David and Solomon: In Search of the Bible's Sacred Kings and the Roots of the Western Tradition (17 page)

This promise and the dynastic chronicle that leads up to it are not history, but the expression of a new economic, social, and demographic reality in Judah that gave birth to the idea of the united monarchy, now projected back into Israel’s distant past.

We know very little about the process of scribal activity in this period or about the kinds of groups who might have been responsible for collecting the traditions and composing a unified text. What we have in the Bible is the result of continued elaboration and editing; what we suggest for the time of Hezekiah is an initial version of the text that continued to be elaborated in subsequent decades. Was it kept only in a temple or palace library? Was it made in many copies distributed throughout the kingdom, or was the story retold to the public on the basis of just a few original texts? Whatever the answers, the earliest version of the biblical story of Saul, David, and the accession of Solomon—and possibly also his construction of the Temple—was created not solely or even primarily for religious purposes, but for a now-forgotten political necessity—of establishing Temple and Dynasty as the twin foundation stones for the new idea of a united Israel.

HEZEKIAH’S REVOLT

The death of Sargon II on the field of battle in 705
BCE
may have raised hopes that the plan for a united Israel could be realized. Judah adopted a new strategy toward Assyria that replaced its more deliberate policy of vassal status with a daring, if dangerous, course. Times of royal succession in Assyria were always filled with tension and uncertainty throughout the empire since the authority of the new king was not yet established. This was clearly the case with the succession of Sennacherib, Sargon’s son. Almost immediately upon his taking the throne, a serious revolt broke out against Assyrian rule in Babylonia, the spiritual heartland of Mesopotamia and a vital component of the Assyrian state. Taking advantage of the uprising in Babylon, the rising Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt sought to extend its influence along the Philistine coast. King Luli of the Phoenician city-state of Sidon also considered challenging Assyria. The combination of apparent Assyrian weakness and the possibility of an uprising emboldened the Judahite king Hezekiah to participate in planning for a regionwide rebellion. It proved to be a risky and ultimately disastrous course for Judah to take.

Facing the Assyrian armies in direct confrontation required courage and intensive, large-scale preparation. In Jerusalem, the impressive fortification walls protecting the eastern slope of the City of David and the “broad wall” on the newly settled western hill were almost certainly constructed during the years that followed Sargon’s death. Any such massive defensive preparations would have been seen as an obvious threat to Sargon, who campaigned in Samaria in 720 and in Philistia between 720 and 711. Likewise these massive preparation works would have been unthinkable after the Assyrians arrived on the scene to confront Hezekiah in 701
BCE.
The fact that this huge construction project was a matter of urgency is evident in the signs of the hurried building: the broad wall on the western hill passed right through an existing suburb in which standing houses had to be razed. That was not the only or even the most impressive preparation for war. The Siloam tunnel, the 1,750-foot-long, winding subterranean channel that brought freshwater into the fortified city, was of vital strategic significance. Its inscription recording the frantic work of the diggers in completing the tunnel both celebrates their successful achievement and reveals the urgency of the work.

In light of Assyria’s complete military dominance of the region, Hezekiah and his allies were taking an enormous risk. And once the rebellion in Babylon had been suppressed, they faced the consequences of their decision. In the spring of 701
BCE
, Sennacherib finally turned his full attention westward and marched in their direction with Assyria’s devastating military might.

SENNACHERIB’S REVENGE

As Sennacherib’s army proceeded down the Mediterranean coast to restore Assyrian control of the vital trading ports in Phoenicia and Philistia, all of Hezekiah’s allies were crushed, one by one. After conquering Sidon and recapturing the coastal cities, Sennacherib moved inland to the Philistine city of Ekron, conquering it and deposing its king. In panic, the rebel allies called for assistance from Egypt, but an arriving Egyptian relief force was quickly smashed. Now it was time for Assyria’s final attack on Judah, aimed first at the strong and prosperous cities in the Shephelah that had grown dramatically in the previous decades. As related on the Prism of Sennacherib:

The archaeological evidence of destruction in the late eighth century
BCE
is eloquent testimony to the thoroughness of the devastation that the Assyrians wrought. Intense destruction layers have been noted at most of the major sites in the Shephelah, whose economic importance to Hezekiah’s kingdom was great. In 2 Kings 18:14, 17 there are references to the presence of Sennacherib with “a great army” at Lachish. The battle there was later commemorated in an elaborate wall relief in Sennacherib’s palace in Nineveh, now displayed in the British Museum. It includes such vivid details as the desperate defenders shooting arrows and hurling torches from the city’s battlements down upon the attacking soldiers; the Assyrian siege ramp and armored battering ram breaching Lachish’s defenses; the rebels captured and impaled on tall pikes placed around the city; and the pitiful exodus of Judahite women and children taken from their conquered city off into exile. Excavations at Lachish by David Usisshkin uncovered evidence of the city’s complete destruction, as well as the Assyrian siege ramp and other remains of the siege.

Sennacherib took glee in the humiliation he imposed on the rebel Judahite king in his own capital, unable to come to the aid of his besieged cities and towns: “[Hezekiah] himself I made a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in a cage. I surrounded him with earthwork in order to molest those who were leaving his city’s gate.”

The second book of Kings offers a different version of the story, in which the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem was miraculously lifted when an angel sent by God killed 185,000 of the besieging soldiers in their sleep, an account that biblical scholars have explained as describing a plague. One fact seems clear in both versions: instead of devastating Jerusalem, the Assyrian army besieged it, but withdrew without destroying it or even deposing Hezekiah from the throne.

The cost of his survival was enormous. According to the Bible, a crippling payment of tribute was paid to the Assyrian king.

According to the Prism of Sennacherib, the price paid by Hezekiah was not only treasure but the loss of some of the most fertile lands in his kingdom, the territory in the Shephelah on which the kingdom’s newfound prosperity was based:

Thus Sennacherib’s campaign and its aftermath effectively destroyed the economic system that Ahaz and Hezekiah constructed over the previous years. Judah was now territorially shrunken, demographically swollen, completely subjected to Assyria, and burdened by a crippling debt. Yet the Davidic kingship survived and Jerusalem remained standing. The twin pillars of Judahite society—Temple and Dynasty—endured.

The faith that despite temporary reverses, their dynastic founder, David, was chosen by God and that the city of Jerusalem was divinely protected—even after being besieged by the greatest of empires—was unique testimony to the resilience of Judah’s new sense of identity and destiny. But with the devastation of the Shephelah and the enormous burden of tribute that had to be paid, the rulers of Judah now had to develop different strategies for survival. And as these new strategies were formulated and put into action in the following decades, several more layers of the David and Solomon story would be added—to produce an even more elaborate narrative of the united monarchy of Israel, substantially in the form that we have in the Bible today.

THE BIBLICAL DESCRIPTION OF KING SOLOMON’S FORTY-YEAR
reign of royal prosperity and grandeur (1 Kings 3–10) has provided western civilization with some of its most glittering images of enlightened kingship, guided by wisdom and blessed with unparalleled wealth. With a regal bearing unmarred by David’s violent background and warrior image, Solomon serenely establishes an efficient bureaucracy to administer his vast kingdom and presides over a court and palace that is renowned for its opulence and refinement. He judges the most difficult cases—even of disputed babies—with consummate wisdom. He marries a pharaoh’s daughter and constructs the great Jerusalem Temple. His possessions are boundless: thousands of horses and chariots (1 Kings 4:26) and a harem of seven hundred wives (1 Kings 11:3). He conscripts work gangs to refortify Jerusalem and other regional centers, and commissions far-flung trading expeditions for “gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks” (1 Kings 10:22). His reputation as a wise and powerful ruler is unparalleled; when the queen of Sheba travels to Jerusalem from her far-off land to test King Solomon’s wisdom, she finds that Solomon’s wealth and splendor far surpass even her grandest expectations, so that “there was no more spirit in her” (1 Kings 10:5).

The biblical world of King Solomon

As a story of royal manners and aristocratic deportment, the biblical narrative of Solomon has for centuries provided artists, poets, and theologians with timeless images of royal leadership. But as an accurate chronicle of tenth-century affairs—describing the actual life and works of Solomon—it has no historical value at all. The grandiose descriptions of Solomonic wealth and unchallenged royal power are absurdly discordant with the historical reality of the small, out-of-the-way hill country kingdom that possessed no literacy, no massive construction works, no extensive administration, and not the slightest sign of commercial prosperity. Of course one might argue that admiration for the kinds of achievements attributed to Solomon might have been conceivable in even the poorest or most backward of kingdoms. But the biblical narrative is filled with so many specific details about trade transactions, monetary values, and complex royal administration that its authors seem to be describing a reality they knew from personal experience—not merely dreaming of an invented or imagined utopia.

It is a world of effortless international connections and the celebration of commercial prosperity, in which the labor of skilled craftsmen and common workers (for building the Temple), no less than cedar logs or spices, is seen as a commodity whose price is open to negotiation. The profit to be made on the resale of imported chariots and horses (1 Kings 10:28–29) and the precise accounting of the kingdom’s annual income “from the traders and from the traffic of the merchants, and from all the kings of Arabia and from the governors of the land” (1 Kings 10:15), assume an understanding of and appreciation for great administrative and commercial detail. Indeed, the stories of Solomon’s negotiations with King Hiram of Tyre to help build the Temple, his international trade in thoroughbred horses, his lucrative maritime expeditions, and the gifts of precious goods from the queen of Sheba enthusiastically celebrate the values and vision of what we would call today a globalized economy.

As we will see in this chapter, the most famous episodes of the Solomon story reflect an accurate historical memory not of Solomon, but of the dramatic era when the kingdom of Judah recovered from Sennacherib’s destructive campaign by plunging headlong into the world of imperial commerce. Judah’s economic development in the era of Ahaz and Hezekiah was just the beginning. The Solomon story refers to the next act. It does not merely dress an old tale of a founding father in late-eighth-and seventh-century costume. As we will see, Assyrian-era details and values are central to understanding the motivations for composing the tale of Israel’s most prosperous king.

RISING FROM THE ASHES

The biblical Solomon sits majestically enthroned at the summit of a lofty pyramid of royal power. His kingdom—stretching from Dan to Beer-sheba (1 Kings 4:25), or, according to another verse, from the Euphrates to the border of Egypt (1 Kings 4:21)—boasted a sophisticated administration directed from Jerusalem by the king and a coterie of priests, secretaries, scribes, palace administrators, army officers, and overseers of conscripted labor gangs. Twelve district officers, identified by name and connected with clearly delineated territories, were stationed throughout the kingdom with the task of providing “food for the king and his household; each man had to make provision for one month in the year” (1 Kings 4:7). Grain, cattle, sheep, and wild game flowed into Jerusalem to provide the king’s daily provision. Thousands of laborers were conscripted to carry out the king’s ambitious building projects, including the fortification of Jerusalem, the construction of Megiddo, Hazor, and Gezer, the establishment of new settlements in the wilderness, and the construction of “all the store-cities that Solomon had, and the cities for his chariots, and the cities for his horsemen, and whatever Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion” (1 Kings 9:19). The kingdom was secure and united. As the Bible puts it, “Judah and Israel dwelt in safety, from Dan even to Beer-sheba, every man under his vine and under his fig tree, all the days of Solomon” (1 Kings 4:25).

This idealized vision clearly has nothing to do with the poor villages and the rugged conditions in tenth-century
BCE
Jerusalem, nor is it an accurate description of the rapidly growing kingdom of Ahaz and Hezekiah. Its picture of well-established and far-reaching royal organization more closely resembles, at least in its broad outlines, if not in all its hyperbole, the increasingly organized and centralized kingdom of Judah in the early seventh century
BCE
. The instruments of royal power—trade, building projects, and administration—that begin to emerge during the reign of Hezekiah were exercised more extensively during the reign of his son and successor Manasseh (698–642
BCE
). If any historical character resembles the biblical Solomon, it is he.

Sennacherib’s invasion resulted in far-reaching destruction, devastating Judah’s main regional centers and richest agricultural areas. By the time of Manasseh’s accession, the economy of Judah was in ruins. The city of Jerusalem was isolated in the midst of a depopulated countryside; it had become the lonely “lodge in a cucumber field” described by the prophet Isaiah (1:8)—a huge, crowded city in the midst of an overwhelmed agricultural hinterland. Archaeological excavations throughout the Shephelah and the Beer-sheba Valley have exposed the extent of the destruction in ash layers, smashed pottery, and the tumbled stones of collapse uncovered at virtually every settlement that flourished during the reign of Hezekiah at the end of the eighth century
BCE
.

This, then, was King Manasseh’s great double challenge: a huge yearly tribute was demanded by the Assyrians, and the agricultural potential of Judah was severely impaired. Hezekiah’s son and successor had to formulate a new economic strategy for survival. With its vital grain-growing region of the Shephelah lost, Judah had to find alternative means of agricultural production. Since the towns and villages in the central mountain ridge—which specialized in horticulture—could not be relied on to make up the difference, other places in the kingdom would have to be found to supply the kingdom with vital grain and field crops. Still other sources of income would be needed to meet the obligations of Assyrian tribute. There are archaeological indications that Manasseh met the challenge. The sweeping changes and economic revival that took place in early-seventh-century
BCE
Judah—evident in the archaeological record—uncannily mirror the descriptions of planned royal colonization and administration that the story of Solomon so enthusiastically celebrates.

First came the development of environmentally marginal areas. Even in the time of Manasseh’s immediate predecessors, the wilderness of Judah had been a desolate area of deep ravines, caves, and isolated landmarks in the Dead Sea region, a wild and dangerous backdrop to the stories of David’s flight with his band of outlaws from the vengeance of King Saul. Yet in the seventh century
BCE
, farms and small settlements were established in this arid, virtually rainless region, where herding had long been the main way of life. On the basis of archaeological finds here, there is good reason to suggest that during the long reign of Manasseh, settlements were established at En Gedi and at small sites along the western coast of the Dead Sea. At the same time, agriculture began in the arid Buqei‘a Valley south of Jericho, and on the arid slopes east of Jerusalem.

Far to the south, in the Beer-sheba Valley—another dry and sparsely populated area of the kingdom dotted only with a few fortresses to guard the caravan routes—settlement dramatically increased in the seventh century
BCE
. New sites were established at Tel Masos, Horvat Uza, and Horvat Radom, and the settlements of Tel Ira and Aro‘er expanded. Surface surveys have revealed the presence of many more. As in the wilderness of Judah, the goal was clearly agricultural. In good years, the Beer-sheba Valley alone could produce over five thousand tons of grain per annum through traditional dry farming methods, while the basic needs of its population required no more than 5 percent of that amount. Thus, if the agriculture in both the Beer-sheba Valley and the wilderness of Judah was well organized—with maximum cultivation in years of adequate rainfall, irrigation, and efficient storage in times of drought—these two regions could replace at least a portion of the grain yield of the now-lost Sephelah and supply a significant proportion of Judah’s agricultural needs.

The expansion into the arid regions was a matter of survival. It seems to have been part of a carefully planned and directed royal policy. In the wilderness of Judah especially, there is evidence of ambitious agricultural constructions, including the hewing of cisterns and the construction of dams to retain the precious winter floodwaters. And in the newly settled Negev communities, evidence for the reconstruction of the royal fortress at Arad and the construction of another fort at Horvat Uza testifies to a high level of administration and royal control. Moreover, the steady increase in the number of seals and seal impressions on storage vessels and bullae in Judah during this same period shows that commercial transactions and careful accounting of agricultural shipments had become a high priority.

As Manasseh reorganized his kingdom, the main elements of a well-planned royal administration materialized on the landscape and in the lives of the officials, workers, and settlers who were marshaled and organized to carry out his commands. It was only at this time that a detailed description of royal officers, regional fortresses, and district capitals would have begun to acquire a recognizable significance in celebrating the achievements of Solomon.
*

Of course there were obvious differences between seventh-century Judah and Solomon’s vast biblically described domain. In Manasseh’s time, Judah was restricted to the southern hill country and the desert fringes, with the territory of the former kingdom of Israel under direct Assyrian rule. The biblical descriptions, by contrast, depict a Solomonic administration that stretches across the entire land of Israel, encompassing all of Israel’s northern lands and tribes. This obviously calls for an explanation. If the intention was to celebrate persuasively a new and more efficient kind of royal administration in Judah, why was the geographical extent of Solomon’s kingdom described as so vast?

The main sites of King Manasseh’s realm

HAZOR, MEGIDDO, AND GEZER