Solomon was succeeded by his son Rehoboam. At his coronation in Shechem those who had suffered so badly under his father�s scheme of forced labour, asked him for some relief from their burden. He foolishly refused. As a result the ten northern and non-Judahite tribes rebelled, egged on by a pretender called Jeroboam ben Nebat. They broke away to form their own kingdom called Israel, and Jeroboam became its first king. Rehoboam managed to escape from Shechem with his life, but now had to be content with a severely reduced kingdom consisting essentially of his own tribe of Judah and diverse elements from the tribes of Benjamin and a severely assimilated Simeon.
For the next two hundred years Israel would be ruled by a succession of different dynasties, each marked by violent, often bloody, transitions (told in 1 Ki 12 � 2 Ki 17). To ensure political fidelity, Jeroboam ben Nebat established two national shrines � one in Bethel in the extreme south and another in Dan in the extreme north � and to them he appointed any who would be priest. Thus was the spiritual tenor of the northern kingdom of Israel shaped, and against which the ministries of prophets like Elijah, Elisha, Amos and Hosea were set. The kingdom, however, did not last long; within two hundred years of the schism Israel came to an end when, in 722 BC, it was sacked by the Assyrians, the bulk of her citizens exiled (and became known as �the lost tribes of Israel�) and the land supplanted by foreigners brought in by the Assyrians. The inter-marriage of these aliens with those left behind gave rise to the Samaritans.
The southern kingdom of Judah continued to be ruled by the House of David, whose story is recounted in the books of Chronicles and Kings, as well as between the lines among many of the prophets (especially Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel). While the northern kingdom was largely rebellious in their stance towards God, the House of David shifted between rare moments of brilliant steadfastness in their trust in Yahweh (Hezekiah and Josiah), mostly shaky and uncertain belief, and critical and outright rebellion. This did not help the land return to God. If Solomon had left the door open for his foreign wives� gods to slip in, Manasseh and Amon threw them open to pagan practices with abandonment. Judah went into a spiritual tailspin that the reforms Josiah (encouraged by Jeremiah) tried to institute could not reverse. Then, caught in the crossfire between the superpowers of Egypt and Babylon, Judah became a vassal state, first to the Egyptians, and then to the Babylonians. Political factionalism � some in favour of Egypt, others of Babylon � swept over and divided Israel at the critical moment when she needed to be united most. In the maelstrom the king decided, contrary to Jeremiah prophetic counsel, to rebel against Nebuchadnezzar his Babylonian suzerain. The response from Nebuchadnezzar was sharp and swift, and in 587/6 Jerusalem was laid waste, the Temple razed, and multitudes of the people carried off into exile in Babylon. Those who had been most active in the rebellion fled to Egypt, bundling off with them, and against his will, poor Jeremiah.
Low Chai Hok
©Alberith, 2013