Thus, according to the Bible, ended the life of the last of the Omrides.
For Jehu, the new ruler of the reconstituted kingdom of Israel, things were also not going well. Where once King Ahab faced the Assyrian king Shalmaneser with two thousand chariots and ten thousand foot soldiers, his dynasty’s successor, King Jehu, is pictured as a pitiful supplicant at Shalmaneser’s feet on the famous Black Obelisk, discovered in the nineteenth century at Nimrud in Iraq. Its cuneiform inscription records that Shalmaneser received from his new vassal, among other things, “silver, gold, a golden saplu-bowl, a golden vase with a pointed bottom, golden tumblers, golden buckets, tin, a staff for a king….”
By contrast, other important events soon happened in the Shephelah that offered an opportunity for Judahite expansion there. The account in 2 Kings 12:17 reports that Hazael, king of Damascus, “went up and fought against Gath, and took it.” Recent archaeological excavations at the site of this powerful Philistine center, Tell es-Safi in the western Shephelah, by Aren Maeir of Bar Ilan University, have revealed dramatic confirmation for the destruction of the city that had threatened Judah’s western villages since David’s tenth-century bandit days. Ninth-century Gath was a huge city that stretched over an area of about a hundred acres. It was surrounded by a sophisticated siege system, put to the torch, and completely destroyed. Though eventually partially resettled, the city never fully recovered, living on in the biblical tradition as the home of Goliath, the Philistine giant, and David’s erstwhile lord, King Achish—from an increasingly distant, legendary age.
For a short while in the second half of the ninth century, Judah found itself with suddenly expanded political possibilities. In the north, Israel was severely weakened by the Arameans; its northern territories were taken, and Jehu and his son Jehoahaz were pressed by Damascus. Their rule was restricted to the highlands around Samaria. In the west, Gath, the most powerful Philistine city, was destroyed by Hazael. Judah took advantage of this situation by expanding the administrative centers of Beth-shemesh and Lachish.
There may be more to it than that. The second book of Kings (12:18) tells us that in the same campaign, Hazael extracted tribute from Jehoash king of Judah. It seems that the king of Damascus played a major role in the history of Judah: his assault on Israel and destruction of Gath relieved the pressure on Judah from both north and west. Is it possible that all this was a coincidence; or did Judah strike a deal with Damascus to become its vassal in exchange for its help in its attempt at liberation from the dominance of the Omrides?
The liberation from Omride rule, the return of the Davidides to power, and the ensuing prosperity created a new situation—one that was reflected in the continuing elaboration of royal tales. The structures and customs of monarchy were now firmly in place in Jerusalem, and the court bards of Judah gave expression to their new independence. They explained that the great united monarchy of Israel and Judah—known at their own time to have ruled from Samaria—actually had its roots in the distant, legendary time of their own King David. They claimed that their great founding father had anticipated the Omrides’ later victories and had never suffered their crushing defeats. David, they said, conquered and completely subdued all the bitter enemies of Israel, enemies that defeated and humiliated the northern kingdom in the mid–ninth century. He crushed Damascus, slew many Moabites, and conquered the capital of Ammon. In the tales told in court circles—and later put into writing—the founder of the Jerusalem dynasty was pictured as strong as, in fact much stronger than, the greatest of the northern kings. The power and logic of these stories indicated that David’s descendants were the only worthy contenders for rule over the once-great kingdom of Israel.
There may well have been historical characters named Michal, Bathsheba, Joab, and Absalom, whose personal lives and political survival were entwined with the historical David. We simply have no way of reconstructing what events and conflicts may have occurred within the close circle of David’s family and companions in his highland chiefdom in the tenth century BCE. However, the biblical “Court History” offers a richly costumed period-piece epic, a series of courtly stories that evoke the atmosphere of a newly established kingdom on the rise. Even as the villagers of Judah still regaled in the retelling of the rough-and-ready tales of the outlaw David and his band of cutthroats, even as the arguments continued among the villagers of Bethel and Gibeon about the tragic death of Saul and the succession of David, a new context of power and glory was added to the chorus of memories.
In the royal court of the house of David, in the feasts and dynastic gatherings of princes, princesses, courtiers, and queen mothers, new legends were—still orally—woven to inspire them for future triumphs while recalling a largely legendary past. The great wars of conquest, the details of battles, besieged cities, and vast chariot forces were not history but contemporary reality. Even the most intimate details of David’s personal stories evoke the dangerous liaisons of the new court life that was unknown in Jerusalem in the tenth century BCE. Updating the legends was necessary and accomplished with consummate skill. For in their legendary transformation of the rugged founder of the dynasty into a thoroughly great monarch—portraying his life as a series of royal victories, courtly conflicts, and aristocratic dilemmas—the bards of ninth-century BCE Jerusalem provided later western kings and princes with a vivid, poetic justification for both their own human weaknesses and their unshakable right to rule.
PART II
THE EVOLUTION OF A LEGEND
CHAPTER 4
Temple and Dynasty
The Birth of the First Written Epic
—LATE EIGHTH CENTURY BCE—
THE BIBLICAL ACCOUNT OF DAVID’S RISE, HIS REIGN, and Solomon’s succession is far more than a haphazard collection of ancient folklore. Though its main narrative building blocks were drawn from oral traditions of various historical periods, its biblical form is a sweeping literary saga that weaves together all its memorable incidents and unforgettable characters into a coherent and masterful narrative. Extending from the first book of Samuel to the first book of Kings—with a complex plot line punctuated by betrayals, assassinations, and divine guidance—it explains how David was selected by God to become Israel’s king and savior, how Jerusalem became Israel’s sacred capital, and how Solomon succeeded him to the throne.
As we have suggested in earlier chapters, “The History of David’s Rise” contains a number of early elements—particularly David’s career as a bandit and his rivalry with Saul—that preserved authentic memories of tenth-century BCE events in oral form. Likewise, we have suggested that the stage setting of the “Court History” reflects the aristocratic culture of Jerusalem palace circles during the ninth century BCE, almost a hundred years after David and Solomon’s time. It was presumably conveyed orally, in the form of courtly ballads, under the influence of the Omride dynasty of northern Israel.
These oral sources contain a significant amount of unflattering material about David. “The History of David’s Rise” tells of his cooperation with Israel’s enemies the Philistines, his bitter rivalry with Saul, and his conspicuous absence from the fateful battle at Mount Gilboa in which Saul was killed. It concludes with the grisly annihilation of the house of Saul.* The “Court” or “Succession History” is a bloody tale of betrayals and assassinations, which eliminated all of Solomon’s major rivals to succeed David to the throne.
As we have said, this is quite unusual among the official chronicles of ancient Near Eastern kings, where the object was generally idealization, rather than journalistic accuracy. Many scholars argue—though we disagree—that “David’s Rise” and the “Court History” were put into writing in the tenth century BCE within or very close to the lifetime of David, when the memories of his alleged crimes and misdemeanors were still vivid. They see the basic biblical narrative as a work of apologetic history that was meant to answer the charges and accusations of David and Solomon’s contemporary opponents and to provide a persuasive explanatio
n of the legitimacy of the Davidic dynasty.
The full David and Solomon story is indeed a sophisticated work of dynastic propaganda, but we can point to another, later period in the history of Judah when such an ambitious text was needed and could have been written at least in an initial form. Archaeology has revealed a far-reaching series of changes that took place throughout the kingdom of Judah in the late eighth century BCE—a full two centuries after David and Solomon’s time. Jerusalem suddenly grew into a huge metropolis. In the countryside of Judah, many new villages appeared, and existing villages and towns experienced a period of widespread expansion. Fortresses, storehouses, and administrative centers were built throughout the kingdom. The appearance of inscriptions and official seals testifies to the importance and widespread use of the written word. Public literacy was obviously the essential precondition for the compilation of the biblical David and Solomon story as a written text intended to influence public opinion in favor of the Davidic dynasty.
A closer look at the wider political and economic developments throughout the ancient Near East in the late eighth century BCE brings us a step closer to understanding why the kingdom of Judah suddenly changed its character—and why the written narrative of David’s life and the early days of Solomon’s reign was initially composed.
THE NEW ASSYRIAN ORDER
Developments far from Judah were the main impetus for its dramatic transformation. By the middle of the eighth century BCE, the vast Assyrian empire, expanding from the Tigris and Euphrates Valley to the Mediterranean coastlands, had begun to construct what we would today call a “globalized” political system and economy, perhaps the first known to history. This great Mesopotamian empire, centered in the massive palace cities of Calah, Dur Sharrukin, and Nineveh, gradually projected its power, by a combination of military moves, political pressure, and economic incentives, into every facet of the region’s political and economic life. By devastating cities and destroying independent kingdoms that refused to become compliant vassals, the Assyrians gradually created a complexly interconnected trading network in which all the lands, animals, resources, and peoples of the areas they had conquered could be moved or exploited to serve the best interests of the Assyrian state. The peoples and kingdoms that came under the threat of Assyrian domination were faced with a difficult decision: either willingly to become a part of the Assyrian world system or to risk destruction and exile.
Judah and the Assyrian provinces to its north in the late eighth century BCE
This Iron Age superpower would have a decisive effect on the history of both Judah and the northern kingdom of Israel, though not all at once. At first Assyria’s impact on the southern highlands of Judah was negligible. As far as we know from the silence of historical sources and archaeological evidence, Judah—with only limited resources and set off from the major trade routes—remained a remote and primitive highland kingdom throughout the ninth and early eighth centuries BCE. It evaded even indirect Assyrian control, probably due to the simple fact that the southern highlands, with their limited resources and largely pastoral population, possessed nothing worthy of control.
Yet the situation was entirely different in the northern kingdom, which from the late ninth century BCE onward was viewed by the Assyrians as a tempting prize. After the fall of the Omrides, Israel became a loyal vassal to the fearsome Assyrian superpower—as graphically depicted on the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, with the Israelite king Jehu groveling before the Assyrian throne. That fealty eventually brought participation in the Assyrian economy. By the early eighth century BCE, the northern kingdom, though dominated by Assyria, reached its peak economic prosperity, territorial expansion, and diplomatic influence. Archaeologically, this is seen in the inscribed Hebrew ostraca found in the palace of Samaria, whose lists of agricultural commodities and royal officials attest to a highly organized, bureaucratic economy. Likewise the elaborately carved Samaria ivories are evidence of a flowering of Phoenician-influenced artistic styles. The magnificent Shema seal from the time of the northern king Jeroboam II (784–748 BCE), bearing the image of a roaring lion with the inscription “Belonging to Shema, servant of Jeroboam,” also represents a developed regional bureaucracy. At Megiddo, the stables that likely served as a horse-breeding complex show the extent of lucrative specialized trading activity.* And the impressive underground water systems, city gates, and fortifications at both Hazor and Megiddo are evidence of extensive public works.
To the people of the kingdom of Judah, the cosmopolitan society of the north must have seemed like an alien world. At that time Jerusalem was still restricted to the narrow ridge of the City of David, which remained unfortified. Despite its emerging royal culture, there was not a single real urban center in the entire southern highlands, which was still relatively sparsely settled. A few fortresses had been established in the Beer-sheba Valley and the Shephelah, yet the number of such sites was extremely limited. Evidence of meaningful scribal activity in Judah in the early eighth century is lacking. Very few inscriptions and personal seals can be assigned to this period. There is no evidence for a specialized production of agricultural commodities or mass production of pottery, which was characteristic of the north. In short, Judah in the early eighth century BCE was still in a relatively low state of economic and social development.
That situation would change suddenly and explosively. In 744 BCE, the great Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III dramatically shifted Assyrian imperial policy from remote domination to direct military assault and control. The kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Damascus became newfound allies in a desperate attempt to resist this new imperial policy. The Bible describes their march southward to Jerusalem to pressure Judah to join them in an open revolt against the Assyrians (2 Kings 16:5). The beleaguered Judahite king Ahaz, fearing Assyrian wrath, on the one hand, and conquest and deposition by the northern rebel alliance, on the other, took an unprecedented step. He abandoned Judah’s long isolation and actively sought the protection of the Assyrians by pledging his loyalty to Tiglath-pileser (2 Kings 16:5–9; Isaiah 7). In so doing, he affirmed Judah’s status as an Assyrian vassal state. This biblical report has been confirmed by archaeological finds. Ahaz’s name is specifically mentioned in an Assyrian building inscription that boasts of abundant income from the empire’s faithful vassals, who sent to Assyria “all kinds of costly objects, be they products of the sea or of the continent, the choice products of their regions, the treasures of their kings.”
Judah was now protected, and Assyria’s wrath against the region’s rebels was not long in coming. In a series of campaigns westward, Tiglath-pileser brought the coastal cities of Philistia under Assyrian control, and turned his sights on the rich territory and resources of the kingdom of Israel. In 732 BCE, after conquering Damascus, deposing its king, and making it an Assyrian province, Tiglath-pileser marched into Israel, conquered some of its most fertile agricultural areas, and formally annexed them as an Assyrian province. Megiddo and Hazor were both conquered and transformed into centers of direct Assyrian rule. And for the kingdom of Israel, the loss of the Galilee and Assyrian control of the Mediterranean coast were economic and political catastrophes that could never be overcome.
The northern kingdom of Israel—isolated, partially dismembered, and fighting for its very existence—raised the banner of rebellion again. This time it was suicidal. In 722 BCE, Shalmaneser V, king of Assyria, laid siege to Samaria, and after Shalmaneser’s death, his brutal successor Sargon II completed the work. The rump kingdom of Israel, now largely restricted to the vicinity of Samaria, was annexed as an Assyrian province—called Samerina—and Assyrian provincial officers were dispatched to regulate its economy and political life. At least a portion of the Israelite population was deported and new peoples were brought from Mesopotamia and settled in their stead.* Sargon refers to the reorganization of the new province of Samerina, noting that he “settled therein people from countries which I myself had conquered…and imposed upon them tribute
as is customary for Assyrian citizens.”
The second book of Kings (17:24) confirms the arrival of new settlers, describing how “the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the people of Israel.” Scattered archaeological evidence seemingly confirms this. A papyrus written in Aramaic mentions deportees settled at the ancient Israelite cult center of Bethel. Seventh-century cuneiform texts found in the Israelite border town of Gezer and at a site nearby bear Babylonian names.
The political landscape had suddenly shifted. In the wake of the conquest of the northern kingdom of Israel, Judah became the only autonomous state in the highlands. Its long life in the shadow of the larger, wealthier kingdom of Israel was over. Judah emerged from this great historical watershed transformed almost beyond recognition. By the end of the eighth century BCE, it had all the hallmarks of a proper kingdom: massive building activity, mass production of commodities, centralized administration, literacy, and, most important, a new understanding of its own historical destiny.
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