The Creation of God

by Jacob Hartmann

THE TWO KINGDOMS—JUDAH, ISRAEL.

David was dead; Joab the great general had been decapitated by Solomon; and what Samuel, Saul, and David had built up, Solomon had been very successful in pulling down.

Ten tribes revolted immediately and formed the kingdom of Israel, selecting Jeroboam as their king, 975 B.C. In order to establish a church, a temple, of his own, and his own gods, Jeroboam made two golden heifers and built two little temples for them, claiming that men had built the Temple at Jerusalem as men had built the temples here, and so there was no difference between them. Besides, they would save the journey to Jerusalem. This change was immediately put into effect. One class or tribe was dissatisfied. Those were the Levites, and they emigrated to Judea. This new kingdom of Israel was not over-tranquil. Prophets, and stump orators, agitators, naturally arose. Dissension, bickering, and quarrels appeared. The outlook for the kingdom was not of the brightest.

Meantime Jeroboam was in clover.

Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, was made king of the two tribes, Judah the fighting tribe and Benjamin the king-giving tribe. Besides these two tribes, we must not forget the Levites, for because of them his kingdom was augmented. The priests of all Israel were Levites, and there were quite a multitude of them.

Rehoboam was a Solomon on a very small scale. He had only eighteen wives and thirty concubines, and twenty-eight sons and threescore daughters. He followed in his father’s footsteps and led a jolly life, as we should call it in our present age. In 971, four years after he ascended the throne, Shishka, king of Egypt, knowing of all the gold and silver Solomon had stuck into the Temple, invaded Judea with some four hundred thousand men, etc., without opposition, cleared the temple of all the gold and everything of value, and returned home without striking a blow. Rehoboam was a coward, he was afraid. As soon as Judea was clear of Shishka’s army, Rehoboam had these gold ornaments that had formerly decorated the temple, which had been carried away by Shishka, replaced by brass trimmings of the same make and style, and delivered them to the keeper of the king’s palace.

These people were too like their brethren in Israel, for “they built them high places, and images, and groves on every hill, and under every green tree” ([1 Kings xiv, 23]).

“And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of his life” ([1 Kings xv, 6]). These two nations therefore have been launched at a pretty fair pace on the downhill grade.

Judah, however, had the best of it. For the kingdom of Israel lasted only two hundred and fifty-four years. Shalmanezer, king of Nineveh, takes Samaria and carries the Ten Tribes into captivity. These are what are usually known as the lost tribes. Lost nonsenses!—they had forsaken their former method of worship and adopted another.

The kingdom of Judah lasted to the time the Temple was burnt, 588 B.C., having lasted three hundred and eighty-seven years—one hundred and thirty-three years longer than the kingdom of Israel. And what is more, these are the very Jews that are scattered all over the world. These latter are the representatives of these three tribes, Levi, Benjamin, and Judah. And if any person is curious enough to inquire of any Jew to what tribe he belongs, he will receive the answer that he belongs to one of the three above mentioned, that originally formed the kingdom of Judah. Why they were preserved is nothing miraculous. It has nothing to do with God or Jehova, or the ark, or any special grace, as people generally believe. The reason is plain and perfectly natural. The Levites preserved them, the Levites sustained them, the Levites were the brainy race. The Levites, the priestly tribe who were appointed by Moses, himself one of that tribe, to be the rulers, governors, lawgivers, fosterers, priests and preachers, were the brain of the whole nation. They clung to the idea of nationhood with all their priestly might, craft, and ingenuity, and are still clinging to it, with all their might and main. Judah and Benjamin survived only because of the Levites.