FOUR: THE HEBREW BIBLE: The United Monarchy

The United Monarchy – David and Solomon*

The Tel Dan Stele, Israel Museum

The Bible tells us that before there was a dual monarchy there was a united kingdom, presided over by kings. The first king was the “brooding, handsome”[1] Saul from the tribe of Benjamin who reigned from about 1025 to 1003 BCE. Saul fell out of favour with Yahweh, and following his death by his own hand on the battlefield against the Philistines, he was replaced by god’s choice, David. David, who reigned from c1005 to 950, expanded his kingdom and won many great battles against the Philistines and others of his neighbours and was in due course succeeded by his son, Solomon “the wisest of kings and the greatest of builders”.

However, as one commentator (Christopher Hitchens from memory) describes the situation, Solomon’s libido apparently got the better of him, attested to by his no doubt apocryphal 700 wives and 300 concubines, and after his death, the Bible tells us that the kingdom formerly united under Saul, David and Solomon himself, divided into two. Not only had Solomon consorted with many “strange women”, but his sins were compounded since he also erected temples or ‘high places’ for the worship of their deities.

This apparently troubled Yahweh. He had promised David that his descendants should rule the land for all time, but because of Solomon’s indiscretions, he decreed that the kingdom be divided. The House of David would continue to rule, but only over the territory of Judah in the south[2]. Accordingly, when King Solomon died in 922 BCE, Jeroboam led a rebellion against Solomon’s son and heir, Rehoboam, and brought the north under his control. Rehoboam was left with a greatly diminished rump territory based on the old land traditionally ascribed to the tribe of Judah and centred on Jerusalem. This became the Southern Kingdom of Judah, also known as the Kingdom of the House of David. Jeroboam’s northern territory became known as the Kingdom of Israel or simply by the name of Samaria, its capital[3]. The Northern Kingdom lasted just over 200 years, and the Southern 335 years, ending when its King, Zedekiah, was taken captive, blinded and deported to Babylon.

Until the early 1990s, informed historians and Hebrew Bible specialists doubted whether David ever really existed. However, in that year an engraved stele (stone) referring to the existence of David and the existence of a House or dynasty of David was discovered in Northern Israel at the excavation site of Tel Dan, Dan once being the northernmost city of the Kingdom of Israel. This stele consists of several fragments making up part of a triumphal inscription in Aramaic, left most probably by Hazael of Aram-Damascus, an important international figure in the late 9th-century BCE. Hazael (or more accurately, the unnamed king) boasts of his victories over the king of Israel and his ally the king of the “House of David” (bytdwd), the first time the name David had been found outside the Bible, and this was only about a century after David’s own time. The Tel Dan inscription is now widely regarded as genuine and as referring to the Davidic dynasty and the Aramaic kingdom of Damascus.” It is currently on display in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem[4].

* Images at top:
(1) The supposed palace of King David (2013): http://www.cbsnews.com/news/archaeologists-claim-to-have-found-king-davids-palace-in-israel/
(2) The Judgment of Solomon by Raphael: http://www.wikiart.org/en/raphael/the-judgment-of-solomon-1519

[1] Finkelstein and Silberman, op cit, 123.
[2] For four Biblical self-fulfilling prophecies dealing with this issue written by a later generation of Judahite interpreters, and intended to contradict the fact that Israel and Judah had always been separate entities geographically, economically and politically, see Finkelstein and Silberman, op cit, 162 ff.
[3] Sturgis, op cit, 198.
[4] Source for Tel Dan Stele with picture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tel_Dan_Stele

The relevant portion of the Tel Dan inscription (below – emphasis added) reads:

5′. And Hadad marched before me. So I went forth from [the] seven[…]/s
6′. of my rule, and I killed [seve]nty kin[gs] who had harnessed thou[sands of cha]/riots
7′. and thousands of cavalry. [And I killed …]ram son of […]
8′. the king of Israel, and I killed […]yahu son of [… the ki]/ng of
9′. the House of David. And I made [their towns into ruins and turned]
10′. their land into [a desolation …]
11′. others and […Then…became ki]/ng
12′. over Is[rael…And I laid]
13′. siege against […][1]

The inscription most probably refers to the deaths of King Jehoram of Israel and Ahaziah of the “House of David”. However, there is a conflict here with the account in the Bible. The account in 2 Kings 9:14-27 says that Jehoram and Ahahiah had indeed died at the same time, but attributed their deaths to a violent coup d’état by the Israelite general (and later king) Jehu. Nevertheless, the Tel Dan inscription provides an independent witness to the historical existence of a dynasty founded by a ruler named David, from just a few generations after the era in which he presumably lived[1].

However, the problem is now not so much with David’s existence, but the extent and grandeur of his so-called “empire”. According to the respected Jewish archaeologists, Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, archaeological research has revealed no signs that Jerusalem was a great city or the capital of a vast monarchy between the 16th and 8th centuries BCE. In fact, the evidence clearly suggests that it was then little more than a typically hill country village, inhabited by a small population living on the northern part of the ridge near the spring of Gihon, and that David and Solomon were little more than regional chieftains[2]. Architecturally, Jersualem was probably never more than a small, relatively poor, unfortified hill country village, no larger than three of four acres in size, and certainly never sufficiently large enough in 1000BC (Iron Age I) to support a Temple and Palace complex. To put it bluntly, the Biblical description of the land size of David and Solomon’s Kingdom is greatly exaggerated[3].

On the other hand, Eilat Mazar, “Bible in one hand, spade in the other” as the saying goes, gives more credence to the Biblical perspective. She purports to have discovered the remains of King David’s palace following excavations carried out in the oldest part of Jerusalem, known as the City of David[4] but her claims are contentious. Archaeologist Avraham Faust argues that the place is wrong and that the archeological evidence indicates a construction date before David’s time[5]. If Mazar is right, some of the buildings she discovered can be dated to the time of Solomon. If Finkelstein and Faust are right, this cannot be the case.

Nor has archaeology been able to produce any corroboration of Solomon’s much vaunted building programme, and not a single stone of his famous Temple has been found. During the 1950s, the archaeologist Yigael Yadin, a protégé of William Albright, excavated sites at Hazor, Megiddo and Gezar, cities that are specifically mentioned in the Bible in connection with King Solomon’s ambitious building activities in 1 Kings 9:15, uncovering six-chambered gates at each in the process which he proclaimed to be built by King Solomon, using little more than the biblical reference (added long after Solomon died and the kingdom divided in 930 BCE) and stratigraphy to date pottery sherds found inside the gates. (C 14 dating did not exist at that time). The significance of the later dating lies in the fact that it could be used by a later generation to stake a retrospective territorial claim to these regions, both in the north and the south. Today, many scholars (including Israel Finkelstein and Norma Franklin, an archaeologist at Tel Aviv University) doubt that all three gates are Solomonic, while other such as Amihai Mazar, think they could be[6].

According to Finkelstein and Silberman, latter day excavations have demonstrated that the conventional view of the archaeology of the United Kingdom has been wrong by almost a century. In historical terms, this means that the cities assumed to have been conquered by David were still centres of Canaanite culture throughout the term of his presumed reign in Jerusalem. And the monuments traditionally attributed to Solomon and seen as symbols of the greatness of his state turned out to be built by the kings of the Omride dynasty of the northern kingdom of Israel, which ruled in the first half of the 9th century BCE[7]. Another suggestion is that they were among the structures built by Jeroboam II and wrongly ascribed by the Deuteronomic Historian to the golden age of Solomon when he was writing Kings almost a century later[8].

Whilst on the subject of the Omrides, there is in fact a stele passing by the name of the Moabite Stone or stele of Mesha celebrating Mesha of Moab’s successful rebellion against Omri King of Israel in the 9/8th century BCE. Omri was the 6th king of Israel’s Northern Kingdom and usurper of the throne, who ruled ca. 884 to 873 BCE. This stele was discovered in 1868 at Dibon in Moab about 20 miles east of the Dead Sea. It mentions “Israel,” “Yahweh” and the “House of David”, and is now in the Louvre Museum in Paris. It says in the Bible<a “mso-footnote-id:=”” ftn9″=”” href=”https://elwynshebrewbiblepage.weebly.com/the-united-monarchy—david-and-solomon.html#_ftn9″ title=””>[9] that Mesha the king of Moab was paying tribute to Israel and that they suddenly stopped: “Mesha, king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel…” (2 Kings 3:5). Mesha obviously made his own record of this rebellion.

It was discovered by chance by F.A. Klein, a German missionary. It was a bluish basalt stone, about 4 feet high and 2 feet wide, and 14 inches thick, with an inscription from king Mesha. When it was found the Berlin Museum negotiated for it while the French Consulate at Jerusalem offered more money. The next year some local Arabs chipped away several large pieces which they distributed among a few of them. Later the French re-assembled 669 of the estimated 1100 consonants from the pieces and preserved the inscription. It now remains in the Louvre Museum in Paris. The inscription is the most extensive inscription ever recovered from ancient Palestine. As with the Tel Dan stone, the inscription comes from an enemy of Israel boasting of a victory. It also makes reference to the House of David[10], so his existence is corroborated by external sources on two counts.

[1]  “Did David Exist – the minimalists and the Tel Dan inscription”, Appendix 1 of David and Solomon – In search of the Bible’s Sacred Kings and the root o f  the Western Tradition, by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, Free Press, New York, 2006. 261-266.
[2]  The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts, Touchstone, New York, 2002, p 133.
[3]  “The Search for David and Solomon’s Jerusalem”, Appendix 2 of ibid, pp 274.
[4]  “Did Eilat Mazar find David’s Palace”, Avraham Faust, Biblical Archaeology Review, Sept/Oct 2012, Vol 38 (5) 47-53; http://members.bib-arch.org/publication.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=38&Issue=5&ArticleID=5 See also, “Did I find David’s palace”, Eilat Mazar, Biblical Archaeology Review, Jan/Feb 2006 at http://www.bib-arch.org/e-features/king-davids-palace.asp; “Archaeology’s rebel – Bible in one hand, Spade in the other”, Christianity Today, Gordon Govier. 11 Nov 2011 at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/november/archaeology-rebel.html

The Mesha Stele or Moabite Stone in the Louvre Museum.

[5] Ibid, 50.
[6]  For the material on Yadin, see Robert Draper, “Kings of Controversy”, National Geographic, December 2010, 66 at 79.
[7]  “’Solomon’s Fabled Gates – The archaeology of Megiddo, Hazor and Gezer”, Appendix 3 of David and Solomon – In search of the Bible’s Sacred Kings and the root o f  the Western Tradition, by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, Free Press, New York, 2006, 275 at 281.
[8]  Finkelstein, op cit, 209.
[9]  2 Kings 3:5.
[10]  Source for Moabite stone and illustration:  http://www.bible-history.com/resource/ff_mesha.htm

In the meantime, another Jewish archaeologist, Yosef Garfinkel has been excavating ruins in the Judaean border town referred to in the Bible as Shaaraim, or “city of two gates” near the Elah valley where David fought Goliath, and has there found olive pits and pottery he dates to David’s time. Also finding two gates, he announced that he had found Shaaraim, somehat precipitately it would appear since he only had four olive pits on which to base his dating, a single inscription of a highly ambiguous nature and a mere 5% of the site excavated[1].

In 2013, Garfinkel and a team of other archaeologists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Israel’s Antiquities Authority claim to have discovered a large fortified complex west of Jerusalem at a site called Khirbet Qeiyafa west of Jerusalem, which Garfinkel say is the “best example exposed to date of a fortified city from the time of King David and the first palace of King David’s ever to have been discovered” suggesting that David himself may have used the site [2]. But critics dispute the claim, saying that the site could have belonged to other kingdoms in the area.

And in 2014, another archaeologist by the name of Eli Shukron, after an excavation lasting nearly two decades, claims to have discovered a massive fortification of five-ton stones stacked 6 metres wide in an Arab neighbourhood of Jerusalem which he says is the legendary citadel captured by King David in his conquest of Jerusalem, which he then made his capital. The fortification was built 800 years before King David would have captured it from its Jebusite rulers. Shukron says that the biblical story of King David’s conquest of Jersualem provides clues that point to this particular fortification as David’s entry point into the city. Again, the claim, which reignites the longstanding debate about using the Bible as a field guide to identifying ancient ruins, is disputed [3].

Over to the east, yet another Jewish archaeologist by the name of Thomas Levy says he has found a large copper production site dating to the tenth and nonth century BCE, which implies the existence of a complex, centralised society in Solomon’s time, indicating something considerably grander than the capabilities of a “simple tribal society”[4]. However, the results of his C 14 analysis remain contentious with a margin of error of + or – 40 years: precisely the period which is under debate[5].

So how much do we really know about the so-called United Kingdom and its “Golden Age”? According to Finkelstein and Silberman, not much until the 9th Century BCE and that rules out Solomon. According to the biblical account, Solomon would seem to have been the most famous king of Israel, “one who self-consciously reached beyond the borders of the realm to establish relations with foreign powers”. Of all the Old Testament rulers, he is the one whom one would have most expected to be mentioned in other sources. Yet there is a stark absence of evidence about him. He is presented as a king with widespread international contacts and influence, yet not a single mention of his name occurs in any contemporary Near Eastern text, and his existence is uncorroborated by sources outside the Bible[6]. He is also said to have been married to the daughter of an Egyptian pharaoh, presumably Pharaoh Siamun, whose reign is believed to be roughly contemporaneous with the early part of Solomon’s rule, but no reference to this dynastic alliance has yet been found in any of the Egyptian records of the period.

Furthermore, a well ordered centralised system such as the one portrayed for Solomon in the Bible would have required a well organised and literate civil service to administer it. Yet no trace of writing has been found in the lands of Israel or Judah from this period, and no evidence of any widespread trade between Israel and the nations around it. Moreover, there just doesn’t seem to have been enough people around to have established or maintained such a great kingdom, and especially so in Judah, which, in contrast to its prosperous northern neighbour, was almost deserted. Archaeological surveys show Judah remained relatively empty of permanent populations, quite isolated and very marginal right up to and past the presumed time of David and Solomon, with no major urban centres and with no pronounced hierarchy of hamlets, villages and towns[7]. Around Jerusalem, only half a dozen settlements from this period have been identified, and life in them appears to have been harsh and rudimentary. This scenario does not sit easily with the supposed grandeur of Solomon and indeed the United Kingdom. It becomes difficult to resist Matthew Sturgis’ conclusion that “Solomon’s grandeur remains stubbornly and disconcertingly mythical”.

And in the words of another commentator: “Even if Garfinkel can prove that the Judah tribe that begat King David dwelled in the fortress of Shaaraim, and Eilat Mazar can document that King David commissioned a palace in Jerusalem, and Tom Levy can successfully demonstrate that King Solomon oversaw copper mines in Edom, this does not a glorious biblical dynasty make. How much digging before this argument is settled?”[8]

So at this point we are left with a series of interesting rhetorical questions: If there was no Exodus, no conquest of Canaan, and no united monarchy under David and Solomon, can we really say that early biblical Israel, as described in the Five Books of Moses and the books of Joshua, Judges and Samuel, ever really existed at all?[9] What are we to make of the biblical desire for unification? And what do we to make of the long and difficult relationship between the kingdoms of Judah and Israel depicted in the Bible as extending over almost two hundred years?”[10] Is there any evidence that any of this ever really happened in the manner recounted in the Bible – or indeed at all?

[1]  Robert Draper, op cit, 78. Kings of Controversy, “Was the Kingdom of David and Solomon a glorious empire—or just a little cow town? It depends on which archaeologist you ask”, National Geographic, Dec 2010, Robert Draper: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2010/12/david-and-solomon/ A map summary of the excavations of Eilat Mazar, Yigael Yadin, Yosef Garfinkel and Thomas Levy appears at the end of this Chapter.
[2] Max Rosenthal, “King David’s palace found, say archaeologists”, SMH, 22 July 2013.
[3] Daniel Estrin, “King David’s citadel ‘discovered’ as politics and archaeology collide in Jerusalem, SMH, 7 May 2014.
[4] Robert Draper, op cit, 84.
[5]  Ibid, 85, per Eilat Mazar.
[6] Matthew Sturgis, It Ain’t Necessarily So – Investigating the Truth of the Biblical Past, (volume to accompany the ITV series) Headline Book Publishing, London 2001, 188-215
[7]  Tobin 109.
[8]  Robert Draper, Ibid, 90.
[9]  Finkelstein and Silberman, op cit, p 124.
[10]  Ibid, 150.