* The campaign of Abijah at Mount Zemaraim (2 Chron. xiii.
3-19), in which the foundation of the narrative and the
geographical details seem fully historical. See also the
campaign of Baasha against Ramah (1 Kings xv. 17-22; cf. 2
Chron. xvi. 1-6).
The encounter of the armies did not, however, seem to produce much more serious results than those which followed the continual guerilla warfare along the frontier: the conqueror had no sooner defeated his enemy than he set to work to pillage the country in the vicinity, and, having accomplished this, returned promptly to his headquarters with the booty. Rehoboam, who had seen something of the magnificence of Solomon, tried to perpetuate the tradition of it in his court, as far as his slender revenues would permit him. He had eighteen women in his harem, among whom figured some of his aunts and cousins. The titular queen was Maacah, who was represented as a daughter of Absalom. She was devoted to the asheras, and the king was not behind his father in his tolerance of strange gods; the high places continued to be tolerated by him as sites of worship, and even Jerusalem was not free from manifestations of such idolatry as was associated with the old Canaanite religion. He reigned seventeen years, and was interred in the city of David;* Abijam, the eldest son of Maacah, succeeded him, and followed in his evil ways. Three years later Asa came to the throne,** no opposition being raised to his accession. In Israel matters did not go so smoothly. When Jeroboam, after a reign of twenty-two years, was succeeded by his son Nadab, about the year 905 B.C., it was soon evident that the instinct of loyalty to a particular dynasty had not yet laid any firm hold on the ten tribes. The peace between the Philistines and Israel was quite as unstable as that between Israel and Judah: an endless guerilla warfare was waged on the frontier, Gibbethon being made to play much the same part in this region as Ramah had done in regard to Jerusalem. For the moment it was in the hands of the Philistines, and in the second year of his reign Nadab had gone to lay siege to it in force, when he was assassinated in his tent by one of his captains, a certain Baasha, son of Ahijah, of the tribe of Issachar: the soldiers proclaimed the assassin king, and the people found themselves powerless to reject the nominee of the army.***
* 1 Kings xiv. 22-24; cf. 2 Chron. xi. 18-23, where the
details given in addition to those in the Booh of Kings seem
to be of undoubted authenticity.
** 1 Kings xv. 1-8; cf. 2 Chron. xiii. The Booh of Kings
describes his mother as Maacah, the daughter of Absalom (xv.
10), which would seem to indicate that he was the brother
and not the son of Abijam. The uncertainty on this point is
of long standing, for the author of Chronicles makes
Abijam’s mother out in one place to be Micaiah, daughter of
Uriel of Gibcah (xiii. 2), and in another (xi. 20) Maacah,
daughter of Absalom.
*** 1 Kings xv. 27-34.
Baasha pressed forward resolutely his campaign against Judah. He seized Eamah and fortified it;* and Asa, feeling his incapacity to dislodge him unaided, sought to secure an ally. Egypt was too much occupied with its own internal dissensions to be able to render any effectual help, but a new power, which would profit quite as much as Judah by the overthrow of Israel, was beginning to assert itself in the north. Damascus had, so far, led an obscure and peaceful existence; it had given way before Egypt and Chaldæa whenever the Egyptians or Chaldseans had appeared within striking distance, but had refrained from taking any part in the disturbances by which Syria was torn asunder. Having been occupied by the Amorites, it threw its lot in with theirs, keeping, however, sedulously in the background: while the princes of Qodshû waged war against the Pharaohs, undismayed by frequent reverses, Damascus did not scruple to pay tribute to Thûtmosis III. and his descendants, or to enter into friendly relations with them. Meanwhile the Amorites had been overthrown, and Qodshû, ruined by the Asiatic invasion, soon became little more than an obscure third-rate town;** the Aramaeans made themselves masters of Damascus about the XIIth century, and in their hands it continued to be, just as in the preceding epochs, a town without ambitions and of no great renown.
* 1 Kings xv. 17; cf. 2 Ghron. xvi. 1.
** Qodshû is only once mentioned in the Bible (2 Sam. xxiv.
6), in which passage its name, misunderstood by the
Massoretic scribe, has been restored from the Septuagint
text.
We have seen how the Aramæans, alarmed at the sudden rise of the Hebrew dynasty, entered into a coalition against David with the Ammonite leaders: Zoba aspired to the chief place among the nations of Central Syria, but met with reverses, and its defeat delivered over to the Israelites its revolted dependencies in the Haurân and its vicinity, such as Maacah, Geshur, and even Damascus itself.* The supremacy was, however, shortlived; immediately after the death of David, a chief named Rezôn undertook to free them from the yoke of the stranger. He had begun his military career under Hada-dezer, King of Zoba: when disaster overtook this leader and released him from his allegiance, he collected an armed force and fought for his own hand. A lucky stroke made him master of Damascus: he proclaimed himself king there, harassed the Israelites with impunity during the reign of Solomon, and took over the possessions of the kings of Zoba in the valleys of the Litany and the Orontes.** The rupture between the houses of Israel and Judah removed the only dangerous rival from his path, and Damascus became the paramount power in Southern and Central Palestine. While Judah and Israel wasted their strength in fratricidal struggles, Tabrimmon, and after him Benhadad I., gradually extended their territory in Coele-Syria;*** they conquered Hamath, and the desert valleys which extend north-eastward in the direction of the Euphrates, and forced a number of the Hittite kings to render them homage.
* Cf. what is said in regard to these events on pp. 351,
352, supra.
** 1 Kings xi. 23-25. The reading “Esron” in the Septuagint
(1 Kings xi. 23) indicates a form “Khezrôn,” by which it was
sought to replace the traditional reading “Rezôn.”
*** Hezion, whom the Jewish writer intercalates before
Tabrimmon (1 Kings xv. 18), is probably a corruption of
Rezôn; Winckler, relying on the Septuagint variants Azin or
Azael (1 Kings xv. 18), proposes to alter Hezion into
Hazael, and inserts a certain Hazael I. in this place.
Tabrimmon is only mentioned in 1 Kings xv. 18, where he is
said to have been the father of Benhadad.
They had concluded an alliance with Jeroboam as soon as he established his separate kingdom, and maintained the treaty with his successors, Nadab and Baasha. Asa collected all the gold and silver which was left in the temple of Jerusalem and in his own palace, and sent it to Benhadad, saying, “There is a league between me and thee, between thy father and my father: behold, I have sent unto thee a present of silver and gold; go, break thy league with Baasha, King of Israel, that he may depart from me.” It would seem that Baasha, in his eagerness to complete the fortifications of Ramah, had left his northern frontier undefended. Benhadad accepted the proposal and presents of the King of Judah, invaded Galilee, seized the cities of Ijôn, Dan, and Abel-beth-Maacah, which defended the upper reaches of the Jordan and the Litany, the lowlands of Genesareth, and all the land of Naphtali. Baasha hastily withdrew from Judah, made terms with Benhadad, and settled down in Tirzah for the remainder of his reign;* Asa demolished Eamah, and built the strongholds of Gebah and Mizpah from its ruins.** Benhadad retained the territory he had acquired, and exercised a nominal sovereignty over the two Hebrew kingdoms. Baasha, like Jeroboam, failed to found a lasting dynasty; his son Blah met with the same fate at the hands of Zimri which he himself had meted out to Nadab. As on the former occasion, the army was encamped before Gibbethon, in the country of the Philistines, when the tragedy took place.
* 1 Kings xv. 21, xvi. 6.
** 1 Kings xv. 18-22; of. 2 Ghron. xvi. 2-6.
Elah was at Tirzah, “drinking himself drunk in the house of Arza, which was over the household;” Zimri, who was “captain of half his chariots,” left his post at the front, and assassinated him as he lay intoxicated. The whole family of Baasha perished in the subsequent confusion, but the assassin only survived by seven days the date of his crime. When the troops which he had left behind him in camp heard of what had occurred, they refused to accept him as king, and, choosing Omri in his place, marched against Tirzah. Zimri, finding it was impossible either to win them over to his side or defeat them, set fire to the palace, and perished in the flames. His death did not, however, restore peace to Israel; while one-half of the tribes approved the choice of the army, the other flocked to the standard of Tibni, son of Ginath. War raged between the two factions for four years, and was only ended by the death—whether natural or violent we do not know—of Tibni and his brother Joram.*