chariots and horsemen; and they shall run before his chariots; and he shall appoint them for himself as commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds, and some to plough his ground and to reap his harvest and to make his implements of war and the furnishings for his chariots. And he will take your daughters to be perfumers and to be cooks and to be bakers. And of your fields and your vineyards and your oliveyards he will take the best and give them to his servants. And he will take the tithe of your grain fields and of your vineyards and give to his eunuchs and to his servants. And he will take your men-servants and your maid-servants, and the best of your cattle and your asses, and use them for his work. He will take the tithe of your flocks; and you shall become his slaves.

Here we have the later protest of a democratic Hebrew prophet against the tyrannical Oriental measures that Solomon imposed upon the free Israelites. First Kings 47, 22, 23, 27, 28 describes the system which he instituted in order to collect the provisions required for his elaborate court. In addition he monopolised Israel's commerce (I Kgs. 1022, 28, 29). Ancient Egypt under Ramses II was apparently no more exploited than the Hebrew commonwealth under Solomon. He was justified in expecting definite support from the people sufficient to promote the welfare of the state and of each citizen. With the development of his empire he required a larger income than did his predecessors. The injustice of his system of taxation lay in the false theory upon which it was based and in the tyrannical and humiliating way in which it was collected. Forced labour was the mark of Oriental despotism. The amount raised also appears to have been disproportionate to the total wealth of his nation and to the living conditions of the Israelites. Above all, many of the objects for which the taxes were levied and expended were unjustifiable. The palace which Solomon reared at Jerusalem and the magnificence of his court stood in glaring contrast to the hardships that his subjects endured in the tents and hovels in which they lived. One prophet alone in all his realm dared lift his voice in protest, and that was Ahijah of the Ephraimite town of Shiloh.

SOLOMON'S THEORY OF TAXATION

21

Knowing the temper of the northern tribes, he encouraged Jeroboam to raise the standard of revolt and predicted that only Judah, the tribe from which the reigning dynasty had sprung, would continue to tolerate Solomon's disloyalty to Israel's most sacred traditions and ideals.

The Popular Reassertion of Israel's Democratic Ideals. Solomon by armed force succeeded in holding his subjects under the lash; but at his death, as Ahijah predicted, the northern tribes immediately rose in protest. Their attitude was thoroughly constitutional. Their acceptance of Rehoboam, Solomon's nominee as his successor, was necessary before he could be legally established as king. That they might not be coerced by the armed forces at Jerusalem, their representatives met at the northern city of Shechem and demanded that Rehoboam come to them. The concise narrative of I Kings 121-11 makes the issue exceedingly clear:

And Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had come to Shechem to make him king. And they said to Rehoboam, 'Your father made our yoke intolerable. Now therefore make the intolerable service of your father and the heavy yoke he laid upon us lighter, and we will serve you.' And he said to them, 'Go away for three days, then come again to me.' So the people went

away.

And King Rehoboam took counsel with the old men who had stood before Solomon his father during his lifetime, saying, 'What answer do you advise me to give this people?' And they said to him, 'If now you will be a servant to this people, and will serve them, and give them a favourable answer, then they will be your servants forever.'

But he rejected the counsel which the old men had given him, and took counsel with the young men who had grown up with him and had stood before him. And he said to them, 'What answer do you advise us to give to this people, who have spoken to me, saying, "Make the yoke that your father put upon us lighter?" And the young men who had grown up with him said to him, 'Thus must you answer this people who have said to you, "Your father made our yoke heavy, but you make it lighter for us"; thus must you say to them, "My little finger is thicker

than my father's loins! And now, whereas my father loaded you with a heavy yoke, I will make your yoke heavier; my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scourges.'

The old men in Rehoboam's court voice most clearly the vital principles of every democratic government; the young men, who had been reared under Solomon's tyranny, the an、 tithetic principles of Oriental despotism. Unfortunately for the house of David and the integrity of the Hebrew kingdom, the lure of despotic power proved irresistible to Rehoboam (I Kgs. 1212-16):

So when all the people came to Rehoboam the third day, as the king bade, saying, 'Come to me the third day,' the king answered the people harshly, and did not follow the counsel which the old men had given him, but spoke to them according to the counsel of the young men, saying, 'My father made your yoke heavy, but I also will make your yoke still heavier; my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scourges.' So the king gave no heed to the people.

And when all Israel saw that the king gave no heed to them, the people answered the king, saying,

'What part have we in David?

We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse.

To your tents, O Israel.

See now to thine own house, O David!'

So Israel departed to their tents.

Thus at the old Canaanite town of Shechem, even at the cost of the integrity of the Hebrew empire, Israel's democratic ideals were dramatically reasserted.

Elijah's Defense of the Rights of the Individual Citizen. Israel's history illustrates the fact that democracy is a possession which can be preserved only by eternal vigilance. The people are the easy prey of selfish, unscrupulous rulers. Especially was this true in the ancient Semitic world saturated with despotic ideas of government. Apparently Jeroboam I, who was called to the kingship by the northern tribes, guarded

ELIJAH'S DEFENSE OF POPULAR RIGHTS 23

faithfully the rights of the people. Later, during the second half of the ninth century, a military leader by the name of Omri was called to guide the destinies of the northern kingdom. He did for it in certain respects what David did for united Israel. His son Ahab successfully carried out his policy and in a series of battles freed Northern Israel from foreign invaders. To strengthen his position by alliance with his western neighbours, the commercial Phoenicians, he married Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, an ex-priest of Baal who had assassinated the reigning king and mounted the Tyrian throne. Ahab was simply intent upon developing the rich material resources of his kingdom. He enjoyed the confidence and loyalty of a majority of his subjects; but like Solomon he was ambitious to build a magnificent palace (I Kgs. 2239). In the hour of his success he also listened to the voice of his Tyrian queen, who had been reared in the school of Canaanite diplomacy. His disloyalty to Israel's well-established democratic ideals horrified his subjects. In the end it led to the overthrow of his family through a popular uprising.

At first, however, the only one who appreciated the issue and dared openly defend the rights of the people against Ahab's aggressions was Elijah, the intrepid prophet from Gilead. He had been reared in the east-Jordan region, which lay near the desert and in closest touch with that nomadic life out of which the ancestors of the Hebrews had emerged five centuries before. On Mount Carmel he proved a valiant representative of the God of Moses and of Israel. There he succeeded in awakening the people to an appreciation of their infidelity in trying to remain loyal to Jehovah while paying homage to the Tyrian Baal, whose worship the crafty Jezebel had made popular in Israel. The incident which made clear the issue between Ahab and his subjects is graphically recounted in the familiar story of Naboth's vineyard. It brings out again in clearest relief the contrast between the Hebrew and Canaanite, the democratic and the despotic ideals of government (I Kgs. 211-20a, 23). Naboth, in refusing to sell his vineyard, stood squarely on the well-established right of every Hebrew citi

zen. Ahab bowed before it, until Jezebel poisoned his mind with the Canaanite ideals of despotic government. When she tempted him with the fruits of judicial murder he was unable to resist. But through the voice of Elijah outraged public opinion found vigorous expression. Even Ahab quailed before it (I Kgs. 2127):

Now when Ahab heard those words he tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his flesh and fasted; he also slept on sackcloth and went about quietly.

Ahijah and Elijah stood on common ground. Each contended for the rights and liberties of the ordinary citizen. Each was the foe of tyranny and the misuse of political power. Both were valiant pioneers in that long army of prophets and patriots who through the ages have fought to secure justice and freedom for the weak as well as the strong.

The Social Principles Established in Israel's Early History. To the student of political science early Israel is a most instructive social laboratory. During these formative centuries many fundamental social principles were worked out in practical experience, formulated by Israel's prophets and lawgivers, and enforced by popular action. The first principle is that the state is organised simply to promote the welfare of the social group and of each individual citizen. Rulers are the servants of the people and should be governed in all their public acts by the demands of public welfare. No ruler, in order to gratify his personal ambition, has the right to use his power to deprive even the humblest of his subjects of his freedom or of his rightful possessions. Any tax or levy required to promote the general welfare of the people may justly be imposed, and the individual citizens are under obligation to abide by the decree of their properly appointed rulers. But any tax levied for the mere satisfaction of a ruler or a ruling class without regard to the welfare of the people is a crime. When rulers fail to promote the common welfare the citizens have the right to depose them and to take such measures as are necessary to protect