7.2 The near east: 1000 to 700 b.c.  (Page 2/4)

NOTE: Insert Map from Reference 97

Israel: palestine

Solomon slew all rival claimants to the throne of Judea, including his half-brother, and became king of the Jews from 974 to 937 B.C. Rich copper mines found near the Red Sea and Phoenician merchant trade helped the treasury and gold mining in Arabia allegedly promoted through the Queen of Sheba, was an extra boon. The Phoenicians, in exchange for access to the Red Sea and some twenty Galilean towns, brought technical expertise to Israel. At a place on the Gulf of Aqaba (perhaps modern Elat), the Phoenicians constructed the long distance boats which were their specialty and mounted joint trading expeditions with the Israelites. Wood for the boats came from Lebanon's great cedars and was floated by sea to Jaffe. As an incidental note, Solomon amassed several tons of gold each year, so much that he covered the walls of his great temple with it. Although in many ways unprincipled and with an alleged 700 wives (his first was the daughter of the pharaoh of Egypt) and 300 concubines, he had only one God, Yahweh. There is much confusion about the origin of Yahweh - he may have been one and the same with the Canaan god Yahu, dating back in that tribe to 3,000 B.C. who, taken over by the Hebrews was re-created in their own likeness, or it is possible that the "God Abraham" was a house-hold god brought from ancient Ur, while the "God Moses" may have originated separately, with a fusion of these two accomplished later by Jews who did not come from Egypt. At any rate, Yahveh originally was a god of the desert and war, and could never easily be reconciled with an agricultural deity. Shortly after Solomon's death his son, Rehoboam, refused to reduce the terribly high taxes and ten northern tribes revolted to form a new nation of Israel around the city of Samaria. Two southern tribes remained at Jerusalem as the nation of Judah. Ephraim (today this is in Jordan) became the capital of the northern country and Jerusalem the capital of Judea (Judah). (Ref. 46 , 28 , 176 )

Judea was soon conquered by the Libyan rulers of Egypt. A hundred years later King Shab, of Israel, held off the Assyrians at Qarqar (853 B.C.) but in another century the Assyrians destroyed adjacent Samaria and besieged Jerusalem, taking 200,000 Jews captive. These were the so-called "Lost Tribes of Israel". Sargon II actually carried out the deportation which was previously ordered by his predecessor, Tiglath Pileser III