JUDAH, FROM B.C. 990 TO B.C. 929

JUDAH, FROM B.C. 990 TO B.C. 929
REHOBOAM'S KINGDOM
Except in its first act, the commencement of Rehoboam's reign was not blameworthy, nor, as it respects his separate kingdom, un-prosperous. In those days the wealth and welfare of a state were deemed to consist in a numerous population; and of this kind of strength the kingdom of Judah received large additions by migration from that of Israel, through the defection of the Levitical body, and the discontent with which a large and valuable portion of the population regarded the arbitrary innovations of Jeroboam. It may indeed be, in a great degree, imputed to this cause, that, although so much inferior in territorial extent, the kingdom of Judah appears throughout the history of the two kingdoms to be at least equal to that of Israel.
The Walls of Jerusalem, and part of the Valley of Jehoshaphat

2 Samuel 15:23-30;[308] 2 Kings 18:17-18
[308] The Kidron runs through the Valley of Jehoshaphat.
REHOBOAM'S LIFESTYLE
Rehoboam, seeing that he had an adverse kingdom so near at hand, employed the first years of his reign in putting his dominions in a condition of defence. He built and fortified a considerable number of places in Judah and Benjamin, which he stored well with arms and victuals, and in which he placed strong garrisons. For three years he remained faithful to the principles of the theocracy, and received a full measure of the prosperity which had been promised to such obedience. But when he beheld himself, as he deemed, secure and prosperous in his kingdom, his rectitude, which appears never to have been founded on very strong principles, gave way. It was not long before the acts which stained the later years of his father were more than equaled by him. Not only was idolatry openly tolerated and practised, but also the abominable acts, outrageous even to the mere instincts of morality, which some of these idolatries sanctioned or required. Thus the abominations of Judah very soon exceeded those of Israel. And we shall, throughout the historical period on which we have entered, observe one very important distinction in the religious (which, according to the spirit of the Hebrew institutions, means also the political condition of the two kingdoms. Israel rested with tolerable uniformity in a sort of intermediate system between the true religion and idolatry, with enough of elementary truth to preserve some show of fidelity to the system; and enough of idolatry and human invention to satisfy the corrupt tendencies of the age and country. Hence, while on the one hand it never, under its best kings, reached that purity of adherence to the Mosaical system which was sometimes exemplifies in the sister kingdom, so, on the other, it never, or very rarely, fell to those depths of iniquity to which Judah sometimes sunk under its more wicked and weak kings. For Judah, resting on no such intermediate point as had been found in Israel, was in a state of constant oscillation between the extremes of good and evil.
REHOBOAM'S MOTHER
In the case of Rehoboam, the loose principles which prevailed at the latter end of his father's reign, together with the fact that the mother, from whom his first ideas had been imbibed, was an Ammonitess, may partly account for the extreme facility of his fall. Indeed, with reference to the latter fact, it may be observed that among the kings there is scarcely one known to be the son of a foreign and consequently idolatrous mother, who did not fall into idolatry; a circumstance which is sufficient alone to explain and justify the policy by which such connections were forbidden.
EGYPTIAN INVASION
The chastisement of Rehoboam and his people was not long delayed. It was inflicted by the Egyptians, who, in the fifth year of Rehoboam, invaded the land under Shishak their king, in such strong force as intimated the expectation of a more formidable resistance than was encountered; or rather, perhaps, was designed to shorten the tear by overawing opposition. There were twelve hundred chariots, sixty thousand horsemen, and a vast body of infantry; the latter composed chiefly from the subject nations of Lybia and Ethiopia. Shishak took with ease the fenced cities on which Rehoboam had placed so much reliance; and when he appeared before Jerusalem, that city appears to have opened its gates to him. Here he reaped the first-fruits of that rich spoil, from the gold of the temple and of the palace, which supplied so many subsequent demands. In the extremity of distress, while the city was in the hands of an insulting conqueror, who stripped the most sacred places of their costly ornaments and wealth, the king of Judah and his people turned repentantly to God, and implored deliverance from his hand. He heard them, and inclined Shishak to withdraw with the rich spoil he had gained, without attempting to retain permanent possession of his conquest. Astonished himself at the facility with which that conquest had been made, this king despised the people who had submitted so unresistingly to his arms, and, according to the testimony of Herodotus,[309] cited by Josephus himself, he erected, at different points on his march home, triumphal columns, charged with emblems very little to the honor of the nation which had not opposed him.
[309] Herodotus, i. 105.
Although it is difficult to assign a specific reason, beyond a conqueror's thirst for spoil, for this invasion of the dominions of the son by a power which had been so friendly to the father, it does not strike us, as it does some writers, that the difficulty is increased by the fact of the matrimonial alliance which Solomon had formed with the royal family of Egypt. Rehoboam was born before that alliance was contracted, and he and his mother were not likely to be regarded with much favor by the Egyptian princess or her family. Indeed it would seem that she had died, or her influence had declined, or her friends deemed her wrong, before the latter end of Solomon's reign; for it is evident that the king of Egypt, this very Shishak, was not on the most friendly terms with Solomon, since he granted his favor and protection to the fugitive Jeroboam; whose prospective pretensions to divide the kingdom with the son of Solomon forms the only apparent ground of the distinction with which he was treated. This circumstance may direct attention to what appears to us the greater probability, that the expedition was undertaken at the suggestion of Jeroboam, who had much cause to be alarmed at the defection of his subjects to Rehoboam, and at the diligence which that king employed in strengthening his kingdom. The rich plunder which was to be obtained would, when pointed out, be an adequate inducement to the enterprise.
REHOBOAM'S FAMILY
The severe lesson administered by this invasion to Rehoboam and his people was not in vain, for we read no more of idolatrous abominations during the eleven retraining years of this reign. In consequence, these were rather prosperous years for the kingdom; and, save a few skirmishes with the king of Israel, we learn of no troubles by which it was, during these years, disturbed. But, like his father, Rehoboam “desired many wives.” His harem contained eighteen wives and sixty concubines--a number which, we can not doubt, was much opposed to the notions of the Hebrew people, although it seems rather moderate as compared with the establishment of Solomon, or those which we still find among the kings of the East. Of all his wives, the one Rehoboam loved the most was Maachah, a daughter (or grand-daughter[310] of Absalom. Her son, Abijah, he designed for his successor in the throne: to ensure which object, he made adequate provision for his other sons while he lived, and prudently separated them from each other; by dispersing them through his dominions as governors of the principal towns. This policy was successful; for although this king had twenty-eight sons, besides three-score daughters, his settlement of the crown was not disputed at his death. This event took place in the year 973 B.C., in the eighteenth year of his reign.
[310] This lady is mentioned in three places, and in all of them the name of her father is differently given. In 1 Kings 15:2, it is “Maachah, the daughter of Abishalom;” in 2 Chronicles 11:20, “Maachah, the daughter of Absalom;” and in 2 Chronicles 13:2, “Michaiah, the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah.” The Jews believe that Absalom the son of David is intended. This does not appear quite certain; but if so we may take their explanation that Maachah was the daughter of Tamar, the daughter of Absalom; in which case, the comparison of texts will intimate that Uriel married Tamar, and Maachah was their daughter, which consequently makes her the grand-daughter of Absalom and daughter of Uriel. This, upon the whole, seems, more probable than that the several names, Abishalom, Absalom, and Uriel, all point to the same person as the father of Maachah.)
ABIJAH'S DEFENSE AND SPEECH
Abijah, otherwise called Abijam, succeeded his father, and the first public act of his short reign appears to justify the preference which had been given to him. Jeroboam, whose policy it was to harass and weaken the house of David, and to render the two kingdoms as inimical to each other as possible, thought the succession of the new king, young and inexperienced, a favorable opportunity for an aggressive movement. He seems therefore to have made a general military levy, which amounted to the prodigious number of eight hundred thousand men. Abijah when he heard of this formidable muster was not discouraged, but, although he could raise only half the number of men, tools the field against his opponent. They met near Mount Zemarim, on the borders of Ephraim. The armies were drawn out in battle array, when Abijah, who was posted on an elevated spot, finding the opportunity favorable, beckoned with his hand, and began to harangue Jeroboam and the hostile army. His speech was good, and to the purpose; but it does not seem to us entitled to the unqualified praise which it has generally received. He began with affirming the divine right of the house of David to reign over all Israel, by virtue of the immutable covenant by which Jehovah had promised to David that his posterity should reign for ever. Consequently he treated the secession of the ten tribes as an unprincipled act of rebellion against the royal dynasty of David, and against God--an act whereby the crafty Jeroboam, with a number of vain and lawless associates, had availed themselves of the weakness and inexperience of Rehoboam to deprive the chosen house of its just rights. This statement doubtless embodies the view which the house of David, and the party attached to its interests, took of the recent event. They regarded as a rebellion what was truly a revolution; and which, although, like other revolutions, it had its secret springs (as in the jealousy between the tribes of Ephraim and Judah),was not only justifiable in its abstract principles, but on the peculiar theory of the Hebrew constitution: for it had the previous sanction and appointment of Jehovah, as declared to both parties; and, in its immediate cause, sprung from a most insulting refusal of the representative of the dynasty to concede that redress of grievances which ten twelfths of the whole nation demanded, and which it had a right to demand and obtain before it recognized him as king. However, a king of Judah could not well be expected to take any other than a dynastic and party view of this great question: and that such, necessarily, was the view of Abijah is what we have desired to explain, as the generally good spirit of his harangue has disposed hasty thinkers to take the impression which he intended to convey.
With more justice, Abijah proceeded to animadvert[311] on the measures--the corruptions and arbitrary changes--by which Jeroboam had endeavored to secure his kingdom; and, with becoming pride, contracted this with the beautiful order in which according to the law of Moses, and the institutions of David and Solomon, the worship of Jehovah was conducted by the Levitical priesthood in that “holy and beautiful house” which the Great King honored with the visible symbol of his inhabitance. He concluded: “We keep the charge of Jehovah our God; but ye have forsaken him. And, behold, God himself is with us for our captain, and his priests with sounding trumpets to cry alarm against you. O children of Israel, fight not against Jehovah the God of your fathers; for ye shall not prosper” (2 Chronicles 13:11-12).
[311] to make observations and criticisms.
JUDAH WINS THE BATTLE
By Jeroboam this harangue was only viewed as an opportunity for executing a really clever military operation. He secretly ordered a body of men to file round the hill, and attack the Judahites in the rear, while he assailed them in front. This maneuver was so well executed, that Abijah, by the time he had finished his speech, perceived that he was surrounded by the enemy. The army of Judah raised a cry of astonishment and alarm, and a universal panic would in all likelihood have ensued. But the priests at that instant sounded their silver trumpets, at which well-known and inspiriting signal the more stout-hearted raised a cry for help to Jehovah, and rushed upon the enemy; and their spirited example raised the courage and faith of the more timid and wavering. The host of Israel could not withstand the force which this divine impulse gave to the arm of Judah. Their dense mass was broken and fled, and of the whole number it is said not fewer than five hundred thousand were slain--a slaughter, as Josephus (Antiq. viii. 11, 3) remarks, such as never occurred in any other war, whether it were of the Greeks or the barbarians.[312] This would still be true if the number had been much smaller. “In numbers so large,” Jahn (book v., sect. 36) remarks, “there may be some error of the transcribers; but it is certain that after this defeat the kingdom of Israel was considerably weakened, while that of Judah made constant progress in power and importance. We must here mention, once for all, that, owing to the mistakes of transcribers in copying numerals, we can not answer for the correctness of the great numbers of men which are mentioned here and in the sequel. When there are no means of rectifying these numbers, we set them down as they occur in the books.” Such also is our own practice.
[312] With reference to the high numbers which occur here, Dr. Hales observes: “The numbers in this wonderful battle are probably corrupt, and should be reduced to forty thousand, eighty thousand, and fifty thousand (slain), as in the Latin Vulgate of Sixtus Quintus, and many earlier editions, and in the old Latin translation of Josephus: and that such were the readings in the Greek text of that author originally. Vignoles judiciously collects from Abarbanel's charge against Josephus of having made Jeroboam's loss no more than fifty thousand men, contrary to the Hebrew text.” See Kennicott's Dissertations, vol. i., p. 533, and vol. ii., p. 201, etc., 564. To this we may add the remark of Jahn, in which we more entirely concur.
ABIJAH TAKES BETHEL
This great victory was pursued by Abijah, in the re-taking and annexation to his dominion of some border towns and districts, some of which had originally belonged to Judah and Benjamin, but which the Israelites had found means to include in their portion of the divided kingdom. Among these towns was Bethel; and this being the seat of one of the golden calves, the loss of it must have been a matter of peculiar mortification to Jeroboam, and of triumph to Abijah.
ABIJAH'S IDOLATRY
The reign of Abijah was not by any means answerable to the expectations which his speech and his victory are calculated to excite. We are told that “he walked in all the sins of his father,” and that “his heart was not perfect with Jehovah his God;” by which it would appear that he did not take sufficient heed to avoid and remove the idolatries and abominations which Solomon and Rehoboam had introduced or tolerated. He died in 970 B.C., after a reign of three years, leaving behind him twenty-two sons and sixteen daughters, whom he had by fourteen wives.
ASA DESTROYS IDOLATRY
The son who succeeded him was named Asa. He was still very young, and the affairs of the kingdom appear for sometime to have been administered by his grandmother, Maachah, whose name has already been mentioned. Asa, for his virtues, his fidelity to the principles of the theocracy, and the prosperity and victory with which he was in consequence favored, takes place in the first rank of the kings of Judah. He enjoys the high character that “his heart was perfect with Jehovah all his days: and he did that which was right with Jehovah, as did his father David.” His first cares were directed toward the utter uprooting of the idolatries and abominations which had been suffered to creep in during the preceding reigns. He drove from his states the corrupters of youth, and with an unsparing hand he purged Jerusalem of the infamies which had long harbored there. The idols were overthrown and broken in pieces, and the groves which had sheltered the dark abominations of idolatry were cut down: even his grandmother, Maachah, he deprived of the authority--removing her from being queen--which she had abused to the encouragement of idolatry; and the idols which she had setup he utterly destroyed. By thus clearing them from defiling admixtures, the pure and grand doctrines and practices of the Mosaical system shone forth with a luster that seemed new in that corrupt age. Again the priests of Jehovah were held in honor by the people; and again the temple, its past losses being in part repaired by the royal munificence, was provided with all that suited the dignity of the splendid ritual service there rendered to God; for Asa was enabled to replace with silver and gold a portion of the precious things which Shishak had taken from the temple, and which Rehoboam had supplied with brass.
ASA'S ARMY
Ten years of prosperity and peace rewarded the pious zeal of the king of Judah. In these years much was done by him to strengthen and improve his kingdom, especially in repairing and strengthening the fortified towns, and in surrounding with strong walls and towers many which had not previously been fortified. We are also informed that “Asa had an army of three hundred thousand out of Judah, who bore shields and spears; and of two hundred and eighty thousand out of Benjamin, who bore shields and spears: all these were men of valor.” This and other passages of the same nature, describing the immense military force of the small kingdoms of Judah and Israel (even setting aside those which labor under the suspicion of having been altered by the copyists), appear to intimate that the general enrollment for military service which David contemplated, but was prevented from completely executing, was accomplished by later kings. It is always important to remember, however, that the modern European sense of the word army, as applied to a body of men exclusively devoted to a military profession, is unknown to the history of this period; and in the statement before us we are to see no more than that the men thus numbered were provided with weapons (or that the king had weapons to arm them), and were, the whole or any part of them, bound to obey any call from the king into actual service.
ZERAH'S INVASION
An occasion for such a call occurred to Asa after ten years of prosperity and peace. His dominions were then exposed to a most formidable invasion from “Zerah the Cushite,” with a million of men and three hundred chariots.[313] It is beyond the range of probability, from the state of Egypt at this time, in the reign of Osorkon I,[314] who succeeded Sheshonk (or Shishak), that an army under Zerah should have marched through Egypt from the Ethiopia south of the cataracts of the Nile. It must therefore be concluded that the army was composed of the Cushites (or Ethiopians) of Arabia, the original seat of all the Cushites; and as the army was partly composed of Libyans, who, if this supposition be correct, could not well have passed from Africa through the breadth of Egypt on this occasion, it may, with very sufficient probability, be conjectured that they formed a portion of the Libyan auxiliaries in the army with which Shishak invaded Palestine, twenty-five years before, and who, instead of returning to their own deserts, deemed it quite as well to remain in those of Arabia Petra, and in the country between Egypt and Palestine. And this explanation seems to be confirmed by the fact, which appears in the sequel, that they held some border towns (such as Gerar) in this district. The flocks and herds, and the tents of the invading host, sufficiently intimate the nomad character of the invasion.
[313] Josephus gives nine hundred thousand infantry and one hundred thousand cavalry, which some would reduce by striking off a cipher from each number. A merely conjectural emendation is, however, so difficult and hazardous, that it is better to retain the original numbers, even when doubtful. In the present instance we may refer to what has just been said as to the distinction between the armies of that time and our own. And if Asa in his contracted territory was able to call out above five hundred thousand men, there is no solid reason why it should be impossible to the Cushite nomads, among whom every man was able to use arms, to bring double that number together. There must always be a vast difference in numbers between the army that must be kept and paid permanently, and that which may be raised by a general call upon the adult male population to a warlike enterprise, and only for the time of that enterprise. The army of Tamerlane (as we call him) is said to have amounted to one million six hundred thousand men, and that of his antagonist Bajazet to one million four hundred thousand. Laonic. Chalcocond. de rebus Turc 1. iii. p. 98, 102.
[314] His name is so given in the monuments, but in ancient writers it is Osorthon.
ASA'S VICTORY
This emergency was met by Asa in the true spirit of the theocracy. Fully conscious of the physical inadequacy of his force to meet the enemy, he nevertheless went forth boldly to give them battle, trusting in Jehovah, who had so often given his people the victory against far greater odds, and to whom he made the public and becoming appeal--“O Jehovah, it is nothing with thee to help, whether with many or with them that have no power: help us, O Jehovah, our God; for we rest on thee, and in thy name we go against this multitude. O Jehovah, thou art our God; let not man prevail against thee.” The consequence of this proper manifestation of reliance upon their Omnipotent King was a very splendid victory over the Cushites. They were defeated in the great battle of Mareshah,[315] in the valley of Zephathah, and fled before the army of Judah, which commenced a vigorous pursuit, attended with great slaughter. The Ethiopians and Libyans fled toward their tents and to Gerar and other towns, which some of them (we have supposed the Libyans) occupied on the border land toward Philistia. Here the conquerors found a rich spoil of cattle from the camps of the nomads, and of goods from the towns. On their triumphal return, they were met by the prophet Obed, who excited the piety and gratitude of the king and his army by reminding them to whom the victory was really due, even to Jehovah; and he called to their remembrance the privilege they enjoyed, as contrasted with the kingdom of Israel, in the marked and beneficent protection and care of their Great King, and hinted at the duties which resulted from the enjoyment of such privileges. This was attended with very good effects; and in the warmth of his gratitude for the deliverance with which he had been favored, Asa prosecuted his reforms with new vigor. He rooted out every remnant of idolatry, and engaged the whole people to renew their covenant with Jehovah.
[315] This was a town fortified by Rehoboam (2 Chronicles 11:8). It was the birthplace of the prophet Micah.
It appears that the effect of the manifest tokens of the divine favor which Asa received, especially in the great victory over Zerah, was felt in the neighboring kingdom, and induced large numbers of the subjects of Baasha to migrate into his dominions. A constant and large accession of men, induced by such considerations, and by revived attachment to the theocracy, was calculated to give, and did give, a vast superiority of moral character to the kingdom of Judah. It was probably, as intimated in the last chapter, this tendency of his most valuable subjects to migrate into Judah, which induced Baasha to take the town of Ramah, and fortify it for a frontier barrier. The measure which Asa took on this occasion, of hiring the king of Syria to forego his previous alliance with Baasha, and cause a diversion in his own favor by invading the kingdom of Israel, was effectual as to the recovery of Ramah; for the death of Baasha, the following year, prevented him from resuming his designs. Asa availed himself of the materials which Baasha had brought together for the fortification of Ramah, to fortify the towns of Geba and Mizpeh. This advantage was, however, dearly purchased by the treasure of the temple and the palace which he was obliged to squander, to secure the assistance of the Syrians; and still more, by the displeasure of God, who denounced this proceeding as not only wrong in itself, but as indicating a want of that confidence in him through which he had been enabled to overthrow the vast host which the Cushites brought against him. This intimation of the Divine displeasure was conveyed to the king by the prophet Hanani, and was received by Asa with such resentment that he put the messenger in prison. Indeed, he appears to have grown increasingly irritable in the later years of his reign, in consequence of which he was led to commit many acts of severity and injustice. But for this some allowance may be made in consideration of his sufferings from a disease in his feet, which appears to have been the gout. With reference to this disease, Asa incurs some blame in the Scriptural narrative for his resort to “the physicians instead of relying upon God;” the cause of which rather extraordinary censure is probably to be found in the fact that those physicians who were not priests or Levites (in whose hands the medical science of the Hebrews chiefly rested) were foreigners and idolaters, who trusted more to superstitious rites and incantations than to the simple remedies which nature offered. With all these defects, for which much allowance may be made, Asa bears a good character in the Scriptural narrative, on account of the general rectitude of his conduct, and of his zealous services in upholding the great principles of the theocracy.
ASA DIES
Asa died in the year 929 B.C., in the second year of Ahab, king of Israel, and after a long and, upon the whole, prosperous reign of forty-one years. He was sincerely lamented by all his subjects, who, according to their mode of testifying their final approbation, honored his remains with a magnificent funeral. His body, laid on a bed of state, was burned with vast quantities of aromatic substances: and the ashes, collected with care, were afterward deposited in the sepulcher which he had prepared for himself on Mount Zion. The burning of the dead, as a rite of sepulture,[316] had originally been regarded with dislike by the Hebrews. But a change of feeling to this matter had by this time taken place; for the practice is not now mentioned as a new thing, and had probably been some time previously introduced. Afterward burning was considered the most distinguished honor which could be rendered to the dead, and the omission of it, in the case of royal personages, a disgrace (See 2 Chronicles 16:14; Jeremiah 34:5; Amos 6:10). But to later days the Jews conceived a dislike to this rite; and their doctors endeavored, in consequence, to pervert the passages of Scripture which refer to it, so as to induce a belief that the aromatic substances alone, and not the body, were burnt.
[316] Ritual process of putting a corpse in a grave