[519] The Chammanim were, according to some, pillars to Baal-Hammon. For the Asherim, see Deut. xvi. 21; 2 Kings xxi. 3. They were wooden pillars to Asherah, and were called Asherim just as statues of the Virgin are called "Virgins." Asheroth seem to be various forms of the Nature-goddess herself (2 Chron. xxxiii. 3). Asherah = Ὀρθία. Like the other kings of Judah, Rehoboam had an exaggerated harem, and provided for the young princes by settling them in separate cities as governors.
[520] Jerome compares them to the horrible Galli of the Syrian goddess. LXX., τετελεσμένοι ("initiated"); Aquila, ἐνηλλαγμένοι ("changed"); Theodotion, κεχωρισμένοι ("set apart"); Symmachus, ἑταιρίδες. They were also called "dogs" (comp. Deut. xxiii. 18).
[521] According to the chronicler Rehoboam's defection only began in the fourth year of his reign.
[522] He was the first king of the twenty-second dynasty of Bubastis or Pibeseth, and succeeded about b.c. 988 in the fourteenth year of Solomon. The Egyptians (Manetho) called him Shesonk (Sesonsochosis) Sasychis, Herod., ii. 136; LXX., Σουσακίμ; Vulg., Sesac.
[523] He was of alien, perhaps of Assyrian, race. His family had settled at Bubastis, and his grandfather had married the daughter of the Pharaoh. His son Osorkhon also married the Princess Keramat, a daughter of the last Tanite king. Imitating the example of Hir-hor, he combined many offices, and then quietly seized the crown.
[524] Brugsch, Geogr. Inschriften altägyptischer Denkmäler, ii. 58; Lepsius, Denkmäler, iii. 252; Story of the Nations: Egypt, pp. 228-307; Stade, i. 354 (who reproduces the sculptures). They are carved on the wall of a Temple of Amon on the southern side of a smaller temple (built by Rameses III.). Shishak is smiting with his club a number of captive Jews, whom he grasps by the hair. The names of the towns and districts are paraded in two long rows, each name being enclosed in a shield. Amon is delivering them all to his beloved son "Shashonq." These smitten people are described as "the Am of a distant land, and the Fenekh" (Phœnicians).
[525] Lit., "Judah-king." Brugsch thinks it is the name of a town. It cannot mean, as Champollion thought, "King of Judah."
[526] See Shishak in Bibl. Dict. It is extremely difficult to believe that these cities were taken by the Egyptian army in order to help Jeroboam.
[527] Josephus says that Shishak did all this ἀμαχητὶ (Antt., VIII. x. 2, 3), but he confuses Shishak with Sesostris (Herod., ii. 102, 106).
[528] 1 Kings x. 17.