The Greatest Story in the World, Period 1 by Horace G. Hutchinson

If you will take a look on the map at all this country of Palestine / and Syria you will see how it is cut up by mountains, the Lebanon / range and others running down along it. One result of this must have / been to make it difficult for the tribes that were settled there to / unite and come together to resist the attacks of enemies from without.

In order to understand this great story properly you must bear in / mind all through how much of it happened as it did because of the / geographical position -- that is to say, because the rivers ran just / where they did run and because the deserts and the seas and the / mountains lay just as they did lie round about the richer and more / pleasant land. Between the mountains lay plains and valleys where / the flocks might pasture. Canaan, you know, in the Bible is / described as a land "flowing with milk and honey. " Those are words / meant to give you the idea of a rich, pleasant land, generally; but / perhaps they mean a little more besides. "Flowing with milk" / suggests a land where cows for milking would do well, and as for / honey, we are told by people who have gone hunting there that the / dogs often come out of the grass and the wild flowers quite yellow / with pollen -- the pollen that the bees carry home with them on their / thighs. It is a great country for bees and honey.

But it was also, when the Hebrews first made their way into it, a / great country for Philistines. They were not pleasant neighbours. / The early chapters of the story of the Hebrews in Canaan are very / much taken up with fights against the Philistines. The duel between / David and Goliath is almost the best of the chapters; but the Samson / story is very good reading too. At one moment the Philistines very / nearly got the better of the Hebrews altogether; but then it seems as / if the danger made Samuel, the greatest of the Judges, realise that / if the people were to be successful against their Philistine enemies / they must be united under one head. It was very largely by Samuel's / act that Saul was appointed, and anointed with the sacred oil, as / king -- the first king of the now united tribes.

You know the rest of that story, very likely: how they gradually got / the better of these strong enemies, how Saul slew his thousands and / David his tens of thousands, and how, under David's son, Solomon, / they came to the highest point of splendour and riches and power that / they ever reached. The capital city was Jerusalem in Judea, the more / southern part of the kingdom. It is not to be supposed that in the / fulness of its power this united kingdom had anything to fear from / fortress cities of enemies in their midst. We may imagine all of / them wiped out, because we know that Solomon's ships went freely to / the coasts of Phœnicia, that cedar wood was brought from the / splendid cedar forests on Mount Lebanon, that the wealth of Africa, / in gold, ivory, apes and peacocks came to him by caravan through / Egypt or by sea.

Nevertheless the union lasted only a very short while. Under / Solomon's sons the kingdom was divided. {101} Rehoboam sitting on / his father's throne in Jerusalem and Jeroboam reigning over the / kingdom of Israel in the north. We begin, about this time, to be / tolerably sure about the dates, and the date of this division into / the two kingdoms is given as 937 B. C.

[Sidenote: The divided kingdom]

So there they were -- Israel, bounded by Syria on the north, and with / Assyria pressing on from the west and coming now to the height of its / power; Judah nearer to Egypt and with the Assyrian power threatening / it scarcely less than Israel in the west. The first trouble from the / big empires between which they lay fell on Judah, from the Egyptian / side. Shishak, the Pharaoh of Egypt, made Judah pay tribute to him, / after coming with a conquering army, and apparently some of the / Israelite tribes had to pay tribute also. But Israel as a whole did / not come under his power.

As the story goes on we find the two kingdoms engaged in small wars / both with each other and with the neighbouring small nations. There / was continual fighting between the northern kingdom and Syria farther / to the north again. The moment of Israel's greatest strength was in / the reign of Omri, who founded its capital, Samaria. But Syria was a / more numerous and powerful nation than Israel without the aid of / Judah; and Ahab, the Israelitish king, was a vassal of Benhadad, king / of Syria, whose capital city was Damascus. Ahab aided Benhadad in / defending Syria from the attack of Shalmaneser II. of Assyria, but / the allies were badly beaten, and Israel had to pay tribute to / Assyria. She won back her independence for a short time, when / Assyria had other business to attend to, but just so soon as Assyria / had leisure to deal seriously with Israel and Syria again, Samaria / was taken. The Assyrians left them no opportunity for further / revolt. {102} As a nation, Israel disappears out of the story from / the year of the fall of Samaria, 722 B. C.

Assyria was now in the full tide of her power. Once the vassal of / Babylon, she had now made Babylon a vassal of hers. Judah had / escaped the fate of Israel by prudently taking sides with Assyria.