Those who claimed the throne often argued that they simply represented a constituency from among the people. In fact, they hoped to win for themselves the benefits of life in the palace. Judeans, favored by the crown, had no problems with royal power. But northern leaders grumbled that the wealth of the capital did not sufficiently extend to them. During David’s reign and for much of Solomon’s, the flow of spoil and tribute meant that the tax burden for the royal building projects was minimal or perhaps even nonexistent, if David’s failure to complete a census is any indication. Similarly, the use of Israelites in forced labor crews was never an issue, at least while the supply of prisoners of war and their offspring was maintained (1 Kings 9.20–22).
Another dichotomy in Israelite society was in some respects more important than the tribe-state or kinship-kingship one. Near Eastern kingship was overwhelmingly an urban phenomenon. The urbanization reflected in David’s development of Jerusalem and in the Solomonic program of establishing regional centers, and perhaps storage and chariot cities (1 Kings 9.19), was epitomized by the lifestyle in the capital. However exaggerated it may be in the biblical account, the ruling urban elite of Jerusalem enjoyed the material benefits accruing to the leaders of a state system.
That lifestyle, and the visible differentials of wealth, had little effect on the rural villages under the early monarchy. The ideology of the Bible claims a national unity that was unlikely as yet to have existed, socially or economically. In this sense, modern occidental ideas of a nation-state prevent us from understanding that the early state in Israel had more in common with the Bronze Age traditions of city-states, writ large, than with a state composed of a citizenry all directly affected by and identifying with the state. At least during the period of the United Monarchy, when state expenses were met from extranational sources, the royal house did not reshape existing economic patterns nor fund its projects with surpluses extracted from the farmers. Indeed, Solomon’s budgetary excesses were resolved by ceding property to the Phoenicians rather than by securing funds internally (1 Kings 9.11—14; see also 1 Kings 5.11). Conversely, the flow of goods and imports to the capital had little impact outside the temple-palace complex; they reinforced and legitimized royal rule but hardly percolated into the countryside.
The tenth century saw the recovery of tribal lands lost to Philistines, the capture or incorporation of nontribal enclaves still surviving in tribal territories, the development of regional centers, and the establishment of trade routes. The different ecological niches of the country could thus be exploited more advantageously, with less risk to the individual farm family, to support the burgeoning population spread out in new settlements across the land. Most of that population lived in agrarian villages, not in cities. Even Jerusalem in this period was a relatively tiny city with a small population, consisting mostly of government officials and servitors with their families. With exceptions such as crown lands serving as royal plantations, the tenth-century economy was based in the family. Each household remained a discrete production unit, functioning in and around residences identified as the typical pillared (three- or four-room) house of Israelite settlements throughout the Iron Age. Each household was relatively self-sufficient, producing and processing its own food and clothing except for some agricultural products acquired in exchange for what specialists such as metallurgists provided. The royal hierarchies of Jerusalem, and later those of the other developing urban sites, had no counterparts in village life. Even in the larger villages, household buildings were strikingly uniform in size. There may well have been wealth differentials, expressed in greater access to luxury goods rather than in increased house size, but differences in wealth are not the same as a class system. Whatever status accrued to lineage or clan leaders in the segmentary society that preceded the monarchy continued, and such status was distinct from class hierarchies.
The continuation of agrarian village life, relatively untouched in any negative ways by the tenth-century monarchy, had implications for gender relations. In the pre-state period senior males and females in the family households stood in relative parity with respect to subsistence specialization, control of family resources, and authority over the younger generation and other household dependents. This parity continued into the tenth century. In the kinship-based configurations that characterized village settlements, females enjoyed a status that was related more to the prestige of their household than to their gender. Only to the extent that traditional kinship patterns were disrupted by the new state would female household authority have been reduced—especially in urban settings, where emerging hierarchies inevitably meant the increasing subordination of women. The relative authority of women tends to decline with the rise of state institutions, although some women (such as queens) exercise social power through their class position.
Although the relatively distinct urban and rural spheres meant that women in agrarian households continued to have authoritative roles, the emergence of a state system set in motion other dynamics that ultimately lowered female status. With a male dynastic figure in place, and with permanent male-headed government offices established, public office and accomplishment were represented almost exclusively by men. Great symbolic value rests in this formal association between males and political power, an association that inevitably disadvantages women. Furthermore, Yahweh became the ultimate symbol of Israelite national identity; and Yahweh’s royal image was built on metaphors drawn from the male domains of military and political power. The accompanying emphasis on the kingship of God eventually obscured in the state ideology female aspects of divine power, although village communities as well as some portions of the urban population retained more diverse divine imagery, including goddess worship, until the demise of the monarchy.
Conclusion
The early Iron Age village communities would not have survived without the protective and integrative function afforded by the emergent state. At least in the tenth century BCE, villagers do not seem to have suffered from the changes wrought by the superimposition of an urban-based state system over the existing territorial lineages. The flow of goods and servitors into the capital as the result of the military genius of David and the diplomatic sagacity of Solomon precluded the exploitation of the agrarian population. It is no wonder, then, that these first two members of the Davidic dynasty achieve great elaboration and respect in the legendary accounts of the early monarchy in the Bible. The Israelite people as a whole were well served by the establishment of a monarchy in its early stages, for it brought widespread social, economic, and political stability.
The need for historical myths and heroes is characteristic of every national culture; and such myths and heroes invariably arise from the uncertainties and insecurities of its beginning stages. The exceptional actions of individuals, in this case the first three biblical kings, were expanded as symbols of the processes that successfully resolved the difficulties surrounding the emergence of the new culture, Israel’s early monarchy.
Select Bibliography
The list below contains works in biblical studies relevant to the early monarchy. This chapter, however, draws extensively on the works of social and political anthropologists, including Robert L. Carniero, Henri J. M. Claessen, Ronald Cohen, Timothy K. Earle, Morton H. Fried, Susan M. Kus, Herbert S. Lewis, Christopher S. Peebles, Barbara J. Price, Elman R. Service, and Henry T. Wright. References to many of their publications as well as to those of other social scientists appear in several of the bibliographies of the works in this list.
Finkelstein, Israel. “The Emergence of the Monarchy in Israel and the Environmental and Socio-Economic Aspects.” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 44 (1989): 43–74. A concise reconstruction, integrating recent archaeological survey data with sociopolitical analysis, of the dynamics of state formation in Israel.
Flanagan, James W. David’s Social Drama: A Hologram of Israel’s Early Iron Age. The Social World of Biblical Antiquity Series, 7; and The Journal for the Study of t
he Old Testament Supplement Series, 73. Sheffield, England: Almond, 1988. A provocative study focusing on David’s reign, drawing on archaeological, biblical, and sociological information, and using holography as a model for such interdisciplinary work.
Frick, Frank S. The Formation of the State in Ancient Israel. The Social World of Biblical Antiquity Series, 4. Sheffield, England: Almond, 1985. A comprehensive proposal for the emergence of the monarchy, focusing on the need for agricultural intensification.
Fritz, Volkmar, and Philip R. Davies, eds. The Origin of the Ancient Israelite States. The Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series, 228. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996. A collection of essays with differing and controversial perspectives on state formation in early Israel.
Gottwald, Norman K. “Monarchy: Israel’s Counter-revolutionary Establishment.” In The Hebrew Bible: A Socio-Literary Introduction, 293–404. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986. An excellent analysis of the literary sources for the monarchy.
——, ed. Social Scientific Criticism of the Hebrew Bible and Its Social World. Semeia 37 (1986). Seminal essays by F. Frick, M. Chaney, N. Gottwald, and R. Coote and R. White-lam on the social world of the monarchy.
Halpern, Baruch. The Constitution of the Monarchy in Israel. Harvard Semitic Monographs, 25. Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1981. An erudite analysis, based on biblical sources, of the sacral and political aspects of the monarchy.
Holladay, John S., Jr. “The Kingdoms of Israel and Judah: Political and Economic Centralization in the Iron IIA-B (ca. 1000–750 BCE).” In The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land, ed. Thomas E. Levy, 368–98. New York: Facts on File, 1995. A masterful look at social, political, and economic aspects of the monarchy, using archaeological data and social-science models in groundbreaking ways.
Ishida, Tomoo, ed. Studies in the Period of David and Solomon and Other Essays. Tokyo: Yamakawa-Shuppansha, 1982. A useful collection of essays by leading biblical scholars and archaeologists on various features of the United Monarchy.
Knight, Douglas A. “Political Rights and Power in Monarchic Israel.” In Ethics and Politics in the Hebrew Bible, Semeia 66, ed. Douglas A. Knight and Carol Meyers, 93–118. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995. A thoughtful look at political rights and privileges at both local and national levels during the monarchy.
Malamat, Abraham, ed. The Age of the Monarchies. World History of the Jewish People, no. 4. Jerusalem: Massada, 1979. A somewhat dated but handy anthology of articles by leading scholars about the monarchy, in two volumes: 1, Political History; 2, Culture and Society.
Mazar, Amihai. “The United Monarchy” and “General Aspects of Israelite Material Culture.” In Archaeology of the Land of the Bible 10,000–586 B.C.E., chaps. 9 and 11. New York: Doubleday, 1990. A balanced presentation of the archaeological evidence for the early monarchy.
Meyers, Carol. “David as Temple Builder.” In Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross, ed. Patrick D. Miller Jr., Paul D. Hanson, S. Dean McBride, 357–76. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987. An examination of David’s building activities, including the beginning of temple construction, as part of imperial domination.
——. “The Israelite Empire: In Defense of King Solomon.” In Backgrounds for the Bible, ed. David Noel Freedman and Michael Patrick O’Connor, 181–98. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1987. An analysis of Solomon’s policies as necessary for maintaining his father’s regime rather than as exploitative royal materialism.
——. “Temple, Jerusalem.” In Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman, 6.350–69. New York: Doubleday, 1992. A full treatment of the architectural and artistic features as well as the symbolic, religious, economic, and sociopolitical aspects of the Temple built by Solomon and its successors.
CHAPTER SIX
A Land Divided
Judah and Israel from the Death of Solomon to the Fall of Samaria
EDWARD F. CAMPBELL JR.
Solomon died in 928 BCE, amid severe strains in Israel’s body politic and on the international scene. Almost immediately, his state was split into two unequal parts, to be centered on Samaria in the north and Jerusalem in the south. Two hundred years later, Assyria would put an end to the era that had started with Solomon’s death, destroying Samaria’s society and infrastructure and so threatening Jerusalem that its life could never again be the same. This troubled era is the focus of this chapter.
The two political entities, self-designated as “Israel” and “Judah,” rubbed against one another at a boundary in the tribal territory of Benjamin, only 15 kilometers (10 miles) north of Jerusalem. Beginning there, the boundary curved south and east, encompassing within Israel all the fertile Jordan Valley. To the west the line ran to the Mediterranean, meeting the boundary of Philistia as it neared the coast. Israel held the coast from the Mount Carmel peninsula past Dor to Joppa, between Phoenicia and Philistia. At times the Israel-Judah borderline was contested, but mostly it just existed and was probably quite permeable. To judge from the earlier history of the land and from settlement patterns, the boundary followed a line of social and cultural fracture of long duration. In the fourteenth-century Amarna period, two city-states had flanked it, Shechem in the central hill country and Jerusalem. Ancient settlements known from archaeological surveys are more numerous from Bethel to Jerusalem and around Shechem; a strip of land from Ramallah to the Valley of Lubban between these two clusters had few ancient sites. When they were strong, the two kingdoms together controlled the same territory as had the Davidic-Solomonic empire, but in times of weakness they both contracted drastically.
Even when strong, Israel was separated from the Mediterranean by the extended strip of the Phoenician coast, though generally relations between Israel and the Phoenicians were established by treaty and remained stable. To the north and east of Israel lay the Aramean states of modern Syria, notably the kingdoms centered on Hamath and Damascus. Israel’s conflicts were mostly with Damascus, which almost constantly contested its control of northern Transjordan. Much of the time, Israelite rule extended from the regions of Gilead and Bashan southward to Moab—as far as the Arnon River, which reaches the Dead Sea halfway down its eastern shoreline. Whenever Moab submitted to Israel, Israel’s influence reached farther south and encountered Edom near the south end of the Dead Sea. Ammon, lying between Israelite land and the desert to the east, played a minor role during the period of the Divided Monarchy.
Judah, by contrast, was effectively landlocked. To its south in the forbidding territory of the northern Negeb, reaching down to the tip of the Red Sea at Elath, it vied with Edom. When strong, Judah held the copper and iron resources of the Arabah, and it exported and imported through Elath. Its core territory, though, was a rough rectangle lying between the boundary with Israel in the north and Beer-sheba and Arad to the south—about 80 kilometers (50 miles) north-south and, from Philistia to the Dead Sea, hardly 60 kilometers (38 miles) east-west.
When rulers of the north and south could cooperate and were strong in relation to their neighbors, they controlled the trade routes through the region, both north-south and east-west. Israel had better rainfall and contained the fertile valleys of Jezreel and the Jordan, but Judah held the key to the mineral resources in the south and to the port that gave access to Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Controlling as they did the land bridge between Eurasia and Africa, both constituted crucial interests for Egypt and Mesopotamia.
The character of the land had an important role in determining the internal well-being of the people and in shaping their relations with neighboring nations. From the boundary south to Jerusalem and past it to the Bethlehem-Hebron region, Judah’s land was hilly and cut by extended valleys. Average rainfall diminishes significantly from north to south, and agricultural potential diminishes with it. South of Bethlehem and Hebron stretches even more arid territory, extending to a line from Gaza on the Mediterranean southeast to Beer-sheba and east to Arad, thence to the Dead Sea at a point opposi
te the south point of the Lisan peninsula, some three-quarters of the way down the Dead Sea coast. With Beer-sheba begins the Negeb, unsuitable for permanent settlement except around oases (Kadesh-barnea, for example), unless specific measures were taken to provision outposts and fortresses.
In Israel, the territory of Ephraim and Manasseh constituted the central highlands, limestone hills with thin soil cover surrounding upland valleys of quite fertile soil. The hills receive enough rain to sustain grain crops and fruit trees, although rainfall amounts vary from year to year and water was (and is) always a matter of concern. Springs, some of them very abundant, flow from the tilted limestone layering of the hills and provide sufficient water for settlements. This central highland region extends to the Jezreel Valley, which angles from the northeast slopes of Mount Carmel southeast to Beth-shan near the Jordan. The valleys were kept free of settlement and covered with agricultural parcels; the villages and towns lay on the low flanks of the hills, while agricultural terracing extended on the adjacent slopes around and above the villages. Terraces represented in some sense discretionary land—expandable, capable of supporting grain crops, olive and fig trees, and vineyards. Creating terraces, however, was slow work and required patience for the soil to become viable; terraces were no answer to emergencies, such as drought.
The Divided Monarchy: Judah and Israel from 928 to 722 BCE
The ancient historians of Israel reflect, mostly indirectly, a good deal about these enduring conditions. Their focus, however, is on the course of political history. One of them, the author of the Deuteronomic History (designated “DH” by modern scholars), recounted the story in the books of Kings. The DH was probably first compiled in the eighth century BCE, given definitive form under Josiah in the late seventh century, and augmented in the exile. The other ancient historian, now known as the “Chronicler,” composed an edition of the books of Chronicles in the late sixth century that was greatly augmented in subsequent periods.
The Oxford History of the Biblical World Page 35