The Northern Kingdom of Israel
The Northern Kingdom of Israel
Jeroboam, the first ruler of the northern kingdom, had been one of Solomon’s servants. Indeed, so high an opinion did Solomon form of his ability and industry that he put him in charge of a major part of the forced labor levy. Later Solomon had reason to suspect Jeroboam of treason, and Jeroboam fled for his life to Egypt where he was harbored by Shishak (= Sheshonq I of the XXII Dynasty). He only returned after Solomon’s death to challenge Rehoboam, as we have seen.
In order to wean the hearts of his subjects from the house of David, Jeroboam was determined to stop them going on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. So he made two alternative sanctuaries, the one up north at Dan and the other down south at Bethel, installed in each a golden calf, and said:
Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt. (1 Kings 12:28)
It is for this reason that Jeroboam has come down to posterity as the one “who made Israel sin.”
But Judah under Rehoboam was scarcely any better, for alongside the worship of Yahweh the people corrupted themselves with some of the abominations of the Canaanite fertility rituals. Rehoboam had only been king for four or five years when Shishak invaded Jerusalem and denuded the temple of the treasures with which Solomon had enriched it.
Jeroboam was succeeded on the throne of Israel by five kings of whom we know little. But in 881 BC, some 28 years after Jeroboam’s death, the dynasty of Omri began. It was he who established his capital in Samaria, and made it almost impregnable on a well-fortified conical hill. But he brought great trouble to Israel by marrying his son Ahab (who soon succeeded him) to the Phoenician princess Jezebel. For she was not only herself a worshiper of Melqart (“Baal” in the biblical narrative), the main deity of Tyre, but insisted on maintaining at her own expense at court a retinue of “the prophets of Baal,” and involved her husband the king in her idolatrous worship. She also killed the prophets of the Lord.
This brazen apostasy in the palace was the signal for the reawakening of ethical prophecy, which was destined to play a dominant part in Israel and Judah for the next three centuries and more. The first prophet of this noble line was Elijah, who came from Gilead in Transjordan. Austere in his private lifestyle and fearless in his public ministry, he accused Ahab of troubling Israel by his religious defection. He also challenged the prophets of Baal to a public contest on Mount Carmel, at the same time taunting the people with double-mindedness, wavering between two opinions (1 Kings 18:21). When Baal’s prophets had failed to elicit any response from their god, Elijah prayed:
O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant. (1 Kings 18:36)
The outcome was an incontrovertible vindication of the living God.
Elijah had a social as well as a religious conscience. He knew that Yahweh was as displeased with the king’s oppression of his subjects as with his apostasy. Next to a palace which belonged to Ahab on the plain of Jezreel there was a desirable vineyard owned by a man named Naboth. Ahab coveted it for himself, but Naboth refused to sell his fathers’ inheritance. So Jezebel, doubtless with Ahab’s connivance, had Naboth assassinated and proceeded to annex his property. Here Elijah met him:
Naboth’s innocent blood was avenged by Jehu, an Israelite army commander who was now anointed king on the authority of the prophet Elisha. With brutal thoroughness he liquidated the house of Ahab and rid the land of Baal worship.
The dynasty of Jehu lasted nearly a hundred years (c. 841–753 BC), almost half the total duration of the northern kingdom. During the early years of the dynasty there was virtually continuous war with Syria, which wrested the whole of Transjordan from Jehu. But it began to be recovered by his grandson, and his great-grandson Jeroboam II completed the process.
It was under Jeroboam II (782–753 BC) that the northern kingdom of Israel reached its zenith of power:
He … restored the boundaries of Israel from Lebo Hamath to the Sea of the Arabah. (2 Kings 14:25)
Peace brought prosperity, prosperity luxury, and luxury license. True, the local sanctuaries were thronged with pilgrims, and to all appearances Israel was experiencing a religious boom. But the prophets had eyes only for the injustice and immorality of the nation’s leaders. Amos, the first great prophet of the eighth century BC,6 was a simply shepherd from the south, but the compulsion of God’s word drove him into the northern kingdom to denounce Israel’s hypocrisy:
This is what the LORD says:
“For three sins of Israel,
even for four, I will not turn back my wrath.
They sell the righteous for silver,
and the needy for a pair of sandals.
They trample on the heads of the poor
as upon the dust of the ground
and deny justice to the oppressed.
Father and son use the same girl
and so profane my holy name.
They lie down beside every altar
on garments taken in pledge.
In the house of their god
He knew that religion divorced from morality was an abomination to Yahweh:
… I hate, I despise your religious feasts;
I cannot stand your assemblies.
Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
I will have no regard for them.
Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream! (Amos 5:21–24)
To Hosea the word of the Lord came through the agony of his wife’s unfaithfulness. For Israel had similarly broken her marriage covenant with Yahweh and gone after her “lovers,” the baals of the local shrines. It was not outward religious devotion God wanted from Israel, but faithfulness to the covenant:
I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
and acknowledgement of God rather than burnt offerings. (Hos. 6:6)
When the dynasty of Jehu came to an end, the northern kingdom had only about thirty years left. A succession of military rulers occupied the throne. But the new factor in international politics was the rise of the great Assyrian empire. Already in the middle of the previous century both Ahab and Jehu had paid tribute to King Shalmaneser III. Now the King of Assyria was Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727 BC), called Pul in the biblical narrative, and he embarked on a series of expansionist campaigns. When he reached Israel, he was bought off by King Menahem with a thousand talents of silver.
A few years later (in 735 BC) the “colonel” who was ruling Israel, Pekah the son of Remaliah, entered into an alliance with Rezin King of Syria to throw off the Assyrian yoke. When Ahaz King of Judah refused to join them, they invaded his territory. Ahaz was thrown into a panic, but the prophet Isaiah sought to calm him with a word from God:
Be careful, keep calm and don’t be afraid. Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood…. If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all. (Isa. 7:4, 9)
Ahaz did not believe. Instead, he appealed to Tiglath-Pileser for help, with devastating results. Syria was overthrown. The Galilean and Transjordanian territories of Israel were depopulated. And Ahaz paid homage to Tiglath-Pileser with silver and gold from the temple, and even to Ashur, Assyria’s god.
When Tiglath-Pileser died, Samaria defiantly withheld tribute from Assyria. This reckless act sounded Israel’s death knell. The new King Shalmaneser V laid siege to Samaria, which capitulated three years later (probably in 722) to his successor Sargon II. The people of Israel were largely deported, and their country was colonized with Syrians and Babylonians. The resulting mixed population was the origin of the Samaritans.
So the northern kingdom came to an ignominious end. It had lasted just over two centuries. Israel had regarded God’s covenant as rendering her immune to his judgment, but the prophet Amos had taught otherwise:
You only have I chosen
of all the families of the earth;
therefore I will punish you
for all your sins. (Amos 3:2)