The Historians' History of the World 02

Difficulties were not wanting. The death of the great David was an event which many of Israel’s adversaries had doubtless long been looking for. When to this was added the disappearance from the scene of his bravest soldier, Joab, the opportunity for attacking Israel could not have been more favourable. A scion of that ancient royal house of Edom which David had overthrown, Hadad by name, had fled to Egypt. He had succeeded, like Solomon himself, in obtaining in marriage a princess of the house of Pharaoh, the sister of Queen Tahpenes. Immediately after David’s death he returned to his own country and seems to have wrenched at least a part of Edom from Solomon. But either his dominion was insignificant and not dangerous to Solomon, or the latter afterwards succeeded in regaining possession of Edom, for the approach to the Red Sea by Ezion-geber remained open to Solomon.

A second adversary is said to have risen against Solomon in the north. One of the captains of that Hadad-ezer of the Aramæan state of Zobah whom David had conquered, Rezon-ben-Eliadah, separated himself from his master. After a long life of adventure, he founded a dominion of his own, and made the ancient Damascus its capital. He drove out the governor whom David had placed there, and Solomon did not succeed in recovering the city. Here, then, if the tale be historical, Solomon suffered a real and, as it seems, a permanent loss. Still it would be hard to say whether, at the time, it was much felt; for probably neither David nor Solomon had ever been in possession of Damascus and Aram-Damascus. Here, too, as in Solomon’s home government, the most serious question would seem to be the outlook for the future. For in course of time the kingdom of Damascus was to become one of Israel’s most dangerous opponents.

[ca. 950-940 B.C.]

If, therefore, in this way Solomon had received in the south, and perhaps also in the north, certain, though probably not very important checks, still he appears to have done a considerable amount for the preservation and strengthening of Israel’s prestige. It is possible that he did not attach so much importance to those of David’s conquests which lay on the outskirts of the kingdom as to the preservation of Israel itself. It is a fact that he protected it by founding strong fortresses against hostile invasions—an undertaking whose high utility cannot possibly be called in question. Thus in the north he fortified Hazor and Megiddo; in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem Beth-horon and the royal Canaanitish city, Gezer; to the south, for the protection of the border as the caravan route from Hebron to Eloth, he fortified the city of Tadmor. The Egyptian Pharaoh, whose daughter Solomon married, had conquered Gezer for him. A town named Baalath whose site is uncertain but perhaps lay near Gezer, is also mentioned among Solomon’s fortified places. He also bestowed great attention on increasing the war material and cavalry which were distributed through a series of garrison towns and in keeping them ready for use. Though the figures concerning these are somewhat doubtful, the fact itself cannot be called in question. All this shows that we can scarcely speak of a decline in the power of Israel under Solomon, even if he abandoned certain outlying posts.

Yet, nevertheless, Solomon did not attain to his father’s greatness. He had grown up as a king’s son, without occasion and necessity to steel his will in the hard school of danger and privation, and he did not possess his father’s energy and initiative. He thought more of the rights and pleasures of kingship than of his high duties and tasks. The father’s despotic tendencies, in him only showing at intervals and immediately restrained and overcome, are in the son the groundwork of his character. His favourite amusements are costly buildings, strange women, rich display.