been an altogether easy task, as it gave rise to the quasi-prophetic proverb : Whoso of Jeroboam dieth in the city the dogs shall eat, And whoso dieth in the field the birds of the air shall eat.1 He was, however, completely successful; and the fate of the first royal house of the northern kingdom afforded only too soon an evil example for all who in like manner aspired to the sovereignty." 4 II. BAASHA AND HIS SON. 1. King Baasha was a man of distinguished bravery,3 not, however, like Jeroboam, of the tribe of Ephraim, but of Issachar. He does not seem to have been encouraged, as his predecessor was, by some eminent prophet to revolt against the reigning dynasty. There is, at least, no evidence on the subject; and it is sufficient to assume that the increasing discontent of the prophets with the house of Jeroboam which led them to announce its approaching fall, was not without influence on his enterprise. He was probably, like David, of humble origin. Yet, after the overthrow of the house of Jeroboam, and when (as it might so far be justly said) Jahveh had raised him up out of the dust to be the ruler of his people Israel," the question naturally arose whether he would govern any better, and, if so, in what way. Very few particulars, unfortunately, have been preserved of his reign, which lasted twenty-four years, or of the leading ideas of his policy. But it is clear from the general course of events in the northern state, and is, moreover, indicated in the brief description of his life which still remains, that on the religious question which was always the main point in a kingdom of Jahveh, he made not the smallest change or improvement. The only event of his reign with the circumstances of which we are acquainted, is a violent attack upon Judah, which he evidently had a strong desire to annihilate. This reveals clearly enough his real aim. The inability 1 Almost the same proverb, however, reappears on occasion of the fall of the house of Baasha, 1 Kings xvi. 4, and of that of Ahab xxi. 23 sq., xxii. 38, 2 Kings ix. 36; and the older narrator, from whom it is clearly derived, may have found the most striking idea of it in the fall of the house of Ahab. 21 Kings xv. 25-32 compared with xiv. 11. 3 Comp. the allusion 1 Kings xvi. 5. D that Jahveh should raise another king to exterminate the house of Jeroboam, 1 Kings xiv. 14, is expressed in too general terms for us to suppose he had himself addressed both Jeroboam and afterwards Baasha. Yet it is a question whether the song in 1 Sam. ii. 1-10 (cf. the Dichter des A. B. i. p. 157 sqq., 2nd ed.) is not to be ascribed either to him or to Jehu. 5 As is said in the prophetic utterance of Jehu, 1 Kings xvi. 2; cf. xiv. 7, 1 Sam. ii. 8. of the house of Jeroboam to subdue the kingdom of Judah and other enemies, together with the growing discontent of the prophets, was the principal provocation of the rising which overthrew it. In this direction Baasha certainly expected that his courage and skill as a soldier would ensure him greater success, and it was with this hope that he aspired to power. But this only drew forth in him still more strongly than in his predecessors the dull and hollow efforts of the kingdom of the Ten Tribes to remove evils which it had itself created; and the inevitable result was that instead of rendering it any help in this way he only plunged it deeper in confusion and weakness; and instead of governing better than the house of Jeroboam, he not only shared its errors, but was also unable himself to found a permanent and powerful line. He took some years to establish himself firmly on the throne. In the twelfth year of his reign,' however, he laid a plan for inflicting a severe blow on Judah and its reigning king Asa. The great military road from Jerusalem to the north passed through the city of Ramah,2 which he had already conquered and taken from Judah. This he proposed to convert into a fortress which should command the territory of Judah, and from which all the traffic between the two kingdoms might be cut off. The smaller state which was necessarily in many respects commercially dependent on the larger, would thus be reduced to the last extremity. For this purpose he constructed new fortifications at Ramah at a great expense. Placed by this step in great embarrassment, Asa entreated Benhadad of Damascus for aid against the encroachments of Baasha. He responded to this appeal, invaded the territories of Baasha with a large force, and subdued the whole of the northern extremity of the dominions of Israel, on both sides of the sources of the Jordan.3 This is the first inroad of north-eastern ated further north-west of Dan, as Robin- 131 كندرة nations into a province of the kingdom of the Ten Tribes, which could only with difficulty offer any permanent resistance. On this occasion, however, the Aramean king appears to have withdrawn on receiving Baasha's promise to desist from the erection of the fortress against Judah, and to render other services the particulars of which have disappeared.' The king of Israel was compelled to restore Ramah in its unfinished state to Judah; and as soon as his troops were obliged by the disaster in the north to retire from it, Asa raised a levy of the whole nation for the destruction of the works already commenced there; while he employed the stores of stone and timber which thus fell into his hands in fortifying the two adjacent cities of Geba and Mizpah against a repetition of the inroads of the kings of the Ten Tribes. He further took the opportunity to provide Mizpah with a plentiful supply of water in case of a siege; and it was at this time that the great well was constructed in it which gained such a melancholy celebrity in the age of Jeremiah.2 3 2. The honour and power of the kingdom thus sank lower under the new dynasty than under its predecessor; while the fundamental errors of the latter remained unamended. It soon, therefore, became apparent how little gain resulted from the change; and a prophet named Jehu, son of Hanani, who, like Ahijah thirty years before, must have acquired considerable authority by his labours, publicly and repeatedly foretold the fall of this dynasty also, and at the same time openly blamed Baasha for having exterminated the house of Jeroboam by violence. Baasha himself maintained his power, like Jeroboam, till his death, and was honourably buried in his capital of Tirzah. His son Elah, however, after a reign of not much longer than a year, met with the same fate as Jeroboam's son, after an equally short period; and it seemed as though this house was to fall from almost the same cause as that which had overthrown its predecessor. The army was again in the field, before the fatal Philistine city of Gibbethon. The king, however, was meantime revelling in Tirzah, and drank immoderately at a banquet in the house of his steward Arza. Here he was assassinated by Zimri, who was the commander of half the cavalry forces. Zimri immediately assumed royal power, and destroyed all the This follows from the expression 1 Kings x. 32; see more below. 2 Jer. xli. 7-9. For the locality now identified with it see the Zeitschr. der Deutsch. Morgenl. Ges. 1860, p. 617. Just as Jehu is certainly described in 2 Kings x. as called to the throne by a prophet of Jahveh; yet his cruelty against the house of Omri is condemned, Hos. i. 4. According to the spelling of the LXX 4 Ζαμβρί. adherents and friends of the house of Baasha. Only the queen and the other women of the palace escaped with their lives, as they willingly submitted to the effeminate murderer of their lord; and the queen-mother even appears to have made favourable advances to him.' III. THE HOUSE OF OMRI. 1. When an attempt was made in the person of Zimri to found a third dynasty in the kingdom of the Ten Tribes, the monarchy, after an existence of scarcely half a century, had already sunk so low that it seemed to be no longer a refuge and protection but a burden and embarrassment to the state. Upon this the purely military energy of the people roused itself once more, and created in Omri a king who, having not the remotest claim to a prophetic call and relying upon no prophetic help, was free to try what could be accomplished by this popular force in union with the power of the crown. Bringing the royal authority into a stern prominence, the line which he founded maintained itself through four kings for a period equal to that of the two first dynasties together. Yet it soon served only to increase the existing evils and weaknesses, since its origin imposed on its princes the necessity of departing still further than their predecessors from the fundamental principles of the ancient religion. Our information about this half-century is somewhat fuller, and enables us to perceive clearly into how deep an abyss it plunged the unhappy kingdom. The troops besieging Gibbethon were so exasperated against Zimri, on hearing of his insurrection and the bloody deeds which followed, that they immediately elected a man in their eyes far more worthy of power, and proclaimed him king in the camp. This was Omri, their commander-in-chief, who was, therefore, second only in rank to the king. Their next step was to raise the siege, and hasten with him to Tirzah. The effeminate Zimri, meantime, shut himself up in the capital, but could not prevent its reduction by the assailants. Retiring to the women's apartments, the most secluded portion of the great palace, and giving orders for it to be set on fire over his head, he killed himself like a Sardanapalus; he had reigned only a 1 See 1 Kings xv. 32-xvi. 14. The circumstances connected with the women can, it is true, only be inferred from the brief words dropped by Jezebel in an exactly similar case, 2 Kings ix. 31; but the inference is certain, and the manner of Zimri's death agrees with it. 2 According to the LXX, 'Außpí; Josephus transforms the name into 'Auapivos, as he does with many proper names. The true meaning of the word i is most clearly seen from this passage, 1 week. A rival king was indeed set up in the otherwise unknown Tibni, son of Ginath; and a civil war commenced which lasted four years,2 in which he was chiefly supported by his brother Joram.3 At length these two fell in battle together, and Omri remained sole king. This prince, to judge from the few extant recollections of his career, was as enterprising as he was prudent; the only man of his day, perhaps, capable of establishing a sovereignty with any likelihood of lasting. The former capital Tirzah, where Zimri had burned the royal palace, and which could not long resist a siege, he resolved to abandon. Further north of Shechem he founded in its place a new capital in Samaria. This place was exceedingly well adapted for the purpose, and for two centuries maintained its position until the overthrow of the monarchy; and indeed in later days often gave its name to the whole kingdom. Up to this time it is probable that it had been altogether or very nearly uninhabited. The hill on which Samaria now rose to be the queen of the land, belonged to a wealthy person called Shemer, only known to us by his name. It was purchased from him by Omri for two silver talents, so that the new city was from the beginning wholly an erection of the king's. The hill formed an eminence in a plain of great fertility, which continued right up to its own summit,5 and in addition it was capable of being easily fortified. The judicious choice of the new capital certainly, therefore, contributed to prolong the existence of the kingdom. The chief seat of religion, on the other hand, continued undisturbed at Bethel. 4 Omri did not, however, reign more than twelve years as sole king, and during six of these he still resided in Tirzah. But 1 Kings xvi. 18, as well as from 2 Kings xv. 25; according to this, it signifies much the same as Harem, with which it is perhaps allied by its root. As the women's apartments were not connected with the palace in the time of Solomon (iii. p. 250), the new style of architecture must have been introduced soon after him, perhaps from Syria, which combined the two in one large building; cf. iii. p. 271. According to the LXX, aur vids Γωνάθ. 2 This number results from a comparison of 1 Kings xvi. 15 with ver. 23. An evidently genuine addition of the LXX. According to 1 Kings xvi. 24 the city was called Shôm'rôn after Shemer; some Codd. of the LXX spell it, more conformably to its derivation, Zeμepúv, to which the spelling Samaria also refers: Shôm'ron, therefore, is interchanged with it like the proper name itself with i 1 Chron. vii. 32, 34. The later Samaritans, or more properly the New Samaritans, in expounding their name as though they were the true Guardians (□ņiv) of the law, were only amusing themselves. 5 Cf. the allusions to the situation of Samaria, Is. xxviii. 4, Mic. i. 6; it is further described by Wilson, Lands, ii. p. 81, and Rosen, Grenzboten, 1860, p. 255 sqq. and elsewhere. • Both statements, viz. that he reigned twelve years after the four years' civil war, and that the six years in Tirzah belong to these twelve, are clearly implied in the words in ver. 23. Their accordance with ver. 29 and with the whole chronology is explained at p. 21 sq. |