XVI. JUDAH AND ISRAEL, AND RAMAH

The next coincidences I have to offer will turn on the condition of the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah, whether political or religious, as it was affected by their separation; and will supply evidence to the truth of the history.

“And Baasha, king of Israel,” we read, “went up against Judah, and built Ramah, that he might not suffer any to go out or come in to Asa, king of Judah.” [1 Kings 15:17.]

Ramah seems to have been a border town, between the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and to have stood in such a position as to be the key to either. The King of Israel, however, was the party anxious to fortify it, not the King of Judah; indeed, the latter, as we learn from the Chronicles, [1 Kings 15:17.] did his best to frustrate the efforts of Baasha, and succeeded, apparently not desirous of having Ramah converted into a place of strength, though it should be in his own keeping; for Asa having contrived to draw Baasha away from this work, does not seize upon it and complete it for himself, but contents himself with carrying off the stones and the timber, and using them elsewhere. It is evident, therefore, that it was an object with the kings of Israel, that this strong frontier-post should be established,—with the kings of Judah, that it should be removed. Now this is singular, when we remember, that after the schism the numerical strength lay vastly on the side of Israel, one hundred and eighty thousand men being all that Judah could then count in his ranks [1 Kings 12:21.] , whereas eight hundred thousand were actually produced a few years afterwards by Jeroboam, and even then he was not what he had been [Judges 21:19.] . It was to be expected, therefore, that the fear of invasion would have been upon Judah alone, the weaker state, and that, accordingly, Judah would have gladly taken and kept possession of a fortress which was the bridle of the kingdom on that side, and have made it strong for himself. Yet, as we have seen, the fact was quite the other way. How is this to be explained? By a single circumstance, which accounts for a great deal besides this; though the explanation presents itself in the most incidental manner imaginable, and without the smallest reference to the particular case of Ramah.

In the twelfth chapter of the first Book of Kings, I read (v. 20), that “Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David, if this people go up to sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem;” and that accordingly he set up a worship of his own in Bethel and Dan.

In the eleventh chapter of the second Book of Chronicles, I read (v. 14), that “he cast off the Levites” (as indeed it was most natural that he should) “from executing the priest’s office,” and ordained him priests after his own pleasure. I read further, that in consequence of this subversion of the Church of God, “the priests and the Levites that were in all Israel resorted unto Judah out of all their coasts;” nor they only, the ministers of God, who might well migrate, but that “after them out of all the tribes of Israel, such as set their hearts to seek the Lord God of their fathers; so they strengthened” (it is added) “the kingdom of Judah, and made Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, strong” (v. 16, 17). The son of Nebat was a great politician in his own way, but he had yet to learn, that by righteousness is a nation really exalted, and that its righteous citizens are those by whom the throne is in truth upheld. These he was condemned to lose; these he and his ungodly successors were to see gradually waste away before their eyes; depart from a kingdom founded in iniquity, and transfer their allegiance to another and a better soil. Hence the natural solicitude of Israel to put a stop to the alarming drainage of all that was virtuous out of their borders, and the clumsy contrivance of a fortification at Ramah for the purpose; as though a spirit of uncompromising devotion to God, happily the most unconquerable of things, was to be coerced by a barrier of bricks. Hence, too, the no less natural solicitude of Judah to remove this fortification, Judah being desirous that no obstacle, however small, should be opposed to the influx of those virtuous Israelites, who would be the strength of any nation wherein they settled. Here I find a coincidence of the most satisfactory kind, between the building of Ramah by Israel, the overthrow of it by Judah, and the tide of emigration which was setting in from Israel towards Judah, by reason of Jeroboam’s idolatry. Yet the relation of these events to one another is not expressed in the history, nor are the events named under the same head, or in the same chapter.