courage was combined in him with tender susceptibility ; even after he had ascended the throne he continued to retain the charm of a pre-eminent and at the same time childlike personality. Even his conduct in the 1 Soba appears to have been situated somewhat to the north of Damascus, and to have bordered on the west with Hamath. The Aramceans were beginning even at that period to press westwards ; the Hittites, Phoenicians, and Israelites had common interests against them. To the kingdom of Soba succeeded afterwards that of Damascus. affair of Uriah is not by any means wholly to his discredit ; not many kings can be mentioned who would have shown repentance public and deep such as he manifested at Nathan s rebuke. Least to his credit was his weakness in relation to his sons and to Joab. On the other hand, the testament attributed to him in 1 Kings ii. cannot be justly laid to his charge ; it is the libel of a later hand seeking to invest him with a fictitious glory. In like manner it is unjust to hold him responsible for the deaths of Abner and Amasa, or to attribute to him any conspiracy with the hierocracy for the destruction of Saul, and thus to deprive him of the authorship of the elegy in 2 Sam. i., which certainly was not the work of a hypocrite. Solomon had already reached the throne, some time. Solo- before his father s death, not in virtue of hereditary right, lllon s but by a palace intrigue which had the support of the body- &quot; guard of the Six Hundred. His glory was not purchased on the battlefield. So far was he from showing military capacity that he allowed a new Syrian kingdom &quot;to arise at Damascus, a far more dangerous thing for Israel than that of Soba which had been destroyed, and which it succeeded. During this reign Edom also regained its independence, nothing but the port of Elath remaining in Solomon s hands. As regards Moab and Amrnon we have no information ; it is not improbable that they also re volted. But if war was not Solomon s forte he certainly took much greater pains than either of his predecessors in matters of internal administration ; according to tradition, the wisdom of the ruler and the judge was his special &quot;gift.&quot; Disregarding the tribal system, he divided his kingdom into twelve provinces, over each of which he placed a royal governor, thus making a beginning of vigorous and orderly administration. 2 Judah alone he exempted from this arrangement, as if to show special favour. For his aim was less the advantage of his subjects than the benefit of his exchequer, and the same object appears in his horse traffic (1 Kings ix. 19), his Ophir trade (1 Kings x. 11), and his cession of territory to Hiram (1 Kings ix. 11). His passions were architec ture, a gorgeous court, and the harem, in which he sought to rival other Oriental kings, as for example his Egyptian father-in-law. For this he required copious means forced labour, tribute in kind, and money. He had specially at heart the extension and improvement of Jerusalem as a strong and splendid capital ; the temple which he bnilt was only a portion of his vast citadel, which included within its precincts a number of private and public build ings designed for various uses. It is plain that new currents were introduced into the stream of the nation s development by such a king as this. As formerly, after the occupation, Canaanite culture had come in, so now, after the establishment of the kingdom, the floodgate was opened for the admission of Oriental civilization in a deeper and wider sense. Whatever the personal motives which led to it may have been, the results were very important, and by no means disadvantageous on the whole. On the basis of the firmer administration now introduced, stability and order could rest ; Judah had no cause to regret its acceptance of this yoke. Closer inter-, course with foreign lands widened the intellectual horizon of the people, and at the same time awakened it to a deeper sense of its own peculiar individuality. If Solomon imported Phoenician and Egyptian elements into the worship of Jehovah at his court temple, the rigid old Israelite indeed might naturally enough take offence (Ex. xx. 24-26), but the temple itself nevertheless ultimately acquired a great and positive importance for religion. It 2 Very possibly the Canaanites, whose complete absorption falls within this period, were an element that helped to loosen the bonds of tribal unity, and consolidate a state in its place.