Kings of the Jews: The Origins of the Jewish Nation

Rehoboam

KINGS OF THE JEWS 94 REHOBOAM 931–914 BCE As with the creation of the northern kingdom, when the Jewish nation split in two after Solomon died, the foundation of the southern kingdom was a watershed in the history of the Jewish people. It did not come about immediately. Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, inherited a strong, undivided nation to which neighboring states had sworn allegiance and paid tribute. Crowned at the age of forty-one, Rehoboam also inherited the allegiance of the people of his tribal territory of Judah who had been favored by his father and who had benefited more than those in the other parts of the land from the kingdom’s prosperity during Solomon’s reign. However, mistrust of central authority had long been a feature of the mood in the tribal territories in the central and northern regions. Even under the acclaimed David, people there had been less than enthusiastic about being part of a nation ruled from Jerusalem by a king from the southern tribe of Judah, the people of whom were held in special regard by the crown. They had gratefully welcomed David’s elimination of Philistine and other external threats to the Jewish nation. But the beginnings of administrative centralization during his reign had been received with suspicion, as had his national census taking. Solomon’s heavy taxes and forced labor schemes had deepened their discontent, as had the downgrading of their tribal elders by the royal functionaries appointed by Jerusalem to govern the land. Through administrative control, oppressive policing, protection against foreign incursion, and distribution of favors, Solomon had maintained the nominal allegiance of the people throughout the land during most of his reign. But when he died and Rehoboam mounted the throne, the new king was made to understand that the loyalty of the disgruntled tribes could not be taken for granted. Confident of support for his leadership in the south, Rehoboam journeyed to Shechem, in the territory of the tribe of Ephraim, to confer with elders of the rest of the land and extract their vows of allegiance. Shechem was the site of an historic shrine where, long before, Joshua had gathered tribal leaders of the Jews to renew the covenant God had made with their Patriarch ancestors. Rehoboam expected that the symbolism of the place would help him establish a new covenant , one between him and the alienated tribes. KINGS OF JUDAH 95 KINGS OF THE JEWS 96 His journey was a concession, an acceptance that the disaffected elders would have ignored a summons to Jerusalem to have their vows of loyalty extracted from them. But though their discontent had festered and their mood was rebellious , they were prepared to make concessions too. “Your father made our yoke heavy,” they told Rehoboam at Shechem. “Now lighten the harsh labor and the heavy yoke which your father laid on us, and we will serve you.”[37] Rehoboam was faced with a dilemma. To accede to those demands might encourage the northerners to demand more. Even if they did not, his royal authority would have been successfully challenged and undermined. However, the alternative might be worse. If he rejected the demands, he might be confronted with open insurrection far from the safety of Jerusalem and the protection of his army. He told the assembled elders he would reply to their requests in three days’ time and summoned his advisers. They provided him with conflicting counsel. Older advisers, whom he had inherited from his father, advised him to give the northerners what they wanted. He would thereby assure their allegiance at a crucial time, before he had made his mark as their king. The implication was that once he had extracted himself from this difficult encounter and firmly established himself on the throne, he could follow whatever course he wished. But Rehoboam’s younger counselors, aristocrats with whom he had grown up at Solomon’s court, urged a different course of action. They urged him not even to pretend to give in. They warned that to show any weakness at the beginning of his reign would seriously weaken his position and tarnish his reputation. Recalling Solomon’s uncompromising treatment of dissidents and potential rivals, Rehoboam decided to follow the course suggested by those advocating firmness. Accordingly, at the end of the three days he had requested to consider easing tax and other burdens, he responded to the assembled elders with threats of still harder times to come for the people of their...