Nadene Goldfoot
There was a Civil War between the North and the South in Israel. The 10 states of the North ceded from the Union against the 2 states of the south, which resulted in a war between them. This happened when King Solomon of Israel died. He had over-taxed and demanded that men worked on building the Temple without pay, causing strife among the population so much that the 10 states were expecting relief upon his death.
The 12 states of United Israel had started as tribes from the 12 sons of Jacob, who was the grandson of Abraham (b: 1948 BCE). When Moses (1391-1271 BCE) died after leading the Exodus from Egypt to Canaan, Joshua took over his post and had dispersed the 12 tribes to their allotted land sections which would have taken place shortly after 1271 BCE. They had been living in peace upon their land for 351 years with Judges and kings Saul, David and Solomon before the Civil War took place. In comparison, the USA is now 245 years old.
King Solomon (961-920 BCE) was the son of King David and Bathsheba and had had many successes during his reign. The first signs of the country's subsequent deterioration can be traced back to his reign. the forced labor connected with the extensive building program impoverished the country. Several subject peoples, such as the Edomites and Arameans began to revolt, and there is evidence of malcontent inside Israel. These problems came to a head with Solomon's death which was quickly succeeded by territorial loss and internal division.
Relief wasn't to happen. Solomon's son, Rehoboam, (933-917 BCE) planned on continuing Solomon's regime of high taxes and workers. The Temple was in the state of Judah where Rehoboam was from, and there was a big division between the North and the South already that had been developing. The Judeans were not rebelling about the drop in their level of daily living caused by the heavy taxation or forced labor because in a sense, they would benefit from it.
Jeroboam ( 933-912 BCE) stepped up from the North , an Ephraimite, as their leader against Rehoboam and had demanded change. He had been Solomon's Superintendent of Forced Labor who had led the revolt against the burden imposed on the people by the monarchy. His revolutionary movement was at first suppressed, and he took refuge in Egypt. After Solomon's death, however, he led a delegation of the northern states which met Rehoboam at the town of Shechem, demanding changes in the system of taxation and forced labor.
When the request was refused, the northern states declared their independence and anointed Jeroboam as their king. Jeroboam's capital was first at Shechem, but was later removed to Penuel in Transjordan and finally to Tirszah.
The Civil War occurred around the time of 920 BCE.
The northern 10 states were called Samaria later on. Today's reference to the areas of Judea and Samaria mean the north and the south of what had been united as the Kingdom of Israel. Samaria was also the name of the capital of the northern states of Israel, founded in 880 BCE by King Omri. It was on a hill bought from Shemer (I Kings 16:24).
The site was about 7 miles NW of Shechem which is today's Nablus) and dominates a wide countryside. It had been an ancient Canaanite town in Jordanian territory from 1948 to 1967, now a part of Israel. By 1967 it had a population of 44,000 and is overwhelmingly Moslem with a tiny Samarian community and has for decades been a center of fanatical Arab nationalism. A small Jewish community formerly existed there. The city of Samaria occupied 25 acres.
Five years after Jeroboam's accession, 60 towns of his territory were ravaged by an Egyptian invasion. To combat the influence of the Jerusalem Temple, he set up new shrines at Bethel (The name of a border city located between the territory of the Israelite tribe of Benjamin and that of the tribe of Ephraim, which first belonged to the Benjaminites and was later conquered by the Ephraimites. Ephraim bordered Benjamin and Judah. ) and the state of Dan with a similar cult but centering around the symbols of golden calves. The bible and Talmudic sources are violently hostile to Jeroboam who "sinned and caused Israel to sin." This had been a gigantic no no, the thing that since the days of Abraham were an abhorrence to their belief system. Ephraim and Dan were now competing with Jerusalem and the Temple but in an alien manner.
Israel is some 470 km. (290 miles) in length and about 85 miles (135 km.) across at the widest point, about 8 miles at the narrowest. The country is bordered by Lebanon to the north, Syria to the northeast, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the southwest and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. The distance from Lebanon to Jerusalem is 239 kilometers. This air travel distance is equal to 149 miles. The air travel (bird fly) shortest distance between Lebanon and Jerusalem is 239 km= 149 miles.
The war between these states covered an area of 149 miles which was the length of the land. In those days, Israel was much wider, with a total surface of 17,500 sq. miles of which 45% was in Transjordan.
200 years later, Attack by Assyria
Assyria attacked in 721 BCE, about 200 years after the Civil War. They attacked Samaria, the northern 10 tribes. It happened after King Hosea of Israel in 726 BCE had tried to throw off the yoke, and this led to Shalmaneser V's siege of Samaria and its capture in 721 BCE by his successor, Sargon. Sargon then annexed the country, and deported 27,290 Israelites to Assyria and Media, and replaced them with Syrian and Babylonian prisoners.
Judah, along with Benjamin, was not left untouched. The revolt of Ashdod, supported by King Hezekiah of Judah, was suppressed in 715 BCE. but on the accession of Sennacherib in 705 BCE, an uprising broke out throughout the Assyrian empire, and King Hezekiah reasserted his independence. Sennacherib, marching south, subdued the Phoenician cities one by one and, defeating the Egyptian forces at Eltekeh in 701 BCE, took Ascalon (Ashkelon or Ashqelon, also known as Ascalon, is a coastal city in the Southern District of Israel on the Mediterranean coast, 50 kilometres south of Tel Aviv, and 13 kilometres north of the border with the Gaza Strip. The ancient seaport of Ashkelon dates back to the Neolithic Age) and Joppa (Jaffa, in Hebrew Yafo and in Arabic Yafa and also called Japho or Joppa, the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv-Yafo, is an ancient port city in Israel.), sacked Lachish, the 2nd most important of Israel's cities in Judah,(another ancient Canaanite town that was captured by Joshua, fortified by King Rehoboam and Sennacherib invested Jerusalem ( is the military process of surrounding an enemy fort (or town) with armed forces to prevent entry or escape. It serves both to cut communications with the outside world and to prevent supplies and reinforcements from being introduced.) by 700 BCE. Judah was ravaged, but Hezekiah was able to hold out and obtained moderate terms by paying tribute and ceding some territory. Later, Sennacherib was forced by a plague in his army to return home.
Several kingdoms in the Levant ceased to pay taxes to the Assyrian king Senncharib. In retribution, he initiated a campaign to re-subjugate the rebelling kingdoms, among them the Kingdom of Judah. After defeating the rebels of Ekron in Philistia, Sennacharib set out to conquer Judah and, on his way to Jerusalem, came across Lachish: the second most important of the Jewish cities.
King Manasseh of Judah was exiled to Assyria in 652 BCE as a result of complicity in a plot against Ashurbanipal (669-626 BCE). After this time, Assyria declined rapidly and was succeeded by Babylon.
When Joshua entered the land of Canaan, the Israelites numbered 601,730. Surely, the 12 tribes together could have mustered up a large enough army to fight against any enemy like the Assyrians. Divided, they fell, as Judea was the largest state having started off with 76,500 people. Why Assyria Attacked Israel
However, problems with Assyria can be traced back to the successes of Kings David and Solomon who went against the Aramean states in Mesopotamia and Syria which probably contributed to Assyria's subsequent recovery in strength.
In 853 BCE, Shalmaneser III attacked Ben-Hadad II of Damascus, King Ahab (876-853 BCE) of Israel supported the latter in the indecisive battle of Karkar. Shalmaneser's 2nd attack in 848 BCE likewise failed, but after the liquidation of the house of Ahab in 842 BCE, his successor, Jehu (843-816 BCE), paid tribute, although Damascus itself held out in 841 BCE. Her capture in 806 BCE freed Israel from Damascus control. In 803-802 BCE however, Adad-Nirari III ( 810-783 BCE) compelled the submission of Ben-Hadad III of Damascus. The subsequent successes of Jehoash (800-785 BCE) of Israel and his son, Jeroboam II (785-745 BCE) against Ben-Hadad III may have been due to the passivity of Shalmaneser IV (782-772 BCE) under pressure of the kings of Ararat, and of Ashur-Dan III (772-759 BCE). After the death of King Jeroboam II of Israel,, Uzziah aka Ahazaiah (853 BCE) a former king of Israel, became head of the W anti-Assyrian alliance. The Assyrian decline which made this possible was ended by Tiglath-Pileser III (745-727 BCE) who overthrew the Syrian confederacy.
In 735 BCE, King Ahaz of Judah (735-720 BCE), attacked by King Pekah of Israel (735-730 BCE) in alliance with Damascus, Philistia and Edom, appealed for help to Tiglalth-Pileser. As a result, Israel lost its territory in Transjordan and Galilee, while Philistia, Tyre, Moab, and Edom became Assyrian provinces. The Civil War between the two had not mended all this time.
There had been nothing but war going on for about 100 years. This all led to the attack of Assyria on Israel in 721 BCE. .
Resource;
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investment_(military)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Lachish
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