cheerful sportiveness of art which seeks the relief of expression in this work, finds a complete parallel in the plenty and almost luxury which, as its vivid descriptions prove, prevailed far and wide, when an animated commerce with foreign countries poured all sorts of valuable commodities and objects of art into Israel, and thus, while the prosperity of the country was still on the whole without a cloud, stimulated in a hundred ways the artistic feeling and the desire of the people. And yet, in the midst of all this widespread cheerfulness and even luxury, the song breathes at the same time such deep morality and chaste innocence of heart, such determined defiance of the over-refinement and degeneracy of the court-life, such stinging scorn of the growing corruptions of life in great cities and palaces, that no clearer or stronger testimony can be found of the healthy vigour which, in this century, still characterised the nation at large, than the combination of art and simplicity in the Canticles.

Further evidence of the sturdy spirit which prevailed during the early days of the northern kingdom, which, through all its restlessness, was so bravely striving for a higher end, is afforded by the song of victory subsequently put into the mouth of Hannah,' which has been already criticised."

It is now, however, time to conduct the history of the southern kingdom through the first century after the disruption, that we may see what position it took by the side of its more powerful rival.

B. THE KINGDOM OF JUDAH IN THE FIRST CENTURY.

I. THE SUCCESSORS OF SOLOMON.

1. This kingdom was placed at first, as has been already remarked,3 in the most embarrassing position. Solomon's son Rehoboam, evidently supported by a very powerful party in Jerusalem, was determined not to quit the path which had been entered upon during the latter period of his father's reign, and adhered to it in spite of the revolt of the Ten Tribes. He therefore tolerated, or even promoted, probably from personal preference, the practice of foreign religious rites; and indeed it was to its maintenance of this larger freedom that the southern kingdom, in contrast to the northern, at first owed much of its power and resources. Not that the temple service of Jahveh was given up by the king. On the contrary, Jahveh continued

11 Sam. ii, 1-10.

2 P. 33 note 4.

$ P. 10.

to be the proper national deity; his worship had been introduced into the splendid temple, and the Levites,' faithful to it, now withdrew in increasing numbers from the north into the smaller kingdom of Judah. By its side, however, sanctuaries were erected at pleasure to other deities, and their worshippers were tolerated. Even the shameless votaries of the goddess of love, who were vowed to sell themselves for money, male as well as female, now found protection.3 Such were the excesses beyond the utmost limits of Solomon's toleration which inevitably ensued.

While the two kingdoms thus remained essentially antagonistic, the prophet Shemaiah, in the first moment of their separation, might enjoin the southern to remain at peace with its sister state, but inducements and provocations to mutual hostilities, and even to actual war, could not long be wanting; and indeed we have already seen that half a century elapsed in a state of permanent belligerence. In this, Judah had obviously at first the most to fear as well as to suffer. The zeal of the kingdom of the Ten Tribes against the house of Solomon was still fresh; and there were Jeroboam's Egyptian alliances which might prove very dangerous to Solomon's son. Psusennes, the last king of the twenty-first dynasty, with whom Solomon was in many ways so closely connected, had died during Solomon's lifetime, after a reign of twenty-five years; and the next dynasty (the twenty-second) of Bubastic kings immediately assumed under its first sovereign Sesonchis, who appears in Hebrew as Shishak, a very different position towards Solomon and his house. We are no longer acquainted with the causes which embittered the feeling of the new Egyptian dynasty against Jerusalem. It is, however, clear that Sesonchis

1 P. 28.

6

3 Vol. iii. p. 305.

• Also Shûshak, 1 Kings xiv. 25, in the Q'rî, just as the LXX have everywhere Zovakíu. The spelling Sesonchis occurs in Georgius Syncellus, Sesonchôsis is found in Eusebius; the former appears the more correct; then fell out in the Hebrew form from, i.e. Memphis. For the rest no as in (according to my Lehrb. § 118a) elaborate proof is now needed to understand how arbitrarily and incorrectly Josephus, Ant. viii. 10, confounds this Shishak with the great conqueror Sesostris, or rather credits Herodotus (ii. 11) with the confusion. In that case certainly the march of the Egyptian troops against Jerusalem would require a very different explanation.

2

protected Jeroboam who had taken refuge at his court, against Solomon. Nothing, moreover, would afford greater satisfaction to a new ruling house in Egypt than to see an irremediable disruption in the nation of Israel when it was acquiring so much power; and hence it is only too probable that Sesonchis promised Jeroboam assistance and support of every kind against Rehoboam. Besides this there were the extremely embarrassing relations between Judah and the broad district of Edom on the south, which had been subdued by David. The position of this country certainly secured its continued connexion with Judah; but it constantly attempted with Egyptian help to regain its independence, as we may conclude from what has been already said,3 and as subsequent events proved. It is no wonder that under such perilous circumstances attention was soon turned anxiously in Judah to every means of self-defence. An exact enumeration is still extant of fifteen cities south and west of Jerusalem which Rehoboam fortified with great care, and provided with everything likely to be wanted-able commanders, arms, and stores of every description. In thus attempting to protect the kingdom by a belt of fortresses, he was only carry ́ing on what Solomon had already begun," but the much larger number of cities which Rehoboam fortified in his little kingdom indicates his increased alarm, while their position points to Egypt as the quarter from which he expected danger; and nothing militates against the hypothesis,—which is, on the other hand, rendered probable by the place of this narrative in the Chronicles as well as by the general position of Rehoboam, -that he commenced these fortifications immediately after coming to the throne.

5

In the fifth year of his reign,' however, Rehoboam really did

1 Vol. iii. p. 305.

2 P. 4.

3 Vol. iii. p. 217 sq.

Judah and by numerous Israelites (cf. 2 Chron. xv. 9, xxxi. 6), but then, believing his power well established, had revolted

* In Joel iv. 19, the only bitter enemies from God, and on that account had been

visited in the fifth year by the Egyptian chastisement. This must only be taken, however, as an edifying reconstruction of ancient scattered recollections. The same remark applies to the representation immediately after of how the prophet Shemaiah had first threatened complete ruin, but when Rehoboam and the rest of the great nobles who had fled to Jerusalem had repented, he had so far mitigated the severity of the divine chastisement as that they should merely become subject to the Egyptians, that they might learn the difference between the human and the divine lord [as in the time of the Chronicler it

see his country visited with an invasion of Egyptian troops. According to the Chronicler, the army included Egyptians, Libyans, Cave-dwellers,' and Ethiopians, pouring in with twelve hundred chariots, sixty thousand cavalry, and almost innumerable hosts of infantry. The inability of Judah to resist such a shock with honour is easily explicable from what has been already said of its condition. Not all the belt of fortresses around Jerusalem could arrest the progress of the advancing army. Jerusalem itself was captured, and the son of Solomon could only purchase peace by humiliating conditions. Of their precise nature we are not informed; nor do we know the details of the events. All that has been transmitted to us is that Jerusalem was completely stripped of all its treasures, both those in the temple, and those in the royal treasury; but the career of Solomon, then scarcely concluded, enables us to judge of the immense value of the booty carried off by the Egyptians, if not in actual money, at any rate in costly vessels and ornaments. The vain successor of Solomon consoled himself, meantime, as well as he could, for so great a loss of honour and splendour. Instead of his father's golden shields, which were carried away by the Egyptians, he ordered iron ones to be made, which were borne before him by his guards in solemn procession, as though everything were the same as before ! 4

How the nations hitherto subject to Judah, especially the Philistines and Edomites, were affected by this Egyptian campaign, we are not more particularly informed. The Philistines, who, when we meet with them in later times, have regained their freedom, probably emancipated themselves at this period, with the assistance of Egypt, from the supremacy of Judah. The city of Gath, however, which, at the beginning of

had long been learned with sorrow]; a representation which is in almost verbal imitation of 1 Kings xxi. 28 sq. On the other hand, xii. 3 certainly contains extracts from ancient sources.

These were aboriginal inhabitants of Africa, as they are described under this name by Pomp. Mela, i. 8. The Hebrew word Sukkiim, properly dwellers in huts, seems at any rate capable of meaning something similar, cf. Job xxx. 6; there is, however, a city of that country, Suché, near Adulé, mentioned in Pliny Nat. Hist. vi. 34. The LXX actually translated it Troglodytes.

2 In the great palace at Karnak Champollion found a representation of king Shishak as conqueror over many princes,

among them one with a so-called Jewish face and the inscription 'King of Judah.' In that he was certainly mistaken; yet, since then, several further discoveries have been made, especially of this Egyptian expedition, and it has been attempted to trace it according to the Egyptian inscriptions by numerous names of cities; cf. Brugsch, Geographische Inschriften, ii. p. 56 sqq.; Blau in the Zeitschr. der Deutsch. Morgenl. Gesell. 1861, pp. 233-250; Rougé in the Revue Archéol. 1861, p. 348; Theol. Stud. und Krit. 1863, p. 733; but all this requires to be worked out with far more

exactness.

Vol. iii. p. 265. 4 Vol. iii. p. 251.

Solomon's reign,' had a tributary king of its own, was probably permanently united during his lifetime with Judah, as it was among the cities fortified by Rehoboam, and most likely did not recover its independence till the reign of Jehoram. With the exception of Gath, all the five petty kingdoms of the Philistines now threw off the yoke of subjection, including even Ekron in the north, which had in ancient times belonged to the tribe of Dan, but had been attached by David to Judah.2 The Egyptian aid probably enabled the Edomites also to gain their freedom, or at least, to obtain a king of their own race; they only remained so, however, until Jehoshaphat once more completely subjugated them, as will be more fully explained further on. How far the new kingdom of the Ten Tribes itself took any part in this Egyptian expedition against Jerusalem, we cannot tell. According to a much later statement,3 Jeroboam had even married a daughter of the Egyptian king Shishak; and his close alliance with him may be inferred from what has been already said. But no particulars of any joint action on the part of these two kings on this expedition have been transmitted to us.

6

The reign of Rehoboam lasted seventeen years, so that, at his death, he was fifty-eight years old. He had eighteen wives and sixty concubines, twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters. Most of his sons he wisely appointed governors of districts and commandants of fortresses, thus securing for each of them an honourable maintenance and a number of wives from the neighbourhood where his duties lay. Three of his own wives. were from the royal house of Judah itself; he was particularly attached to the third, Maachah, a daughter, or rather granddaughter, of the once celebrated Absalom. Her first-born son, Abijah, received special marks of his father's favour, and was solemnly designated by him as his successor."

1 Vol. iii. p. 215.

2 According to 2 Kings i. 2 sqq. comp. with Josh. xix. 43.

3 Georgius Syncellus, Chronogr. i. p. 346, Bonn.

4 Vol. iii. p. 305; supra, p. 25.

5 Vol. iii. p. 312. In the alteration of the passage 1 Kings xii. 24, alluded to in p. 32 note, the LXX depart widely from this and represent Rehoboam as eleven years old at his accession, and as reigning twelve years; the former number is perhaps a sort of joke based on the expression Rehoboam at the time of the disruption was too young (i.e. fresh and inexperienced) and feeble-spirited,' 2 Chron. xiii. 7.

8

Josephus says thirty.

A somewhat similar practice is presupposed in the case of another king, Ps. xlv. 17 [16]. The ancient kingdom of Israel was therefore still far removed in this respect from the abominable customs of a Turkish empire.

If this really is, as is probable, the well-known Absalom, Maachah must have been his granddaughter, 2 Sam. xiv. 27. Her descent from him is, it is true, somewhat uncertain; yet, at any rate, the family name Maachah agrees well with it, 2 Sam. iii. 3; for her proper name was Michaiah, daughter of Uriel of Gibeah, 2 Chron. xiii. 2.

All these statements in 2 Chron, xi.