History of the Jews

by Paul Johnson

This hostility to Solomon’s religious changes combined with his absolutist ways and exactions to make the united kingdom his father had constructed untenable in the long run. Solomon’s craft and success held it together, but there were signs of strain even during his last years. To Israelites for whom the past was very real, the forced-labour system was particularly odious because it reminded them of the Egyptian servitude. Their freedom and their religion were inseparable in their minds. By concentrating the cult in Jerusalem, Solomon downgraded northern shrines such as Shechem, associated with Abraham, and Bethel, with Jacob. To the northerners, then, Solomon and his line were increasingly seen as spiritual destroyers as well as secular oppressors. Hence when Solomon died in 925/6 BC, the northerners refused his successor, Rehoboam, a united coronation in Jerusalem, and insisted he go north to Shechem to be crowned their king.