To the Kingdoms

Okay, last time I made my passionate appeal to wiser heads than mine to identify the North Semitic deity Reshpeh with Michael. As I say, I’m just a humble little blogger, so I could be wrong. (But, I don’t think I am.)

Anyway, today we move on. When we left off, Israel was a loose tribal confederation under the rule of community leaders -- “Judges.” But, somewhere along the line, Israelites became convinced that they needed a more formal and more centralized government. They may have had good reasons. They had aggressive neighbors, like the Philistines, who were better organized than they were. What seemed to be called for was a king.(1)

The Bible tells us that Israel thus duly became a kingdom, first under Saul, then under David and Solomon, sometime in the 10th Century BC. Quick aside. We’re not really sure of that. We don’t have any evidence of a United Kingdom, other than what the Bible says. Having a single source makes historians, like journalists, nervous.(2)

But, for the sake of simplicity, let’s assume for the moment that there was a United Kingdom, and that it was eventually ruled by David and his family. Supposedly, Israel then entered a sort of golden age, particularly under Solomon.(3) Supposedly (again), it became a significant regional power. In the Bible, we are told that it extended from the Euphrates River in the north (modern Syria) all the way down to Egypt’s frontier in the south, and including modern Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, and Jordan, plus perhaps parts of Syria and northern Arabia.

The country was said to be very wealthy and Solomon himself was both rich and wise. He was a divinely guided ruler, in touch with God, and famed from Ethiopia (remember the Queen of Sheba?) to Persia and Egypt. And Solomon was also a great builder. It was he who was said to have constructed the First Temple--the first great temple of Yahweh, which formed the center of Judaism’s religious life for centuries to come.

Well, that’s what’s said, anyway. We can’t prove it, unfortunately, and even if we could, it wasn’t going to last. Solomon dies (we think) around 931 BC. After that, things go--as the British would say -- “pear shaped.” It seems (or so we’re told) that Solomon had taxed the people heavily to fund his various projects, like building the First Temple. As result, the Israelite people, particularly in the North, were unhappy.

Then, Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, became King. He, however, had none of his father’s political savvy, and when the northern tribes sent a delegation to Jerusalem to ask for tax relief, Rehoboam, “advised by the younger men at court,” who had grown up with the opulence and glory of an absolute monarchy, decided to show no weakness and actually increased taxes.(5) In the King James Bible, the young King is quoted as saying, “...my father hath chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.”

Right...the Northern Tribes said...that’s it. And they proceeded to secede.

There were now two kingdoms, Israel in the North, and Judah, ruled from Jerusalem, in the South. For a long time, Israel overshadowed Judah, which had the Temple, but no economic base. Then, Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians around 720 BC. Some members of the Israeli elite were deported and were ultimately lost to history.(6) Others fled to Judah. Most common folk, probably, stayed where they were and did the best they could.

Judah prospered for a time, but then, it, too, ran into trouble around 589 BC. Its then king, Zedekiah, revolted against his overlord, Nebuchadnezzar II, the king of the Neo-Babylonian empire...this in spite of the excellent advice given him by the prophet Jeremiah (who basically told him “don’t be an idiot”). The result, as Jeremiah foretold, was the destruction of Judah. The armies of Nebuchadnezzar were unstoppable. Cities were destroyed. Farms and villages were burned. And the nation’s elite, once again, were sent into Exile, this time in Babylon.

And thus we have the “Babylonian Captivity” -- “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept/when we remembered Zion.”

A sad song, indeed.

Yet, strangely, the Captivity would prove vitally important to not only Judaism, but *all* the Abrahamic religions.

And to Michael...

He wouldn’t exist...or at least be named...

Without it.

More to come.

Footnotes:

1. “History of ancient Israel and Judah,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ancient_Israel_and_Judah

2. Old Journalist’s Joke: if your mother tells you she loves you, believe her. But get a second source.

3. “Solomon,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon

4. In 1 Kings 4:21–24 we are told that Solomon’s dominion stretched: “from the River [Euphrates] to the land of the Philistines and to the border of Egypt.”

5. Rehoboam, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehoboam

6. Kingdom of Israel (Samaria), Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Israel_(Samaria)#Conquest_by_the_Neo-Assyrian_Empire_(732%E2%80%93720_BCE)

The destruction of the Northern Kingdom of Israel gave us the myth of the “Lost Ten Tribes.” See “Ten Lost Tribes,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Lost_Tribes

About the images: First, this is “Flight of the Prisoners,” by James Jacques Joseph Tissot (1836–1902). It shows the forced transfer of the Judean people from their homes to Babylon. For more on the painting see: https://www.worldhistory.org/image/15283/the-flight-of-the-prisoners/. It is believed to be in the public domain. For more on Tissot, see “James Tissot,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tissot

Second, here is a “winged genie,” defined by Wikipedia as “conventional term for a recurring motif in the iconography of Assyrian sculpture. Winged genies are usually bearded male figures sporting birds' wings.” You can see how it might have been a influence on the popular representation of angels. This image can be found on Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winged_genie. The image is believed to be in the public domain. The image itself is at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Genien,_Nimrud_870_v._Chr._Aegyptisches_Museum,_Muenchen-4.jpg. It’s attribution is Rufus46, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Copyright©2026 Michael Jay Tucker

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