Chapter III: The Hebrews and the Philistines--Damascus (6)

This priestess was probably a daughter or niece of Paînotmû II., but we are unacquainted with her name. The princesses continued to play a preponderating part in the transmission of power, and we may assume that the lady in question was one of those whose names have come down to us--Nsikhonsû, Nsitanî-bashîrû, or Isimkhobîû II., who brought with her as a dowry the Bubastite fief. We are at a loss whether to place Aûpûti immediately after Paînotmû, or between the ephemeral pontificates of a certain Psiûkhannît and a certain Nsbindîdi. His succession imposed a very onerous duty upon him. Thebes was going through the agonies of famine and misery, and no police supervision in the world could secure the treasures stored up in the tombs of a more prosperous age from the attacks of a famished people. Arrests, trials, and punishments were ineffectual against the violation of the sepulchres, and even the royal mummies--including those placed in the chapel of Amenôthes I. by previous high priests--were not exempt from outrage. The remains of the most glorious of the Pharaohs were reclining in this chapel, forming a sort of solemn parliament: here was Saqnunrî Tiuâqni, the last member of the XVIIth dynasty; here also were the first of the XVIIIth--Ahmosis, Amenôthes I., and the three of the name Thûtmosis, together with the favourites of their respective harems--Nofritari, Ahhotpû II., Anhâpû, Honittimihû, and Sitkamosis; and, in addition, Ramses I., Seti I., Ramses II. of the XIXth dynasty, Ramses III. and Ramses X. of the XXth dynasty. The Servants of the True Place were accustomed to celebrate at the appointed periods the necessary rites established in their honour. Inspectors, appointed for the purpose by the government, determined from time to time the identity of the royal mummies, and examined into the condition of their wrappings and coffins: after each inspection a report, giving the date and the name of the functionary responsible for the examination, was inscribed on the linen or the lid covering the bodies. The most of the mummies had suffered considerably before they reached the refuge in which they were found. The bodies of Sitamon and of the Princess Honittimihû had been completely destroyed, and bundles of rags had been substituted for them, so arranged with pieces of wood as to resemble human figures. Ramses I., Ramses II., and Thûtmosis had been deprived of their original shells, and were found in extemporised cases. Hrihors successors, who regarded these sovereigns as their legitimate ancestors, had guarded them with watchful care, but Aûpûti, who did not feel himself so closely related to these old-world Pharaohs, considered, doubtless, this vigilance irksome, and determined to locate the mummies in a spot where they would henceforward be secure from all attack. A princess of the family of Manakhpirrî--Isimkhobiû, it would appear--had prepared a tomb for herself in the rocky cliff which bounds the amphitheatre of Deîr el-Baharî on the south. The position lent itself readily to concealment. It consisted of a well some 130 feet deep, with a passage running out of it at right angles for a distance of some 200 feet and ending in a low, oblong, roughly cut chamber, lacking both ornament and paintings. Paînotmû II. had been placed within this chamber in the XVIth year of the reign of Psiûkhannît II., and several members of his family had been placed beside him not long afterwards. Aûpûti soon transferred thither the batch of mummies which, in the chapel of Amenôthes I., had been awaiting a more definite sepulture; the coffins, with what remained of their funerary furniture, were huddled together in disorder. The chamber having been filled up to the roof, the remaining materials, consisting of coffers, boxes of _Ushabti,_ Canopic jars, garlands, together with the belongings of priestly mummies, were arranged along the passage; when the place was full, the entrance was walled up, the well filled, and its opening so dexterously covered that it remained concealed until-our own time. The accidental sounding of some pillaging Arabs revealed the place as far back as 1872, but it was not until ten years later (1881) that the Pharaohs once more saw the light. They are now enthroned--who can say for how many years longer? --in the chambers of the Gîzeh Museum. Egypt is truly a land of marvels! It has not only, like Assyria and Chaldæa, Greece and Italy, preserved for us monuments by which its historic past may be reconstructed, but it has handed on to us the men themselves who set up the monuments and made the history. Her great monarchs are not any longer mere names deprived of appropriate forms, and floating colourless and shapeless in the imagination of posterity: they may be weighed, touched, and measured; the capacity of their brains may be gauged; the curve of their noses and the cut of their mouths may be determined; we know if they were bald, or if they suffered from some secret infirmity; and, as we are able to do in the case of our contemporaries, we may publish their portraits taken first hand in the photographic camera. Sheshonq, by assuming the control of the Theban priesthood, did not on this account extend his sovereignty over Egypt beyond its southern portion, and that part of Nubia which still depended on it. Ethiopia remained probably outside his jurisdiction, and constituted from this time forward an independent kingdom, under the rule of dynasties which were, or claimed to be, descendants of Hrihor. The oasis, on the other hand, and the Libyan provinces in the neighbourhood of the Delta and the sea, rendered obedience to his officers, and furnished him with troops which were recognised as among his best. Sheshonq found himself at the death of Psiûkhânnît II., which took place about 940 B.C., sole master of Egypt, with an effective army and well-replenished treasury at his disposal. What better use could he make of his resources than devote them to reasserting the traditional authority of his country over Syria? The intestine quarrels of the only state of any importance in that region furnished him with an opportunity of which he found it easy to take advantage. Solomon in his eyes was merely a crowned vassal of Egypt, and his appeal for aid to subdue Gezer, his marriage with a daughter of the Egyptian royal house, the position he had assigned her over all his other wives, and all that we know of the relations between Jerusalem and Tanis at the time, seem to indicate that the Hebrews themselves acknowledged some sort of dependency upon Egypt. They were not, however, on this account free from suspicion in their suzerains eyes, who seized upon every pretext that offered itself to cause them embarrassment. Hadad, and Jeroboam afterwards, had been well received at the court of the Pharaoh, and it was with Egyptian subsidies that these two rebels returned to their country, the former in the lifetime of Solomon, and the latter after his death. When Jeroboam saw that he was threatened by Rehoboam, he naturally turned to his old protectors. Sheshonq had two problems before him. Should he confirm by his intervention the division of the kingdom, which had flourished in Kharû for now half a century, into two rival states, or should he himself give way to the vulgar appetite for booty, and step in for his own exclusive interest? He invaded Judæa four years after the schism, and Jerusalem offered no resistance to him; Rehoboam ransomed his capital by emptying the royal treasuries and temple, rendering up even the golden shields which Solomon was accustomed to assign to his guards when on duty about his person.*

* 1 Kings xiv. 25-28; cf. 2 Chron. xii. 1-10, where an
episode, not in the _Book of Kings_, is introduced. The
prophet Shemaiah played an important part in the
transaction.

This expedition of the Pharaoh was neither dangerous nor protracted, but it was more than two hundred years since so much riches from countries beyond the isthmus had been brought into Egypt, and the king was consequently regarded by the whole people of the Nile valley as a great hero. Aûpûti took upon himself the task of recording the exploit on the south wall of the temple of Amon at Karnak, not far from the spot where Ramses II. had had engraved the incidents of his Syrian campaigns. His architect was sent to Silsilis to procure the necessary sandstone to repair the monument. He depicted upon it his father receiving at the hands of Amon processions of Jewish prisoners, each one representing a captured city. The list makes a brave show, and is remarkable for the number of the names composing it: in comparison with those of Thûtmosis III., it is disappointing, and one sees at a glance how inferior, even in its triumph, the Egypt of the XXIInd dynasty was to that of the XVIIIth.

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by Beato.

It is no longer a question of Carchemish, or Qodshû, or Mitanni, or Naharaim: Megiddo is the most northern point mentioned, and the localities enumerated bring us more and more to the south--Eabbat, Taânach, Hapharaîm, Mahanaîm,* Gibeon, Beth-horon, Ajalon, Jud-hammelek, Migdol, Jerza, Shoko, and the villages of the Negeb. Each locality, in consequence of the cataloguing of obscure towns, furnished enough material to cover two, or even three of the crenellated cartouches in which the names of the conquered peoples are enclosed, and Sheshonq had thus the puerile satisfaction of parading before the eyes of his subjects a longer _cortege_ of defeated chiefs than that of his predecessor. His victorious career did not last long: he died shortly after, and his son Osorkon was content to assume at a distance authority over the Kharu.**

* The existence of the names of certain Israelite towns on
the list of. Sheshonq has somewhat astonished the majority
of the historians of Israel. Renan declared that the list
must put aside the conjecture that Jeroboam had been the
instigator of the expedition, which would certainly have
been readily admissible, especially if any force were
attached to the Greek text of 1 Kings xii. 24, which makes
Jeroboam to have been a son-in-law of the King of Egypt;
the same view had been already expressed by Stade; others
have thought that Sheshonq had conquered the country for his
ally Jeroboam. Sheshonq, in fact, was following the Egyptian
custom by which all countries and towns which paid tribute
to the Pharaoh, or who recognised his suzerainty, were made
to, or might, figure on his triumphal lists whether they had
been conquered or not: the presence of Megiddo or Mahanaim
on the lists does not prove that they were _conquered_ by
Sheshonq, but that the prince to whom they owed allegiance
was a tributary to the King of Egypt. The name of Jud-ham-
melek, which occupies the twenty-ninth place on the list,
was for a long time translated as king or kingdom of Judah,
and passed for being a portrait of Rehoboam, which is
impossible. The Hebrew name was read by W. Max Millier Jad-
ham-meleh, the hand, the fort of the king. It appears to me
to be more easy to see in it Jud-liam-meleh and to associate
it with Jehudah, a town of the tribe of Dan, as Brugsch did
long ago.

** Champollion identified Osorkon I. with the Zerah, who,
according to 2 Chron. xiv. 9-15, xvi. 8, invaded Judah and
was defeated by Asa, but this has no historic value, for it
is clear that Osorkon never crossed the isthmus.

It does not appear, however, that either the Philistines, or Judah, or Israel, or any of the petty tribes which had momentarily gravitated around David and Solomon, were disposed to dispute Osorkons claim, theoretic rather than real as it was. The sword of the stranger had finished the work which the intestine quarrel of the tribes had begun. If Rehoboam had ever formed the project of welding together the disintegrated elements of Israel, the taking of Jerusalem must have been a death-blow to his hopes. His arsenals were empty, his treasury at low ebb, and the prestige purchased by Davids victories was effaced by the humiliation of his own defeat. The ease with which the edifice so laboriously constructed by the heroes of Benjamin and Judah had been overturned at the first shock, was a proof that the new possessors of Canaan were as little capable of barring the way to Egypt in her old age, as their predecessors had been when she was in her youth and vigour. The Philistines had had their day; it seemed by no means improbable at one time that they were about to sweep everything before them, from the Negeb to the Orontes, but their peculiar position in the furthest angle of the country, and their numerical weakness, prevented them from continuing their efforts for a prolonged period, and they were at length obliged to renounce in favour of the Hebrews their ambitious pretensions. The latter, who had been making steady progress for some half a century, had been successful where the Philistines had signally failed, and Southern Syria recognised their supremacy for the space of two generations. We can only conjecture what they might have done if a second David had led them into the valleys of the Orontes and Euphrates. They were stronger in numbers than their possible opponents, and their troops, strengthened by mercenary guards, would have perhaps triumphed over the more skilled but fewer warriors which the Amorite and Aramaean cities could throw into the field against them. The pacific reign of Solomon, the schism among the tribes, and the Egyptian invasion furnished evidence enough that they also were not destined to realise that solidarity which alone could secure them against the great Oriental empires when the day of attack came.

The two kingdoms were then enjoying an independent existence. Judah, in spite of its smaller numbers and its recent disaster, was not far behind the more extensive Israel in its resources. David, and afterwards Solomon, had so kneaded together the various elements of which it was composed--Caleb, Cain, Jerahmeel and the Judsean clans--that they had become a homogeneous mass, grouped around the capital and its splendid sanctuary, and actuated with feelings of profound admiration and strong fidelity for the family which had made them what they were. Misfortune had not chilled their zeal: they rallied round Rehoboam and his race with such a persistency that they were enabled to maintain their ground when their richer rivals had squandered their energies and fallen away before their eyes. Jeroboam, indeed, and his successors had never obtained from their people more than a precarious support and a lukewarm devotion: their authority was continually coming into conflict with a tendency to disintegration among the tribes, and they could only maintain their rule by the constant employment of force. Jeroboam had collected together from the garrisons scattered throughout the country the nucleus of an army, and had stationed the strongest of these troops in his residence at Tirzah when he did not require them for some expedition against Judah or the Philistines. His successors followed his example in this respect, but this military resource was only an ineffectual protection against the dangers which beset them. The kings were literally at the mercy of their guard, and their reign was entirely dependent on its loyalty or caprice: any unscrupulous upstart might succeed in suborning his comrades, and the stroke of a dagger might at any moment send the sovereign to join his ancestors, while the successful rebel reigned in his stead.* The Egyptian troops had no sooner set out on their homeward march, than the two kingdoms began to display their respective characteristics. An implacable and truceless war broke out between them. The frontier garrisons of the two nations fought with each other from one years end to another--carrying off each others cattle, massacring one another, burning each others villages and leading their inhabitants into slavery.**

* Among nineteen kings of Israel, eight were assassinated
and were replaced by the captains of their guards--Nadab,
Elah, Zimri, Joram, Zachariah, Shallum, Pekahiah, and Pekah.

** This is what is meant by the Hebrew historians when they
say there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the
days of his life (1 Kings xv. 6; cf. 2 Ohron. xii. 15), and
between Abijam and Jeroboam (1 Kings xv. 7; 2 Ohron. xiii.
2), and between Asa and Baasha (1 Kings xv. 16, 32) all
their days.

From time to time, when the situation became intolerable, one of the kings took the field in person, and began operations by attacking such of his enemys strongholds as gave him the most trouble at the time. Ramah acquired an unenviable reputation in the course of these early conflicts: its position gave it command of the roads terminating in Jerusalem, and when it fell into the hands of Israel, the Judæan capital was blockaded on this side. The strife for its possession was always of a terrible character, and the party which succeeded in establishing itself firmly within it was deemed to have obtained a great success.*

* 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
Abijams 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.*

* 1 Kings xvi. 8-22; Joram is not mentioned in the
Massoretic text, but his name appears in the Septuagint.

Two dynasties had thus arisen in Israel, and had been swept away by revolutionary outbursts, while at Jerusalem the descendants of David followed one another in unbroken succession. Asa outlived Nadab by eleven years, and we hear nothing of his relations with the neighbouring states during the latter part of his reign. We are merely told that his zeal in the service of the Lord was greater than had been shown by any of his predecessors. He threw down the idols, expelled their priests, and persecuted all those who practised the ancient religions. His grandmother Maacah had made an abominable image for an asherah; he cut it down, and burnt it in the valley of the Kedron, and deposed her from the supremacy in the royal household which she had held for three generations. He is, therefore, the first of the kings to receive favourable mention from the orthodox chroniclers of later times, and it is stated that he did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, as did David his father. * Omri proved a warlike monarch, and his reign, though not a long one, was signalised by a decisive crisis in the fortunes of Israel.** The northern tribes had, so far, possessed no settled capital, Shechem, Penuel, and Tirzah having served in turn as residences for the successors of Jeroboam and Baasha. Latterly Tirzah had been accorded a preference over its rivals; but Zimri had burnt the castle there, and the ease with which it had been taken and retaken was not calculated to reassure the head of the new dynasty. Omri turned his attention to a site lying a little to the north-west of Shechem and Mount Ebal, and at that time partly covered by the hamlet of Shomerôn or Shimrôn--our modern Samaria.***

* 1 Kings xv. 11; cf. 2 Ohron. xiv. 2. It is admitted,
however, though without any blame being attached to him,
that the high places were not taken away (1 Kings xv. 14;
cf. 2 Chron. xv. 17).

** The Hebrew writer gives the length of his reign as twelve
years (1 Kings xvi. 23). Several historians consider this
period too brief, and wish to extend it to twenty-four
years; I cannot, however, see that there is, so far, any
good reason for doubting the approximate accuracy of the
Bible figures.

*** According to the tradition preserved in 1 Kings xvi. 24,
the name of the city comes from Shomer, the man from whom
Ahab bought the site.

His choice was a wise and judicious one, as the rapid development of the city soon proved. It lay on the brow of a rounded hill, which rose in the centre of a wide and deep depression, and was connected by a narrow ridge with the surrounding mountains. The valley round it is fertile and well watered, and the mountains are cultivated up to their summits; throughout the whole of Ephraim it would have been difficult to find a site which could compare with it in strength or attractiveness. Omri surrounded his city with substantial ramparts; he built a palace for himself, and a temple in which was enthroned a golden calf similar to those at Dan and Bethel.* A population drawn from other nations besides the Israelites flocked into this well-defended stronghold, and Samaria soon came to be for Israel what Jerusalem already was for Judah, an almost impregnable fortress, in which the sovereign entrenched himself, and round which the nation could rally in times of danger. His contemporaries fully realised the importance of this move on Omris part; his name became inseparably connected in their minds with that of Israel. Samaria and the house of Joseph were for them, henceforth, the house of Omri, Bît-Omri, and the name still clung to them long after Omri had died and his family had become extinct.**

* Amos viii. 14, where the sin of Samaria, coupled as it is
with the life of the god of Dan and the way of Beersheba,
can, as Wellhausen points out, only refer to the image of
the calf worshipped at Samaria.

** Shalmaneser II. even goes so far as to describe Jehu, who
exterminated the family of Omri, as _Jaua ahal Khumri_,
Jehu, son of Omri.

He gained the supremacy over Judah, and forced several of the south-western provinces, which had been in a state of independence since the days of Solomon, to acknowledge his rule; he conquered the country of Medeba, vanquished Kamoshgad, King of Moab, and imposed on him a heavy tribute in sheep and wool.* Against Benhadad in the north-west he was less fortunate. He was forced to surrender to him several of the cities of Gilead--among others Bamoth-gilead, which commanded the fords over the Jabbok and Jordan.**

* Inscription of Meslia, 11. 5-7; cf. 2 Kings iii. 4.

** 1 Kings xx. 34. No names are given in the text, but
external evidence proves that they were cities of Persea,
and that Ramoth-gilead was one of them.

Drawn by Boudier, from photograph No. 2G of the _Palestine
Exploration Fund._

He even set apart a special quarter in Samaria for the natives of Damascus, where they could ply their trades and worship their gods without interference. It was a kind of semi-vassalage, from which he was powerless to free himself unaided: he realised this, and looked for help from without; he asked and obtained the hand of Jezebel, daughter of Bthbaal, King of the Sidonians, for Ahab, his heir. Hiram I., the friend of David, had carried the greatness of Tyre to its highest point; after his death, the same spirit of discord which divided the Hebrews made its appearance in Phoenicia. The royal power was not easily maintained over this race of artisans and sailors: Baalbazer, son of Hiram, reigned for six years, and his successor, Abdastart, was killed in a riot after a still briefer enjoyment of power. We know how strong was the influence exercised by foster-mothers in the great families of the Bast; the four sons of Abda-starts nurse assassinated their foster-brother, and the eldest of them usurped his crown. Supported by the motley crowd of slaves and adventurers which filled the harbours of Phoenicia, they managed to cling to power for twelve years. Their stupid and brutal methods of government produced most disastrous results. A section of the aristocracy emigrated to the colonies across the sea and incited them to rebellion; had this state of things lasted for any time, the Tyrian empire would have been doomed. A revolution led to the removal of the usurper and the restoration of the former dynasty, but did not bring back to the unfortunate city the tranquillity which it sorely needed. The three surviving sons of Baalbezer, Methuastarfc, Astarym, and Phelles followed one another on the throne in rapid succession, the last-named perishing by the hand of his cousin Ethbaal, after a reign of eight months. So far, the Israelites had not attempted to take advantage of these dissensions, but there was always the danger lest one of their kings, less absorbed than his predecessors in the struggle with Judah, might be tempted by the wealth of Phoenicia to lay hands on it. Ethbaal, therefore, eagerly accepted the means of averting this danger by an alliance with the new dynasty offered to him by Omri.*

* 1 Kings xvi. 31, where the historian has Hebraicised the
Phonician name Ittobaal into Ethbaal, Baal is with
him. Izebel or Jezebel seems to be an abbreviated form of
some name like Baalezbel.

The presence of a Phonician princess at Samaria seems to have had a favourable effect on the city and its inhabitants. The tribes of Northern and Central Palestine had, so far, resisted the march of material civilization which, since the days of Solomon, had carried Judah along with it; they adhered, as a matter of principle, to the rude and simple customs of their ancestors. Jezebel, who from her cradle had been accustomed to all the luxuries and refinements of the Phoenician court, was by no means prepared to dispense with them in her adopted country. By their contact with her, the Israelites--at any rate, the upper and middle classes of them--acquired a certain degree of polish; the royal office assumed a more dignified exterior, and approached more nearly the splendours of the other Syrian monarchies, such as those of Damascus, Hamath, Sidon, Tyre, and even Judah.

Unfortunately, the effect of this material progress was marred by a religious difficulty. Jezebel had been brought up by her father, the high priest of the Sidonian Astarte, as a rigid believer in his faith, and she begged Ahab to permit her to celebrate openly the worship of her national deities. Ere long the Tyrian Baal was installed at Samaria with his asherah, and his votaries had their temples and sacred groves to worship in: their priests and prophets sat at the kings table. Ahab did not reject the God of his ancestors in order to embrace the religion of his wife--a reproach which was afterwards laid to his door; he remained faithful to Him, and gave the children whom he had by Jezebel names compounded with that of Jahveh, such as Ahaziah, Joram, and Athaliah.*

* 1 Kings xvi. 31-33. Ahaziah and Joram mean respectively
whom Jahveh sustaineth, and Jahveh is exalted. Athaliah
may possibly be derived from a Phoenician form, _Ailialith
or Athlifh,_ into which the name of Jahveh does not enter.

This was not the first instance of such tolerance in the history of the Israelites: Solomon had granted a similar liberty of conscience to all his foreign wives, and neither Rehoboam nor Abijam had opposed Maacah in her devotion to the Canaanitish idols. But the times were changing, and the altar of Baal could no longer be placed side by side with that of Jahveh without arousing fierce anger and inexorable hatred. Scarce a hundred years had elapsed since the rupture between the tribes, and already one-half of the people were unable to understand how place could be found in the breast of a true Israelite for any other god but Jahveh: Jahveh alone was Lord, for none of the deities worshipped by foreign races under human or animal shapes could compare with Him in might and holiness. From this to the repudiation of all those practices associated with exotic deities, such as the use of idols of wood or metal, the anointing of isolated boulders or circles of rocks, the offering up of prisoners or of the firstborn, was but a step: Asa had already furnished an example of rigid devotion in Judah, and there were many in Israel who shared his views and desired to imitate him. The opposition to what was regarded as apostasy on the part of the king did not come from the official priesthood; the sanctuaries at Dan, at Bethel, at Shiloh, and at Gilgal were prosperous in spite of Jezebel, and this was enough for them. But the influence of the prophets had increased marvellously since the rupture between the kingdoms, and at the very beginning of his reign Ahab was unwise enough to outrage their sense of justice by one of his violent acts: in a transport of rage he had slain a certain Naboth, who had refused to let him have his vineyard in order that he might enlarge the grounds of the palace he was building for himself at Jezreel.* The prophets, as in former times, were divided into schools, the head of each being called its father, the members bearing the title of the sons of the prophets; they dwelt in a sort of monastery, each having his own cell, where they ate together, performed their devotional exercises or assembled to listen to the exhortations of their chief prophets:** nor did their sacred office prevent them from marrying.***

* 1 Kings xxi., where the later tradition throws nearly all
the blame on Jezebel; whereas in the shorter account, in 2
Kings ix. 25, 26, it is laid entirely on Ahab.

** In 1 Sam. xix. 20, a passage which seems to some to be a
later interpolation, mentions a company of the prophets,
prophesying, and Samuel standing as head over them. Cf. 2
Kings vi. 1-7, where the narrative introduces a congregation
of prophets grouped round Elisha.

*** 2 Kings iv. 1-7, where an account is given of the
miracle worked by Elisha on behalf of a woman of the wives
of the sons of the prophets.

As a rule, they settled near one of the temples, and lived there on excellent terms with the members of the regular priesthood. Accompanied by musical instruments, they chanted the songs in which the poets of other days extolled the mighty deeds of Jahveh, and obtained from this source the incidents of the semi-religious accounts which they narrated concerning the early history of the people; or, when the spirit moved them, they went about through the land prophesying, either singly, or accompanied by a disciple, or in bands.* The people thronged round them to listen to their hymns or their stories of the heroic age: the great ones of the land, even kings themselves, received visits from them, and endured their reproaches or exhortations with mingled feelings of awe and terror. A few of the prophets took the part of Ahab and Jezebel,** but the majority declared against them, and of these, the most conspicuous, by his forcibleness of speech and action, was Elijah. We do not know of what race or family he came, nor even what he was:*** the incidents of his life which have come down to us seem to be wrapped in a vague legendary grandeur. He appears before Ahab, and tells him that for years to come no rain or dew shall fall on the earth save by his command, and then takes flight into the desert in order to escape the kings anger.

* 1 Sam. x. 5, where a band of prophets is mentioned coming
down from the high place with a psaltery, and a timbrel, and
a pipe, and a harp, before them, prophesying; cf. ver. 10.
In 2 Kings ii. 3-5, bands of the children of the prophets
come out from Bethel and Jericho to ask Elisha if he knows
the fate which awaits Elijah on that very day.

** Cf. the anonymous prophet who encourages Ahab, in the
name of Jahveh, to surprise the camp of Benhadad before
Samaria (1 Kings xx. 13-15, 22-25, 28); and the prophet
Zedekiah, who gives advice contrary to that of his fellow-
prophet Micaiah in the council of war held by Ahab with
Jehoshaphat, King of Judah, before the attack on Ramobh-
gilead (1 Kings xxii. 11, 12, 24).

*** The ethnical inscription, Tishbite, which we find
after his name (1 Kings xvii. 1, xxi. 17), is due to an
error on the part of the copyist.

He is there ministered unto by ravens, which bring him bread and meat every night and morning. When the spring from which he drinks dries up, he goes to the house of a widow at Zarephath in the country of Sidon, and there he lives with his hostess for twelve months on a barrel of meal and a cruse of oil which never fail. The widows son dies suddenly: he prays to Jahveh and restores him to life; then, still guided by an inspiration from above, he again presents himself before the king. Ahab receives him without resentment, assembles the prophets of Baal, brings them face to face with Elijah on the top of Mount Carmel, and orders them to put an end to the drought by which his kingdom is wasted. The Phoenicians erect an altar and call upon their Baâlîm with loud cries, and gash their arms and bodies with knives, yet cannot bring about the miracle expected of them. Elijah, after mocking at their cries and contortions, at last addresses a prayer to Jahveh, and fire comes down from heaven and consumes the sacrifice in a moment; the people, convinced by the miracle, fall upon the idolaters and massacre them, and the rain shortly afterwards falls in torrents. After this triumph he is said to have fled once more for safety to the desert, and there on Horeb to have had a divine vision. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that He wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah? God then commanded him to anoint Hazael as King of Syria, and Jehu, son of Nimshi, as King over Israel, and Elisha, son of Shaphat, as prophet in his stead, and him that escapeth from the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay: and him that escapeth from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay. The sacred writings go on to tell us that the prophet who had held such close converse with the Deity was exempt from the ordinary laws of humanity, and was carried to heaven in a chariot of fire. The account that has come down to us shows the impression of awe left by Elijah on the spirit of his age.*

Ahab was one of the most warlike among the warrior-kings of Israel. He ruled Moab with a strong hand,** kept Judah in subjection,*** and in his conflict with Damascus experienced alternately victory and honourable defeat. Hadadidri [Hadadezer], of whom the Hebrew historians make a second Benhadad,**** had succeeded the conqueror of Baasha.^

* The story of Elijah is found in 1 Kings xvii.-xix., xxi.
17-29, and 2 Kings i., ii. 1-14.

** Inscription of Mesha, 11. 7, 8.

*** The subordination of Judah is nowhere explicitly
mentioned: it is inferred from the attitude adopted by
Jehoshaphat in presence of Ahab (1 Kings xxii. 1, et seq.).

**** The Assyrian texts call this Dadidri, Adadidri, which
exactly corresponds to the Plebrew form Hadadezer.

^ The information in the Booh of Kings does not tell us at
what time during the reign of Ahab his first wars with
Hadadezer (Benhadad II.) and the siege of Samaria occurred.
The rapid success of Shalmanesers campaigns against
Damascus, between 854 and 839 B.C., does not allow us to
place these events after the invasion of Assyria. Ahab
appears, in 854, at the battle of Karkar, as the ally of
Benhadad, as I shall show later.

The account of his campaigns in the Hebrew records has only reached us in a seemingly condensed and distorted condition. Israel, strengthened by the exploits of Omri, must have offered him a strenuous resistance, but we know nothing of the causes, nor of the opening scenes of the drama. When the curtain is lifted, the preliminary conflict is over, and the Israelites, closely besieged in Samaria, have no alternative before them but unconditional surrender. This was the first serious attack the city had sustained, and its resistance spoke well for the military foresight of its founder. In Benhadads train were thirty-two kings, and horses and chariots innumerable, while his adversary could only oppose to them seven thousand men. Ahab was willing to treat, but the conditions proposed were so outrageous that he broke off the negotiations. We do not know how long the blockade had lasted, when one day the garrison made a sortie in full daylight, and fell upon the Syrian camp; the enemy were panic-stricken, and Benhadad with difficulty escaped on horseback with a handful of men. He resumed hostilities in the following year, but instead of engaging the enemy in the hill-country of Ephraim, where his superior numbers brought him no advantage, he deployed his lines on the plain of Jezreel, near the town of Aphek. His servants had counselled him to change his tactics: The God of the Hebrews is a God of the hills, therefore they were stronger than we; but let us fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they. The advice, however, proved futile, for he sustained on the open plain a still more severe defeat than he had met with in the mountains, and the Hebrew historians affirm that he was taken prisoner during the pursuit. The power of Damascus was still formidable, and the captivity of its king had done little to bring the war to an end; Ahab, therefore, did not press his advantage, but received the Syrian monarch as a brother, and set him at liberty after concluding with him an offensive and defensive alliance. Israel at this time recovered possession of some of the cities which had been lost under Baasha and Omri, and the Israelites once more enjoyed the right to occupy a particular quarter of Damascus. According to the Hebrew account, this was the retaliation they took for their previous humiliations. It is further stated, in relation to this event, that a certain man of the sons of the prophets, speaking by the word of the Lord, bade one of his companions smite him. Having received a wound, he disguised himself with a bandage over his eyes, and placed himself in the kings path, and as the king passed by, he cried unto the king: and he said, Thy servant went out into the midst of the battle; and, behold, a man turned aside, and brought a man unto me, and said, Keep this man: if by any means he be missing, then shall thy life be for his life, or else thou shalt pay a talent of silver. And as thy servant was busy here and there, he was gone. And the King of Israel said unto him, So shall thy judgment be; thyself has decided it. Then he hasted, and took the headband away from his eyes, and the King of Israel discerned him that he was one of the prophets. And he said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Because thou hast let go out of thy hand the man whom I had devoted to destruction, therefore thy life shall go for his life, and thy people for his people. And the King of Israel went to his house heavy and displeased, and came to Samaria. This story was in accordance with the popular feeling, and Ahab certainly ought not to have paused till he had exterminated his enemy, could he have done so; but was this actually in his power?

We have no reason to contest the leading facts in this account, or to doubt that Benhadad suffered some reverses before Samaria; but we may perhaps ask whether the check was as serious as we are led to believe, and whether imagination and national vanity did not exaggerate its extent and results. The fortresses of Persea which, according to the treaty, ought to have been restored to Israel, remained in the hands of the people of Damascus, and the loss of Ramoth-gilead continued to be a source of vexation to such of the tribes of Gad and Reuben as followed the fortunes of the house of Omri:* yet these places formed the most important part of Benhadads ransom.

* And the King of Israel said unto his servants, Know ye
that Ramoth-gilead is ours, and we be still, and take it not
out of the hand of the King of Syria?

The sole effect of Ahabs success was to procure for him more lenient treatment; he lost no territory, and perhaps gained a few towns, but he had to sign conditions of peace which made him an acknowledged vassal to the King of Syria.*

* No document as yet proves directly that Ahab was vassal to
Benhadad II. The fact seems to follow clearly enough from
the account of the battle of Karkar against Shalmaneser II.,
where the contingent of Ahab of Israel figures among those
of the kings who fought for Benhadad II. against the
Assyrians.

Damascus still remained the foremost state of Syria, and, if we rightly interpret the scanty information we possess, seemed in a fair way to bring about that unification of the country which neither Hittites, Philistines, nor Hebrews had been able to effect. Situated nearly equidistant from Raphia and Carchemish, on the outskirts of the cultivated region, the city was protected in the rear by the desert, which secured it from invasion on the east and north-east; the dusty plains of the Haurân protected it on the south, and the wooded cliffs of Anti-Lebanon on the west and north-west. It was entrenched within these natural barriers as in a fortress, whence the garrison was able to sally forth at will to attack in force one or other of the surrounding nations: if the city were victorious, its central position made it easy for its rulers to keep watch over and preserve what they had won; if it suffered defeat, the surrounding mountains and deserts formed natural lines of fortification easy to defend against the pursuing foe, but very difficult for the latter to force, and the delay presented by this obstacle gave the inhabitants time to organise their reserves and bring fresh troops into the field. The kings of Damascus at the outset brought under their suzerainty the Aramaean principalities--Argob, Maacah, and Geshur, by which they controlled the Haurân, and Zobah, which secured to them Coele-Syria from Lake Huleh to the Bahr el-Kades. They had taken Upper Galilee from the Hebrews, and subsequently Perasa, as far as the Jabbok, and held in check Israel and the smaller states, Amnion and Moab, which followed in its wake. They exacted tribute from Hamath, the Phoenician Arvad, the lower valley of the Orontes, and from a portion of the Hittites, and demanded contingents from their princes in time of war. Their power was still in its infancy, and its elements were not firmly welded together, but the surrounding peoples were in such a state of weakness and disunion that they might be left out of account as formidable enemies. The only danger that menaced the rising kingdom was the possibility that the two ancient warlike nations, Egypt and Assyria, might shake off their torpor, and reappearing on the scene of their former prowess might attack her before she had consolidated her power by the annexation of Naharaim.

END OF VOL. VI.