CHAPTER VI. SOLOMON IN HIS GLORY
The picture of the last period of King David’s life is clouded by the struggle for the succession. The true circumstances of Solomon’s accession will forever remain to some extent obscure, owing to the incompleteness of our information. We give the account as found in the records we possess.
David had grown old and needed careful attendance. At the court the question as to who should succeed him could not remain in abeyance. According to order of birth, David’s fourth son, Adonijah, stood next to the throne after Absalom’s death. In fact, Adonijah regarded himself as the heir, and went so far as to exercise the rights of heir-apparent, even in public, as Absalom had done. A part of the court, and an influential portion of the people, seem also to have fully recognised Adonijah as the future king. David himself, who tenderly loved Adonijah, and had regarded him as taking the place of the Absalom whom he still mourned, did not venture to oppose him. Adonijah had the same mother (Haggith) as Absalom.
But Adonijah’s hopes did not meet with universal acceptance at the court. It is true that he succeeded in winning over Joab and the priest Abiathar, to his cause. But on the other side stood Bathsheba, who was exerting herself to obtain the succession for her son Solomon. Her cause was favoured by the priest Zadok, the prophet Nathan, and Benaiah, the captain of the royal bodyguard. Thus in the last days of David’s life, two parties stood opposed to one another at the court.
One day Adonijah gave a banquet to his followers at the serpent-stone (En-rogel), a sacrificial stone in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem. Nathan, who was, as it appears, the spiritual head of the opposition, feared lest the banquet should end, like that of Absalom in Hebron, with the hailing of Adonijah as king. This would mean the ruin of Solomon’s cause. It was therefore an occasion for prompt measures. Bathsheba must at once inform the king of what was happening at the serpent-stone; she must remind David of a former promise that gave a prospect of Solomon’s succession, and obtain its immediate confirmation.
Bathsheba did what she was told. According to agreement, Nathan, after a short interval, follows her to the king’s presence, to lend her words emphasis. He even professes to have already heard the cry of the conspirators, “Long live King Adonijah.” The two succeed in arousing the king’s suspicions. He is convinced that again in his old age he is to be deprived of the throne and become the victim of a conspiracy of one of his sons. At once he solemnly adjudges the succession to Solomon. By David’s command the latter is conducted on the king’s own mule to Gihon, a sacred spring near Jerusalem, anointed by Zadok and Nathan, hailed as king, and solemnly enthroned. The joyful acclamations of the people and the noise of the trumpets, reach the ears of the banqueters, who are not far off. They have scarcely time to ask the cause, when Jonathan, Abiathar’s son, brings tidings of what has occurred. Solomon is king. Adonijah has no resource but the altar, at whose horns he implores bare life from his more fortunate brother. He does homage to the latter and is granted his life.
[ca. 970-960 B.C.]
Solomon is thereupon proclaimed King, and now before David bows his head in death he lays on his successor a charge which he has closely at heart. He reminds him that Joab’s deeds of blood against Abner and Amasa have not yet been expiated, and puts him in mind of the services rendered to him by Barzillai, and of Shimei’s curses upon his house. Barzillai he is to reward loyally; the other two he shall not let go down to sheol (i.e. the Hebrew hades) in peace.
THE EARLY YEARS OF SOLOMON’S REIGN
David had scarcely closed his eyes when the desire for the throne was again roused in Adonijah, whom Solomon had pardoned. Through Bathsheba’s intervention he requested Solomon to give him David’s nurse, Abishag, to wife. What this wish meant, according to the conception of the period, we know from Absalom’s behaviour towards David’s harem. Solomon saw through Adonijah’s daring plans, and the latter paid with his life. The fate of Adonijah’s most distinguished partisans was also decided. Abiathar was relieved of his priestly office, but his life was spared in consideration of the services he had rendered to David in trouble and prosperity. He was banished to Anathoth, and his former colleague, Zadok, took his place. Joab, foreboding evil, fled to the altar of Jehovah, but there was no mercy for him. Appealing to his ancient blood-guiltiness, Solomon had him hewn down. Finally Shimei, who had not shared in Adonijah’s attempts, was for the time being confined to Jerusalem, and, soon after, when in opposition to the king’s command he left the city, he was executed.
This is the account contained in 1 Kings i.-ii. Many have recently taken the view that the first part distinctly contains the story of a palace intrigue, set on foot by Nathan and Bathsheba in favour of Solomon against Adonijah’s succession; while the second part of the narrative has been recognised as an only partially veiled attempt to avert from Solomon the responsibility for the bloody deeds with which he thought to establish his newly acquired throne.
The fact that there hitherto had been no word of Solomon’s succession seems to be decidedly in favour of this view. If Adonijah was the innocent victim of a court intrigue, it must be assumed that Bathsheba and Nathan persuaded the weak old king into acknowledging a promise he had never given, but which he now gladly adopted in his anxiety for the peace of his last days. This conception seems also to be favoured by the additional circumstance, that the narrator, obviously in an access of intentional irony, does not give an account of his own respecting Adonijah’s criminal intentions at the sacrificial feast, but makes Nathan give his detailed version in the king’s presence. Finally, as regards the second part of the narrative, in the passage concerning David’s last dispositions, the traces of a later hand are distinctly visible, suggesting the idea that the whole passage is of late origin. This also lends support to the notion that, both according to the original account and also in reality, Solomon at least removed Joab from his path, not on account of his earlier but by reason of his later conduct, and not in compliance with David’s wish, but for being a partisan of Adonijah.
But the literary basis of this last conception is not sufficiently secure. It is just those portions of David’s last words which refer to Joab and Shimei, which are indisputably old, while the whole passage comes from our most authentic sources. Besides, as a matter of fact, such a wish on David’s part does not in itself awaken such grave doubts as might appear. Only we must guard against trying to measure the distant past by our own moral feelings, and we must bear in mind what David, following the cruel faith of his time, did to the house of Saul, in order to blot out the stain of an ancient deed of blood which still lay on it. Thus it cannot really appear strange that he should have been tormented by an uneasy fear at the guilt and curse of a past, which, one day, when he was gone, might strike his house as that guilt of blood had chastised the house of Saul.
[ca. 960-950 B.C.]
With Abiathar’s removal from the priesthood, an act of the highest importance for the history of religion in Israel was accomplished. In place of the house of Eli, which had already been severely threatened in the time of Saul, but had finally recovered itself under David’s favour, a new priesthood appeared on the scene. How significant the change was is shown by the circumstance that a prophetic reference to it is already made in the story of Eli. Eli derived his priesthood and that of his family from Egypt and probably from the father of the priesthood, Aaron. In what Zadok’s claim consisted we do not know. He can hardly have been the first of an entirely new line, and thus not even a Levite. Solomon would have guarded against putting in Abiathar’s stead a priest of quite unpriestly blood. Henceforth the “Bene- (sons of) Zadok” hold possession of the priesthood at Jerusalem. And after the erection of the temple they succeeded in bringing this priesthood, and with it their own house, to high prosperity and power.
Solomon’s task as king was clear. As David’s successor he was heir to great wealth; he had only to preserve what David had created and to confirm himself in its possession. Abroad he had to maintain the extraordinary prestige which Israel had acquired; at home to make the unity of the tribes, which David had completed, a permanent thing, and to chain Israel to the house of the great king.
In the last Solomon did not succeed. For himself, as far as we can see, he seems to have been possessed of sufficient force and skill. As long as he lived, David’s kingdom remained in his hands, if not undisputed, still in the main undiminished. And if he did not contrive, or did not care, to make the tribes of Israel contented under his sway, yet, during his reign, matters did not come to an open breach. The single attempt at a rising of which we hear, that of Jeroboam, he put down by force. Eager as the northern tribes may have been to renounce the house of David, they did not dare to wrest from Solomon the sceptre he wielded with so much power. This, which mainly concerns internal relations, shows that Solomon was not the weak, inactive king whom many have represented him to be. But abroad also Solomon showed himself equal to his task, at least in all questions of importance.
Difficulties were not wanting. The death of the great David was an event which many of Israel’s adversaries had doubtless long been looking for. When to this was added the disappearance from the scene of his bravest soldier, Joab, the opportunity for attacking Israel could not have been more favourable. A scion of that ancient royal house of Edom which David had overthrown, Hadad by name, had fled to Egypt. He had succeeded, like Solomon himself, in obtaining in marriage a princess of the house of Pharaoh, the sister of Queen Tahpenes. Immediately after David’s death he returned to his own country and seems to have wrenched at least a part of Edom from Solomon. But either his dominion was insignificant and not dangerous to Solomon, or the latter afterwards succeeded in regaining possession of Edom, for the approach to the Red Sea by Ezion-geber remained open to Solomon.
A second adversary is said to have risen against Solomon in the north. One of the captains of that Hadad-ezer of the Aramæan state of Zobah whom David had conquered, Rezon-ben-Eliadah, separated himself from his master. After a long life of adventure, he founded a dominion of his own, and made the ancient Damascus its capital. He drove out the governor whom David had placed there, and Solomon did not succeed in recovering the city. Here, then, if the tale be historical, Solomon suffered a real and, as it seems, a permanent loss. Still it would be hard to say whether, at the time, it was much felt; for probably neither David nor Solomon had ever been in possession of Damascus and Aram-Damascus. Here, too, as in Solomon’s home government, the most serious question would seem to be the outlook for the future. For in course of time the kingdom of Damascus was to become one of Israel’s most dangerous opponents.
[ca. 950-940 B.C.]
If, therefore, in this way Solomon had received in the south, and perhaps also in the north, certain, though probably not very important checks, still he appears to have done a considerable amount for the preservation and strengthening of Israel’s prestige. It is possible that he did not attach so much importance to those of David’s conquests which lay on the outskirts of the kingdom as to the preservation of Israel itself. It is a fact that he protected it by founding strong fortresses against hostile invasions—an undertaking whose high utility cannot possibly be called in question. Thus in the north he fortified Hazor and Megiddo; in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem Beth-horon and the royal Canaanitish city, Gezer; to the south, for the protection of the border as the caravan route from Hebron to Eloth, he fortified the city of Tadmor. The Egyptian Pharaoh, whose daughter Solomon married, had conquered Gezer for him. A town named Baalath whose site is uncertain but perhaps lay near Gezer, is also mentioned among Solomon’s fortified places. He also bestowed great attention on increasing the war material and cavalry which were distributed through a series of garrison towns and in keeping them ready for use. Though the figures concerning these are somewhat doubtful, the fact itself cannot be called in question. All this shows that we can scarcely speak of a decline in the power of Israel under Solomon, even if he abandoned certain outlying posts.
Yet, nevertheless, Solomon did not attain to his father’s greatness. He had grown up as a king’s son, without occasion and necessity to steel his will in the hard school of danger and privation, and he did not possess his father’s energy and initiative. He thought more of the rights and pleasures of kingship than of his high duties and tasks. The father’s despotic tendencies, in him only showing at intervals and immediately restrained and overcome, are in the son the groundwork of his character. His favourite amusements are costly buildings, strange women, rich display.
But he also insisted on the regular execution of justice, and his chief strength lay in the orderly administration of his country. Side by side with this went the final removal and absorption of the Canaanites. Both probably served the same object. Solomon required a great deal of money and labour for his costly buildings. His subjects must supply them. He made no distinctions amongst the population, no one escaped the common burdens. To him all Israel formed one unit and was partitioned, without regard to the differences between the tribes or the distinction between Israelite and Canaanite, into twelve zones, each of which was administered by a governor. Some of their names have been lost. The amount to be paid in taxes was regulated on the basis of this division. The compulsory service which Solomon required for his mighty structures for war and peace, were doubtless arranged in a similar manner. In Lebanon alone he is said to have kept ten thousand men who rendered such service, constantly occupied under Adoniram. The distinction between Israelites and Canaanites was continued only to a certain extent, in that what had formerly been the Canaanitish zones were considerably smaller than the others. Thus, when it came to their turn to serve, the Canaanites were more affected; the forcible incorporation in Israel, indeed, made them liable to be called on.
[ca. 940-930 B.C.]
Such burdens were unknown to the simple courts of David and Saul, and they must now, therefore, have weighed all the more heavily. Freedom, as the possession of the subject, was little regarded. No wonder, then, that in course of time the discontent, probably long nourished in secret, broke out into fierce rebellion. It was no accident that it started in the house of Joseph, that is, from Ephraim, still less that it proceeded from one of Solomon’s overseers. From two sources, the ancient dislike of the northern tribes to the house of Jesse, and the discontent with the present harsh government, the waters flowed into the same channel.
An Ephraimite of Zereda, Jeroboam-ben-Nebat, placed himself at its head. He seems to have been a young man of low rank, the son of a poor widow. The king came to know and value him amongst his workmen when, towards the end of his reign, he was building mills and thus “repaired the breaches of the city of David.” Soon the oversight “of the charge of the house of Joseph” was laid on him: the best opportunity to make himself acquainted with the people’s grievances and to utilise them for his own benefit. At some time or other Jeroboam made up his mind to raise the standard of rebellion. But without success: either the conspiracy was prematurely discovered or Jeroboam’s rising was put down. He himself escaped, and found a welcome with Pharaoh Shishak (Shashanq) the founder of the XXIInd Dynasty (Manethan). It is worthy of note that a prophet of Shiloh, Ahijah by name, supported the action of Jeroboam. The discontent with Solomon’s rule had already taken hold of all classes of the population.
Tradition represents Solomon as a king rich in wisdom and justice and in gold and treasures. That he was so, is shown by his measures for securing his frontier, and for regulating the administration, as well as by the famous and certainly historical judgment of Solomon, respecting which posterity may indeed ask itself, for which did the great king deserve the palm: wisdom or justice? It is certain that many sayings of practical worldly wisdom have also come down from him. It is also probably credible that, at the very beginning of his reign, a vision indicated to him the path he was to follow and Jehovah’s will as well. That rich treasures should have passed through his hands cannot seem strange, when we consider the heavy taxes he exacted and how many profitable enterprises he conducted besides.
It is beyond all doubt that Solomon was the first who imported the horse into Israel, at least to any great extent and especially for purposes of war. More remarkable is it that all accounts concerning this, agree with later notices respecting Solomon’s splendour and magnificence. Nor can this prevent them from being regarded—at least so far as concerns the fact as worthy of credit. If Egypt was, as it appears, the country from which Syria obtained its horses, and Solomon the son-in-law of the ruling Pharaoh, we can find little objection to the statement that Solomon managed to derive considerable profit from the import of Egyptian horses. The visit to Solomon of the queen of the ancient kingdom of Sheba, may probably have been connected in the first instance with commercial relations. This, too, I am not inclined to relegate at once into the domain of fable. For even if later stories have considerably exaggerated Solomon’s splendour, they would not have arisen without some foundation in fact. The voyages of Solomon’s ships to the Arabian gold country of Ophir are, it seems to us, particularly well authenticated. The account speaks of a single ship, which Hiram of Tyre managed with his skilled seamen and which is said to have brought the products and articles of merchandise of the favoured Arabia direct to Israel and Tyre.
That, in spite of all this, Solomon’s coffers were often empty, finally to such a serious extent that he was obliged to pledge twenty towns in Galilee to Hiram, cannot be denied in face of the last-named fact: the marriage with a daughter of Pharaoh made his household costly, and the castles and fortifications must have swallowed enormous sums.
In Solomon’s government there was one weak point which might easily produce a rupture. There was no need for it to come now; but if a fit and determined man were forthcoming the crisis was ready. For opinion in Israel was sufficiently prepared.
The transition from an elective monarchy to a rigidly despotic government, had been too rapidly completed. The tribes of Israel, of their own free choice, had set the crown on David’s head as formerly on that of Saul. Israel had been a purely elective kingdom. But David’s sons played each in turn the rôle of heir-apparent. Neither Absalom, Adonijah, nor Solomon had thought of first obtaining election by the tribes. As David’s sons, the succession to their father belonged to them. Israel had become an hereditary monarchy. This development lay indeed in the nature of the case. It would have been already completed in the house of Saul had Jonathan lived or Eshbaal been abler or more fortunate; nevertheless, it was now in all the greater danger, for the exclusion of the house of Saul had a second time brought home to the consciousness of the tribes, the independence of the people’s will.
The change, however, could only have worked beneficially if in the meantime the binding of the tribes of Israel to the house of David could really have been effected. Even David had not entirely accomplished this task, so difficult under existing conditions. The northern tribes and Benjamin always eyed his rule with distrust. Still less was Solomon equal to the task. It was impossible that his despotic inclinations, and especially the severe pressure of the taxes, could serve to make the tribes forget that only a short time ago, not birth, but the people’s will, had raised the king to his throne.
How far the ferment had gone in the northern tribes, even in Solomon’s own day, we see clearly enough from the circumstance that the rebellion broke out during his life-time. It was only by force that it was suppressed, and the secession of the northern tribes from Solomon was averted. It was Jeroboam, one of the overseers of the king’s workmen, who had prepared it. He was compelled to flee to Egypt, and was there, as it seems, received with open arms. But Solomon’s rule was strong enough to make it impossible for him and his to think of a repetition of the rising, so long as Solomon possessed the throne. It may excite surprise that an Israelite rebel should have received protection in Egypt whose Pharaoh was the father of one of Solomon’s wives. The explanation is to be found in the fact that Shishak, the Egyptian Shashanq I, was the founder of a new dynasty and consequently knew not Solomon.
[ca. 930 B.C.]
After Solomon’s death, which we may place about the year 930 B.C., the succession of his son Rehoboam at first appeared to be a matter of course. What it was which secured to him the precedence over Solomon’s other sons we do not know. As a fact he seems to have mounted the throne and occupied it for a time. But the seething discontent with Solomon’s government which the northern tribes had so long restrained, broke out, if not immediately on his accession, at any rate soon after. There may have been many negotiations and attempts to smooth things over, until finally Rehoboam determined himself to make terms with the discontented in Shechem. Meanwhile Jeroboam had also had time to return from Egypt, and take the guidance of the movement into his own hand.[b]
Exterior of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem