Chapter VI: The Establishment of the Monarchy (6)

To the north his dominions touched on those of the Hittites, who were still settled in Kadesh on the Orontes, even if Hamath had long since passed out of their possession. Lenormant was the first to point out that in 1 Kings x. 28 there is an allusion to the importation of horses into Judah, not only from Egypt, but also from the Hittite regions on the Gulf of Antioch. Here lived the Quê of the Assyrian monuments, who are named in the Hebrew text, though it needed the revelations of Oriental archæology to discover the fact. Solomon, it is there said, ‘had horses brought out of Egypt and out of Quê; the royal merchants received it from Quê at a price.’ In the later days of the Assyrian empire Nineveh obtained its supply of horses and stallions from the same part of the world, and there are numerous letters to the king which relate to their importation. The chariots came from Egypt, the value of each being as much as 600 shekels of silver, or £90; it was only the horses that were brought from ‘the kings of the Hittites’ and ‘the kings of Aram.’ The trade in both horses and chariots was a monopoly which Solomon kept jealously in his own hands; the merchants were those ‘of the king,’ and none of his subjects was allowed to import materials of war which might be employed against himself.

It was the trade with the south which introduced into Jerusalem the greatest novelties and the most costly articles of luxury. In imitation of the kings of Egypt and Assyria, Solomon established zoological and botanical gardens where the strange animals and plants that had been brought from abroad were kept. Such collections had been made by Thothmes III. at Thebes, and on the foundations of a ruined chamber in his temple at Karnak we may still see pictures of the trees and plants and birds which he sent home from his campaigns in Syria and the Soudan. In Assyria a botanical garden had been similarly planted by Tiglath-pileser I. (B.C. 1100), and stocked with foreign plants.[541] Solomon’s collections were therefore no new thing in the Oriental world, though they were a novelty in Palestine; and his subjects went to gaze and wonder, like the Cairenes of to-day, at the apes which had come from the far south, or the peacocks whose name (_thukîyîm_) betrayed their Indian origin. It is even said that he composed books on the animal and vegetable collections he had made.[542]

Gold and silver and ivory were also brought, with the apes and peacocks, by the merchant vessels whose voyages of three years’ duration carried them along the Somali coast, and even, it may be, to the mouths of the Indus. The gold probably came, for the most part, from the mines of the Zambesi region, where foreign mining settlements are now known to have been established at an early date, and where objects have been found, such as birds carved out of stone, which remind us of the civilisation of southern Arabia. But the greater part of the silver, which we are told became as plentiful as ‘stones,’ must have been derived from Asia Minor. Here were the mines from which the Hittites extracted the metal for which they seem to have had a special fancy, and it was through them that it probably made its way to Jerusalem. Copper would have come from Cyprus, and been brought in the ships which trafficked in the Mediterranean. It was the Mediterranean trade, moreover, which supplied the tin needed for the vast quantities of bronze that was used in the Solomonic age. We know of no source of it equal to such a demand except the peninsula of Cornwall; but if it really was Cornish tin that found its way to the eastern basin of the Mediterranean during the Bronze Age it must have travelled like amber across Europe until it reached the Adriatic or the Gulf of Lyons. The amber found by Dr. Schliemann in the prehistoric tombs of Mykenæ is of Baltic origin, and amber beads have been discovered by Dr. Bliss at Lachish, belonging to the century before the Exodus; if amber could travel thus far from northern Europe, the tin might have done the same.

Future generations looked back upon the reign of Solomon as the golden age of Israel. But there was a reverse side to the picture. The combination of culture and arbitrary power produced in him the selfish luxury of an Oriental despot, which is bent on satisfying its own sensuous desires at the expense of all around it. Solomon’s extravagance was like that of the Khedive Ismail in our own day, and it led to the same amount of misery and impoverishment in the nation. He found on his accession a treasury well filled by the thrifty government of his father; and his trading monopolies and alliances brought him an apparently inexhaustible supply of wealth. But a time came when even this supply began to fail, and to cease to suffice for his reckless expenditure. Heavier taxes were laid on the subject populations; the free men of Israel were compelled to work as unpaid serfs under the lash of the taskmaster, and the older population of the land, who were still numerous, were turned into veritable bond-slaves. To the Gibeonites, who had long been the serfs of the Levitical sanctuary, were now added the Nethinim, a part of whom went under the name of ‘Solomon’s slaves’ (Ezra ii. 55, 58). The building of the temple had cost the people dear: the Israelites had been robbed of their freedom to provide for it stone and wood; the Canaanites had been given to it as actual slaves.

Doubtless the policy of Solomon was partly determined by the same considerations as those which had moved the Pharaoh of the Oppression. He mistrusted the Canaanites, he was afraid of the northern tribes. In either case he endeavoured to break their spirit, and render them powerless to revolt. But in the case of the Hebrew tribesmen he did not succeed. Discontent was smothered for awhile, but it was none the less dangerous on that account. And towards the end of Solomon’s life an incident occurred which led eventually to the division of the kingdom. Jeroboam the son of Nebat—in whom Dr. Neubauer has seen the name of a ‘Nabathean’—and whose mother belonged to the tribe of Ephraim, had distinguished himself by his activity and abilities. Solomon had finished the Millo or Fort, and was now at work on the other fortifications of Jerusalem. His notice was drawn to Jeroboam, and he made the young man the ‘taskmaster’ or overseer of the _corvée_ of Ephraimites employed upon the walls. Like Moses in old days, Jeroboam’s sympathy was aroused by the sufferings of his fellow-tribesmen, which found a mouthpiece in Ahijah the prophet of Shiloh. Ahijah was himself one of the dispossessed. The glory of Shiloh had passed away from it; Jerusalem had taken its place. The tabernacle of Shiloh had been rejected in favour of the temple of the Jewish king. The centre of Hebrew religion and power had departed from the house of Joseph, and been transferred to the mixed parvenus of Judah.

In Jeroboam the prophet recognised the leader who should restore the lost fortunes of Ephraim and revenge its injuries. Jeroboam listened to the counsels of revolt, but the time for making use of them had not yet come. His plans and plotting became known to Solomon, and, once more like Moses, he had to fly for his life. He made his way to the Egyptian court, where a ready welcome awaited him.

A new dynasty had arisen there. The Libyan mercenaries had dethroned their feeble masters, and seated Shishak or Sheshanq, their general, upon the throne of the Pharaohs. The Tanitic dynasty which ruled the Delta was swept away; so also was the rival dynasty of high-priests who reigned at Thebes and held possession of Upper Egypt. With the rise of the twenty-second dynasty at Bubastis, a new and unaccustomed vigour was infused into the government of Egypt. Shishak proved himself an able and energetic king. His earlier years were occupied in putting down opposition at home, and restoring order and unity throughout the country. When once the task was accomplished, he began to turn his attention elsewhere. Egypt had never relinquished its theoretical claims to sovereignty in Canaan; and the new power that had arisen there menaced the safety of the Asiatic frontier. Solomon, it is true, had allied himself by marriage with the Pharaohs; but it was with a Pharaoh of the fallen dynasty, and this in itself made him all the more dangerous a neighbour. At present Israel was too powerful to be attacked; but a time might come when the Egyptian monarch might venture to march again along the roads that had once conducted the armies of Egypt to the conquest of Syria. Meanwhile Shishak could stir up disaffection and rebellion in the Israelitish empire, and could harbour pretenders to the throne who might hereafter undermine the very existence of the new power.

As long as Solomon lived Jeroboam did not dare to stir. But he was not the only ‘adversary’ of the Jewish king. Hadad, the representative of the old kings of Edom, had also found a refuge in the Egyptian court, and had there married the sister-in-law of the Pharaoh. In spite of the Pharaoh’s remonstrances he had returned to the mountains of Edom when David and Joab were dead, and had there carried on a guerilla warfare with the Israelitish garrisons. Throughout the lifetime of Solomon he had maintained himself in the fastnesses of Seir, and had been, as it were, a thorn in the side of the conquerors of his country. But he never succeeded in seriously injuring the caravan trade that passed through Edom, or in shaking off the Israelitish yoke. The male population of Edom had been too mercilessly exterminated for this to be possible, and all that he could do was to molest the trade with the Red Sea. But even in this he does not seem to have been successful.

A more formidable opponent of Israel was Rezon of Zobah. He, it would seem, had established himself at Damascus even before the death of David, and all the efforts to dislodge him were of no avail. It is possible that the insurrection in Zobah, which led to the construction of fortified posts on the borders of Hamath (2 Chron. viii. 3), was connected with his revolt. At any rate, Rezon founded a kingdom and a dynasty in the old Syrian capital, which in years to come was to shake the monarchy of northern Israel to its base. ‘He abhorred Israel,’ we are told, ‘and reigned over Aram.’

The Jewish historian traces the misfortunes of Solomon to the religious indifferentism of his later years. His wives were many, his concubines innumerable. They had been added to his harîm from all parts of the known world; and they brought with them the worship of their native deities. Solomon had none of that intense belief in the national God which had distinguished Saul and David, or which made the Assyrian kings conquer and slay the unbelievers who would not acknowledge the supremacy of Assur.[543] He was a cultured and selfish epicure, catholic in his tastes and sympathies, and doubtless inclined to stigmatise as narrow-minded fanaticism the objections of those who would have forbidden him to indulge his wives in their religious beliefs. On the hill opposite Jerusalem they were allowed to worship in the chapels of their own divinities, and the king himself did not refuse to bow himself with them in the house of Rimmon. Shrines were erected and altars blazed to Ashtoreth of the Sidonians, to Milcom of Ammon, and to Chemosh of Moab.

Modern criticism has averred that all this was only in accordance with the general ideas and practice of the time, and that not Solomon alone but the rest of his people saw little or no difference between Yahveh and Baal. The Song of Deborah, which reflects the feelings of so much earlier an epoch, is a sufficient answer to such an assertion. The whole history of Saul and David points unmistakably to the contrary, and the temple bears witness that there was a time when Solomon also shared the belief that Yahveh alone was God in Israel, and that He would brook the presence of no other god beside Himself. The character of Solomon, his habits and alliances,—above all, the seductions of the harîm, are quite enough to account for a gradual change in his views. It is probable, moreover, that the death of his old guide and instructor Nathan may have had much to do with what an undogmatic theology might call emancipation from the narrow and exclusive circle of Hebrew religious ideas; we know that such was the case with Jehoash after the death of Jehoiada the priest. The king who began by sending to Phœnicia for the architects and builders of the temple, ended not unnaturally with the erection of sanctuaries to a Phœnician goddess.

In fact, the artistic tastes of Solomon ran counter to the puritanical tendencies and restrictions of the Mosaic Law. It had been made for the wanderers in the desert, for hardy warriors intent on the conquest of a foreign land, for the simple peasantry of Palestine. It was directed against the cultured vices and artistic idolatries of Egypt and Canaan: on its forefront was the command: ‘Thou shalt not make the likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, in the earth beneath, or in the water that is under the earth.’ The temple at Jerusalem, with its costly decoration and graven images, was in itself a violation of the letter of the Law. Solomon was called indeed to be king over Israel, but his heart and his sympathies were with Phœnicia.

He had been carefully educated, and, like our own Henry VIII., was a learned as well as a cultivated prince. His wisdom was celebrated above that of the wisest men of his day (1 Kings iv. 30, 31), and he left behind him a large collection of proverbs. Some of these were re-edited by the scribes of Hezekiah’s library (Prov. xxv. 1), the foundation of which may possibly go back to him. Indeed, he showed himself so anxious to imitate the civilised monarchs of his day that it is hard to believe he established no library at Jerusalem. The library had been for untold centuries as essential to the royal dignity in Western Asia or Egypt as the temple or palace, and the annals of Menander imply that one existed at Tyre in the age of Hiram. Archæology has vindicated the authenticity of the letters that passed between Solomon and the Tyrian king (2 Chron. ii. 3, 11); similar letters were written in Babylonia in the age of Abraham, and the tablets of Tel el-Amarna have demonstrated how frequent they were in the ancient East. As in Babylonia and Assyria, so, too, in Palestine, they would have been preserved among the archives of the royal library.

Hiram was nineteen years old when he ascended the throne, and he died at the age of fifty-three. Solomon was probably of about the same age as his friend both at his accession and at his death. He died, worn out by excessive self-indulgence, leaving behind him an impoverished treasury, a discontented people, and a tottering empire. But he had achieved one great result. Jerusalem had become the capital of a united Judah and Benjamin, Hebrew religion had obtained a local habitation round which henceforward it could live and grow, and the dynasty of David was planted firmly on the Jewish throne. When the disruption of the kingdom came after Solomon’s death, it did no more than give outward form to the estrangement that had so long been maturing between Judah and the northern tribes; the temple, the line of David, and the fortress-capital of Jerusalem remained unshaken. The work of David and Solomon was accomplished, though in a way of which they had not dreamed; and a nation was called into existence whom neither defeat nor exile, persecution nor contempt, has ever been able to destroy.

Footnote 368:

We hear only of citizens of Mount Ephraim going up yearly to sacrifice
at Shiloh (1 Sam. i. 1-3).

Footnote 369:

It must be remembered that at this time, before the rise of Judah,
Ephraim was the nearest neighbour of the Philistines as well as of the
Amalekites.

Footnote 370:

It cannot be supposed, of course, that an Ephraimite would have
recorded the defeat and slaughter of his tribe at the hands of
Jephthah. But such a momentous disaster could not fail to become known
throughout Canaan, and some notice of it must have been taken by the
chroniclers of Ephraim themselves. Where and by whom, however, the
present account was composed it is vain to inquire, and the question
may be left for discussion to the philological critics. That Samuel,
who was brought up at Shiloh, could write we are assured in 1 Sam. x.
25.

Footnote 371:

1 Sam. ix. 5; xiv. 1.

Footnote 372:

1 Sam. ix. 18, 19. The disintegrating critics have assumed this
narrative to be primitive and contemporary because it presents us with
a picture of Samuel which seems to degrade him into an obscure local
soothsayer, and on the strength of it have disputed the antiquity of
such narratives as assign to him national influence. They might just
as well maintain that the only primitive and contemporary account of
King Alfred that we possess is the story of the burnt cakes at
Athelney.

Footnote 373:

1 Sam. vii. 14.

Footnote 374:

Zuph gave his name to ‘the district of Zuph’ (1 Sam. ix. 5), which has
the plural form in Ramathaim-zophim.

Footnote 375:

Ephraim, however, may be, like Jerusalem, the older form of which has
been recovered from the cuneiform inscriptions, a later Massoretic
mispronunciation of an original plural Ephrim. The Massoretes have
erroneously introduced a dual form into the pronunciation of the name
Chushan-rishathaim, and probably also into that of Naharaim when
compared with the Egyptian Naharin and the Nahrima of the Tel
el-Amarna tablets. Perhaps the dual form Ephraim originated in the
existence of the two Ophrahs (with _’ayin_), which are already
mentioned in the geographical lists of Thothmes III.

Footnote 376:

2 Sam. viii. 18; see also 2 Sam. xx. 26. The Authorised Version
mistranslates the word in both passages.

Footnote 377:

Translated by me in the _Records of the Past_, new ser., IV., pp.
109-113.

Footnote 378:

See above, p. 244. The Hebrew Samuel could also represent a Babylonian
Sumu-il, ‘Sumu is God’ or ‘the name of God,’ which we actually find in
early Babylonian contracts.

Footnote 379:

So, too, the Chronicler states that he was descended from Ithamar the
younger son of Aaron (1 Chron. xxiv. 3).

Footnote 380:

It would seem from 1 Sam. iii. 3, as compared with Exod. xxvii. 21,
and Lev. xxiv. 3, that there was no veil at the time in ‘the temple of
the Lord, where the ark of God was.’

Footnote 381:

‘The priest’ of the narrative is equivalent to ‘high priest’: see
above, p. 219. Eli’s two sons were naturally not on a level of
equality with himself. It has been gravely maintained that there were
only three priests at Shiloh at the time, because nothing is said
about any others; had the narrative not required the mention of Hophni
and Phinehas we should have been told there was only one. Such
trifling with historical documents is unfortunately only too
characteristic of the so-called ‘literary criticism.’

Footnote 382:

It has been assumed that ‘the women that assembled at the door of the
tabernacle of the congregation’ (Exod. xxxviii. 8, 1 Sam. ii. 22) were
religious prostitutes like the _qedashoth_ in the Phœnician temples
(see Deut. xxiii. 17, 18). But the fact that the intercourse of the
sons of Eli with them was a sin in the eyes of both Yahveh and the
people proves the contrary. Here, as in other cases, an old
institution of Semitic religion was retained among the adherents of
the Mosaic law, but it was deprived of its pagan and immoral
characteristics.

Footnote 383:

1 Sam. ix. 9.

Footnote 384:

1 Sam. xix. 23. _Nâbî_ is not of Arabic derivation as is often
supposed, as, for example, by Professor Cornill, _The Prophets of
Israel_, pp. 8-10, where it is erroneously stated that the Babylonian
_nabû_ does not mean ‘to pronounce’ or ‘proclaim.’ The name of Nebo
shows to what antiquity the Babylonian _nabium_ in its special sense
of ‘prophet’ reaches back. The modern Arabic _nebi_ is borrowed from
the Hebrew _nâbî_. _Nâbî_ corresponds with the Greek προφήτης
‘forth-speaker,’ as distinguished from μάντις or ‘diviner,’ the
Babylonian _asipu_. In Babylonia the _asipu_ performed the offices
which the Hebrew _roeh_ had once fulfilled; he determined whether an
army should move or not, whether victory would be on its side, whether
an undertaking would be prosperous or the reverse. While, therefore,
the _asipu_ and the _nabiu_ continued to exist side by side,
performing the functions which had been combined in the Hebrew _roeh_,
and at the outset in the Hebrew _nâbî_, among the Israelites the
_roeh_ disappeared, and the _nâbî_ alone remained with purely
prophetical attributes.

Footnote 385:

Towards the end of Samuel’s life, however, a Naioth or ‘monastery’
grew up around him at Ramah, which must have closely resembled the
Dervish colleges of the modern Mohammedan world; see 1 Sam. xix. 23.
This monastery will have taken the place of Shiloh, and become a
veritable ‘school’ of prophetical training and instruction.

Footnote 386:

Gad, however, still retained the title of ‘seer’ (1 Chron. xxix. 29),
and one of the histories of the reign of Solomon was contained ‘in the
visions of Iddo the seer against Jeroboam’ (2 Chron. ix. 29). Even
Isaiah’s history of Hezekiah was called ‘the vision of Isaiah the
prophet’ (2 Chron. xxxii. 32). But the title was merely a survival.

Footnote 387:

We must, however, distinguish between Samuel’s authority as a seer,
which did not excite the jealousy of his Philistine masters, and his
authority as a dispenser of justice. That was confined to a small area
in the heart of Mount Ephraim. Each year, we are told (1 Sam. vii. 16)
he went on circuit like a Babylonian judge, ‘to Beth-el and Gilgal and
Mizpeh.’ This is the Mizpeh of Benjamin.

Footnote 388:

Ramah, ‘the height,’ is identified in 1 Sam. ii. 11 with Ramathaim,
‘the two heights.’ The village evidently stood on two hills. For the
possible site of Aphek, see G. A. Smith, _The Historical Geography of
the Holy Land_, p. 224. Eben-ezer is identified with the great stone
at Beth-shemesh (1 Sam. vi. 14, 18) by M. Clermont-Ganneau (_Quarterly
Statement_ of the Palestine Exploration Fund, 1874, p. 279; 1877, pp.
154 _sqq._), but this is questionable.

Footnote 389:

See my _Higher Criticism and the Verdict of the Monuments_, p. 154;
and above, p. 196.

Footnote 390:

1 Sam. iv. 13.

Footnote 391:

The Septuagint text omits the ‘eight.’

Footnote 392:

The Septuagint reads Ouai-bar-khabôth, ‘Woe to the son of glory,’ with
the insertion of the Aramaic _bar_, ‘son.’

Footnote 393:

1 Sam. xiv. 3.

Footnote 394:

As Abiathar was the contemporary of David, and his father Ahimelech or
Ahiah of Saul, Ahitub will have been the contemporary of Samuel. If
Solomon came to the throne about B.C. 965, and Saul was about forty
years of age at the time of his death, we should have about B.C. 1045
for the date of Saul’s birth. Samuel was an old man when he died; if
he lived ten years after Saul’s accession, and was ten years old when
the ark was taken, we may place his birth about B.C. 1090. This would
give about B.C. 1180 for the birth of Eli, or very shortly after the
Israelitish invasion of Canaan. The life of Eli would thus cover
almost the whole period of the Judges, and form a single link between
the Mosaic age and that of Samuel. In such a case it is not
astonishing that the records and traditions of the Mosaic age were
preserved at Shiloh. The ark was only seven months among the
Philistines (1 Sam. vi. 1), and it was removed from ‘the house of
Abinadab’ at Kirjath-jearim some time after the seventh year of David
(see, however, 1 Sam. xiv. 18). ‘The sons of Abinadab,’ in 2 Sam. vi.
4, must mean, as is so frequently the case, the descendants of
Abinadab.

Footnote 395:

In Zeph. i. 9 there is an allusion to the practice of the Philistine
priests of ‘leaping’ over the threshold. For the origin and reason of
this sacredness of the threshold see Trumbull, _The Threshold
Covenant_, pp. 10-13, 116-126, 143. ‘In Finland it is regarded as
unlucky if a clergyman steps on the threshold when he comes to preach
at a church.... In the Lapp tales the same idea appears.’ (Jones and
Kropf, _Folk-Tales of the Magyars_, p. 410.)

Footnote 396:

Philo Byblius according to Euseb., _Præp. Evangel._ i. 6.

Footnote 397:

That Dagon was worshipped in Canaan before he was adopted by the
Philistine emigrants we know, not only from the evidence of
geographical names, but also from the fact that one of the Tel
el-Amarna correspondents in Palestine was called Dagan-takala.

Footnote 398:

It is noticeable that Zophim in Ramathaim-zophim means ‘Watchmen.’
Poels (_Le Sanctuaire de Kirjath-jearim_, Louvain, 1894) has,
moreover, made it probable that Kirjath-jearim, Mizpeh, Gibeah, Geba,
and Gibeon all represent the same place.

Footnote 399:

According to 1 Sam. vii. 2, the victory at Eben-ezer took place
‘twenty years’ after the ark had been removed to Kirjath-jearim. But
this is merely the half of an unknown period, and means that the
interval of time was not long.

Footnote 400:

1 Sam. vii. 13, 14. The area of independence, however, must have been
very confined, since there was a garrison of the Philistines in ‘the
hill of God’ at Gibeah (1 Sam. ix. 5), as well as one at Michmash (1
Sam. xiv. 1).

Footnote 401:

There is no reason for doubting the very explicit statement made in 1
Sam. vii. 14, which explains and limits the preceding verse. Its
antiquity is vouched for by the concluding words: ‘And there was peace
between Israel and the Amorites.’ The term ‘Amorite’ instead of
‘Canaanite’ points to an early date, and the sentence reads like an
extract from a contemporary chronicle. The peace was an enforced one,
as both Israelites and Canaanites alike were under the yoke of the
Philistines.

Footnote 402:

See 2 Kings xviii. 4.

Footnote 403:

1 Chron. xvi. 39, xxi. 293; 2 Chron. i. 3, 5.

Footnote 404:

Is it an inference from 1 Kings iii. 4? That the Chronicler sometimes
drew erroneous inferences from his materials, I have shown in _The
Higher Criticism and the Verdict of the Monuments_, p. 463. It is
difficult to understand how ‘fixtures’ like the tabernacle and the
altar escaped destruction when the temple at Shiloh was ruined.

Footnote 405:

Kirjath-jearim was a Gibeonite town (Josh. ix. 17).

Footnote 406:

1 Sam. ix. 3.

Footnote 407:

1 Sam. viii. 2. Joel is called Vashni in 1 Chron. vi. 28, where the
Septuagint reads Sani.

Footnote 408:

As has been noticed above (p. 315, note 1), the title of the supreme
god of Tyre is evidence that there, too, the state had been originally
regarded as a theocracy.

Footnote 409:

The name of Saul corresponds with the Babylonian Savul, a title of the
Sun-god, though it might also be explained as a Hebrew word meaning
‘asked for.’ But one of the Edomite kings was also named Saul, and he
is stated to have come from ‘Rehoboth (Assyrian Rêbit) by the river’
Euphrates (Gen. xxxvi. 37). This points to a Babylonian origin of the
name. Kish, Saul’s father, has also the same name as the Edomite god
Qos (in Assyrian Qaus), of which the Canaanitish Kishon is a
derivative. As Saul’s successors in Edom were Baal-hanan and Hadad,
while Hadad was a contemporary of Solomon, and El-hanan is said in 2
Sam. xxi. 19 to have been the slayer of Goliath, I have proposed (_The
Modern Review_, v. 17, 1884) to see in the Saul and Baal-hanan of Edom
the Saul and David of Israel. Saul is said to have fought against Edom
(1 Sam. xiv. 47), and Doeg the Edomite was his henchman. But the
proposal is excluded by two facts. The kings of Edom recorded in Gen.
xxxvi. 31-39 reigned ‘before there was any king over the children of
Israel,’ and Saul the son of Kish did not come from the Euphrates.

Footnote 410:

1 Sam. ix. 3. In 1 Sam. x. 14-16, Saul’s uncle takes the place of his
father.

Footnote 411:

Much has been made of the supposed fact that Saul had never heard of
Samuel, and did not know that he was a seer. But the narrative only
says that Saul’s slave informed him that a seer was in the town,
without mentioning his name; and if Saul had never previously seen
Samuel, he would naturally not recognise him in the crowd.

Footnote 412:

That the prophets were at Gibeah is shown by the fact that ‘the hill
of God,’ where they met Saul, was also where ‘the garrison of the
Philistines’ was (1 Sam. x. 5, xiii. 2, 3).

Footnote 413:

It has been usually supposed from this verse that ‘Gibeah of Saul’ was
the original home of Saul’s family. But as the family burial-place was
at Zelah (2 Sam. xxi. 14), this can hardly have been the case. Gibeah
was the scene of Jonathan’s first success against the Philistines, and
it was here that Saul fixed his residence during the latter years of
his life.

Footnote 414:

Cp. Judg. xix. 29, where the Levite similarly cuts up his concubine
and sends the pieces to the several tribes of Israel.

Footnote 415:

See my _Higher Criticism and the Verdict of the Monuments_, pp. 463-4.
When Ahab came to the help of the Syrians against the Assyrian king
Shalmaneser, his whole force consisted of only ten thousand men and
two thousand chariots, and ‘Assur-natsir-pal thinks it a subject of
boasting that he had slain fifty or one hundred and seventy-two of the
enemy in battle.’ The whole of the country population of Judah carried
into captivity by Sennacherib was only two hundred thousand one
hundred and fifty, which would give at most an army of fifty thousand
men. The Egyptian armies, with which the victories of the eighteenth
and nineteenth dynasties were gained, were of small size. One of them,
in the time of the nineteenth dynasty, contained only three thousand
one hundred foreign mercenaries and one thousand nine hundred native
troops (Erman, _Life in Ancient Egypt_, Eng. tr., p. 542). At the same
time, we must not forget that if there were fifty thousand available
fighting men in Judah in the time of Hezekiah, there would have been
about three hundred and fifty thousand among the other seven tribes a
few generations earlier. Consequently the calculation given in the
text of 1 Sam. xi. 8 is approximately correct as a mere calculation.
Between available and actual fighting men there was, of course, a
great difference. In the second year of Saul’s reign, when his
authority was established, he was not able to muster more than three
thousand fighting men (1 Sam. xiii. 2). A larger body, indeed, had
flocked to him, but they were an undisciplined, unarmed multitude, who
had to be dismissed to their homes.

Footnote 416:

As the Hebrew _netsîb_ signifies a ‘governor’ as well as a ‘fortified
post’ or ‘garrison,’ many writers have maintained that the _netsîb_ in
‘the Hill of God’ at Gibeah was the Philistine official. But Jonathan
would not have required a thousand men in order to destroy a single
official and the few soldiers who might have been with him.

Footnote 417:

The Hebrews had, of course, no means of ascertaining the exact numbers
of the enemy. The number of chariots is quite impossible, and they
would have been useless in the mountainous country. In the great
battle in which Meneptah saved Egypt from the combined armies of the
Libyans and their northern allies, nine thousand three hundred and
seventy-six prisoners in all were taken, while the slain amounted to
six thousand three hundred and sixty-five Libyans and two thousand
three hundred and seventy of their Mediterranean confederates. To
these must be added nine thousand one hundred and eleven Maxyes. And
yet it does not seem that any of the invaders escaped from the battle.

Footnote 418:

1 Sam. xiii. 6, 7. For the distinction that is here drawn between ‘the
men of Israel’ and ‘the Hebrews,’ see above, p. 6.

Footnote 419:

The identification is uncertain, as it depends on the position to be
assigned to Gibeah.

Footnote 420:

Ahimelech (1 Sam. xxii. 9, 11, 20) is here called Ahiah, perhaps out
of reluctance to apply the term Melech, ‘King,’ with its heathen
associations, to Yahveh.

Footnote 421:

Here called by its old name of Beth-On, which the Massoretic
punctuation has transformed into Beth-Aven.

Footnote 422:

Some of the literary critics have started the gratuitous supposition
that a prisoner was substituted for Jonathan, though the fact was
suppressed by the later Hebrew historian. It is perhaps natural that
those who re-write history should have a poor opinion of the
trustworthiness of their predecessors.

Footnote 423:

1 Sam. xii.

Footnote 424:

1 Sam. x. 8, compared with xiii. 8-15.

Footnote 425:

1 Sam. xiii. 14. Though Saul’s kingdom did ‘not continue,’ it
nevertheless lasted some time, and was not overthrown at Michmash, as
those who heard Samuel’s words must have expected. As David was not
anointed until some years later, he cannot be ‘the man’ after Yahveh’s
‘heart,’ whom the seer had in his mind at the time.

Footnote 426:

The _nakhal_ (A.V. ‘valley’) is probably the Wadi el-Arîsh, which lay
on the way to the Shur or line of fortifications that protected the
eastern side of the Delta. Havilah, the ‘sandy’ desert, corresponds
with the Melukhkha or ‘Salt’ desert of the Babylonian inscriptions.
The ‘city of Amalek’ may have been El-Arîsh, if this were not in
Egyptian hands at the time.

Footnote 427:

The Israelites had been stirred to vengeance by the murderous raids of
the Bedâwin at a time when the Philistine invasion had made them too
weak to defend themselves (1 Sam. xv. 33).

Footnote 428:

For ‘Edom’ we should probably read ‘Aram,’ as is demanded by the
geographical order of the list of countries which runs from south to
north. In 2 Sam. viii. 13, ‘Aram’ has been substituted for ‘Edom,’
which was still read by the Chronicler (1 Chron. xviii. 12), and the
marriage of David with the daughter of the king of Aram-Geshur (2 Sam.
iii. 3) implies hostility between Saul and the Geshurites.

Footnote 429:

The ‘critics’ have decided that the list of Saul’s wars has been
‘borrowed’ from the history of David. In this case, however, we should
have heard of ‘the king’ of Zobah, not of ‘the kings.’ We happen to
know that Saul fought against Ammon. Had the fact not been mentioned,
the ‘critics’ would have maintained, as in the case of Moab and Zobah,
that such a war never took place. The argument from silence may
simplify the process of reconstructing history, but from a historical
point of view it is worthless.

Footnote 430:

Saul showed himself in other cases such a scrupulous observer of the
Law that we can well understand his obeying the precept of Deuteronomy
that the king should not ‘multiply’ horses or wives (Deut. xviii. 16,
17).

Footnote 431:

1 Sam. xxii. 6.

Footnote 432:

It is clear, however, from 1 Sam. xxi. 9, that there must be some
mistake here, since the sword of Goliath was laid up at Nob while Saul
was king.

Footnote 433:

This must be an exaggeration, since David, who was not above the
ordinary size, afterwards used his sword (1 Sam. xxi. 9).

Footnote 434:

The narrative goes on to say that ‘David took the head of the
Philistine and brought it to Jerusalem; but he put his armour in his
tent.’ This verse is given in the Septuagint, though the next nine
verses are omitted. But the statement cannot be right. Jerusalem was
not captured by David until many years after the battle in the valley
of Elah, and the shepherd lad had no tent of his own at the time.

Footnote 435:

1 Chron. xx. 5. ‘Beth-lehemite’ is turned into ‘Lahmi,’ the name of
the ‘brother’ of Goliath, and the unintelligible _Yaare-oregim_
becomes _Yair_. _Oregim_, ‘weavers,’ however, has crept in from the
end of the verse, and the original reading of 1 Sam. xxi. 19 must have
been, ‘El-hanan, the son of Yaari (the forester) the Beth-lehemite,
slew Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver’s
beam.’

Footnote 436:

1 Kings xix. 15, 16; 2 Kings ix. 2, 3. Ahijah, however, did not anoint
Jeroboam when he suggested to him that he should head a revolt of the
ten tribes against the house of David. When David was made king at
Hebron he was anointed by ‘the men of Judah,’ not by a prophet (2 Sam.
ii. 4), and no mention is made of a prophet or priest when he was
anointed ‘king over Israel’ (2 Sam. v. 3).

Footnote 437:

We must remember that in any case the act of anointing would have been
a secret, and that consequently an erroneous account of it might
easily have been set on foot.

Footnote 438:

1 Sam. xviii. 6. The singular ‘Philistine’ has to be noted, as if
there was a reference in it to the overthrow of Goliath. Cf. xix. 5.

Footnote 439:

See above, p. 342.

Footnote 440:

It is also possible that chapter xx. ought to precede chapter xix.

Footnote 441:

1 Sam. xix. 2.

Footnote 442:

Hitzig identified the name of Achish with that of the Homeric
Ankhisês. Whether this is so or not, Dr. W. Max Müller is probably
right in seeing the same name in that of a native of Keft, or the
northern coast of Syria, mentioned in an Egyptian papyrus where it is
written Akashau (Spiegelberg in the _Zeitschrift für Assyriologie_,
viii. p. 384).

Footnote 443:

Unless, indeed, 1 Sam. xxiii. 16-18 is an interpolation.

Footnote 444:

1 Sam. xxiv. 2. Compare the expression used by Sennacherib when
describing his campaign against the Cilicians: ‘Like a wild goat I
climbed to the high peaks against them’ (W. A. I., i. 39, 77).

Footnote 445:

The name is preserved in the modern Tell Zif.

Footnote 446:

Shunem was a fortified city, already mentioned in the Tel el-Amarna
tablets, Aphek a mere village. Shunem had evidently been captured, and
the Philistine camp subsequently formed outside its walls a little to
the west.

Footnote 447:

See Exod. xxii. 18; Lev. xx. 27; Deut. xviii. 10, 11.

Footnote 448:

We are told in 1 Chron. xii. 19 that even while he was in the
Philistine camp at Aphek, and again when he was on the march back to
Ziklag, ‘some of Manasseh’ deserted to him.

Footnote 449:

The Negeb or ‘South’ was divided at the time into the Negeb of the
Cherethites or Philistines, of the Jews, and of the Calebites (1 Sam.
xxx. 14, 16.) Up to the end of Saul’s reign, therefore, Caleb and
Judah had not been as yet amalgamated into a single tribe.

Footnote 450:

See above, p. 234.

Footnote 451:

Aroer had belonged to Reuben (Josh. xiii. 16), Hormah, Ziklag,
Chor-ashan, and Ramoth of the south to Simeon (Josh. xix. 4-8.) It is
curious that no mention should be made of Beth-lehem, and it is
therefore possible that ‘Beth-lehem’ should be read in place of
‘Beth-el’ in 1 Sam. xxx. 27. The Septuagint has Baith-Sour.

Footnote 452:

Boaz, the grandfather of Jesse, is said to have been the son of Salmon
or Salma, who, according to 1 Chron. ii. 50, 51, was the founder of
Bethlehem, and the son of Caleb.

Footnote 453:

Criticism has seen in the story told by the Amalekite a second version
of the death of Saul inconsistent with that which precedes it. The
inconsistency certainly exists, but that is because the Amalekite’s
story was a fabrication, the object of which was to gain a reward from
David. There was this much truth in it, that Saul had been wounded and
had desired death; the Amalekite could easily have learned this from
those who had witnessed the last scene of Saul’s life. But the fact
that he had robbed Saul’s corpse shows that he must have come to the
ground after the flight of the Israelitish soldiers; he was, in fact,
one of those Bedâwin thieves who, in Oriental warfare, still hang on
the skirts of the battle in the hope of murdering the wounded and
plundering the dead when it is over and the victors are pursuing the
vanquished.

Footnote 454:

The translation is that of the Revised Version, with a slight change
in the 21st verse. The contrast between the preservation of the text
in this Song and in that of the Song of Deborah is great, no passage
in it being corrupt, and points to the more archaic character of the
latter, as well as to a confirmation of the fact that the Song of the
Bow was learnt in the schools from the time of its composition.

Footnote 455:

Ish-Baal or Esh-Baal, ‘the man of Baal,’ is called Ishui in 1 Sam.
xiv. 49 (where the name of Abinadab is omitted; see 1 Chron. viii.
33). Later writers changed Baal into Bosheth, ‘Shame,’ in accordance
with the custom which grew up when the title of Baal came to signify
the god of Phœnicia, rather than Yahveh of Israel.

Footnote 456:

That the reign of David ‘in Hebron’ continued for five years after the
death of Esh-Baal seems the most probable way of explaining the
statement in 2 Sam. ii. 10, that the reign of Saul’s son lasted only
two years. It is certainly preferable to the usual supposition that
‘two’ is a mistake for ‘seven.’

Footnote 457:

The author of the books of Samuel did not know his age (2 Sam. ii.
10). In 1 Sam. xiv. 49 Ishui is named before Melchi-shua, but in 1
Chron. viii. 33 Esh-Baal is the youngest of Saul’s children. That
Esh-Baal did not take part in the battle of Gilboa would suit equally
well with either hypothesis. Abner, the son of Ner, the son of Abiel,
was the great-uncle of Esh-Baal (1 Sam. xiv. 50, 51). As he was still
in the prime of life when he was murdered, it is reasonable to suppose
that his great-nephew was very young.

Footnote 458:

1 Chron. ii. 16.

Footnote 459:

If, as is probable, we should read ‘Geshurites’ for ‘Ashurites’ in 2
Sam. ii. 9, Esh-Baal would have claimed rule over Geshur, and
consequently would have been as much involved in war with the king of
that country as he was with David. We subsequently find the Aramæans
in alliance with the Ammonites (2 Sam. x. 6, etc.), and the king of
Ammon was the ally of David against Esh-Baal (2 Sam. xi. 2). It is
probable that in 1 Sam. xiv. 47, ‘Aram’ must be read for ‘Edom,’ the
geographical position of which was not between Ammon and Zobah (see
above, p. 368); if so, Esh-Baal, in asserting his authority over
Geshur, would only have succeeded to his father’s conquests.

Footnote 460:

Absalom, as the son of a princess, would claim precedence of his two
elder brothers, who, although born after David’s coronation, were
nevertheless not of royal descent on their mother’s side. The name of
the eldest, the son of Ahinoam, was Amnon, that of the second, the son
of Abigail, is given as Chileab in the Hebrew text of Samuel, Daniel
in that of 1 Chron. iii. 1, the Septuagint reading Daluia (Dalbia) and
Damniêl in the two passages. He seems to have died young. The fourth
son of David was Adonijah, the son of Haggith, who, by the death of
his three elder brothers, became the eldest son before his father’s
death, while the fifth and sixth sons were Shephatiah, the son of
Abital, and Ithream, the son of Eglah. All were born in Hebron.

Footnote 461:

2 Sam. iii. 17. This goes to show that Saul’s suspicions of David were
founded on fact.

Footnote 462:

The name of the Babylonian god Rimmon or Ramman implies that the
family of the murderers were idolaters. They are said to have been
originally from Beeroth, the inhabitants of which had fled to Gittaim
(2 Sam. iv. 3). If the flight had been due to Saul, the hostility of
the sons of Rimmon to the son of Saul would be explained. Beeroth was
one of the cities of the Gibeonites (Josh. ix. 17), and Saul, we learn
from 2 Sam. xxi. 1, had slain the Gibeonites.

Footnote 463:

The name Merib-Baal, given by the Chronicler (1 Chron. viii. 34, ix.
40), is doubtless correct. In the books of Samuel Baal has, as usual,
been changed into Bosheth, and Merib corrupted into the senseless
Mephi.

Footnote 464:

See 1 Chron. xi. 2, and xii. 38-40, where it is added that the
coronation-feast lasted for three days.

Footnote 465:

See 2 Sam. xiii. 13-17.

Footnote 466:

It is difficult to say whether the number of the _gibbôrîm_ or
‘heroes’ was actually restricted to thirty, or whether thirty was an
ideal number which was elastic in practice. In 2 Sam. xxiii.
thirty-seven ‘heroes’ are named, but some of these may have been
appointed to supply the place of others who had died or fallen in war.
To be included among the thirty was equivalent to receiving a Victoria
Cross.

Footnote 467:

2 Sam. xxiii. 8, but the text is corrupt, and reads literally: ‘He
that sitteth on the seat, a Takmonite, chief of the third (?); he is
Adino the Eznite, over eight hundred slain at one time.’ The
Septuagint has: ‘Yebosthe the Canaanite is chief of the third; Adino
the Asônæan is he who drew his sword against eight hundred warriors at
once’; while the Chronicler (1 Chron. xi. 11) omitted the name of
Adino, and read: ‘Jashobeam, a Khakmonite, chief of the captains; he
lifted up his spear against three hundred slain at one time.’ For
Jashobeam the Septuagint gives Yesebada. Adino seems to be the Adnah
of 1 Chron. xii. 20, a Manassite who deserted to David when he was at
Ziklag. Jashobeam is the most probable form of the name, and there
must be some confusion between Jashobeam, who brandished his spear
over three hundred enemies, and an unknown Adino, who did the same
over eight hundred enemies.

Footnote 468:

G. A. Smith, _The Historical Geography of the Holy Land_, p. 218.

Footnote 469:

See 2 Sam. xxi. 15-22, xxiii. 8-17.

Footnote 470:

If the name of Ishbi-benob, ‘my seat is in Nob,’ is correct, ‘Gob’
must be corrected into ‘Nob.’ But perhaps it is the name of the giant
which needs correction.

Footnote 471:

See the map given by Stade, _Geschichte des Volkes Israel_, p. 268,
and my ‘Topography of Præ-exilic Jerusalem’ in the _Quarterly
Statement_ of the Palestine Exploration Fund, Oct. 1883, pp. 215
_sqq._

Footnote 472:

Bliss, ‘Excavations at Jerusalem’ in the _Quarterly Statement_ of the
Palestine Exploration Fund, Oct. 1896 and Jan. 1897.

Footnote 473:

_Antiq._ viii. 5, 3; _C. Ap._ i. 18.

Footnote 474:

It is, of course, possible that Abibal had been preceded by an earlier
Hiram of whom we otherwise know nothing, and who is meant in 2 Sam. v.
11. It is also possible that the use of Hiram’s name in this passage
is proleptic, derived from the fact that it was he who subsequently
sent materials to David for the construction of the temple.

Footnote 475:

1 Chron. xxii. 8.

Footnote 476:

1 Kings v. 3.

Footnote 477:

2 Sam. vi. 3. In Josh. xviii. 18 ‘Gibeah of Kirjath’ is given as one
of the cities of Benjamin. Like most of the Egyptian and Babylonian
cities it had a second and sacred name, Baalê-Judah, the city of ‘Baal
of Judah’ (2 Sam. vi. 2).

Footnote 478:

The name of Obed-Edom, ‘the servant of Edom,’ shows that Edom was the
name of a deity as well as of a country, like Ammi, the patron-god of
Ammon, and it is met with in the monuments of Egypt. A papyrus (_Pap.
Leydens._ i. 343. 7) states that Atum or Edom was the wife of the
Canaanitish fire-god Reshpu, and one of the places in Palestine
captured by Thothmes III. was Shemesh-Edom (No. 51), ‘the Sun-god is
Edom’ (_Records of the Past_, new ser., v. p. 47).

Footnote 479:

2 Chron. i. 3. See above, p. 353.

Footnote 480:

This must be the general signification of the Hebrew expression
_Metheg-ammah_ in 2 Sam. viii. i., which the Septuagint translates τὴν
ἀφωρισμένην, ‘the tribute.’ The Chronicler read Gath for Metheg (1
Chron. xviii. 1), and consequently understood _ammah_ in the sense of
‘mother-city.’ My own belief is that we have in the phrase a Hebrew
transcription of a Babylonian expression which has been derived from a
cuneiform document. The Babylonian _mêtêg ammati_ (for _mêtêq ammati_)
would signify ‘the highroad of the mainland’ of Palestine, and would
refer to the command of the highroad of trade which passed through
Canaan from Asia to Egypt and Arabia. _Ammati_ is the Semitic
equivalent of the Sumerian Sarsar (W. A. I. v. 18, 32 _c._), which was
an early Babylonian name of the land of the Amorites or Syria (W. A.
I. ii. 51, 19; see _Records of the Past_, new ser., v. p. 107); and
_mêtêq_ is given as a rendering of _kharran_, ‘a highroad’ (W. A. I.
ii. 38, 26).

Footnote 481:

2 Sam. xxiii. 20.

Footnote 482:

See my _Higher Criticism and the Verdict of the Monuments_, p. 367.

Footnote 483:

_Ibid._ pp. 349, 350.

Footnote 484:

The Septuagint has misread ‘Amalek’ for ‘Maacah.’

Footnote 485:

El-Hîba probably stands on the site of the Egyptian town of Hâ-Bennu,
the Greek Hipponon, the capital of the eighteenth nome of Upper Egypt,
and its fortifications were built by the high priest Men-kheper-Ra and
his wife Isis-em-Kheb. The Tanite Pharaohs formed the twenty-first
dynasty.

Footnote 486:

See Delitzsch, _Wo lag das Paradies_, pp. 279-280. Assur-bani-pal
states that he sent his troops against the cities of Azar-el, the
Khiratâqazians, Edom, Yabrudu, Bit-Ammani or Ammon, ‘the district of
the city of the Haurân’ (_Khaurina_), Moab, Sakharri, Khargê, and ‘the
district of the city of Tsubitê, or Zobah.’ Delitzsch identifies
Yabrudu with the Yabruda of Ptolemy, the modern Yabrûd, north-east of
Damascus. In the tribute-lists of the Second Assyrian Empire, Tsubitê
or Tsubutu comes between Dûru (_Tantûra_) and Hamath, Samalla
(_Sinjerli_) and Khatarikka or Hadrach (Zech. ix. 1.), and Zemar
(_Sumra_), and the Quê on the coast of the Gulf of Antioch.

Footnote 487:

The fact that the Assyrian king Shalmaneser II. calls Baasha, the
contemporary king of Ammon, ‘the son of Rukhubi’ or Rehob, just as he
calls Jehu ‘the son of Omri,’ shows that Rehob was a personal name.
The Biblical Beth-Rehob is parallel to Bit-Omri, a designation of
Samaria in the Assyrian texts. Beth-Rehob is placed near Dan in Judg.
xviii. 28. In 1 Chron. xix. 6, Aram-Naharaim is apparently substituted
for Aram-Beth-Rehob, though, as the dominions of Hadad-ezer extended
to the Euphrates, soldiers may have come to the help of the Ammonites
from Mesopotamia, as well as from Beth-Rehob. The name of Hadad-ezer
is incorrectly given as Hadar-ezer in 2 Sam. x. 16. It appears as
Hadad-idri in the Assyrian inscriptions (with the Aramaic change of
_z_ to _d_), where it is the name of the king of Damascus, called
Ben-Hadad II. in the Old Testament.

Footnote 488:

So, according to the Septuagint and 1 Chron. xviii. 4. The Hebrew text
of 2 Sam. viii. 4 has ‘700 horsemen.’ But it is possible that we ought
to read ‘1700 horsemen.’

Footnote 489:

Nicolaus Damascenus, as quoted by Josephus, makes Hadad the king of
Damascus, who thus vainly endeavoured to check the torrent of
Israelitish success. Hadad, however, must be merely Hadad-ezer in an
abbreviated form, Perhaps we may gather from 1 Kings xi. 23, that the
ruling prince in Damascus at the time of David’s conquests was Rezon,
the son of Eliadah.

Footnote 490:

1 Chron. xix. 18. In 2 Sam. x. 18, the numbers are 700 charioteers and
40,000 horsemen, which are clearly wrong.

Footnote 491: