Beware Of Israel's First Civil War of North and South and It's Consequences

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                

When at present, it was announced on the news today that Israel is close to a Civil War, but the president, Hertzog, said he would not allow that to happen.  People have been rioting for the past 11 weeks and it looks like it will continue until Passover over the new governmental policies in the judicial area.  

Israel and the kingdom of Judah allowed things to get out of hand and had their First and Only Civil War with dire consequences.  King Solomon died in 920 BCE, and that was the start of it.  A divided kingdom falls, and in this case, Assyria was just waiting for this to happen as they stepped in and took the land AND the people.  

Solomon, born in 961 BCE,  had taken on the task of building the Temple that Moses had planned for.  He got rid of his brother, Adonijah, and other potentially dangerous individuals and put his money and his laborers with architects and builders sent to him by King Hiram of Tyre.  The work was completed in the 11th year of Solomon's reign and ensured the central position of Jerusalem in the kingdom.                              

                     Abiathar, son of Ahimelech, chief priest at Nob, a priestly city probably situated near Jerusalem on Mt. Scopus.  After the destruction of the tabernacle  or temporary Temple (According to the Hebrew Bible, the tabernacle, also known as the Tent of the Congregation, was the portable earthly dwelling place of Yahweh used by the Israelites from the Exodus until the conquest of Canaan.) at Shiloh, the priests of the sons of Eli built a high-place in Nob where they officiated.  As a punishment for the assistance given to the fugitive David, Saul slew all the priests of the place because they were like false priests.                          

            Eli with Samuel

Eli became the high priest at age 58 at the shrine of Shiloh and one of the last Judges in the 11th century BCE.  He was the mentor of Samuel.  He had died 40 years after becoming high priest by falling from his chair on hearing of the Philistine capture of the Ark. 

Zadok was a Cohen, a priest, not a high one, though.  He may have officiated at the altar in Gibeon but after Saul's death, went to David at Hebron and--together with Abiathar---was David's chief priest.  He remained loyal during Absalom's rebellion and on David's command, anointed Solomon as king.  Solomon appointed Zadok's son a high priest in the Temple and from that time the high priesthood remained in the Zadokite family until the period of the Hasmonean rising. 

Adonijah buttering up David as he lay dying.  Adonijah was the 4th son of David.  After  his brother, Absalom's death, who was the 3rd son, he claimed the succession to the throne, with the support of Joab and Abiathar, but was unsuccessful.  Adonijah later sought to marry Abishag, David's young concubine, but Solomon regarded this as an adct of rebellion and had him killed.  (Kings 1-2).    

Supporting Adonijah were the "old guard"--General Joab and the priest, Abiathar;  and supporting Solomon were the priest Zadok, the prophet Nathan, and the captain of David's bodyguard, Benaiah. 

Solomon ruled his country.  The Sanhedrin wasn't born until much later.  The earliest record of a Sanhedrin of the 71 male rabbinical judges is by Josephus who wrote of a olitical Sanhedrin convened by the Romans in 57 BCE.  Hellenistic sources generally depict the Sanhedrin as a political and judicial council headed by the country's ruler.  

The biggest problem with Solomon's unwise governmental decisions were taxing the people too much to complete the Temple and not paying his laborers.  Solomon must have paid his superintendant, though, Jeroboam I, of the tribe of Ephraim, who supervised forced laborers' work.  It was he who later led the revolt after Solomon had died because his son, Rehoboam, did not revise these problematic areas that the people were rebelling against.  He kept taxes that high, and kept forcing the laborers to work which was too much like slave standards.  

Jeroboam's revolutionary movement was at first suppressed, and he had to take refuge in Egypt.  Later, he led a delegation to speak with King Rehoboam representing the fated northern Israelite tribes which met him at Shechem, demanding changes in the system of taxation and forced labor.  

When that request was refused, the northern tribes declared their independence and anointed Jeroboam as their king.  Jeroboam's capital was first at Shechem, but was later removed to Penuiel in Transjordan and finally to Tirzah.  

Five years after his accession, 60 towns of his territory were ravaged by an Egyptian invasion.  

To combat the influence of the Jerusalem Temple (for he's now going against Moses's plan and making this more of an economical competition of businesses, he had the audacity to set up new shrines at Bethel and Dan with a similar cult but centering around the symbols of golden calves--a horrid idea since Moses had gone up the mountain to receive the 10 Commandments and when he was out of sight, the Israelites threw a Rave;  a party of dancing and drinking around a golden calf they had made. 

 Golden Calf: (Exodus 32:4, Exodus 32:8; Deuteronomy 9:16; Nehemiah 9:18). This was a molten image of a calf which the idolatrous Israelites formed at Sinai. This symbol was borrowed from the custom of the Egyptians. It was destroyed at the command of Moses (Exodus 32:20).

The Bible and talmudic sources are violently hostile to Jeroboam I who "sinned and caused Israel to sin."  Jeroboam was not a student of Moses' writings but a great worker and leader of men.  He had missed the whole idea of what Solomon had in mind with the Temple and where Judaism was going to be.  That was the beginning of their end.

By being divided, they were like chickens out of the coop about to be plucked by the lion nearby.  The Assyrians saw their weakness and attacked, taking most of the best of the people away with them to be used in another land in 721 BCE.  Shalmaneser V's had laid siege of Samaria and its capture by Sargon, his successor who annexed the country and then deported 27,290 of the Israelites to Assyria and Media, and then replaced them with people they wanted to rid themselves of, Syrian and Babylonian prisoners.  Judah itself was taken by them by 700 BCE.  

The only thing that stopped Sennacherib was a plague in his army and they returned home.  King Manasseh of Judah was exiled to Assyria in 652 BCE as a result of complicity in a plot against Ashurbanipal  (669-626 BCE). He was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 669 BCE to his death in 631.  He is generally remembered as the last great king of Assyria.  

After this time, Assyria declined rapidly and was succeeded by Babylon.  

Resource: 

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

Tanakh, Stone Edition

ILTV on riots today in Israel