from the deep degradation of servitude to the summit of worldly power.  But the Theocracy was only a preparatory, and therefore a temporary form of God’s visible earthly kingdom.  From the days of David and Solomon it began to decline in outward power and splendor, and it is with the history of this decline that the books of Kings are occupied.  In the view which they present of the divine plan they are in perfect harmony with the preceding books of Samuel; but in respect to the manner of execution they differ widely.  The books of Samuel give the history of Samuel, Saul, and David, with great fulness of detail, and never refer the reader to other sources of information.  The books of Kings, on the contrary, give professedly only certain portions of the history of the people under the successive kings, always adding, at the close of each monarch’s reign after Solomon, that the rest of his acts may be found, for the kings of Judah, in “the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Judah;” and, for the kings of Israel, in “the book of the Chronicles of the kings of Israel.”  The Chronicles referred to are not our present books of Chronicles, as has been already shown, Chap. 15, No. 8, but a larger collection of writings, from which the authors both of the books of Kings and Chronicles drew materials, in part at least, for their respective works.  The history contained in the books of Kings may be conveniently divided into three periods—­(1) the reign of Solomon over all Israel; (2) the history of the coexisting kingdoms of Judah and Israel; (3) the history of the kingdom of Judah after the extinction of the kingdom of Israel.

16.  The history of the first period opens with the reign of Solomon, which excelled that of David in outward magnificence, as it did that of every succeeding king. 1 Kings 3:13.  The great event of his reign, constituting an epoch in the history of the Theocracy, was the erection of the temple on Mount Moriah, which took the place of the ancient tabernacle constructed by divine direction in the wilderness.  Thus Solomon added to the public services of the sanctuary an outward splendor and dignity corresponding with the increased wealth and glory of the nation.  But 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.