Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading. George Park Fisher
fell in 722 B.C. Assyriology, on the basis of its data, as at present ascertained, would make out a chronology something like the following: Era of the judges, 1300–1020; Saul, 1020–1000; David, 1000–960; Solomon, 960–930; Reho-boam, 930–914 (Jeroboam I., 930–910); Jehoshaphat, 870+-850 (Ahab, 875–853); Azanah (or Uzziah), 779–740 (Jehu, 842–815); (Jeroboam II., 783–743); (Menahem, 744–738).
DAVID AND SOLOMON.—David's reign (about 1000–970 B.C.) is the period of Israel's greatest power. He extended his sway as far as the Red Sea and the Euphrates; he overcame Damascus, and broke down the power of the Philistines; he subdued the Moabites, Ammonites, and Edomites; he conquered the Jebusites, and made Jerusalem his capital and the center of national worship. A poet himself, he enriched the religious service, which he organized, by lyrics—some of them composed by himself—of unrivaled devotional depth and poetic beauty. He organized his military force as well, and established an orderly civil administration. His favorite son, Absalom, led away by ambition, availed himself of disaffection among the people to head a revolt against his father, but perished in the attempt. David left his crown to Solomon at the close of a checkered life, marked by great victories, and by flagrant misdeeds done under the pressure of temptation.
CHARACTERS OF SOLOMON'S REIGN.—Solomon's reign (about 970–933 B.C.) was the era of luxury and splendor. He sought to emulate the other great monarchs of the time. With the help of Hiram, king of Tyre, who furnished materials and artisans, he erected a magnificent temple on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem. He built costly palaces. He brought horses from Egypt, and organized a standing army, with its cavalry and chariots. He established a harem, bringing into it women from the heathen countries, whom he allowed in their idolatrous rites. He was even seduced to take part in them himself. Renowned for his knowledge and for his wisdom—which was admired by the Queen of Saba (Sheba), who came to visit him from the Arabian coast—famous as the author of wise aphorisms, he nevertheless entailed disasters on his country. He established a sort of Oriental despotism, which exhausted its resources, provoked discontent, and tended to undermine morality as well as religion.
THE DIVIDED KINGDOM.—The bad effect of Solomon's magnificence soon appeared. Before his death a revolt was made under the lead of Jeroboam, which was put down. Of Rehoboam, the successor of Solomon, the ten tribes north of Judah required pledges that their burdens should be lightened. In the room of the heads and elders of the tribes, the late king's officers had come in to oppress them with their hard exactions. The haughty young king spurned the demand for redress. The tribes cast off his rule, and made Jeroboam I. their king (about 933 B.C.). The temple was left in the hands of Judah and Benjamin. The division of the kingdom into two, insured the downfall of both. The rising power of the Mesopotamian Empire could not be met without union. On the other hand, the concentration of worship at Jerusalem, under the auspices of the two southern tribes, may have averted dangers that would have arisen from the wider diffusion, and consequent exposure to corruption, of the religious system. The development and promotion of the true religion—the one great historical part appointed for the Hebrews—may have been performed not less effectively, on the whole, for the separation.
HEATHEN RITES.—From this time the energetic and prolonged contest of the prophets with idolatry is a conspicuous feature, especially in the history of Israel, the northern kingdom. Jeroboam set up golden calves at Dan and Bethel, ancient seats of the worship of Jehovah. Wars with Judah and Damascus weakened the strength of Israel. The Egyptian king, Shishak, captured Jerusalem, and bore away the treasures collected by Solomon (p. 41). Under Jehoshaphat (about 873–849 B.C.) the heathen altars were demolished and prosperity returned.
STRUGGLE WITH IDOLATRY: ELIHAH AND ELISHA.—The contemporary of Jehoshaphat in the northern kingdom was Ahab (about 876–854 B.C.). He expended his power and wealth in the building up of Baal-worship, at the instigation of the Tyrian princess, Jezebel, whom he had married. At Samaria, his capital, he raised a temple to Baal, where four hundred and fifty of his priests ministered. The priests of Jehovah who withstood these measures were driven out of the land, or into hiding-places. The austere and intrepid prophet Elijah found refuge in Mount Carmel. The people, on the occasion of a famine, which he declared to be a divine judgment, rose in their wrath, and slew the priests of Baal. In a war—the third of a series—which Ahab waged against Syria, he still fought in his chariot, after he had received a mortal wound, until he fell dead. He had previously thrown the prophet Micaiah into prison for predicting this result. By the marriage of Athalia, a daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, with Jehoshaphat's son, Baal-worship was introduced into Jerusalem. Joram succeeded Ahab. The prophet Elisha, who followed in the steps of Elijah, anointed Jehu "captain of the host of Joram." He undertook, with fierce and unsparing energy, to destroy Baal-worship, and to extirpate the house of Ahab, root and branch. The two kings of Israel and of Judah he slew with his own hand. The priests and servants of Baal were put to the sword. These conflicts reduced the strength of Israel, which fell a prey to Syria, until its power was revived by Jeroboam II. (783–743 B.C.). The death of Athalia brought on the expulsion of the Phoenician idolatry from Jerusalem. The southern kingdom suffered from internal strife, and from wars with Israel, until Uzziah (779–740 B.C.) restored its military strength, and caused agriculture and trade once more to flourish.
THE ASSYRIAN CAPTIVITY.—The two kingdoms, in the ninth and eighth centuries, instead of standing together against the threatening might of Assyria, sought heathen alliances, and wasted their strength in mutual contention. Against these hopeless alliances, and against the idolatry and the formalism which debased the people, the prophets contended with intense earnestness and unflinching courage. Amos, called from feeding his flocks, inveighed against frivolity and vice, misgovernment and fraud, in Israel. Hosea warned Menahem (743–737 B.C.) against invoking the help of Assyria against Damascus, but in vain. He was terribly punished by what he suffered from the Assyrians; but Jotham (740–736 B.C.) and Ahaz (736–728 B.C.), the Judaean kings, successively followed his example. Tiglath-Pileser made Judaea tributary. The Assyrian rites were brought into the temple of Jehovah. The service of Canaanitish deities was introduced. The one incorruptible witness for the cause of Jehovah was the fearless and eloquent prophet, Isaiah. Hosea, king of Israel, by his alliance with Egypt against Sargon, so incensed this most warlike of the Assyrian monarchs, that, when he had subdued the Phoenician cities, he laid siege to Samaria; and, having captured it at the end of a siege of three years, he led away the king and the larger part of his subjects as captives, to the Euphrates and the Tigris, and replaced them by subjects of his own (722 B.C.). The later Samaritans were the descendants of this mixed population.
The Babylonian Captivity.—When Sargon, the object of general dread, died, Hezekiah, king of Judah (727–699 B.C.), flattered himself that it was safe to disregard the warnings of Isaiah, and, in the hope of throwing off the Assyrian yoke, made a treaty of alliance with the king of Egypt, and fortified Jerusalem. He abolished, however, the heathen worship in "the high places." Sennacherib, Sargon's successor, was compelled to raise the siege (p. 46). Manasseh (698–643 B.C.), in defiance of the prophets, fostered the idolatrous and sensual worship, against which they never ceased to lift their voices. Josiah (640–609 B.C.) was a reformer. As a tributary of Babylon, he sought to prevent Necho, king of Egypt, from crossing his territory, but was vanquished and slain at Megiddo, on the plain of Esdraelon. Nebuchadnezzar's victory over Necho, at Carchemish, enabled the Babylonian king to tread in the footsteps of the Assyrian conquerors. The revolt of Zedekiah, which the prophet Jeremiah was unable to prevent, and his alliance with Egypt, led to the Babylonian captivity of the Jews. In this period of national ruin, the prophetic spirit found a voice through Jeremiah and Ezekiel. It was during the era of Assyrian and Babylonian invasion that the predictions of a MESSIAH, a great Deliverer and righteous Ruler who was to come, assumed a more definite expression. The spiritual character of Isaiah's teaching has given him the name of "the evangelical prophet."
Cyrus, the conqueror of Babylon, opened the way (538 B.C.) for the return of the exiles. A small part first came back under Zerubbabel, head of the tribe of Judah, who was made Persian governor. They began to rebuild the