subjects; in short, they were at first
little more than chaplains to the king and his family.

* Solomon officiated and preached at the consecration of the
temple (1 Kings viii.). The actual words appear to be of a
later date; but even if that be the case, it proves that, at
the time they were written, the king still possessed his
full sacerdotal powers.

Solomon's allegiance to the God of Israel did not lead him to proscribe
the worship of other gods; he allowed his foreign wives the exercise of
their various religions, and he raised an altar to Chemosh on the Mount
of Olives for one of them who was a Moabite. The political supremacy and
material advantages which all these establishments acquired for Judah
could not fail to rouse the jealousy of the other tribes. Ephraim
particularly looked on with ill-concealed anger at the prospect of the
hegemony becoming established in the hands of a tribe which could be
barely said to have existed before the time of David, and was to a
considerable extent of barbarous origin. Taxes, homage, the keeping up
and recruiting of garrisons, were all equally odious to this, as well
as to the other clans descended from Joseph; meanwhile their burdens did
not decrease. A new fortress had to be built at Jerusalem by order of
the aged king. One of the overseers appointed for this work--Jeroboam,
the son of Nebat--appears to have stirred up the popular discontent,
and to have hatched a revolutionary plot. Solomon, hearing of the
conspiracy, attempted to suppress it; Jeroboam was forewarned, and fled
to Egypt, where Pharaoh Sheshonq received him with honour, and gave him
his wife's sister in marriage.* The peace of the nation had not been
ostensibly troubled, but the very fact that a pretender should have
risen up in opposition to the legitimate king augured ill for the future
of the dynasty. In reality, the edifice which David had raised with
such difficulty tottered on its foundations before the death of his
successor; the foreign vassals were either in a restless state or ready
to throw off their allegiance; money was scarce, and twenty Galilaean
towns had been perforce ceded to Hiram to pay the debts due to him for
the building of the temple;** murmurings were heard among the people,
who desired an easier life.

* 1 Kings xi. 23-40, where the LXX. is fuller than the A. V.

** 1 Kings ix. 10-13; cf. 2 Cliron. viii. 1, 2, where the
fact seems to ha