[ca. 930-875 B.C.]
Upon signs of open rebellion Rehoboam hastily returned to Jerusalem. The weak bond which had united the tribes of the north to those of the south was severed forever. The Judeans alone remained faithful to David’s race, including Jerusalem, which had an interest in keeping its place as a royal city. A part of the land of Benjamin, forming the outskirts of Jerusalem, and the towns of Simeon enclosed in the land of Judah remained united to the little Judean kingdom, which also retained Idumæa under its sovereignty. All the rest of the land on both sides of Jordan kept the name of the kingdom of Israel, with an uncertain suzerainty over the territory of Moab and Ammon. Syria had already made itself independent of the Jewish empire. Thus the empire which had had a moment of brilliancy under the reigns of David and Solomon, was replaced by two kingdoms, nearly always at war with one another. The schism is placed about the year 975 B.C.[2]
Jeroboam, who was at the head of the separatist movement, had no trouble in having himself proclaimed king by the dissenting tribes. But he feared the attraction which the temple of Jerusalem already had for the Israelites. Wishing to prevent pilgrimages dangerous to his authority, and to consecrate the political secession by a religious one, he established the worship of the golden calf.
The history of the kingdom of Israel is only a succession of violent usurpations nearly always provoked by the prophets, who intervened in everything in the name of Jehovah, and made all manner of government impossible by their perpetual opposition. In Judea, on the contrary, the undying remembrance of David assured the regular succession of royal power in his family.
The only important event in the reign of Rehoboam, is the expedition of Shashanq I, king of Egypt, called Shishak in the Bible, who took Jerusalem and pillaged the treasures of the temple and of the palace, amongst others the golden shield Solomon had had made. The end of Rehoboam’s reign and that of his son, Abijam, and his grandson, Asa, were filled by wars of no importance against the kingdom of Israel.
Jeroboam did not succeed in founding a dynasty in Israel. He died after a reign of twenty-two years, and his son Nadab was massacred with all his family, by his lieutenant, Baasha. The same event was reproduced after an equal interval. Baasha reigned twenty-two years, and his son Elah and all his family were assassinated by Zimri. But the army which was then in the land of the Philistines, proclaimed Omri general, and marched against the usurper, who burnt himself in his palace after a reign of seven days.
The kingdom of the north had not the advantage of possessing a strong and well-situated capital like that of the south, and on a height in the territory of Ephraim, Omri built the city of Samaria, which by its strong position could become a centre of resistance for Israel, as Jerusalem was for Judah. In Assyrian inscriptions, Samaria and even the kingdom of Israel are always called the house of Omri. Besides this important foundation to which his name was to remain attached, Omri showed proof of his ability by securing himself an ally against the ever-increasing danger of a struggle with Syria. He asked and obtained the hand of Jezebel, daughter of Ithobaal (Ethbaal), king of Tyre, for his son Ahab.
[ca. 875-860 B.C.]
Ahab is generally represented as a type of impiety; to assert this is entirely to misunderstand the character of this epoch. No one was impious; each people had its god and thought him stronger than the others. Ahab heard his wife boasting of the power of Baal; he thought it clever to make sure of two divine protectors instead of one, and leaving Jehovah his sanctuaries at Dan and Bethel, he built a temple to Baal at Samaria. There was no intention of abolishing the worship of Jehovah. The worship of Baal had existed in Israel at the time of Gideon, and even in the time of Saul; it had been abolished since the reign of David. When Ahab wished to re-establish it, he stumbled against the unyielding patriotism of the prophets, who would acknowledge no other god but the national one.
They made a desperate fight against Baal. The people, persuaded like the king, that two religions are better than one, looked on at these quarrels without taking part in them. Elijah, the prophet, reproaches them with being lame in both feet. The legend of Elijah and the priests of Baal (2 Kings xviii.) in its theatrical setting sums up the struggle between the national worship of Jehovah and the Phœnician worship of Baal, a struggle which was prolonged for half a century.