The two kingdoms were then enjoying an independent existence.  Judah, in spite of its smaller numbers and its recent disaster, was not far behind the more extensive Israel in its resources.  David, and afterwards Solomon, had so kneaded together the various elements of which it was composed—­Caleb, Cain, Jerahmeel and the Judsean clans—­that they had become a homogeneous mass, grouped around the capital and its splendid sanctuary, and actuated with feelings of profound admiration and strong fidelity for the family which had made them what they were.  Misfortune had not chilled their zeal:  they rallied round Rehoboam and his race with such a persistency that they were enabled to maintain their ground when their richer rivals had squandered their energies and fallen away before their eyes.  Jeroboam, indeed, and his successors had never obtained from their people more than a precarious support and a lukewarm devotion:  their authority was continually coming into conflict with a tendency to disintegration among the tribes, and they could only maintain their rule by the constant employment of force.  Jeroboam had collected together from the garrisons scattered throughout the country the nucleus of an army, and had stationed the strongest of these troops in his residence at Tirzah when he did not require them for some expedition against Judah or the Philistines.  His successors followed his example in this respect, but this military resource was only an ineffectual protection against the dangers which beset them.  The kings were literally at the mercy of their guard, and their reign was entirely dependent on its loyalty or caprice:  any unscrupulous upstart might succeed in suborning his comrades, and the stroke of a dagger might at any moment send the sovereign to join his ancestors, while the successful rebel reigned in his stead.* The Egyptian troops had no sooner set out on their homeward march, than the two kingdoms began to display their respective characteristics.  An implacable and truceless war broke out between them.  The frontier garrisons of the two nations fought with each other from one year’s end to another—­carrying off each other’s cattle, massacring one another, burning each other’s villages and leading their inhabitants into slavery.**

     * Among nineteen kings of Israel, eight were assassinated
     and were replaced by the captains of their guards—­Nadab,
     Elah, Zimri, Joram, Zachariah, Shallum, Pekahiah, and Pekah.

** This is what is meant by the Hebrew historians when they say “there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of his life” (1 Kings xv. 6; cf. 2 Ohron. xii. 15), and “between Abijam and Jeroboam” (1 Kings xv. 7; 2 Ohron. xiii. 2), and “between Asa and Baasha” (1 Kings xv. 16, 32) “all their days.”

From time to time, when the situation became intolerable, one of the kings took the field in person, and began operations by attacking such of his enemy’s