On the whole, then, we must be content with approximate dates for the founders of the Hebrew monarchy. The revolt of the Ten Tribes will have taken place somewhere between B.C. 940 and 930; the accession of David somewhere between B.C. 1010 and 1000. It coincided with the period when the older kingdoms of the Oriental world—Babylonia, Assyria, and Egypt—were in their lowest stage of weakness and decay.

Solomon succeeded to a brilliant heritage. The nations which surrounded him had been conquered or forced into alliance with Israel; there was none among them adventurous or strong enough to attack the newly risen power. The caravan-roads which brought the merchandise of both north and south to the wealthy states of Western Asia passed through Israelitish territory; Edom, which communicated with the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, was in Jewish hands, as well as Zobah, which commanded the road to the Euphrates. The tolls levied on the trade which thus passed through the empire filled the treasury at Jerusalem with abundant riches, while the products and luxuries of the whole eastern world flowed into the Hebrew market. The alliance with the Tyrians gave Solomon a port in the Mediterranean; the possession of Edom gave him ports of his own in the Gulf of Aqaba. In return for the use of the Edomite harbours by the ships of Phœnicia, he was allowed to send forth merchantmen of his own from the havens of Hiram on the Phœnician coast. The ships themselves were manned with Phœnician sailors; like the Assyrian kings in later days he had to turn to the experienced mariners of Phœnicia to work his fleet.

At home the kingdom had been fully organised. There were an army of veterans, a foreign bodyguard, who had no interests beyond those of the master who paid them, a well-selected capital, and a fiscal administration. The revolts which had disturbed the later years of David had been suppressed with a heavy hand, and such murmurs as may have been raised against the enfeebled government and neglected justice of the late reign were hushed in presence of a young and well-educated prince, the protégé of priests and prophets, whose very name promised his people the blessings of peace. The wars of David, with their tax of blood and treasure, were at an end. Those who had conspired against the elevation of Solomon to the throne had been put to death at the outset of his reign: the grey hairs of Joab were stained with his own blood as he clung to the unavailing altar; Adonijah was executed on the ground that he had asked to have Abishag for a wife, and it was not long before a pretext was found for removing Shimei out of the way. Benjamin and Judah had alike lost their leaders, and Solomon henceforth did his utmost to win them to himself.

Abiathar was banished to the priests’ city of Anathoth, and the glory of the high priesthood was left to Zadok and his descendants alone. They alone were allowed to serve before the ark of the covenant, and the doom pronounced upon the house of Eli was thus fulfilled. The act placed the religion of Israel for many generations to come under the domination of the king. Solomon declared by it his supremacy in the church as well as in the state. It meant that the king claimed the power and the right to appoint and dismiss the ministers of the Mosaic law. The central sanctuary became the royal chapel rather than the temple of the national God, and its priests were the paid officials of the sovereign rather than the administrators and interpreters to the people of the divine law. The democratic element passed out of Hebrew religion, and the king more than the high priest came to stand at the head of it. The erection of the temple completed the work which the deposition of Abiathar had begun; sanctuary, services, and priesthood were all alike under the royal control. The family of Eli had preserved the tradition of the days when the priests of Shiloh exercised independent authority, and interpreted the law which all were called upon to obey. With the banishment of Abiathar came a break with the past; no venerable memories were connected with the rival house of Zadok, no recollection of a time when the word of the priest of Shiloh had been a teacher in Israel. Under Zadok and his successors the old meaning of the high priesthood gradually faded out of sight; as in Assyria or Southern Arabia the priests of an earlier age were supplanted by kings, so too in Israel the place and influence of the high priest were absorbed by the Davidic dynasty. Even a Jeroboam could assert his right to establish sanctuaries and appoint the priests who should serve them.

Solomon had been brought up under the eye and instruction of Nathan, and to Nathan, therefore, we must probably trace his religious policy. There was much to be said in favour of it. It prevented friction between the priesthood and the monarchy; it guaranteed the stability of the dynasty of David by extending to it the sanction of religion; above all, it secured the maintenance of the religion itself. It gave it as it were a local habitation in a costly sanctuary built and endowed out of the royal revenues, and attached to the royal palace. The ark ceased to be national, and became instead the sacred treasure of the chapel of the king. While the monarchy lasted, the religion of the monarchy would last also, and Nathan and Zadok might be pardoned if they believed that the Davidic monarchy would last for ever.

The administration of the country next claimed the attention of the new king. It was organised on an Assyrian model, Palestine being divided into districts, each of which was placed under a governor who was responsible for the taxes as well as for the civil and judicial government of it. Hitherto, it would appear, the old system of tribal government had been preserved, the tribes owning allegiance to hereditary chieftains or ‘princes,’ who, like the chieftains of a Highland clan, represented the tribe, and led its members to war. David seems to have modified this system for military purposes, if we may judge from the list of ‘captains’ given in 1 Chron. xxvii., but no attempt was made to carry out a general system of taxation, or appoint governors with fiscal powers. The conquered provinces alone were required to furnish an annual tribute to the treasury, and for this a single officer, Hadoram, was found sufficient.

The territory of the Israelites themselves was now formed into fiscal districts. Twelve officers were appointed, who were required to provide in turn for the necessary expenses of the royal household during the twelve months of the year. A list of them, extracted from some official document, is given in 1 Kings iv. 8-19. In the earlier part of the list the names of the officers have been lost, those only of their fathers having been preserved. Two of them were married to daughters of Solomon, indicating that the list must have been drawn up towards the end of Solomon’s life. One of the king’s sons-in-law was the governor of Naphtali; the other presided over the Phœnician coast-land south of Tyre. Here, at Dor, in a country occupied by the Zakkal kinsmen of the Philistines, and in proximity to Tyre, it was needful that the prefect should be connected with the king by closer ties than those of officialism. The direction of the Mediterranean trade was mainly in his hands, and the resources which were thus at his disposal, as well as the neighbourhood of Hiram, might have tried the loyalty of any but a relative of the king. The plateau of Bashan was under the jurisdiction of one governor who had his residence at Ramoth-gilead; Gilead was under a second, while a third governor had Mahanaim. We may, therefore, gather that Ammon and Moab, as well as Geshur, had been absorbed into Israelitish territory. This may in part explain why at the revolt of the Ten Tribes Moab went with Israel rather than with Judah.

It is noticeable that there was no governor in Judah. Here, in fact, the king himself ruled in person. It would seem that Judah was exempt from the taxes levied on the rest of Palestine. This was in accordance with the policy which made Solomon court the goodwill of his father’s tribe, and identify with its interests those of himself and his house. So far as the continuance of the Davidic dynasty was concerned, the policy succeeded. Judah identified itself with the house of David, and rallied faithfully round its king. There was no longer any talk of rebellion, or of transporting the capital to Hebron; from henceforth Judah and its kings were one. But the fact only made the breach between Judah and the rest of Israel wider and more visible, and alienated the other tribes from the reigning house. They were treated like the conquered Gentiles; the place of their old hereditary princes and leaders was taken by governors appointed by the crown, and fixed taxes were rigorously exacted from them for the support of the royal treasury. They derived no benefit, however, from the royal expenditure; it was lavished upon Jerusalem and the Jewish towns which lay near to it. They were too far off to see even a reflection of that royal glory of which they may have heard, and for which they certainly had to pay. The same causes which strengthened the ties of allegiance of Judah to the reigning dynasty weakened those of Israel.

Throughout the reign of Solomon, Hadoram remained ‘over the tribute,’ and his duties were enlarged by the supervision of the home taxation and corvée being added to that of the foreign tribute.[[525]] Jehoshaphat still continued ‘recorder,’ but the secretary Shisha had been succeeded by his two sons. The literary correspondence of the empire was increasing, and one chief secretary was no longer sufficient for it. The family of Nathan, as might have been expected, was well provided for. One son was made Vizier; the other became the royal chaplain as well as ‘the king’s friend.’ The latter title, which had been given to Hushai in the time of David (1 Chron. xxvii. 33), had been borrowed from Egypt; the title of the Vizier, or ‘head of the officers,’ corresponded with the Assyrian Rab-saki or Rabshakeh, ‘the chief of the princes.’ Another office which may have been borrowed from Assyria was that of royal steward, which was held by Ahishar; along with him the Septuagint associates a second steward Eliak, and a captain of the bodyguard called Eliab, the son of Saph or Shaphat.[[526]] Like the list of governors, the list of officials must have been drawn up at the end of Solomon’s reign, since Azariah has already taken the place of his grandfather Zadok as high priest (see 1 Chron. vi. 9, 10, where a confusion has been made between Ahimaaz the son of Zadok and Johanan or Jonathan the son of Abiathar). It is significant that the list begins with the ‘priest,’ not with the general of the army as in the warlike days of David.

The fame of Solomon’s wealth and magnificence was spread through the Oriental world. Foreign sovereigns sought his alliance or courted his favour. Even the Queen of Sheba came to visit him. Modern criticism has long since banished the Queen to the realm of fiction, but archæological discovery has again restored her to history. Sheba or Saba was already a flourishing kingdom in the time of the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III.; its territories extended from the spice-bearing coasts of Southern Arabia to the borders of Babylonia and Palestine. If Glaser and Hommel are right in their interpretation of the south Arabian inscriptions, it had entered on the older heritage of the kingdom of Ma’ân. The Minæan kings of Ma’ân had ruled not only in the south but in the north as well; their records are found near Teima, and they had command of the great highroad of commerce which led from the Indian Ocean to Egypt and Gaza. Egypt and Gaza, indeed, are mentioned in Minæan inscriptions.[[527]] From an early period the kingdoms of Southern Arabia had been in commercial contact with Canaan.