ut in the case of his kingdom, as often elsewhere, the
zenith of magnificence came after the zenith of true power. Had his
profuse expenditures ceased with the erection of the temple and his own
house, it would have been well; but the maintenance of such a household
as his, embracing "seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred
concubines," corrupted his religion and that of the nation, burdened the
people with heavy taxes, and thus prepared the way for the division of
his kingdom that followed immediately after his death, as recorded in 1
Kings 12.

17. With the division of Solomon's kingdom under his son Rehoboam into
two hostile nations begins the _second_ period of the history. This
division was brought about by God's appointment as a chastisement for
Solomon's sins, and in it the national power received a blow from which
it never recovered. The religious effect also was unspeakably calamitous
so far as the kingdom of the ten tribes was concerned; for Jeroboam, the
first king of Israel, established idolatry _as a matter of state
policy_, thus corrupting the religion of his whole kingdom with a view
to the establishment of his own power, a sin in which he was followed by
every one of his successors. The sacred historian carries forward the
history of these two kingdoms together with wonderful brevity and power.
Sometimes, as in the days of Elijah and Elisha, the history of the ten
tribes assumes the greater prominence, because it furnishes the fuller
illustrations of God's presence and power; but as a general fact it is
kept in subordination to that of Judah. It is a sad record of wicked
dynasties, each established in blood and ending in blood, until the
overthrow of the kingdom by the Assyrians about two hundred and
fifty-four years after its establishment. Meanwhile there was in Judah
an alternation of pious with idolatrous kings, and a corresponding
struggle between the true religion and the idolatry of the surrounding
nations, which the sacred writer also describes briefly but vividly.

18. It was during the reign of the good king Hezekiah that the
extinction of the kingdom of Israel took place, and the _third_ period
of the history began. Hezekiah's efforts for the restoration of the true
religion were vigorous and for the time successful. But after his death
the nation relapsed again into idolatry and wickedness. The efforts of
Josiah, the only pious monarch that occupied the throne after Hezekiah,
coul