ABSTRACT
For convenience we may speak of the social life treated in this second part as lived under the monarchy, though the Hebrews did not, even under David and Solomon, become one. The chroniclers of the time speak of Israel and Judah near the close of David's life, after he had vainly tried to unify them, although often showing an unwise partiality for his own clan. Though the line of cleavage did not appear as markedly in Solomon's day, the unification of the people of the north and the south had not yet been effected. It takes more than a generation or two, even where the circumstances are peculiarly favourable, to amalgamate peoples having a divergent ancestry and divergent traditions, as well as a somewhat different environment. The literature of the two peoples reveals in part their differences; while the location of the northern clans kept them in closer touch with outside life, as it also enabled them to spread down into the rich plains, as they got the better of their neighbours, largely through their numerical increase and their superior enterprise and thrift. Judah meanwhile was left for the most part to her barren hills, upon which the people were forced to maintain themselves by means of their flocks and herds, or by the absorption of nearby nomadic peoples, as the Calebites and the Kenites, as well as the Jebusites and others, among whom they had come as intruders. The ease with which the northern clans swung off by themselves under Jeroboam reveals their want of oneness with Judah, to whom they must have been in point of numbers largely superior. To bring about the severance of the outward bond of unity, there was little need of the traditional stupidity and obstinacy of Eehoboam.
