The eldest son of Ahinoam, Amnon, whose priority in age seemed likely to secure for him the crown, had fallen in love with one of his half-sisters named Tamar, the daughter of Maacah, and, instead of demanding her in marriage, procured her attendance on him by a feigned illness, and forced her to accede to his desires. His love was thereupon converted immediately into hate, and, instead of marrying her, he had her expelled from his house by his servants. With rent garments and ashes on her head, she fled to her full-brother Absalom. David was very wroth, but he loved his firstborn, and could not permit himself to punish him. Absalom kept his anger to himself, but when two years had elapsed he invited Amnon to a banquet, killed him, and fled to his grandfather Talmai, King of Geshur.*

His anger was now turned against the king for not having taken up the cause of his sister, and he began to meditate his dethronement. Having been recalled to Jerusalem at the instigation of Joab, “Absalom prepared him chariots and horses, and fifty men to run before him,” thus affecting the outward forms of royalty. Judah, dissatisfied at the favour shown by David to the other tribes, soon came to recognise Absalom as their chief, and some of the most intimate counsellors of the aged king began secretly to take his part. When Absalom deemed things safe for action, he betook himself to Hebron, under the pretence of a vow which he had made daring his sojourn at Geshur. All Judah rallied around him, and the excitement at Jerusalem was so great that David judged it prudent to retire, with his Philistine and Cherethite guards, to the other side of the Jordan. Absalom, in the mean while, took up his abode in Jerusalem, where, having received the tacit adherence of the family of Saul and of a number of the notables, he made himself king. To show that the rupture between him and David was complete, he had tents erected on the top of the house, and there, in view of the people, took possession of his father’s harem. Success would have been assured to him if he had promptly sent troops after the fugitives, but while he was spending his time in inactivity and feasting, David collected together those who were faithful to him, and put them under the command of Joab and Abishai. The king’s veterans were more than a match for the undisciplined rabble which opposed them, and in the action which followed at Mahanaim Absalom was defeated: in his flight through the forest of Ephraim he was caught in a tree, and before he could disentangle himself was pierced through the heart by Joab.

David, we read, wished his people to have mercy on his son, and he wept bitterly. He spared on this occasion the family of Saul, pardoned the tribe of Judah, and went back triumphantly into Jerusalem, which a few days before had taken part in his humiliation. The tribes of the house of Joseph had taken no side in the quarrel. They were ignorant alike of the motives which set the tribe of Judah against their own hero, and of their reasons for the zeal with which they again established him on the throne. They sent delegates to inquire about this, who reproached Judah for acting without their cognisance: “We have ten parts in the king, and we have also more right in David than ye: why then did ye despise us, that our advice should not be first had in bringing back our king?” Judah answered with yet fiercer words; then Sheba, a chief of the Benjamites, losing patience, blew a trumpet, and went off crying: “We have no portion in David, neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse: every man to his tents, O Israel.” If these words had produced an echo among the central and northern tribes, a schism would have been inevitable: some approved of them, while others took no action, and since Judah showed no disposition to put its military forces into movement, the king had once again to trust to Joab and the Philistine guards to repress the sedition. Their appearance on the scene disconcerted the rebels, and Sheba retreated to the northern frontier without offering battle. Perhaps he reckoned on the support of the Aramæans. He took shelter in the small stronghold of Abel of Bethmaacah, where he defended himself for some time; but just when the place was on the point of yielding, the inhabitants cut off Sheba’s head, and threw it to Joab from the wall. His death brought the crisis to an end, and peace reigned in Israel. Intrigues, however, began again more persistently than ever over the inheritance which the two slain princes had failed to obtain. The eldest son of the king was now Adonijah, son of Haggith, but Bathsheba exercised an undisputed sway over her husband, and had prepared him to recognise in Solomon her son the heir to the throne. She had secured, too, as his adherents several persons of influence, including Zadok, the prophet Nathan, and Benaiah, the captain of the foreign guard.

Adonijah had on his side Abiathar the priest, Joab, and the people of Jerusalem, who had been captivated by his beauty and his regal display. In the midst of these rivalries the king was daily becoming weaker: he was now very old, and although he was covered with wrappings he could not maintain his animal heat. A young girl was sought out for him to give him the needful warmth. Abishag, a Shunammite, was secured for the purpose, but her beauty inspired Adonijah with such a violent passion that he decided to bring matters to a crisis. He invited his brethren, with the exception of Solomon, to a banquet in the gardens which belonged to him in the south of Jerusalem, near the well of Eôgel. All his partisans were present, and, inspired by the good cheer, began to cry, “God save King Adonijah!” When Nathan informed Bathsheba of what was going on, she went in unto the king, who was being attended on by Abishag, complained to him of the weakness he was showing in regard to his eldest son, and besought him to designate his heir officially. He collected together the soldiers, and charged them to take the young man Solomon with royal pomp from the hill of Sion to the source of the Gibôn: Nathan anointed his forehead with the sacred oil, and in the sight of all the people brought him to the palace, mounted on his father’s mule. The blare of the coronation trumpets resounded in the ears of the conspirators, quickly followed by the tidings that Solomon had been hailed king over the whole of Israel: they fled on all sides, Adonijah taking refuge at the horns of the altar. David did not long survive this event: shortly before his death he advised Solomon to rid himself of all those who had opposed his accession to the throne. Solomon did not hesitate to follow this counsel, and the beginning of his reign was marked by a series of bloodthirsty executions. Adonijah was the first to suffer. He had been unwise enough to ask the hand of Abishag in marriage: this request was regarded as indicative of a hidden intention to rebel, and furnished an excuse for his assassination. Abiathar, at whose instigation Adonijah had acted, owed his escape from a similar fate to his priestly character and past services: he was banished to his estate at Anathoth, and Zadok became high priest in his stead. Joab, on learning the fate of his accomplice, felt that he was a lost man, and vainly sought sanctuary near the ark of the Lord; but Benaiah slew him there, and soon after, Shimei, the last survivor of the race of Saul, was put to death on some transparent pretext. This was the last act of the tragedy: henceforward Solomon, freed from all those who bore him malice, was able to devote his whole attention to the cares of government.*

The change of rulers had led, as usual, to insurrections among the tributary races: Damascus had revolted before the death of David, and had not been recovered. Hadad returned from Egypt, and having gained adherents in certain parts of Edom, resisted all attempts made to dislodge him.*

As a soldier, Solomon was neither skilful nor fortunate: he even failed to retain what his father had won for him. Though he continued to increase his army, it was more with a view to consolidating his power over the Bnê-Israel than for any aggressive action outside his borders. On the other hand, he showed himself an excellent administrator, and did his best, by various measures of general utility, to draw closer the ties which bound the tribes to him and to each other. He repaired the citadels with such means as he had at his disposal. He rebuilt the fortifications of Megiddo, thus securing the control of the network of roads which traversed Southern Syria. He remodelled the fortifications of Tamar, the two Bethhorons, Baâlath, Hazor, and of many other towns which defended his frontiers. Some of them he garrisoned with foot-soldiers, others with horsemen and chariots. By thus distributing his military forces over the whole country, he achieved a twofold object;* he provided, on the one hand, additional security from foreign invasion, and on the other diminished the risk of internal revolt.

The remnants of the old aboriginal clans, which had hitherto managed to preserve their independence, mainly owing to the dissensions among the Israelites, were at last absorbed into the tribes in whose territory they had settled. A few still held out, and only gave way after long and stubborn resistance: before he could triumph over Gezer, Solomon was forced to humble himself before the Egyptian Pharaoh. He paid homage to him, asked the hand of his daughter in marriage, and having obtained it, persuaded him to come to his assistance: the Egyptian engineers placed their skill at the service of the besiegers and soon brought the recalcitrant city to reason, handing it over to Solomon in payment for his submission.* The Canaanites were obliged to submit to the poll-tax and the corvée: the men of the league of Gibeon were made hewers of wood and drawers of water for the house of the Lord.** The Hebrews themselves bore their share in the expenses of the State, and though less heavily taxed than the Canaanites, were, nevertheless, compelled to contribute considerable sums; Judah alone was exempt, probably because, being the private domain of the sovereign, its revenues were already included in the royal exchequer.***

In order to facilitate the collection of the taxes, Solomon divided the kingdom into twelve districts, each of which was placed in charge of a collector; these regions did not coincide with the existing tribal boundaries, but the extent of each was determined by the wealth of the lands contained within it. While one district included the whole of Mount Ephraim, another was limited to the stronghold of Mahanaim and its suburbs. Mahanaim was at one time the capital of Israel, and had played an important part in the life of David: it held the key to the regions beyond Jordan, and its ruler was a person of such influence that it was not considered prudent to leave him too well provided with funds. By thus obliterating the old tribal boundaries, Solomon doubtless hoped to destroy, or at any rate greatly weaken, that clannish spirit which showed itself with such alarming violence at the time of the revolt of Sheba, and to weld into a single homogeneous mass the various Hebrew and Canaanitish elements of which the people of Israel were composed.*

Each of these provinces was obliged, during one month in each year, to provide for the wants of “the king and his household,” or, in other words, the requirements of the central government. A large part of these contributions went to supply the king’s table; the daily consumption at the court was—thirty measures of fine flour, sixty measures of meal, ten fat oxen, twenty oxen out of the pastures, a hundred sheep, besides all kinds of game and fatted fowl: nor need we be surprised at these figures, for in a country where, and at a time when money was unknown, the king was obliged to supply food to all his dependents, the greater part of their emoluments consisting of these payments in kind. The tax-collectors had also to provide fodder for the horses reserved for military purposes: there were forty thousand of these, and twelve thousand charioteers, and barley and straw had to be forthcoming either in Jerusalem itself or in one or other of the garrison towns amongst which they were distributed.* The levying of tolls on caravans passing through the country completed the king’s fiscal operations which were based on the systems prevailing in neighbouring States, especially that of Egypt.**

Solomon, like other Oriental sovereigns, reserved to himself the monopoly of certain imported articles, such as yarn, chariots, and horses. Egyptian yarn, perhaps the finest produced in ancient times, was in great request among the dyers and embroiderers of Asia. Chariots, at once strong and light, were important articles of commerce at a time when their use in warfare was universal. As for horses, the cities of the Delta and Middle Egypt possessed a celebrated strain of stallions, from which the Syrian princes were accustomed to obtain their war-steeds.* Solomon decreed that for the future he was to be the sole intermediary between the Asiatics and the foreign countries supplying their requirements. His agents went down at regular intervals to the banks of the Nile to lay in stock; the horses and chariots, by the time they reached Jerusalem, cost him at the rate of six hundred silver shekels for each chariot, and one hundred and fifty shekels for each horse, but he sold them again at a profit to the Aramæan and Hittite princes. In return he purchased from them Cilician stallions, probably to sell again to the Egyptians, whose relaxing climate necessitated a frequent introduction of new blood into their stables.** By these and other methods of which we know nothing the yearly revenue of the kingdom was largely increased: and though it only reached a total which may seem insignificant in comparison with the enormous quantities of the precious metals which passed through the hands of the Pharaohs of that time, yet it must have seemed boundless wealth in the eyes of the shepherds and husbandmen who formed the bulk of the Hebrew nation.

In thus developing his resources and turning them to good account, Solomon derived great assistance from the Phoenicians of Tyre and Sidon, a race whose services were always at the disposal of the masters of Southern Syria. The continued success of the Hellenic colonists on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean had compelled the Phoenicians to seek with redoubled boldness and activity in the Western Mediterranean some sort of compensation for the injury which their trade had thus suffered. They increased and consolidated their dealings with Sicily, Africa, and Spain, and established themselves throughout the whole of that misty region which extended beyond the straits of Gibraltar on the European side, from the mouth of the Guadalete to that of the Guadiana. This was the famous Tarshish—the Oriental El Dorado. Here they had founded a number of new towns, the most flourishing of which, Gadîr,* rose not far from the mouths of the Betis, on a small islet separated from the mainland by a narrow arm of the sea. In this city they constructed a temple to Melkarth, arsenals, warehouses, and shipbuilding yards: it was the Tyre of the west, and its merchant-vessels sailed to the south and to the north to trade with the savage races of the African and European seaboard. On the coast of Morocco they built Lixos, a town almost as large as Gadîr, and beyond Lixos, thirty days’ sail southwards, a whole host of depots, reckoned later on at three hundred.

By exploiting the materials to be obtained from these lands, such as gold, silver, tin, lead, and copper, Tyre and Sidon were soon able to make good the losses they had suffered from Greek privateersmen and marauding Philistines. Towards the close of the reign of Saul over Israel, a certain king Abîbaal had arisen in Tyre, and was succeeded by his son Hiram, at the very moment when David was engaged in bringing the whole of Israel into subjection. Hiram, guided by instinct or by tradition, at once adopted a policy towards the rising dynasty which his ancestors had always found successful in similar cases. He made friendly overtures to the Hebrews, and constituted himself their broker and general provider: when David was in want of wood for the house he was building at Jerusalem, Hiram let him have the necessary quantity, and hired out to him workmen and artists at a reasonable wage, to help him in turning his materials to good account.*

The accession of Solomon was a piece of good luck for him. The new king, born in the purple, did not share the simple and somewhat rustic tastes of his father. He wanted palaces and gardens and a temple, which might rival, even if only in a small way, the palaces and temples of Egypt and Chaldæa, of which he had heard such glowing accounts: Hiram undertook to procure these things for him at a moderate cost, and it was doubtless his influence which led to those voyages to the countries which produced precious metals, perfumes, rare animals, costly woods, and all those foreign knicknacks with which Eastern monarchs of all ages loved to surround themselves. The Phoenician sailors were well acquainted with the bearings of Puanît, most of them having heard of this country when in Egypt, a few perhaps having gone thither under the direction and by the orders of Pharaoh: and Hiram took advantage of the access which the Hebrews had gained to the shores of the Red Sea by the annexation of Edom, to establish relations with these outlying districts without having to pass the Egyptian customs. He lent to Solomon shipwrights and sailors, who helped him to fit out a fleet at Eziôn-geber, and undertook a voyage of discovery in company with a number of Hebrews, who were no doubt despatched in the same capacity as the royal messengers sent with the galleys of Hâtshopsîtû. It was a venture similar to those so frequently undertaken by the Egyptian admirals in the palmy days of the Theban navy, and of which we find so many curious pictures among the bas-reliefs at Deîr el-Baharî. On their return, after a three years’ absence, they reported that they had sailed to a country named Ophir, and produced in support of their statement a freight well calculated to convince the most sceptical, consisting as it did of four hundred and twenty talents of gold. The success of this first venture encouraged Solomon to persevere in such expeditions: he sent his fleet on several voyages to Ophir, and procured from thence a rich harvest of gold and silver, wood and ivory, apes and peacocks.*

* 1 Kings ix. 26-28, x. 11, 12; cf. 2 Citron, viii. 17, 18, ix. 10, 11, 21. A whole library might be stocked with the various treatises which have appeared on the situation of the country of Ophir: Arabia, Persia, India, Java, and America have all been suggested. The mention of almug wood and of peacocks, which may be of Indian origin, for a long time inclined the scale in favour of India, but the discoveries of Mauch and Bent on the Zimbabaye have drawn attention to the basin of the Zambesi and the ruins found there. Dr. Peters, one of the best-known German explorers, is inclined to agree with Mauch and Bent, in their theory as to the position of the Ophir of the Bible. I am rather inclined to identify it with the Egyptian Pûanît, on the Somali or Yemen seaboard.

Was the profit from these distant cruises so very considerable after all? After they had ceased, memory may have thrown a fanciful glamour over them, and magnified the treasures they had yielded to fabulous proportions: we are told that Solomon would have no drinking vessels or other utensils save those of pure gold, and that in his days “silver was as stone,” so common had it become.*

Doubtless Hiram took good care to obtain his fall share of the gains. The Phoenician king began to find Tyre too restricted for him, the various islets over which it was scattered affording too small a space to support the multitudes which flocked thither. He therefore filled up the channels which separated them; by means of embankments and fortified quays he managed to reclaim from the sea a certain amount of land on the south; after which he constructed two harbours—one on the north, called the Sidonian; the other on the south, named the Egyptian. He was perhaps also the originator of the long causeway, the lower courses of which still serve as a breakwater, by which he transformed the projecting headland between the island and the mainland into a well-sheltered harbour. Finally, he set to work on a task like that which he had already helped Solomon to accomplish: he built for himself a palace of cedar-wood, and restored and beautified the temples of the gods, including the ancient sanctuary of Melkarth, and that of Astarté. In his reign the greatness of Phoenicia reached its zenith, just as that of the Hebrews culminated under David.

The most celebrated of Solomon’s works were to be seen at Jerusalem. As David left it, the city was somewhat insignificant. The water from its fountains had been amply sufficient for the wants of the little Jebusite town; it was wholly inadequate to meet the requirements of the growing-population of the capital of Judah. Solomon made better provision for its distribution than there had been in the past, and then tapped a new source of supply some distance away, in the direction of Bethlehem; it is even said that he made the reservoirs for its storage which still bear his name.*

Meanwhile, Hiram had drawn up for him plans for a fortified residence, on a scale commensurate with the thriving fortunes of his dynasty. The main body was constructed of stone from the Judæan quarries, cut by masons from Byblos, but it was inlaid with cedar to such an extent that one wing was called “the house of the forest-of-Lebanon.” It contained everything that was required for the comfort of an Eastern potentate—a harem, with separate apartments for the favourites (one of which was probably decorated in the Egyptian manner for the benefit of Pharaoh’s daughter);* then there were reception-halls, to which the great men of the kingdom were admitted; storehouses, and an arsenal. The king’s bodyguard possessed five hundred shields “of beaten gold,” which were handed over by each detachment, when the guard was relieved, to the one which took its place. But this gorgeous edifice would not have been complete if the temple of Jahveh had not arisen side by side with the abode of the temporal ruler of the nation. No monarch in those days could regard his position as unassailable until he had a sanctuary and a priesthood attached to his religion, either in his own palace or not far away from it. David had scarcely entered Jerusalem before he fixed upon the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite as a site for the temple, and built an altar there to the Lord during a plague which threatened to decimate his people; but as he did not carry the project any farther,** Solomon set himself to complete the task which his father had merely sketched out.

The site was irregular in shape, and the surface did not naturally lend itself to the purpose for which it was destined. His engineers, however, put this right by constructing enormous piers for the foundations, which they built up from the slopes of the mountain or from the bottom of the valley as circumstances required: the space between this artificial casing and the solid rock was filled up, and the whole mass formed a nearly square platform, from which the temple buildings were to rise. Hiram undertook to supply materials for the work. Solomon had written to him that he should command “that they hew me cedar trees out of Lebanon; and my servants shall be with thy servants; and I will give thee hire for thy servants according to all that thou shalt say: for thou knowest that there is not among us any that can skill to hew timber like unto the Zidonians.” Hiram was delighted to carry out the wishes of his royal friend with regard to the cedar and cypress woods.

“My servants,” he answered, “shall bring them down from Lebanon unto the sea: and I will make them into rafts to go by sea unto the place that thou shalt appoint me, and will cause them to be broken up there, and thou shalt receive them; and thou shalt accomplish my desire, in giving food for my household.” The payment agreed on, which was in kind, consisted of twenty thousand kôr of wheat, and twenty kôr of pure oil per annum, for which Hiram was to send to Jerusalem not only the timber, but architects, masons, and Gebalite carpenters (i.e. from Byblos), smelters, sculptors, and overseers.* Solomon undertook to supply the necessary labour, and for this purpose made a levy of men from all the tribes. The number of these labourers was reckoned at thirty thousand, and they were relieved regularly every three months; seventy thousand were occupied in the transport of the materials, while eighty thousand cut the stones from the quarry.**

It is possible that the numbers may have been somewhat exaggerated in popular estimation, since the greatest Egyptian monuments never required such formidable levies of workmen for their construction; we must remember, however, that such an undertaking demanded a considerable effort, as the Hebrews were quite unaccustomed to that kind of labour. The front of the temple faced eastward; it was twenty cubits wide, sixty long, and thirty high. The walls were of enormous squared stones, and the ceilings and frames of the doors of carved cedar, plated with gold; it was entered by a porch, between two columns of wrought bronze, which were called Jachin and Boaz.*

* 1 Kings vii. 15-22; cf. 2 Chron. iv. 11-13. The names were probably engraved each upon its respective column, and taken together formed an inscription which could be interpreted in various ways. The most simple interpretation is to recognise in them a kind of talismanic formula to ensure the strength of the building, affirming “that it exists by the strength” of God.

The interior contained only two chambers; the hekal, or holy place, where were kept the altar of incense, the seven-branched candlestick, and the table of shewbread; and the Holy of Holies—debîr—where the ark of God rested beneath the wings of two cherubim of gilded wood. Against the outer wall of the temple, and rising to half its height, were rows of small apartments, three stories high, in which were kept the treasures and vessels of the sanctuary. While the high priest was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies only once a year, the holy place was accessible at all times to the priests engaged in the services, and it was there that the daily ceremonies of the temple-worship took place; there stood also the altar of incense and the table of shewbread. The altar of sacrifice stood on the platform in front of the entrance; it was a cube of masonry with a parapet, and was approached by stone steps; it resembled, probably, in general outline the monumental altars which stood in the forecourts of the Egyptian temples and palaces. There stood by it, as was also customary in Chaldæa, a “molten sea,” and some ten smaller lavers, in which the Lévites washed the portions of the victims to be offered, together with the basins, knives, flesh-hooks, spoons, shovels, and other utensils required for the bloody sacrifice. A low wall surmounted by a balustrade of cedar-wood separated this sacred enclosure from a court to which the people were permitted to have free access. Both palace and temple were probably designed in that pseudo-Egyptian style which the Phoenicians were known to affect. The few Hebrew edifices of which remains have come down to us, reveal a method of construction and decoration common in Egypt; we have an example of this in the uprights of the doors at Lachish, which terminate in an Egyptian gorge like that employed in the naos of the Phonician temples.

The completion of the whole plan occupied thirteen years; at length both palace and temple were finished in the XVIIth year of the king’s reign. Solomon, however, did not wait for the completion of the work to dedicate the sanctuary to God. As soon as the inner court was ready, which was in his XIth year, he proceeded to transfer the ark to its new resting-place; it was raised upon a cubical base, and the long staves by which it had been carried were left in their rings, as was usual in the case of the sacred barks of the Egyptian deities.* The God of Israel thus took up His abode in the place in which He was henceforth to be honoured. The sacrifices on the occasion of the dedication were innumerable, and continued for fourteen days, in the presence of the representatives of all Israel. The ornate ceremonial and worship which had long been lavished on the deities of rival nations were now, for the first time, offered to the God of Israel. The devout Hebrews who had come together from far and near returned to their respective tribes filled with admiration,** and their limited knowledge of art doubtless led them to consider their temple as unique in the world; in fact, it presented nothing remarkable either in proportion, arrangement, or in the variety and richness of its ornamentation and furniture. Compared with the magnificent monuments of Egypt and Chaldæa, the work of Solomon was what the Hebrew kingdom appears to us among the empires of the ancient world—a little temple suited to a little people.

The priests to whose care it was entrusted did not differ much from those whom David had gathered about him at the outset of the monarchy. They in no way formed an hereditary caste confined to the limits of a rigid hierarchy; they admitted into their number—at least up to a certain point—men of varied extraction, who were either drawn by their own inclinations to the service of the altar, or had been dedicated to it by their parents from childhood. He indeed was truly a priest “who said of his father and mother, ‘I have not seen him;’ neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor knew he his own children.” He was content, after renouncing these, to observe the law of God and keep His covenant, and to teach Jacob His judgments and Israel His law; he put incense before the Lord, and whole burnt offerings upon His altar.*

As in Egypt, the correct offering of the Jewish sacrifices was beset with considerable difficulties, and the risk of marring their efficacy by the slightest inadvertence necessitated the employment of men who were thoroughly instructed in the divinely appointed practices and formulæ. The victims had to be certified as perfect, while the offerers themselves had to be ceremonially pure; and, indeed, those only who had been specially trained were able to master the difficulties connected with the minutiae of legal purity. The means by which the future was made known necessitated the intervention of skilful interpreters of the Divine will. We know that in Egypt the statues of the gods were supposed to answer the questions put to them by movements of the head or arms, sometimes even by the living voice; but the Hebrews do not appear to have been influenced by any such recollections in the use of their sacred oracles. We are ignorant, however, of the manner in which the ephod was consulted, and we know merely that the art of interrogating the Divine will by it demanded a long noviciate.* The benefits derived by those initiated into these mysteries were such as to cause them to desire the privileges to be perpetuated to their children. Gathered round the ancient sanctuaries were certain families who, from father to son, were devoted to the performance of the sacred rites, as, for instance, that of Eli at Shiloh, and that of Jonathan-ben-Gershom at Dan, near the sources of the Jordan; but in addition to these, the text mentions functionaries analogous to those found among the Canaanites, diviners, seers—roê—who had means of discovering that which was hidden from the vulgar, even to the finding of lost objects, but whose powers sometimes rose to a higher level when they were suddenly possessed by the prophetic spirit and enabled to reveal coming events. Besides these, again, were the prophets—nabî**—who lived either alone or in communities, and attained, by means of a strict training, to a vision of the future.

Their prophetic utterances were accompanied by music and singing, and the exaltation of spirit which followed their exercises would at times spread to the bystanders,—as is the case in the “zikr” of the Mahomedans of to-day.*

The early kings, Saul and David, used to have recourse to individuals belonging to all these three classes, but the prophets, owing to the intermittent character of their inspiration and their ministry, could not fill a regular office attached to the court. One of this class was raised up by God from time to time to warn or guide His servants, and then sank again into obscurity; the priests, on the contrary, were always at hand, and their duties brought them into contact with the sovereign all the year round. The god who was worshipped in the capital of the country and his priesthood promptly acquired a predominant position in all Oriental monarchies, and most of the other temples, together with the sacerdotal bodies attached to them, usually fell into disrepute, leaving them supreme. If Amon of Thebes became almost the sole god, and his priests the possessors of all Egypt, it was because the accession of the XVIIIth dynasty had made his pontiffs the almoners of the Pharaoh. Something of the same sort took place in Israel; the priesthood at Jerusalem attached to the temple built by the sovereign, being constantly about his person, soon surpassed their brethren in other parts of the country both in influence and possessions. Under David’s reign their head had been Abiathar, son of Ahimelech, a descendant of Eli, but on Solomon’s accession the primacy had been transferred to the line of Zadok. In this alliance of the throne and the altar, it was natural at first that the throne should reap the advantage. The king appears to have continued to be a sort of high priest, and to have officiated at certain times and occasions.* The priests kept the temple in order, and watched over the cleanliness of its chambers and its vessels; they interrogated the Divine will for the king according to the prescribed ceremonies, and offered sacrifices on behalf of the monarch and his subjects; in short, they were at first little more than chaplains to the king and his family.

Solomon’s allegiance to the God of Israel did not lead him to proscribe the worship of other gods; he allowed his foreign wives the exercise of their various religions, and he raised an altar to Chemosh on the Mount of Olives for one of them who was a Moabite. The political supremacy and material advantages which all these establishments acquired for Judah could not fail to rouse the jealousy of the other tribes. Ephraim particularly looked on with ill-concealed anger at the prospect of the hegemony becoming established in the hands of a tribe which could be barely said to have existed before the time of David, and was to a considerable extent of barbarous origin. Taxes, homage, the keeping up and recruiting of garrisons, were all equally odious to this, as well as to the other clans descended from Joseph; meanwhile their burdens did not decrease. A new fortress had to be built at Jerusalem by order of the aged king. One of the overseers appointed for this work—Jeroboam, the son of Nebat—appears to have stirred up the popular discontent, and to have hatched a revolutionary plot. Solomon, hearing of the conspiracy, attempted to suppress it; Jeroboam was forewarned, and fled to Egypt, where Pharaoh Sheshonq received him with honour, and gave him his wife’s sister in marriage.* The peace of the nation had not been ostensibly troubled, but the very fact that a pretender should have risen up in opposition to the legitimate king augured ill for the future of the dynasty. In reality, the edifice which David had raised with such difficulty tottered on its foundations before the death of his successor; the foreign vassals were either in a restless state or ready to throw off their allegiance; money was scarce, and twenty Galilæan towns had been perforce ceded to Hiram to pay the debts due to him for the building of the temple;** murmurings were heard among the people, who desired an easier life.