THE period of Israel's history treated in this Volume has a twofold special interest: political and religious.

Beginning with the later years of David's reign, when the consciousness and the consequences of the great

sin of his life had, so to speak, paralyzed the strong hand which held the reins of government, we are, first,

led to see how in the Providence of God, the possibility of a great military world -monarchy in Israel (comp.

Psalm 18:43-45) - such as those of heathen antiquity - was forever frustrated. Another era began with

Solomon: that of peaceful development of the internal resources of the country; of rapid increase of

prosperity; of spread of culture; and through friendly intercourse with other nations of introduction of

foreign ideas and foreign civilization. When it is remembered that the building of the Temple preceded the

legislation of Lycurgus in Sparta by about one hundred and twenty years; that of Solomon in Athens by

more than four hundred years; and the building of Rome by about two hundred and fifty years, it will be

perceived that the kingdom of Solomon presented the dim possibility of the intellectual, if not the political

Empire of the world. What Jerusalem was in the high-day of Solomon's glory is described in a chapter of this

history. But, in the Providence of God, any such prospect passed away, when, after only eighty years

duration, the Davidic kingdom was rent into two rival and hostile states. Yet, although this catastrophe was

intimated by prophecy - as Divine judgment upon Solomon's unfaithfulness - there was nothing either

abrupt or out of the order of rational causation in its accomplishment. On the contrary, the causes of this

separation lay far back in the tribal relations of Israel; they manifested themselves once and again in the

history of the Judges and of Saul; made themselves felt in the time of David; appeared in that of Solomon;

and only reached their final issue, when the difficult task of meeting them devolved upon the youthful

inexperience and misguided folly of a Rehoboam. All this is fully explained in the course of this history.

After their separation, the two kingdoms passed, in their relations, through three stages, the first one of

hostility; the second one of alliance, which commenced with the reign of Jehoshaphat and of Ahab, and

ended with the slaughter of the kings of Judah and Israel by Jehu; and the third again one of estrangement

and of hostility. Of these three periods the first is fully traced, and the beginning of the second marked in

the present Volume.

From the political we turn to the religious aspect of this history. It was indeed true that the empire of the

world was to be connected with the Davidic kingdom (Psalm 2.) - but not in the sense of founding a great

military monarchy, nor in that of attaining universal intellectual supremacy, least of all by conformity to the

ways and practices of heathen worship, magic, and theurgy. The exaltation of Zion above the hills and the

flowing of all nations unto it, was to be brought about by the going forth of the Law out of Zion, and of the

Word of Jehovah from Jerusalem (Isaiah 2:2, 3). This - to confine ourselves to the present period of our

history - had been distinctly implied in the great promise to David (2 Samuel 7.); it was first typically realized

in the choice of Jerusalem as the City of God (Psalm 46; 48; 87.); and further presented in its aspect of peace,

prosperity, and happiness in the reign of Solomon (Psalm 72.) to which the prophets ever afterwards pointed

as the emblem of the higher blessings in the Kingdom of God (Micah 4:4; Zechariah 3:10, comp. with 1 Kings

4:25). But the great work of that reign, alike in its national and typical importance, was the building of the

Temple at Jerusalem. This also has been fully described in the following pages.

But already other elements were at work. The introduction of heathen worship commenced with the decline

of Solomon's spiritual life. After his death, the apostasy from God attained fearful proportions, partially and

temporarily in Judah, but permanently in Israel. In the latter, from the commencement of its separate national

existence under Jeroboam, the God-chosen Sanctuary at Jerusalem, and the God-appointed priesthood were

discarded; the worship of Jehovah transformed; and by its side spurious rites and heathen idolatry

introduced, until, under the reign of Ahab, the religion of Baal became that of the State. This marks the high-

point of apostasy in Israel. The evolving of principles of contrariety to the Divine Covenant slowly but

surely led up to the final destruction of the Jewish Commonwealth. But, side by side with it, God in great

mercy placed an agency, the origin, character, and object of which have already been indicated in a previous

Volume. The Prophetic Order may be regarded as an extraordinary agency, by the side of the ordinary